rolfesam

In the course of cinematic history there exist a select few grand comedy duos whose careers become inexplicably tied. I'm talking about Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Abbot and Costello, and Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. However, perhaps none have come to influence my childhood more than Will Ferrell and John C Reilly. The two are legends now with comedies like Step Brothers and Talladega Nights, and walking into the theater I was hoping the duo had performed their hat trick of excellence. For that optimism I was rewarded with the worst movie I'd seen in a theater all year!

Holmes and Watson is a hollow corpse of a movie that lacks the charisma, charm, and raw energy of their other collaborations or even their solo ventures. Its got some jokes worth a Netflix veiwing but definitely not worth your money to see them.

As a testament to the lack of quality in this film I heard way more snores than laughs coming from my 3:45 (15:45) showtime. Not a good sign.

23/100

IT is a 2017 horror movie from director Andy Muschietti and it was actually pretty great in my opinion.

Everyone involved in this film really deserves props for even getting an adaptation of Steven King's famously lengthy 1986 novel of the same name, let alone producing something as well made as this movie turned out to be. The film makers wisely chose to forgo the segments of the book that happen during the main cast's adulthood to focus on their childhoods. This could have turned out poorly as child actors have the stigma of being bad actors and having the entire main cast be comprised of teens under 18 years old could have backfired. Thankfully the entire cast of kids gave a very well acted performance with the only real exception being the actor who played Ben who's performance was simply "good enough".

Of course I would be remiss if I failed to mention Bill Skarsgård who really brought new life the role that manages to both stay true to the character while making it distinct from Tim Curry's famous 1990 performance of the character. I feel like he made a great monster for the movie and really has some great scenes where I was genuinely impressed by what he did with his performance.

The director is also someone that I want to briefly touch on. Andy Muschietti really showed what he could do given a proper budget and it really surprised me. He was able to get a lot of really good performances out of his cast as well as making the mid 1980's town feel real and lived in. I've got to say though there were a few moments that really stuck out where I questioned his intentions, the most memorable would be the boys to men poster moment when he played a clip of the groups music that was jarring. Overall though I am more than impressed by Muschietti and I can't wait to see what he does with the sequel and with his adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus.

Overall this is a flawed movie, but so are the best horror movies. There is no doubt though that the movie is scary, thrilling, and all around a really good watch. This definitely gets added to the positive list of Steven King movies and manages to avoid joining the loser pile.

OK, I'm going to preface this review by saying that overall I am a fan of the MCU and I think they've given the world a fair few really good movies and the remaining ones are almost always OK. That feat is something that is commendable and something that I doubt will ever be recaptured over a series that has this many movies in it.

Now that that is out of the way let's get our hands dirty.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a dumb movie. That in of itself isn't a damning thing really, a lot of great movies are dumb and rely more on emotions to connect the audience to the plot but in this movie the emotional connection is very scarce which is pretty unforgivable for a movie nearly 2.5 hours in length. There are two emotional parts to the movie which are both short parts to the film that I found to be much more engaging and relatable than the rest of the movie as a whole and I would be much more interested in an MCU movie that simply expanded on them. These two parts being the party where the Avengers are all hanging about and interacting in a way that reminded me that these actors are actually all really talented. like seriously, who here forgot that this cast has been nominated for a combined 9 Oscars? Anyway the other scene is where the group spends a few days isolated on one of their members property. Once again I'd love to see an entire movie focused solely on these characters and how they get along but we will never get that film so oh well.

The action in the movie is good if not a little too clean for a movie in which there is a explosive highway chase, a flying city and a derailed train but this is technically a Disney flick so I'll let it slide.

The thing that I do not intend to let slide is the emotional manipulation that the movie tries to pass of to its audience. I find it pretty absurd that the same people who have accomplished so much with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and even Dr. Strange are willing to turn in such canned and phony plot beats and call it an Avengers movie. I mean the first movie even has a scene that perfectly explains exactly what this movie tries to un-ironically accomplish (the scene with the bloody trading cards if you were wondering). It is really something that stops me every time I think about re watching this movie because it irks me too much. Every single new character is treated with the same level of tragic backstory as a middle-schooler's OC in a fanfiction, its pathetic.

But at the end of the day if you are willing to simply go into a movie and be satisfied with people punching things to solve their problems then you will be fine with this movie. Just try not to think about it too much, you may accidentally put more thought into it than the writers.