War of the Words: Amy Adams is Lost in Translation in the Brilliant “Arrival”

I wonder, if Roger Ebert were still alive would he have liked “Arrival?” And it's mostly because I remember him hating the fact that the alien tripods in “War of the Worlds” had three legs; he referred to them as being “clunky.” The aliens in “Arrival” have seven legs. It is sort of an odd, random number of legs. He certainly would of thought the film itself was a masterpiece. It's an alien invasion movie unlike any you've seen before – and yet it feels someone familiar in the best ways possible. Those expecting to see monuments blown up or other alien invasion cliches will certainly be disappointed; it's certainly more “Contact” than “War of the Worlds.” There may even be those who find the film “slow.” I found “Arrival” to be just short of perfect; a brilliantly conceived and executed piece of science fiction that easily ranks as a new genre classic – another wildly entertaining piece of art from Denis (“Prisoners”) Villeneuve.

Like in “Independence Day” alien spaceships appear all over the planet. Unlike “Independence Day” nothing much happens. They just sort of hover several feet above the ground, giant black spherical masses just floating as if they've always been there. Scientists are sort of baffled but the beings seem to be benign. These are aliens after all and communicating with them is rather difficult. Enter brilliant linguist professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams in a subtle but flawless performance) recruited by the government to help translate the strange alien language. Louise appears to be a lonely, introverted person. We see glimpses of her past life including the premature death of her teenage daughter which still haunts her and is probably the saddest film opening since “Up.” Louise works around the clock with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) an astrophysicist and Weber (Forest Whitaker) a US Army colonel.

The aliens ascribe to the “tentacle” body type we've seen in a lot of sci-fi films. Inside the ship, we see them in their own foggy atmosphere behind a glass wall as the scientists try to decipher their strange ink blot-like language. Louise communicates with two aliens lovingly referred to as “Abbott” and “Costello.” They appear to be friendly though as time goes on everyone's main concern is why exactly are they here? The film's third act is certainly a surprising punch to the gut in the best kind of way.

The film features brilliant direction from the always reliable Villeneuve who has such an amazing eye and knows how to tell a story the best of them. He has the charm and visual prowess of a Spielberg and the strange narrative know-how of a Nolan. And was it just me or did some the lyrical visual moments remind you of Terrence Malick? More importantly Eric Heisserer's wonderful script (based on a short story by Ted Chiang) is absolutely solid. There doesn't seem to be a wasted moment and every development is more interesting than the last. This movie is just as much about the characters as it is about the alien stuff and the performances are top-notch. And don't even get me started on Johann Johannsson's superbly creepy score. It's initially disappointing that Roger Deakins was not the DP, who previously shot Villeneuve's “Prisoners” and “Sicario” but Bradford Young is certainly up for the challenge of following the master. The film looks gorgeous and moody.

“Arrival” has been described as “thinking person's sci-fi” and that's certainly true to an extent. But there is nothing remotely snobbish about the film. Sure the film lacks the explosive action of a typical summer blockbuster but it's a brilliantly realized, realistic and ultimately moving piece of science fiction full of drama and suspense. It's a fascinating story about grief, loss, and discovery. It's a must see.  GRADE: A  

Trailer for Arrival on TrailerAddict.

Stranger Things: “Doctor Strange” is Decidedly Trippy, Goofy Fun

Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” is the shot in the arm the Marvel Cinematic Universe needed.  It’s completely weird and out there and dare I say… strange. It’s not the most successful super hero origin story you’ll see (especially by Marvel’s strong standards) but it feels delightfully far removed from what we’ve seen before. It certainly borrows heavily from random cinematic experiences… references to “Inception,” "The Matrix," “Contact,” and even “Insidious” are not altogether coincidental.  It’s certainly one of the weirder entries making the “Thor” films seem completely comprehensible by comparison.  Marvel first took a risk bringing the lesser known “Guardians of the Galaxy” to the big screen with fantastic results. Director Scott Derrickson - who previously helmed horror films like “Sinister”- and his fellow writers (Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill) work wonders with “Doctor Strange” making the completely far-fetched story feel somewhat realistic, coherent, and relevant.  I’d argue it’s still somewhat “middle of the road Marvel” but certainly a welcome change of pace.

The origin story in “Doctor Strange” isn’t exactly anything groundbreaking. Dr. Stephen Strange is a cocky, neurosurgeon who practically gets off on completing near-impossible medical procedures.  A terrible accident leaves him unable to use his hands the way the used to and then becomes obsessed with finding a way to be 100% cured. It eventually leads him to the Ancient One in Nepal. She’s played by a bald Tilda Swinton. Sure she’s a white woman but she’s so strange looking she might as well be from another planet. The Ancient One teaches Strange how to harness energy from various dimensions and how to astral project, which leads to trippy scene after trippy scene of mind-bending kaleidoscopic visual effects where characters bend their surroundings and make portals to transport themselves anywhere they want on the planet. Once Strange learns his powers well enough he then gets to fight “the bad guy” played by TV's Hannibal himself Mads Mikkelsen.

The strength of “Doctor Strange” is most definitely in its visual design. The production values are tremendous, obviously, but the visual effects are amazing even by Marvel’s high standards. Some of the impact has been lessened since we’ve seen a lot of this stuff in “Inception” but it’s still pretty fun and trippy. And a lot of the films more out there moments reminded me of last twenty minutes of “Contact” and to a lesser extent “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Cumberbatch is great as Strange and slips into the role seemingly effortlessly. Rachael McAdams joins the Marvel universe as his colleague Christine Palmer who is refreshingly not a love interest. The film also does point here and there to the previous films with mentions of the Avengers and Infinity Stones but on the whole this feels like a separate adventure from what we’ve previously been given.

Overall, “Doctor Strange” is a far out and welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the story itself is nothing particularly groundbreaking the visuals here are simply outstanding. It’s certainly not something that will be loved by everyone but rather a nice change of pace. It’s just what the doctor ordered. GRADE: B

Trailer for Doctor Strange on TrailerAddict.

War is Mel: “Hacksaw Ridge” is a Preachy but Stunning War Film

Is there any figure in Hollywood more controversial than Mel Gibson? Sure sometimes the guy is flat out loony but he's a tremendously talented filmmaker. “Hacksaw Ridge” is yet another directorial success and his first film since 2006's “Apocalypto” a film I dreaded seeing but found absolutely thrilling. Say what you will about “The Passion of the Christ” it has some amazing technical merits. And no one will argue that there's much wrong with his Oscar-winning epic “Braveheart.” “Ridge” follows the true story of World War II veteran Desmond Doss who declared himself a “Conscientious Objector” and was the first to be awarded the Medal of Honor. It's fascinating story about an interesting person made palpable by Andrew Garfield's charismatic performance but the film truly shines in the film's later half as Gibson puts some truly horrifying and heart-pounding war footage to film.

“Hacksaw Ridge” sort of reminded me of “Full Metal Jacket” in its structure. That film followed a group of marines its first half as they made their way through training while the second half of the film followed them into battle. We're introduced to Doss as a kid growing up in Virginia and is extremely religious. His dad is a war veteran and rather abusive and an alcoholic. After a horrible accident involving him and his brother Doss becomes a changed man. He refuses to see violence as a means to an end. Then second World War begins. He woos a young nurse played by Teresa Palmer and feeling the need to support his country, enlists, but only if he can work as an army medic. He refuses to even carry a gun which raises questions to those in charge. It even becomes a matter of the law.

You can tell Gibson gets the religious, preachy aspect of Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan's script, but I kind of admire someone who is so devout yet rejects weapons. Sometimes the two are disturbingly intertwined in today's society. Or course luckily for us viewers, Gibson's real bread and butter is of the brutal nature. The film's second half follows Doss as he enters into the Battle of Okinawa which was one of the largest water-based assaults in the Pacific War during World War II. Gibson easily shows the horrors of battle, which is nothing particularly new, but this sequence is graphic in a way that makes the violence in “Saving Private Ryan” seem mild in comparison. Gibson even throws in some thrilling moments as Doss does his best to save the injured in battle and evading the enemy at every turn – without ever picking up a gun.

“Hacksaw Ridge” may sound like a horror movie but the title is appropriate- the movie has some truly horrifying moments. The film just might be an instant war classic. It's certainly not the first film to really show the horrors of war. The digital cinematography has a clean sheen that reflects its holier than thou religious theme but as long as you can get past that what we have is a truly rewarding war film about a fascinating real life American hero.  GRADE: A-  

Trailer for Hacksaw Ridge on TrailerAddict.

Medium Scare: “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is the Great Ouija Movie You've Been Looking For

Why is Ouija, a board game originally made by Parker Brothers (and currently owned by Hasbro) one of the scariest yet lamest things on the planet? The game company didn’t invent the “spirit board;” a device for supposedly communicating with the spirit world. It’s been seen in various scary films like “The Exorcist” and “Paranormal Activity.” The game even had its own film: 1986’s “Witchboard.” The creepy toy has been a staple of sleepovers and other youthful gatherings. Most kids have seen or used one at some point, mostly to scare younger siblings to death. It's latest cinematic outing, “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is probably the most successful spooky film to revolve around the Ouija board. The less said about its predecessor “Ouija” from 2014 the better. “Origin of Evil” is a creepy and delightful nostalgic romp directed by Mike Flanagan who certainly knows how to make inanimate objects scary: he previously made the surprisingly good killer mirror thriller “Oculus.”

“Ouija: Origin of Evil” takes a cue from other successful studio horror films like “The Conjuring” and takes place in the past. Set in the late 1960s, the film follows a working class, widowed mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) who works out of her home as a fortune teller/scam artist. She doesn’t think she’s doing anything particularly “wrong;” she gives her clients – as vulnerable or delusional as they may be – a sense of closure when it comes to communicating with lost loved ones. Even if she’s basically conning these people you never get the sense that Alice is a bad person – she’s just trying to make a living while raising her two daughters. Alice introduces a Ouija board into her routine and after a surprisingly slow build accidentally unleashes an evil upon her household and more specially onto her younger daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson). Her older, teenage daughter Lina (Annalise Basso) is very skeptical of her mother’s work and suspects something is affecting Doris.

There are plenty of spooky things that go on here, many of which aren’t particularly new or refreshing but Flanagan at least stages them pretty well. It’s all about the period details (including the retro cue marks that appear in the upper right corner of the screen throughout the film) and the director spends time establishing character and story before hitting you over the head with lame jump scares. The film sort of falters in the last act as the story (Flanagan co-wrote with Jeff Howard) becomes somewhat hokey but the film is generally pretty strong considering this is a prequel to a completely terrible film.

Overall, “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is a competently made horror film that is miles ahead of its predecessor. And one doesn’t necessarily need to have seen the first film to enjoy this one. In fact, you’re probably better off not having seen the pointless “Ouija.” The film proves that movies based on board games and toys don’t have to be terrible at all if done right.  GRADE: B+

Trailer for Ouija: Origin of Evil on TrailerAddict.

Witchcrap: The Shockingly Unspectacular “Blair Witch” Fails to Live Up to the Original

If there was ever cinematic proof that you can’t capture lightning in a bottle “Blair Witch” is all the proof you need. This third entry in a series that many don’t quite care much about and made by people who generally know what they’re doing, cannot even remotely match the awesome power of 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project.” This new take on the Blair Witch just doesn’t compare to the analogue scares of the original. There’s nothing as scary in this highly digitized world; the film should have been set right after the events of the first movie. In fact, the only thing this new movie gets right is not making any reference to the equally dreadful “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.”

Adam Wingard and his screenwriting collaborator Simon Barrett are great filmmakers (Every horror fan should see “You’re Next”). You can tell that they loves to make their films into little homages and but with original takes on familiar material. With “Blair Witch” it’s the first time the duo has made a sequel to a film they previously had nothing to do with. They seemed like the right guys for the job. Though, to be honest, they were screwed from the very beginning. How does one try to outdo the original? It’s so rarely accomplished well and reinforces the fact that sequels or remakes made decades after the original film are rarely successful.

The film follows James (James Allen McCune) who thinks his sister Heather (from the first movie) could still be alive in the woods where she disappeared nearly twenty years earlier. He believes a video of a woman that was recently uploaded to YouTube could be proof that she’s still alive. So he does what any other wide-eyed young adult would do, he grabs a few friends, some cameras, and goes into the same woods where his sister vanished in hopes of finding her. And then things go (predictably) horribly wrong. One girl cuts her foot almost immediately and if that isn’t enough for the whole group to turn around and just go home I don’t know what is. Soon the group gets turned around, the sun doesn’t seem to set anymore, and some kind of loud monster keeps following them. At times the shaky footage that makes up the movie feels more like “Cloverfield” than “The Blair Witch Project.” Are they being chased by a T. Rex or what?

“Blair Witch” is basically the louder, shakier, gorier, more digitized version of “The Blair Witch Project” but not nearly as scary. Sure it’s true that in the original film “not much happened” but the film was dripping with dread and it had the guts to frighten you with screams, darkness, and the unknown. Nothing this time feels remotely as genuine. When a pile of rocks appears outside of Heather’s tent it’s disturbing. When rocks appear outside the tents this time, it feels forced. The original film could easily be mistaken for a snuff film (many actually thought it was real at the time) and this one feels unbelievably manufactured. I never believed that the characters should have been filming what they were filming; and they were all rather dull and forgettable. To top it all off, the movie’s conclusion is confusing and muddled and doesn’t provide any answers, like the original, but I never felt betrayed by the first film’s abrupt ending.

“Blair Witch” is a disappointment of monstrous proportions. While I would never expect it to top the original film, it fails as a sequel by not doing anything remotely new or exciting with the already established story. At least the second movie attempted to do something different, even though it still failed. This third entry doesn’t provide any answers to the mythology created in the first film and the two films hardly even seem related save for a few creepy stick figures. Consider it nothing more than a minor ding on Wingard and Barrett’s career. But please put a fork in the found footage subgenre please, because it’s been done to death yet again.    GRADE: C

Trailer for Blair Witch on TrailerAddict.

Up in the Air: “Sully,” Clint Eastwood’s New Film, is Sullied by the Confines of Its True Life Story

The harrowing true life story that inspired “Sully” is an extraordinary one with a rare happy ending. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite make for a very extraordinary film. Clint Eastwood is a great filmmaker with a specific style (slow-burn, subtle, non-flashy are some terms that immediately come to mind). Eastwood has made some exciting thrillers and harrowing dramas and many have had decent levels of success. Many people will certainly love “Sully” but I think it’s because it features likable actors in likable roles and it tells a very likable story. Who wasn’t amazed by the “miracle on the Hudson” story that broke about seven years ago? A commercial plane hit some birds, the engines went out, and the skilled pilot make a split second decision to land the plane on the Hudson River, saving every single person on the flight. How does one make a feature film about an even that lasted merely minutes? By padding the runtime to death apparently.

“Sully” runs just barely over 90 minutes and even then it seems too long. Tom Hanks plays Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger. As we’re introduced to him at the beginning of the film he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress. He’s basically survived a plane crash and is now considered a national hero. He has complete strangers thanking him and hugging him. But we know all this stuff going into the film. The movie’s real centerpiece is the ‘event’ which is basically an extended flashback sequence towards the middle of the film. It’s thrilling and scary – most onscreen plane incidents invoke a primal fear of flying that many suffer from – but in this rare case the plane is landed rather safely (on water of course) and no one is seriously injured. But what else is there besides this well-executed and rather thrilling sequence?

Since everyone on the plane lives and the captain is considered a national treasure, who exactly is the villain? Enter the script’s version of the bad guy: the National Transportation Safety Board. They inside Sully had enough engine power to land at the airport instead of the Hudson River. The film’s final act involves a hearing in which Sully must convince the NTSB that what he did was right and in the best interest of the passengers. It’s obvious screenwriter Todd Komarnicki had to come up with some kind of conflict for Sully… apparently his post-traumatic stress wasn’t nearly enough.

Hanks is great in the role but can only do so much with his nice guy persona that’s been played out to death in movies like Saving Mr. Banks, Captain Phillips, and Bridge of Spies. The film introduce us to a few of the passengers in the hopes that we’ll care enough about them, but it’s really meaningless in the end. And it’s too bad that Emmy winners Laura Linney and Anna Gunn, being practically the only female characters, aren't given much to do.

“Sully” tells a great story but I’m not sure there’s really enough material for a feature length narrative film. This is a true life tale more appropriate for a documentarian. Eastwood, like many directors who make movies based on true events, is a little too constricted by the real life story which is so fresh in everyone’s mind. The airplane sequence is certainly thrilling but even Mr. Sullenberger himself could not save the film from what ultimately feels like big-budgeted made-for-cable affair.  GRADE: C+   

Trailer for Sully on TrailerAddict.

House of Pain: The Incredibly Intense “Don’t Breathe” is Out of Sight

I’m a sucker for a good home invasion thriller. Especially really good ones. “Don’t Breathe” is a really good one. It sort of flips things around a bit by being from the point-of-view of the home invaders while the one being invaded is, in fact, the villain. From Fede Alvarez who directed the surprisingly good “Evil Dead” remake, “Don’t Breathe” is an efficiently made, smart, and almost unnervingly suspenseful thriller. You won’t be doing much breathing during its tightly wound 88 minutes.

Most genre fans will see plenty on influences in “Don’t Breathe.” I saw a little bit of “The People Under the Stairs” and “Panic Room.”  And then there’s a sequence that’s just as tense as the ending of “The Silence of the Lambs.” The film actually takes the less is more approach as nothing in the film is too overly graphic which is surprising considering that it literally RAINED BLOOD in Alvarez’ version of “Evil Dead.” Of course, here, you certainly won’t easily get over a scene involving a turkey baster. You’re better off not showing this movie to your relatives on Thanksgiving.

There’s nothing I like more in a fun thriller than a short runtime and a simple plot. In “Don’t Breathe” three friends make money by burglarizing homes. The unofficial leader Money (Daniel Zovatto) gets some intel that a local blind man who lives alone in a completely rundown and abandoned neighborhood has hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed away from a settlement involving the death of his daughter. They figure it’s an easy score since, after all, the guy is blind. Not surprisingly, things go really wrong, very quickly. Just imagine that if in “Wait Until Dark” Audrey Hepburn’s character was a hulking, raging psychopath.

“Don’t Breathe” is a great example of a real, creative artist at work. Sure Alvarez cut his teeth making a studio remake that ended up surprising many, but here he has much more room to making something to call his own. He layers on the atmosphere. And the characters are likeable even if the make money from ripping off others. Jane Levy plays a young woman with a young son and dreams of a better life. I love the ambiguity of the morality of characters in films like these. You end up rooting for people who aren’t necessarily “good.” Nothing here is exactly black or white. And the house itself where a majority of the film takes place is as much as a character as any of the humans.

I know it’s been said over and over again but with a summer full of retreads and sequels it always seems to be a nice little thriller that gets the job done. It’s a frightening, efficient film and fans of the genre will certainly be pleased with it. This one is bound to be a classic and only promises even more great work from Fede Alvarez and his team.  GRADE: A-

Trailer for Don't Breathe on TrailerAddict.

The Wiener Takes It All: “Sausage Party” Brings New Meaning to the Term ‘Food Porn’

“Sausage Party” is as filthy as you would expect a movie called “Sausage Party” to be. At first it’s a tad jarring to see a bunch of animated characters who are everyday food items like honey mustard, ketchup, sausages, and hog dog buns to be using the f word every five seconds. Initially it seems like the screenwriters were more interested in overly vulgar dialogue than creating a good story but once you really get into “Sausage Party’s” plot and its delightfully controversial ultimate message (there is no God!) it’s much easier to sit back and ride this R-rated train of profanity and hilarious debauchery all the way to its shocking climax. It's like a cracked-out version of "Toy Story."

A majority of “Sausage Party” takes place in a supermarket. All the food items have human features and talk to one another, though to the humans they appear as everyday inanimate objects. These food items believe that humans are like Gods who “choose” them, take them home, and eventually end up in “The Great Beyond.” Of course we all know what happens to food that gets bought from the supermarket. The film follows a foul-mouthed sausage voiced by Seth Rogen named Frank (what else?) who lives in a package with a bunch of others sausages including Carl (Jonah Hill) and the slightly deformed Barry (Michael Cera). Frank has dreams of being “chosen” and going to the Great Beyond with his girlfriend Brenda Bunson (she’s a hot dog bun and she’s voiced by Kristen Wiig). One bad thing leads to another and Frank and Brenda find themselves knocked out of a shopping cart, determined to get back to their shelves before the big red, white, and blue sale begins the next day.

On their adventure back Frank and Brenda meet lots of interesting characters on the way. There’s the Jewish bagel named Sammy Bagel Jr (Edward Norton) who has a rivalry with Kareem Abdul Lavash who’s a Middle Eastern flatbread voiced by David Krumholtz. Then there’s Teresa del Taco, a lesbian taco shell who’s totally crushing on Brenda. And in one of the film’s weirdest and funniest bits a wad of gum takes the form of Stephen Hawking complete with electronic voice and wheelchair. It’s only appropriate in a movie like this that the main villain literally be a douche named Douche (The League’s Nick Kroll) who’s hell-bent on revenge after his nozzle gets bent. There are plenty of clever and witty and borderline offensive characters based on various races, ethnicities, and stereotypes. They leave no one left to be offended. It’s pretty glorious. Not to mention the completely shocking NSFW ending that almost got the film an NC-17 rating. Seriously.

Pardon the pun, but even though the film started off a little rocky for me, “Sausage Party” eventually grew on me. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who were responsible for the delightfully depraved “This is the End” and co-writers Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir offer an ultimately witty script fully realized by directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon. The computer animation is appropriately crude and the film probably overstays its welcome a bit but it eventually won me over. It’s utterly ridiculous in all the right places and actually has something to say about this world in-between all the vulgarity, drug references, and raunchy humor. Sure, some of this humor is a little too on the nose but as long as you’re willing to go along for the ride it won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.   GRADE: B  

Trailer for Sausage Party on TrailerAddict.

Harley & Me: “Suicide Squad” is a Big, Ol’ Entertaining Mess

“Suicide Squad” has been bashed so much for the past week I don’t feel the need to keep it going. Though, at the same time it can’t quite be defended. It’s not really a great movie, but when you look back at other not-so-great super hero adaptations (ie “Green Lantern”) you realize it’s entertaining to a certain point and nowhere near as bad as many claim. Hot off the controversially received “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” Warner Bros has given us their latest attempt to cash-in on what those Marvel geniuses have been working on for nearly a decade. It’s certainly something you can’t build overnight. “Suicide Squad” is at least an attempt to give us something a little different from the DC world and at least it’s one not directed by Zack Snyder. Initially visually appealing, with an obvious but enjoyable soundtrack, “Suicide Squad” is entertaining enough, and even though it's basically a mess and generally underwhelming, it does feature a few decent performances by actors who should have had their own movies before this ultimately convoluted film made it to the big screen.

“We’re bad guys,” the clown-faced Harley Quinn says at one point, and that’s true though the movie tries so hard to make them likable you feel like your own morals are being compromised. But she’s so charming! And she is. It’s because she’s played by Margot Robbie, who has been destined for stardom since her breakout role in “The Wolf of Wall Street” just a few years ago. Even if I don’t quite get her character – or why the corrupt intelligence operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) would want her non meta-human skills for this group of meta-human criminals, but more on that later – Robbie fits so nicely into the role she could have easily headlined her own film. The fact that her onscreen lover Joker (Jared Leto) is so oddly not thought out (is he just a clown-faced Scarface or what?) feels like a gross miscalculation. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Leto’s performance, I just don’t get this version of the character or how he really fits into this story (he’s not even part of the Suicide Squad). I don't even remember him making a joke. 

The only other character that was interesting was played by Will Smith – a gifted actor, who gets extra points for sitting out Independence Day Resurgence earlier this summer. He plays Deadshot who by my calculations feels like DC’s version of Deadpool. Maybe it’s because their names are so similar and the fact that they’re both guns for hire? Deadshot, who has a disturbingly good aim, is basically a serial killer but he has a young daughter who he doesn't get to see anymore since he was captured by Batman (Ben Affleck returns). There are a bunch of other sorted characters—portrayed by a decidedly diverse cast of actors—which the movie takes nearly 45 minutes to explain in one of the longest sequences of exposition in cinematic history; and yet you don’t really get to know any of them. Harley Quinn and Deadshot are the only ones worth caring about and the filmmakers know it.

Remember I mentioned Viola Davis? She’s here on a break from teaching law students how to get away with murder to form a secret squad of bad guys for… doing stuff? Some evil enchantress figures into it somehow and causes some kind of mass chaos in Midway City which is supposedly DC’s version of Chicago. In exchange for basically being forced into this “Suicide Squad” the prisoners are granted shorter prison sentences. The second half of the movie is watching these bad guys let loose on a nearly devastated and desolate city as they try to catch the really, really bad guy.

There are fun songs that blare on the soundtrack and there is a cool candy-coated color scheme that director David Ayer initially presents which is pleasing to the ears and eyes but the movie is mostly just bombastic. The movie moves along swiftly for the most part but I imagine most film goers who aren’t into comic book movies will be bored endlessly. I’ve certainly built up my tolerance for these films so I got through it mostly unscathed. The whole thing certainly feels like a disappointment compared to its catchy marketing. The tone is somewhat odd; parts are funny, parts are overwhelmingly dark. Was this supposed to be the darker DC version of “Guardians of the Galaxy?” Perhaps its biggest problem is another case of too many cooks in the kitchen, or perhaps “Suicide Squad” just wasn’t the best direction to go in post “Batman v Superman.” I’m sure there’s a lighthearted and fun superhero movie in the DC cinematic universe somewhere. “Suicide Squad” certainly isn’t it.  GRADE: C+  

Feature Trailer for Suicide Squad on TrailerAddict.

Trek the Third: “Star Trek Beyond” Maintains the Energetic Fun of Its Predecessors

I’m now at my all-time record of most Star Trek films seen by me. I count 4, which includes all three of the rebooted series, and one “Wrath of Kahn” (thought by many as the original series’ highpoint). For the record, I couldn't quite make it through "The Motion Picture, "The Voyage Home," or "Generations." It’s actually possible that the latest entry “Star Trek Beyond” could actually be the best of the bunch. The first movie did an amazing job of making a somewhat unappealing thing very appealing to a lot of people. The second movie was just as fun (if not more so) but still angered a lot of those avid “Trekkies.” This third film, while seemingly upping the ante on action and spectacle according to the trailers, is actually a really fun rescue mission movie. The plot is simple enough which gives plenty of time to devote to the characters who we’ve gotten to know over the past few films. This Justin Lin-directed “Star Trek Beyond” is engaging and purely fun, escapist entertainment. And best of all you don’t even need to be a Trekkie to decipher any of it.

Things haven’t been too prosperous for the crew of the USS Enterprise since the events of the last film. The film opens as Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) laments about taking an Admiral position on the space station known as Yorktown, with intentions to promote Spock (Zachary Quinto) to captain of the Enterprise. Spock is stressed about learning about his older self having passed away (and he and Urhura (Zoe Saldana) have amicably split up). the Enterprise is soon back off to work, this time on a rescue mission to help a survivor from a rescue pod. Not to anger too many nerds out there: not surprisingly, “IT’S A TRAP!” The Enterprise is completely ambushed and left nonfunctional in a truly nail-biting action sequence. The crew is left mostly stranded and separated from each other and they must attempt to rescue a majority of the Enterprise crew from the evil clutches of the villainous Krall (Idris Elba). The MVP of “Star Trek Beyond” is also a new addition, her name is Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) and this black and white streaked lady is a really great addition to an already enjoyable romp.

“Star Trek Beyond” promises all of the action, fun, and spectacle promised by the relaunch of this series way back in 2009. There’s not much exploration here for the real fans but it’s probably for the best because this is an exciting movie that hardly lets up. Fast & Furious director Justin Lin has taken the reigns from JJ Abrams, who was too busy directing another nerdfest known as “The Force Awakens.” At first Lin seems like a strange choice until you realize what a visual delight “Beyond” truly is. There’s a real sense of camaraderie amongst the Enterprise crew with plenty of enjoyable family/workplace dynamics which makes sense since he did the same with the “crew” from the Fast & Furious films.

The script also feels refreshing and on point which is probably because it was co-written by Scotty himself Simon Pegg and Doug Jung (who also plays Sulu’s husband). And even if the plot remains slightly dark, there’s plenty of humor to be had here. The banter between Spock and McCoy (Karl Urban) is of particular delight.  As always, the film features state of the art visual effects and production design, not to mention a fun soundtrack as well. I’m not sure how much fans of the original show and movie series will enjoy this latest entry, but I certainly found it to be a trek worth taking.  GRADE: A-

Feature Trailer for Star Trek Beyond on TrailerAddict.