One man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after it’s revealed he’s a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.
The Beekeeper is directed by David Ayer who’s directed Suicide Squad (2016), Fury (2014), End Of Watch (2012), Bright (2017), The Tax Collector (2020) and a few others.
The Beekeeper is a heavily flawed movie and at times is the very definition of a January movie, but there’s so much fun to be had with this movie that it really makes up for it. Jason Statham does what he does best shoot through tons of bad guys like a tank and gives some quite entertaining action scenes as well, Josh Hutcherson’s performance is incredibly goofy that he steals almost every single scene he’s in.
The action scenes are genuinely quite great and the moments that are trying to be serious end up talking about Statham’s character Adam Clay’s love for bees is a comedy goldmine, it’s the exact type of movie that isn’t trying to take itself way too seriously. The bee puns get incredibly goofy but never annoying (maybe I’m a bit biased here since I do love puns).
The first 20 minutes or so of the movie I will say is a bit forgettable and does seem like the movie is going to be yet another forgettable January action movie. However the movie quickly gets a lot better as it goes on and creates plenty of humorous moments, the movie does attempt to try have a few emotional moments but those really don’t come together all that well due to the movie prioritizing the action scenes and the hilarious dialogue. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this case since you kind of get what you expected, but it does beg the question of why those emotional moments are even here.
Overall The Beekeeper is David Ayer’s best film in awhile, it’s a very flawed movie that I probably won’t revisit anytime soon but it was very entertaining and hilarious. As long as you don’t go in expecting this masterful action movie you should have a good time.
Maya Lopez’s ruthless behavior in New York City catches up with her in her hometown; she must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community.
Echo is a new installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s the tenth Disney+ MCU series and serves as a spinoff to Hawkeye (2021).
I’m one of those few people who enjoyed Hawkeye decently enough, my opinions on it have changed since then and I don’t think it’s quite the 9/10 series I was making it out to be, but I still think it was solid enough and worked mostly due to the performances. While I did enjoy Echo as a character in Hawkeye I always thought making a series about her was very out of nowhere, but that’s not to say there wasn’t any potential.
Because there are are some decent parts to the series, for one thing the acting is honestly pretty solid. Alaqua Cox gives a solid performance as Maya Lopez her interactions with the other characters are genuinely touching at times the moments with her and Vincent D’Onofrio are among some of the best moments. The two really do a great job of creating tension, speaking of which Vincent D’Onofrio once again does a fantastic job as The Kingpin, although he’s only in the series for a few episodes every time he appears on screen he knocks it out of the park. It really does get you excited to see the future of where he is going to take this character.
There are also some solid sequences that are genuinely touching as well (particularly in Episode 3), they is definitely an attempt to make these moments standout among the overall amount in any MCU Disney+ series and I think this series does an okay job with that.
That’s where it ends for me however because there are way too many missteps that can’t be ignored. For one thing the series is 5 episodes long, meaning character moments, the writing and the build up to the final episode all move at a very fast pace that ends up getting very sloppy which again is frustrating because there was some level of attempt to create something interesting narratively.
The other problem is the power switch, a choice that that does not make any sense at all narratively and doesn’t fit with the source material. This happened once before with Mrs. Marvel which while that decision was also quite bad at the very least the series was still entertaining, Echo is unfortunately not very entertaining and is quite dialogue heavy which would be fine if it were at least compelling. But that’s not the case here, as I said the fast paced really rushed moments that would otherwise be very important for the characters making for a very weak payoff.
Finally as a series I really don’t think it succeeds with making Echo an interesting character, sure we are given details about her native roots but we aren’t shown a whole lot of it. And I hate repeating myself here but the pacing completely destroys her character moments, it’s all rushed and sloppily put together to make a very disappointing final episode that isn’t quite on the same level as embarrassing as the one in Secret Invasion (2023) but it falls very flat unfortunately.
Overall Echo had a lot of potential, it had the right ingredients just the wrong way to fully execute them. Which is a common problem with a lot of these MCU shows and is probably only going to get worse.
Tommy receives an invitation to win $1 million by playing a game where he must outwit hunters attempting to kill him. He realises the hunters can only attack him when he’s alone, but none of his friends and family believe the game is real.
Lots of streaming films came out this week, Netflix released Lift, Amazon Prime Video released Role Play, Shudder released Destroy All Neighbors and Hulu released Self Reliance. Luckily Self Reliance is a lot better than Lift and Role Play.
For one thing Self Reliance is actually trying to say something, even if that something and its ideas don’t fully come together in the end due to a very rushed and unfocused ending. The performances are actually quite solid Jake Johnson who is also the director, writer and one of the producers of the movie gives a charming performance that’s actually quite funny at times. Anna Kendrick is also charming and while not one of her absolute best performances she does really make it work, her chemistry with Johnson is very solid leading to some strong moments where the two bounce off of each other quite well.
As a director Jake Johnson shows a lot of promise here, there’s some genuinely funny moments that uses the movie’s main premise quite well and the characters actually do feel like a group of friends at times. The movie on the surface has a thrilling sounding premise but the movie’s main focus is the humor which works most of the time, I definitely think if some scenes were more thrilling they would work far better than the end result.
Unfortunately Self Reliance is held back from the final moments of the movie, it’s a very weak ending that honestly feels rushed, the movie builds itself to be a lot more than it really is in certain scenes only to end on a whimper of ending. It’s unfortunate because this was very close from being something really solid, everything else that came before the ending was genuinely fun and while not anything to write home about still manages to keep the viewer’s attention.
Overall Self Reliance isn’t a bad movie it’s just one that could have been so much better with more time in the oven.
A master thief is wooed by his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to pull off an impossible heist with his international crew on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.
Lift is directed by F. Gary Gray director of Friday (1995), The Italian Job (2003), The Fate Of The Furious (2017), Men in Black: International (2019) and a few others.
Lift is yet another addition to the long line of an overproduced Netflix Original movie that does absolutely nothing throughout it’s runtime, this is basically if you took Ocean’s 11 or any of the other movies in the series for that matter and made it unengaging, dull and horribly written. Plus when you throw in every single heist movie cliche in the book and doing absolutely nothing fun with them you have yourself a very forgettable movie.
The performances are serviceable but there is absolutely nothing to the characters, they are incredibly one dimensional with little to no personality. Kevin Hart is bland in the leading role, Hart’s comedy isn’t very funny to begin with but somehow the script gives him even less to work with than usual. The best performance is Gugu Mbatha-Raw who while not anything noteworthy at least tries to bring some sort of development and the chemistry between her and Hart isn’t bad it’s just very underdeveloped.
The team of characters as I said get very little in the way of development, we are given a few facts about them and a few scenes of them interacting with each other which of a lot of the time is little quips that are trying to be funny but completely fall flat. Much like some of Netflix’s other overproduced action movies such as Red Notice and Heart Of Stone, there is absolutely nothing here that hasn’t been done before. This is the very definition of a movie that’s put on a streaming platform that the viewer watches and completely forgets about within a few hours.
A young married couple’s life turns upside down after secrets are revealed about each other’s past.
Role Play is a prime example of an already not very good movie getting completely broken from it’s third act.
Kaley Cuoco is solid here, she gives yet another fun performance. Even if I’m not always a fan of the movies she’s in she does manage to give the performance life and that’s no exception here. David Oyelowo is also pretty solid as well, his character is quite bland but he manages to make it work for the most part.
Role Play starts out with a plot we have seen plenty of times before a hired killer leading a double life and keeping her family in the dark about it. This concept has been done numerous times before and definitely done better as well, as I said earlier it’s mostly Cuoco and Otelowo who keep this movie from completely falling apart during the first two acts of the movie.
However after that the movie crumbles, between an absolutely ridiculous motive, very poor action scenes, a lot of unfunny humor and just incredibly painful dialogue during the third act. Role Play falls so hard on its face that it never gets back up. It’s a shame because there were some decent ideas during the first bit of the movie that whether intentional or not was still at least interesting. Taking this whole double life aspect and having symbolize the marriage of Emma (Cuoco) and Dave (Otelowo) is at the very least something, but we aren’t given any meaningful development on that and instead get a horrendous ending.
Overall Role Play is terrible, there’s decent enough ideas here that might have been done countless times before. But there was still potential to do something great here, but that potential is never met here.
The Anti-Monitor (the Monitor’s evil counterpart) is released into the DC Multiverse and begins to destroy the different Earths that compose it. The Monitor attempts to recruit heroes from across the Multiverse to fight back.
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is part of the eighth and final installment of the Tomorrowverse…yes you read that correctly, apparently the Tomorrowverse is already ending after only previously having seven installments. To say that this series wasn’t rushed would be lying, it started out promising enough with the first films such as Superman: Man Of Tomorrow, Justice Society: World War II and Batman: The Long Halloween Parts 1 and 2. After that things went downhill and even got progressively worse. Say what you will about the DCAU despite the quality of a lot of the installments there was 16 movies and there was some sort of plan.
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One really does not feel like this big finale at all, while there are still two more parts that are coming this year. A lot of the movie is being introduced to characters who either haven’t seen in awhile, or haven’t seen at all in this universe. There’s a couple throwbacks to the DCAU which is nice I guess but that’s not nearly enough to really matter.
The voice acting is decent enough here, there isn’t a performance that particularly stands out unfortunately, the animation is definitely a hit or miss. There’s times where it looks fine and then others where you can really tell they went with the most simple and bland form of animation just to get this movie out there at the beginning of the year.
I will say there was a few character moments that did work pretty okay, the movie definitely prioritizes character over plot which I guess would be fine if a lot of the other characters had a lot more time to be fully fleshed out from previous installments. But I think the movie does an okay job with The Flash in particular as there are some genuinely touching scenes.
Overall most of the problems with this movie isn’t necessarily the movie’s fault, it’s the completely rushed universe making a lot of these character moments not really matter to the viewer. Hopefully Part 2 is a bit better..
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is available on all VOD platforms.
A rogue insurgent assassinates foreign journalists and makes it look like the CIA is responsible. Coaxed out of retirement to clear the agency’s name, a deadly operative must confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.
The Bricklayer is directed by Renny Harlin who’s directed Die Hard 2 (1990), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Cutthroat Island (1995), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), The Legend Of Hercules (2014) and many others.
I am really struggling what to exactly say here because there really isn’t not that much to The Bricklayer (horrible name by the way), Aaron Eckhart and Nina Dobrev are both fine enough and work the best they can with such an unimaginative script. The movie is essentially any given action movie with a big action movie star that ends up getting released on VOD platforms, granted those types of movies can be so bad they end up being hilarious…but not this one!
The main problem with The Bricklayer is just about everything you would expect happens, it’s a very bland CIA action movie that has a few fine enough moments and that’s really about it, I understand these types of movies don’t have a whole lot to work with a lot of the time, but the least they could do is actually be entertaining or at the very least be memorable because that’s not happening here.
Not much else to say here, other then this was the first 2024 film I watched this year…
When a colony on the edge of the galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, they dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighbouring planets to help them take a stand.
Rebel Moon or Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire is directed by Zack Snyder. A film that I’ve been pretty excited about for awhile. This is sort of a passion project for Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad (one of the other writers of the film), it’s very clear the film has a ton of inspirations such as Star Wars, Dune, The Last Samurai and many others. So it’s very disappointing to see just how much of a mess and disjointed the movie is.
Before I start I do want to acknowledge that yes an extended cut is coming out in 2024 similar to Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut. We’ll cross that bridge when the cut releases but for now I’m reviewing the movie as what it is right now. Anyway let’s get to the review.
The performances and the visuals are what pushes the movie to the finish line, Sofia Boutella is a fun protagonist who does give a solid performance and Anthony Hopkins while not getting a lot of screentime still manages to land a touching impression on the viewer. The rest of the cast aren’t particularly noteworthy but none of them turn in a bad performance.
The visuals are fantastic, if it’s one thing that Snyder has always been great at it’s making his films visually appealing and that absolutely applies here. Even if we don’t know much about Rebel Moon’s world it’s truly beautiful and really does make you want to explore the place, it’s huge in scale and the attention to detail in a lot of areas is very creative there’s many striking moments that standout as well.
Unfortunately that’s where Rebel Moon ends for me, the characters on paper are interesting they are very neat looking design wise but don’t have the character development to make the viewer care about them. Something that’s very noticeable here is the characters appear, get to do a couple cool things and then are put aside as characters who stand around until a fight scene starts. This repeats throughout the movie and it’s a huge shame because you want to learn more about these characters but the movie doesn’t give any strong development.
The same can be said with the world building, while yes the world itself is very neat to look at. Once again the movie unfortunately doesn’t give the world the proper development it needs, it really leaves the viewer in the dark a lot of the time and not in a good way, I still do very much like the look of it and It does make you want to explore. But at the same time I want to actually learn about it, it’s all very vague and loses the viewer very quickly.
Finally there’s the villains who are pretty by the numbers, Ed Skrein does a fine enough job in the role. But there’s just nothing here that makes the viewer care about this guy as a villain.
Overall Rebel Moon has its moments but it’s mostly a huge misfire, can this be fixed with the director’s cut? Will the sequel that’s coming out next year be better? I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there, but for now this is a huge mess.
Japan is already devastated by the war when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster.
Godzilla Minus One is the 37th film of the franchise, the 33rd Togo Godzilla film and the fifth film in the franchise’s Reiwa era. It’s also directed by Takashi Yamazaki.
Godzilla is a massive franchise that through the years has many different interpretations of the creature, a bunch of which are goofy, some go for a more serious tone. The human characters are often put to the side because let’s face it a majority of the audience is there to see Godzilla cause destruction.
Godzilla Minus One however puts the focus back on the human characters but also making Godzilla the center of the story being told, the film starts in 1945 nearing the end of World War II where we get our first look at Godzilla. Right from the beginning the viewer is greeted with the atmosphere of the film, a dark, scary and thrilling atmosphere that makes Godzilla terrifying. The goofy nature of Godzilla doing a high kick in the air is not present here it truly makes this beast the king of the monsters.
Godzilla has represented a lot of things in this franchise such as a nuclear weapon, in Minus One Godzilla represents a reminder of the destruction from World War II. The film makes this known with a lot of the characters just getting out of the war directly saying “I don’t want to risk losing my life again and not seeing my loved ones” it’s an absolute brutal situation for the characters involved that is only made even better with incredible performances.
The performances here are absolutely incredible especially Ryunosuke Kamiki who plays Koichi and Minami Hamabe who plays Noriko give some of the most powerful moments of the film when on screen together. Another theme this film tackles very effectively is PTSD and someone who wants to rebuild and continue forward, that someone being Koichi a man who is struggling from survivors guilt after his first encounter with Godzilla. He wants to move on to a new chapter in his life but whenever Godzilla reappears and causes more destruction, death and pain to the citizens he thinks back to his first encounter and how he could have prevented these deaths he blames himself for everything. Which leads to quite honestly one of the best moments that portrays somebody suffering from horrible memories I’ve ever seen put to film. It’s hard to watch and truly paints a picture where you almost immediately feel heartbroken for Koichi.
Hidetaka Yoshioka who plays Kenji Noda the crazy scientist character of this film, although may come off as the generic scientist type at first. Really blossoms into his own character and gets a fair amount of scenes that he really steals. Much like the acting, the writing is top notch it’s a much more grounded story of Godzilla than we have seen in the past. The citizens have so much character to them, there’s plenty of scenes where you want everyone here to make it out alive. There’s a scene towards the end where knowing their lives could be put on the line a second time just after coming home from World War II they offer to protect their home and families. It’s such a powerful human connection moment that really puts a tear into your eye it’s truly beautiful.
Godzilla itself is a beast and as said before truly is the king of the monsters especially in Minus One, combine that with the visual effects and the action scenes and you seriously have yourself a beautiful Godzilla film. Godzilla’s design is both beautiful and terrifying, it’s the very definition of a walking nightmare that is hard to take down and gives the characters a challenge. The cinematography really compliments this well with so many gorgeous shots that truly capture the tension of each scene Godzilla strikes, the desperation of when the characters are what they are going to do about Godzilla and the absolute beauty at the end of the tunnel during the film’s final moments which almost made me cry.
Overall Godzilla Minus One is one of the best films of the franchise and is truly one of the best films of the year. Narratively it may seem simple on the surface but once you go into the film’s themes there is so much here that the film completely mastered.
Against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds the secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child.
The Creator is directed by Gareth Edwards director of Godzilla (2014), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Monsters (2010).
Gareth Edwards is a filmmaker I’ve always rooted for, even when films like Rogue One don’t fully come together you can really tell that Edwards has a passion for what he does and the worlds he is trying to build. His most successful by far is Godzilla (2014) a film that did not work for me when it first came out but has since really grown on me and now I’m a huge fan of it.
So it’s disappointing to see how messy The Creator really is, don’t get me wrong it’s nowhere near a terrible movie there was clearly a lot of passion put into it design, filming and idea wise. However when it comes from a writing perspective there is so much more to be desired and honestly feels really empty.
The best part of the movie by far is the visuals, there is absolutely no doubt that the movie itself is beautiful to look at. There are truly some breathtaking moments that absolutely must be seen to be believed, it’s an achievement that should not be ignored at all there’s tons of beautiful set pieces that truly pop out and tell their own story quite well. Combine that with the cinematography that shows off some beautiful shots and you have yourself a visually beautiful film.
The performances from John David Washington, Gemma Chan and the rest of the cast are solid enough, they aren’t anything groundbreaking but they match the atmosphere the movie is going for which does lead to some genuinely touching moments between the characters.
Unfortunately that’s where the positives stop because the writing really drags this one down, ideas are mentioned but not explored nearly enough to get the viewer engaged, we have some really neat characters but we don’t know much about them. It’s a common problem that happens throughout the movie and really never goes away, we are told or shown some neat ideas, character arcs and development but we are never shown any execution or actual development to fully get on board.
Gareth Edwards clearly wanted to say something with a lot more substance here, but it just never fully came out and instead mirrors a lot of what other AI taking over the world type of movies have said before.
Jerome Reviews... 