Search
Search results
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Shazam! (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
Fun Filled Family Event
Shazam! is a 2019 superhero movie based on the DC Comics character. Produced by New Line Cinema and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the first live-action film version of the character since 1941. The film is also directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden and story by Henry Hayden and Darren Lemke. Starring Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Djimon Hounsou.
In 1974 Upstate New York, the ancient wizard Shazam magically transports Thaddeus Sivana (Ethan Pugiotto) to the Rock of Eternity, a hidden magical temple. Shazam, the last of the Council of Seven Wizards, explains that he has been searching for centuries for a champion who is "pure of heart". Released upon the ancient world, and now trapped in statues within the Rock, the Seven Deadly Sins tempt Thaddeus with promises of power. Banished back to Earth as unworthy of being a champion for succumbing to the sins, Thaddeus causes an accident while traveling with his family which leaves his father severely injured. Searching for his birth mother in present day Philadelphia, foster kid Billy Batson (Angel Asher) runs a foul of the law and is placed in a group home with 5 other foster kids run by Victor (Cooper Andrews) and Rosa Vasquez (Marta Milans). Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Frazer) is one of the five foster kids, an amateur superhero expert, and his new roommate. Now an adult Thaddeus (Mark Strong) discovers how to return to the Rock and acquire the power he was denied as a child.
This movie was a ton of fun. I don't think I've laughed out loud in a comic book movie this much since Ant-Man. This movie was really good. It had its silliness in certain parts but still did well in building tension and having its serious parts. Also it was well done on how the story played on your emotions for a lot of the different characters. I love the way the foster family and siblings came into play throughout the film. The special effects were really good, especially the monsters and even though you know Zachary Levi is in a muscle suit (which i initially disliked) it didn't even matter. The plot was good although some of it seemed recycled which bothered me slightly. The dialogue was good, some of it silly, which seemed appropriate for the character being younger than he looks when he is Shazam. But I didn't have much to complain about. I never saw one of the major twists coming at the end, so that really surprised me. If you're looking for a fun movie to watch, with family or friends or a superhero movie that will also make you laugh, Shazam is the one to choose. I give this movie a 8/10.
In 1974 Upstate New York, the ancient wizard Shazam magically transports Thaddeus Sivana (Ethan Pugiotto) to the Rock of Eternity, a hidden magical temple. Shazam, the last of the Council of Seven Wizards, explains that he has been searching for centuries for a champion who is "pure of heart". Released upon the ancient world, and now trapped in statues within the Rock, the Seven Deadly Sins tempt Thaddeus with promises of power. Banished back to Earth as unworthy of being a champion for succumbing to the sins, Thaddeus causes an accident while traveling with his family which leaves his father severely injured. Searching for his birth mother in present day Philadelphia, foster kid Billy Batson (Angel Asher) runs a foul of the law and is placed in a group home with 5 other foster kids run by Victor (Cooper Andrews) and Rosa Vasquez (Marta Milans). Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Frazer) is one of the five foster kids, an amateur superhero expert, and his new roommate. Now an adult Thaddeus (Mark Strong) discovers how to return to the Rock and acquire the power he was denied as a child.
This movie was a ton of fun. I don't think I've laughed out loud in a comic book movie this much since Ant-Man. This movie was really good. It had its silliness in certain parts but still did well in building tension and having its serious parts. Also it was well done on how the story played on your emotions for a lot of the different characters. I love the way the foster family and siblings came into play throughout the film. The special effects were really good, especially the monsters and even though you know Zachary Levi is in a muscle suit (which i initially disliked) it didn't even matter. The plot was good although some of it seemed recycled which bothered me slightly. The dialogue was good, some of it silly, which seemed appropriate for the character being younger than he looks when he is Shazam. But I didn't have much to complain about. I never saw one of the major twists coming at the end, so that really surprised me. If you're looking for a fun movie to watch, with family or friends or a superhero movie that will also make you laugh, Shazam is the one to choose. I give this movie a 8/10.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Gemini Man (2019) in Movies
Nov 10, 2019
Will Smith plays top US hit-man Henry Brogan who is making the world "safer" one bullet at a time! With the mirror telling him his age, Henry hands in his firearm (not withstanding the arsenal under his stairs) to spend more time going fishing and doing the crossword.
But all is not well when Henry's 'one for the road' hit turns out to not be quite what it seems.
Teaming up with marina manager Danny (Danny??) Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the pair go on the run from operatives of a government-funded black-ops organization called Gemini. Gemini is a private semi-military organization (didn't we just go here with "Angel Has Fallen"?!). These 'baddie goodies' would rather see Henry - and all who know him - fed to the fishes rather than have him catching them.
But one of these guys, under the direct command of Gemini-boss Clay Verris (Clive Owen), looks kinda familiar...
Let's focus on the positives for a minute. This is a spy movie that has all of the polish that the recent "Angel has Fallen" didn't have. Some nice photogenic locations fly in and out again (Georgia, Budapest and Colombia: the latter for no obvious reason I can remember!). It occasionally reminded me of a glossy Bond film, but without Bond.
There are also some high-class special effects (the special effects coordinator is Mark Hawker). A moonlit CGI Gulfstream with a zoom into the cockpit is particularly impressive.
Some of the action set pieces also entertain. A Will-on-Will bike chase is well done, and I've not seen a bike used as a hand-to-hand weapon in this way before!
And Will Smith is no doubt a class act, with his 'youngification' (I'm not sure what the official word is) also being effectively done. I also enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was great in "10 Cloverfield Lane". The lady has real screen presence.
But man oh man, that script. Let's name the guilty parties in this film: the scriptwriters David Benioff (Game of Thrones), Darren Lemke and Billy Ray. (I'll put Ray last in the list, since the story was by Benioff and Lemke and this has the smell to me of Ray - who has a history of some great scripts like Captain Phillips under his name - being drafted in to steady a listing ship).
Some of the dialogue in this film is not just a bit dodgy. It's head in the hands groan-worthy (and I actually did at times: fortunately the cinema was barely half full and I was on my own in the whole row). And some of it is just plain offensive. Henry meets his old pal Jack Willis (Douglas Hodge) on his yacht where he explains his wife is on a trip to Paris as a scantily clad dolly-bird wanders past. Henry comically rolls his eyes at this adulterous behaviour, with some sort of "Jack, what are you loike!" comment. Cringe-worthy.
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong (their ally, adding some comic relief) are clearly good actors. But the script often makes them look utterly vacuous and stupid. And Lee seems to have a "good enough, move on" approach to the filming. One jaw-dropping moment has Will Smith telling the others that they are going to Budapest. "Budapest?" Winstead and Wong are supposed to say in union, but mistime it. "Can we do that again?". Nope. It's on the screen.
As for Clive Owen... sorry, he's really not in the same acting league, and the script does him even fewer favours. As he says at one point "It's like the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic". I couldn't have put it better myself.
"Uncanny Valley". You know this phrase. The Princess Leia and Moff Tarkin scenes in "Rogue One" is the classic example. Effects that don't quite work on the big screen. "But" - you say to yourself - "Dr Bob just said that the 'youngification' of Will Smith was done really well?". And I'll repeat again that it was. It's on a par with Samuel L. Jackson's 'youngification' in "Captain Marvel". Where something strange happens is in the film's overall projection. Ang Lee has tried again with his experiment of filming at a massive 120 frames per second..... five times the normal movie frame rate of 24 fps. And the quality of the picture - particularly during high-speed action scenes - becomes outstandingly good! But equally it just doesn't 'look right'.
When the human eye presumably works at an equivalent "fps" of thousands of 'frames per second' you'd think that it should all be fine. But for some reason I just found it distracting. Presumably the audiences for "The Jazz Singer" thought the same about sound; and those for "Gone with the Wind" and the "Wizard of Oz" about colour. Maybe we've seen the future, and its the new norm that we just need to get used to. We'll see.
Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" was extraordinary. His "Hulk" was one of the poorest of the Marvel canon. Unfortunately, this movie is at the "Hulk" end of the spectrum. Which is a real shame. The duo of the 51 year old Smith and the 35 year old Winstead work really well together. They have great chemistry, but, you'll be relieved to hear, avoid any icky love interest.
What a shame. With a different script, and some good production values, this could have been a very different story.
(For the full graphical review, please check out https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2019/10/18/one-manns-movies-film-review-gemini-man-2019/ )
But all is not well when Henry's 'one for the road' hit turns out to not be quite what it seems.
Teaming up with marina manager Danny (Danny??) Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the pair go on the run from operatives of a government-funded black-ops organization called Gemini. Gemini is a private semi-military organization (didn't we just go here with "Angel Has Fallen"?!). These 'baddie goodies' would rather see Henry - and all who know him - fed to the fishes rather than have him catching them.
But one of these guys, under the direct command of Gemini-boss Clay Verris (Clive Owen), looks kinda familiar...
Let's focus on the positives for a minute. This is a spy movie that has all of the polish that the recent "Angel has Fallen" didn't have. Some nice photogenic locations fly in and out again (Georgia, Budapest and Colombia: the latter for no obvious reason I can remember!). It occasionally reminded me of a glossy Bond film, but without Bond.
There are also some high-class special effects (the special effects coordinator is Mark Hawker). A moonlit CGI Gulfstream with a zoom into the cockpit is particularly impressive.
Some of the action set pieces also entertain. A Will-on-Will bike chase is well done, and I've not seen a bike used as a hand-to-hand weapon in this way before!
And Will Smith is no doubt a class act, with his 'youngification' (I'm not sure what the official word is) also being effectively done. I also enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was great in "10 Cloverfield Lane". The lady has real screen presence.
But man oh man, that script. Let's name the guilty parties in this film: the scriptwriters David Benioff (Game of Thrones), Darren Lemke and Billy Ray. (I'll put Ray last in the list, since the story was by Benioff and Lemke and this has the smell to me of Ray - who has a history of some great scripts like Captain Phillips under his name - being drafted in to steady a listing ship).
Some of the dialogue in this film is not just a bit dodgy. It's head in the hands groan-worthy (and I actually did at times: fortunately the cinema was barely half full and I was on my own in the whole row). And some of it is just plain offensive. Henry meets his old pal Jack Willis (Douglas Hodge) on his yacht where he explains his wife is on a trip to Paris as a scantily clad dolly-bird wanders past. Henry comically rolls his eyes at this adulterous behaviour, with some sort of "Jack, what are you loike!" comment. Cringe-worthy.
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong (their ally, adding some comic relief) are clearly good actors. But the script often makes them look utterly vacuous and stupid. And Lee seems to have a "good enough, move on" approach to the filming. One jaw-dropping moment has Will Smith telling the others that they are going to Budapest. "Budapest?" Winstead and Wong are supposed to say in union, but mistime it. "Can we do that again?". Nope. It's on the screen.
As for Clive Owen... sorry, he's really not in the same acting league, and the script does him even fewer favours. As he says at one point "It's like the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic". I couldn't have put it better myself.
"Uncanny Valley". You know this phrase. The Princess Leia and Moff Tarkin scenes in "Rogue One" is the classic example. Effects that don't quite work on the big screen. "But" - you say to yourself - "Dr Bob just said that the 'youngification' of Will Smith was done really well?". And I'll repeat again that it was. It's on a par with Samuel L. Jackson's 'youngification' in "Captain Marvel". Where something strange happens is in the film's overall projection. Ang Lee has tried again with his experiment of filming at a massive 120 frames per second..... five times the normal movie frame rate of 24 fps. And the quality of the picture - particularly during high-speed action scenes - becomes outstandingly good! But equally it just doesn't 'look right'.
When the human eye presumably works at an equivalent "fps" of thousands of 'frames per second' you'd think that it should all be fine. But for some reason I just found it distracting. Presumably the audiences for "The Jazz Singer" thought the same about sound; and those for "Gone with the Wind" and the "Wizard of Oz" about colour. Maybe we've seen the future, and its the new norm that we just need to get used to. We'll see.
Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" was extraordinary. His "Hulk" was one of the poorest of the Marvel canon. Unfortunately, this movie is at the "Hulk" end of the spectrum. Which is a real shame. The duo of the 51 year old Smith and the 35 year old Winstead work really well together. They have great chemistry, but, you'll be relieved to hear, avoid any icky love interest.
What a shame. With a different script, and some good production values, this could have been a very different story.
(For the full graphical review, please check out https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2019/10/18/one-manns-movies-film-review-gemini-man-2019/ )
