Unscripted Movie Reviews
Here we go! By popular request, I'm back on the blog and reviewing movies! My movie-watching was a bit slow to start the year - I was in PhD school after all - but picked up once I got home and had free time and free movies once again.
Previous Reviews:
Unscripted Ratings:
4/4 - Buy a ticket, poster, & DVD.
With that, here's Part 1 of the 2016 Movie Review catch-up - enjoy!!
Jan. 15
Here we go! By popular request, I'm back on the blog and reviewing movies! My movie-watching was a bit slow to start the year - I was in PhD school after all - but picked up once I got home and had free time and free movies once again.
Previous Reviews:
4/4 - Buy a ticket, poster, & DVD.
3.5/4 - Buy a ticket.
3/4 - Buy a matinee ticket.
2/4 - Wait to stream/rent it.
1/4 - Consider as last resort.
0/4 - Avoid at all costs.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi: During an attack on a U.S. compound in Libya, a contracted security team (John Krasinski) struggles to make sense out of the chaos.
As a film based on true, recent, and relevant events, 13 Hours is - at face-value - an important contribution to the national dialogue about the 2012 attack that killed a U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans. However, the movie lacks any real depth. The security team are undeniably real-life heroes, but in 13 Hours they are unbelievably calm and confident, to the point of being overtly cocky, as bullets fly and bodies fall around them, highlighted by an endless stream of banter that significantly lowers the perceived stakes. And because the film both starts and ends with gunfire, never widening its scope to address geopolitical concerns, you're left asking "What's the point?" The Final Word: 1/4 - Consider as a last resort.
Deadpool: A comedic deconstruction of the superhero genre, the X-Men-related film follows a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary turned irreverent rogue hero (Ryan Reynolds).
Deadpool is a lot of fun, if at times too-silly, and a shot-in-the-arm for superhero movies which are flirting with over-saturation as the genre continues to grow with varying degrees of quality. Despite an uninspiring villain, you can still count this film among the few that are high quality. Deadpool successfully surprises and entertains by defying and laughing in the face of typical comic-book movie tropes and breaking the fourth-wall in a way that I don't think would have worked as well with any other film, character, or actor. The Final Word: 3.5/4 - Buy a ticket.
Deadpool is a lot of fun, if at times too-silly, and a shot-in-the-arm for superhero movies which are flirting with over-saturation as the genre continues to grow with varying degrees of quality. Despite an uninspiring villain, you can still count this film among the few that are high quality. Deadpool successfully surprises and entertains by defying and laughing in the face of typical comic-book movie tropes and breaking the fourth-wall in a way that I don't think would have worked as well with any other film, character, or actor. The Final Word: 3.5/4 - Buy a ticket.
The Witch: A family in 1630s New England is being torn apart; is it the delusions of secluded fundamentalists, or is it witchcraft?
The Witch is by far the scariest film to come out this year. Not much of your time watching the film will be spent jumping - though that may happen a couple times - but rather spent gripping your armrest in dread, fearing what evil may lurk in the forest. The movie is downright creepy, from heavy olde-English dialogue of the victimized family to compelling cinematography that effectively suggests sinister and occult meanings in the most common of farm-life imagery. This is not only horror at its best, but original storytelling at its finest as well. The Final Word: 3.5/4 - Buy a ticket.
The Witch is by far the scariest film to come out this year. Not much of your time watching the film will be spent jumping - though that may happen a couple times - but rather spent gripping your armrest in dread, fearing what evil may lurk in the forest. The movie is downright creepy, from heavy olde-English dialogue of the victimized family to compelling cinematography that effectively suggests sinister and occult meanings in the most common of farm-life imagery. This is not only horror at its best, but original storytelling at its finest as well. The Final Word: 3.5/4 - Buy a ticket.
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