In case you couldn’t tell from the train wreck of a title, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is an utter mess of a movie. It really seems like J.K. Rowling just threw a bunch of her leftover worldbuilding notes from Harry Potter together, adding only the bare minimum of connective tissue needed to assemble a somewhat logical narrative.

The film’s plot is ostensibly quite simple. Magizoologist Newt Scamander and his friends, with guidance from the legendary Albus Dumbledore, try to find and protect Credence Barebone, a young but terrifyingly powerful wizard, as he is hunted by both the harsh and overbearing Ministry of Magic and a group of violent extremists led by outlaw Gellert Grindelwald.

Unfortunately, the story ends up being incoherent, both by over-complicating the plot and some remarkably poor storytelling choices. After an inoffensive opening sequence, the film starts to go downhill, with two early reveals that undo all of the consequences of the first film’s conclusion. The film then splits into roughly half a dozen different plot threads, tied together in some of the most contrived ways imaginable. It’s a shame too, because each of the storylines probably would have been compelling had they been properly fleshed out. Poor editing exacerbates the clumsiness of the already convoluted narrative. Some of the scene transitions are so abrupt that I wondered if there was something wrong with the copy of the film being shown at the screening.

The film doesn’t manage to stick the landing either. Most of the last half hour is taken up by a series of plot twists, each more over the top and less meaningful than the last. And the climax of the movie should have massive repercussions for the film’s heroes and the wizarding community as whole, but Rowling apparently didn’t think it was important to actually show us how the protagonists deal with events that just irrevocably changed all of their lives.

The film also does a less than stellar job at handling its large cast. All of the significant characters from the first film return, and the film introduces a gaggle of new ones. Theseus Scamander (Newt’s brother), Leta Lestrange (Newt’s ex and now Theseus’s fiancée), Nagini (yes, really), and Nicholas Flamel (an immortal alchemist) are all jammed into the movie. None of them are well developed or necessary to the plot. Nagini, especially, is completely extraneous. Not only is it absurd to reveal that Voldemort’s pet snake from the Harry Potter series was actually a cursed human witch the whole time, she serves absolutely no purpose in the movie. Her only role is standing around and looking mildly horrified at the events unfolding around her. Leta comes the closest to having a coherent arc, but the mangled storytelling robs her character development of the emotional heft it should have.

Newt and his allies, the non-magical human Jacob Kowalski and the Auror (wizard cop) Tina Goldstein, fair a little bit better, but only because they are already established characters. These weirdos with hearts of gold are pretty much exactly the same as they were the last time around. If you found them charming in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (I certainly did) then you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. The exception (and not in a good way) for the returning characters is Queenie Goldstein. In a pretty significant departure from her previous characterization, the telepath comes off as consistently selfish, manipulative, and gullible with no real redeeming qualities.

But you know what? Despite the movie’s many, many flaws, I didn’t hate it. Newt, Jacob, Tina, and Dumbledore are delightful, most of the jokes land well, the creatures and magic spells are clever and stylish, and the wizarding world is as fascinating as ever. Grindelwald, too, is deftly handled. He is a far more human monster than Lord Voldemort, but that makes him an incredibly effective villain. His softer approach to fascism and skill at presenting a compelling message makes it all too clear why his brand of bigotry would appeal to the wizarding populace. In particular, his speech to the witches and wizards of Paris, a chilling depiction of the malleability of the truth and the capacity humans have for violence, is  J.K. Rowling’s best piece of writing in the film.
 
Grade: C+/B- (I can’t decide and these grades are meaningless anyway)

Bohemian Rhapsody? More like Bohemian Crap-sody, am I right?
 
I really thought this was going to be a good one. A bio-pic of Freddie Mercury had a lot of potential. But the more I think about it, the more I realize director Bryan Singer took a great story and watered it down to the point of intense blandness.
 
There seems like a lot of material available regarding Mercury that could make for an interesting film. He was the son of immigrant parents who seemingly didn’t approve of his career, which compounded upon his feeling like an outsider. He was a closeted gay man and had a complicated relationship with a woman to whom he was married before he came out. He engaged in the kind of sex and drugs that we generally associate with rock gods of that era. And he famously contracted AIDS at the height of the initial epidemic, and his death from the disease increased attention on finding a cure.
 
Well what if I told you the movie barely addresses any of these elements of his life? Rhapsody acknowledges all of these issues, sure. But it never feels like the film takes the time to talk about any elements of Mercury’s life substantially. Everything is glossed over in this hard-to-place sheen that makes the whole movie feel unfocused and impersonal. I don’t feel like I learned anything about Mercury, the person or the character.
 
And Mercury is really the only character in the movie with even an attempt at depth. Rami Malek’s performance is good, but the lack of focus on any elements of Mercury’s life fails his efforts. No one else in the movie even comes close to interesting. The other members of the band are relegated to tertiary characters, and the rest of the supporting cast are either lifeless nothings or unremarkable stereotypes.
 
There are moments where the film distracts you from it's monotony. The cinematography is pretty interesting, with a few stylistic shots and angles that give Queen the vibe it deserves. Seeing the band put together some of their most iconic songs is interesting, especially “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You”.
 
The last 20 minutes of the film are just a recreation of the Live Aid performance from 1985. And while this is kind of dope, because it’s just 20 minutes of listening to Queen perform, the minute it is over you remember that you could have just watched the actual Live Aid performance on YouTube for free. You then realize that the only interesting part of the movie is Queen’s music and that you could be in your living room listening to A Night at the Opera and not in a movie theater trying not to sing along because you are surrounded by strangers trying to watch a mediocre movie.
 
I really believe that a documentary about Queen would have been better than this. Talking to the actual band mates about Freddy and the band might have added to some energy to this sloppy, boring mass. I was entertained, sure. But not because the movie is good. Because Queen is awesome and it’s hard to fuck that up.
 
Grade: C

​It’s a tale as old as time: Aspiring Entertainer Female meets Established Entertainer Male, they fall in love, Established Entertainer Male elevates Aspiring Entertainer Female’s career, he becomes Declining Entertainer Male and she becomes Established Entertainer Female. Well, it’s at least a tale as old as 1937, and screenwriters Bradley Cooper and Eric Roth did the bare minimum to update it for Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born.
 
The impetus of the relationship in this film hinged on questionable power dynamics that feel sexist and inappropriately timely. Jack (Cooper) wields his power as a famous musician to relentlessly try to woo Ally (Lady Gaga) until she abandons her life to travel with him after they spend a single night together. Ally’s position as a budding singer herself made Jack’s advances and belief in her talent hard to resist. No matter Jack’s intentions, which prove to be fairly altruistic, it was easy to feel unsettled by this all-too-familiar Hollywood story which usually ends differently. I’d like to forgive these outdated gender politics because this film is, of course, based on a story that originated in 1937. It perhaps wouldn’t have been a true remake if Cooper and Roth had veered from this, but they each hold enough clout to champion a film that feels a bit more modern.
 
Setting all this aside, Cooper and Gaga had palpable chemistry that was hard not to root for. Though both of their performances were uneven, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga each had scenes that made me question whether I was being too critical. Cooper’s character Jack is a charming piece of shit, which he believably embodies. Jack is tragically and frustratingly flawed, which somehow endears him to the audience and Ally even more. But save for a few emotional peaks, Cooper’s performance was pretty flat and showed minimal depth. I was much more impressed with Gaga, despite her character Ally coming off as a caricature at points. The film often felt autobiographical to Gaga (and many pop stars), as Ally struggles to be accepted as a musician because the industry likes the way she sounds but not the way she looks. The moments that touched upon that issue felt the most genuine. And it almost goes without saying, but any shaky acting was instantly excused whenever she took the stage to perform.  
 
There are a handful of elements to this film that I wanted more of, and some that I wanted less of. The few minutes when Anthony Ramos was on screen were completely joyous. He is an incredibly talented multi-hyphenate who we will be seeing more of very soon (Monsters and Men, out soon), but I wanted to see more of his sweet character Ramon in a film whose turbulent leads quickly become daunting. This is definitely a personal preference, and one that not every viewer will agree with, but I wanted more music. It is clearly the strongest part of the film. “Shallow” is a safe Oscar bet for Best Original Song, and will be fodder for so many covers that I am not looking forward to. Even though he probably wouldn’t have written, directed, and starred in a musical movie if he didn’t, I was still impressed to see that Cooper had genuine musical chops. Every time Ally and Jack play “Shallow” (yes, it obviously happens more than once) is a high for the film, and I am so excited for the Oscars and/or Grammys performance of this song.
 
The aspect of the film I wanted the least of was actually the story. I found myself completely apathetic to Ally and Jack’s backstories, which served mostly to suffocate the narrative and artificially acquaint us with the characters. It was easy to connect with Ally and Jack even if their stories began when the film did. The inclusion of their families as secondary characters felt extraneous. My main issue is actually that I wanted less movie, which is a recurring pattern for almost every iteration of A Star Is Born. Cooper’s version is around two hours and fifteen minutes, and could’ve easily been ten to fifteen minutes shorter without detriment. The 1954 and 1976 versions both come in at an unreasonable three hours and two minutes, which is essentially inadmissible in today’s short-attention-span society. The original 1937 version is just under two hours, which is the absolute longest any of these films should be.
 
Going into the film, I was convinced that A Star Is Born would be either my favorite or least favorite film of the latter half of 2018. But after watching it, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just an okay film with incredible moments that make its flaws forgivable.
 
Grade: B+

I’ve written so much recently about movies that were of varying degrees of awfulness. Whether they were innocuously mediocre or abhorrently painful, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about movies I thoroughly didn’t enjoy. And I don’t really have any problem with that. I like writing about movies, and a lot of my colleagues at the Film Enthusiasts’ Club will tell you that I have a proclivity for seeking out the worst of the worst. A good film critic has to know what’s bad to know what’s good, so I like to take a dive in the deep end of the shit pool sometimes. But it's starting to make me apathetic.

So I’m going to do something a little different with this one, if you readers don’t mind. I’ll give you the general plot synopsis I usually give, but then I’m just going to start listing things about the movie I did or didn’t like. If you don’t want to sit through the rest of this, the long and short of it is that The House with a Clock in its Walls is a tonally inconsistent, immaturely unfunny mess of a film. But I think it’ll be fun to just talk shop about some of the reasons why in a way that doesn’t have me slinging around the usual banalities like “boring characters” or “predictable plot”. Sound good?

The movie follows a young boy named Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), who is sent to live with his Uncle Johnathan (Jack Black) after his parents die in a car crash. Lewis comes to realize that his uncle’s eccentricities are far more than they seem, when he finds out Johnathan is a warlock and the house where he lives is full of magic. The house, once owned by Johnathan’s partner, contains a clock which could spell doom for the world. Thus, Lewis, Johnathan and their witch neighbor Mrs. Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) have to find it before *something something doom something* happens.

List incoming:

• The title of the movie is too long. I know this is out of the control of the filmmakers, because the movie is based on a book, but it’s a mouthful.
• I’m really getting tired of movies wherein the villain(s) believe that the only way to save the world is to kill off all, or most, of the people on it. This instantaneously throws away any sympathy I could possibly have for them, and the villain of this film isn’t nearly interesting enough to have such a dumb plan for “world peace” or whatever.
• There are three, separate “lion-shaped magic shrubbery farts yard waste on things it isn’t supposed to” jokes. Think about the best family movies. I’d hedge my bets they have an exceedingly small amount of flatulatory humor. Fart jokes are low-bar. Making them funny is hard. This movie put in no effort to make theirs anything beyond “haha isn’t a fart funny, kiddos?”
  
• There is an almost staggeringly low amount of interesting magic in this movie. All of the magic that does happen feels like things I’ve seen in Harry Potter before. No one ever uses magic in a way that I wouldn’t have expected, nor does any of the magic look very inventive. It’s magic. You can do literally anything you want. Get creative with it.
• Jack Black and Cate Blanchett have chemistry, but it is thrown to the side far too often. They are both talented and funny actors, but the film’s poor writing and janky tone issues fail them.
• Scenes start and end out of nowhere. I don’t know if this was a problem in the editing bay or the writers room, but it makes the movie feel piecemeal and sloppy. Nothing that happens has weight, even though the stakes are high, due mostly to the haphazard way in which the film is constructed.
  

I really hope I see a good movie soon. These are starting to get to me.

Grade: D+

When I first heard about Peppermint, an action movie starring Jennifer Garner, I presumed it was going to be similar to her action movies from the past. You know, something along the lines of Elektra. This was not an exciting prospect. Then, I found out the film was directed by Pierre Morel, director of the original Taken film, and was immediately convinced that this movie would be an, at best, underwhelming clone of that film. What I actually got was a mediocre John Wick clone, a movie that reminded me why John Wick works while most of its’ imitators don’t.
 
Peppermint follows the tragic revenge story of Riley (Jennifer Garner), a struggling mother whose husband and daughter are brutally gunned down by crime boss Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba). Garcia believed that Riley’s husband was planning to rob him and his crime syndicate is too powerful to be dismantled by Detective Stan Carmichael (John Gallagher Jr.) and the LAPD, so the killers walk and Riley is committed to an insane asylum. On route to the mental facility, Riley escapes and trains for 5 years to become a badass assassin, intent on taking down Garcia’s entire venture.
 
As you can clearly see here, the plot similarities with John Wick are apparent. And the film is clearly trying to feed off the waves of popularity of the Keanu Reeves led series. The action is constant and intense, the main character fairly silent and stoic (though Garner’s Riley is a bit snarkier than Reeves’ Wick), and the plot paper thin. Occasionally, this approach works, allowing the film to showcase an interesting piece of action or a colorful line from the main character.
 
The problem is that Peppermint lacks the fundamental elements that made the John Wick series work: good choreography and editing. The action sequences are choppily edited and shakily shot, falling into a lot of the same pitfalls as the average PG-13 action borefest. If Jennifer Garner put in the same kind of work that Keanu Reeves did for her stunt work, it was wasted by rapid cutting and confusing camerawork. The few times something cool actually happens are severely outweighed by the surrounding blandness.
 
Without the action spectacle, the movie falls to its lackluster storytelling and character writing. This isn’t to say that these elements are particularly excellent in the John Wick series. But at least those movies have the interesting assassin underground to keep the action-less sequences relatively enthralling. Peppermint features the most barebones of revenge/police corruption stories, the kind of thing we’ve seen 1000 times. A compelling protagonist could have saved the movie, but it seemed like the filmmakers couldn’t decide on the characterization of Garner’s Riley, trying to make her both a stoic badass a la John Wick and a snarky quip machine in the vein of John McClane.
 
Peppermint is the same boring action movie I’ve come to expect at this point. There really isn’t a lot more I can say about that.
 
Grade: C

​There’s nothing better than a film that is a pleasant surprise. I spend so much of my time seeing films that I either know are going to be bad and hate or know are going to be good and like that the moments where a film surprises me are rare. And most of those surprises are still negative (you broke my heart, Man of Steel). This week, people kept asking me what movie I was screening and I honestly couldn’t remember the name of it. I had seen the trailer, I’m sure, and presumed it was for a mediocre sci-fi film. I was dreading the prospect of writing a review for another C-grade action film where I prattle on about how the movie was insubstantial popcorn fodder.
 
When I walked out of Kin, I was reminded why I do this. Not to tell people about the obvious, like that the new Transformers blows or that the new Denis Villeneuve movie is great. It’s to tell  people about the hidden gems, the movies that I end up liking despite the odds being stacked against them.
 
Kin is a feature length adaptation of a short film called Bag Men, following a teenage boy named Eli (Myles Truitt), who discovers a strange and futuristic weapon in an abandoned building. When Eli’s brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) returns from prison and gets into some hot water, which accidentally gets their father Hal (Dennis Quaid) killed, the two go on a roadtrip/run-for-their-lives trip. Pursued by criminal gang leader Taylor (James Franco) and two mysterious figures from an alternate dimension (or something of the like), the brothers bond with one another and a stripper named Milly (Zoë Kravitz).
 
I would first like to address a potentially unnerving element of the film’s theme. The movie puts a lot of stock into the power of the gun, which in turn appears to make the young Eli feel powerful. This “power of the gun” angle, combined with the brother’s proclivity to get the two of them into criminal activity, could be seen as sending a troubling message to youth about the strength of guns and crime. But I would also argue that the same could be said for Eleven, one of the main characters of Stranger Things. Eleven kills countless bad-guys, her “power” being derived from weaponization. But I would argue that Eli only initially perceives that his power and confidence comes from physical strength, and that the end of the film is specifically ambiguous about the “goodness” of the power of the gun and Eli’s criminal brother.
 
That aside, the compelling nature of the characters outweighs the potentially tonally confused message of the film. Eli and Jimmy are likable, and their chemistry feels genuine. They feel like brothers, who love each other and are willing to put themselves on the line for each other. Jimmy is dumb and impulsive, but never in a way that felt frustrating. Truitt and Reynor play their parts well, and it is their relationship that carries the majority of the film. Franco’s character, while over-the-top, is a fairly menacing villain, hitting that crazy, drugged up crime boss vibe. I did chuckle, however, at Quaid’s performance, as he seemed to be doing his best Harrison Ford impression, straight down to the finger-wagging thing that Ford loves to do.
 
The movie is less compelling when it leans more towards science-fiction than drama. While the cinematography is pretty great, the futuristic/alien tech doesn’t look like anything we haven’t seen before, and the twist at the end of the movie had me more confused than shocked. The sound design was good, if not a little over-reliant on the dubstep-esque techno sounds that permeate films like this. But I couldn’t help but feel like a straight-up drama about these characters might have made for a better film. The set-up at the end for a potentially more sci-fi focused sequel has me concerned that the filmmakers don’t know what the best part of their movie is: the characters.
 
Is Kin perfect? No, not by a long shot. Is it one of the year’s best films? No, not even close. But it is an entertaining movie, with likeable characters, good performances, and interesting cinematography. I enjoyed myself watching Kin, which is a lot more than can be said about almost every movie I’ve reviewed this summer.
 
Grade: B-

​I grew up with Star Wars. I might not have been alive when the original trilogy was first released, nor did I see any of the prequel films in theatres when I was young. But Star Wars was an integral part of my childhood. I watched the original trilogy on VHS with my dad when I was barely old enough to walk. I dressed as R2-D2 for Halloween. I played Star Wars video games, watched the classic Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts and even read some of the comics and novels. And, at this point in my life, I can rattle of Star Wars facts to a degree of obscurity that exists somewhere between ridiculous and obsessive. When you know the names of characters as minor as Joh Yowza and Sy Snootles, that’s probably a fair sign that you are at least a fan of Star Wars.
 
I don’t say all this to flex my fandom or make an attempt to say that my investment in Star Wars is greater than someone who doesn’t know what Slave One is. I think it is too easy to conflate hours watched and facts learned with a real understanding of what is best for a series and/or what made the series work in the first place.
 
But I’m not here to get into what made the original trilogy good. I’m also not going to try and dissect why Star Wars has so firmly ingrained itself into popular culture or permeated so deeply into the minds of many fans around the world. What I do want to talk about is how Star Wars is going to remain both culturally relevant and cinematically interesting, and how I think the interests of an extremely vocal group of Star Wars “superfans” could be hindering the series’ ability to fully adapt and survive in the modern film age.
 
First, a quick qualifier. Blockbusters are different now than they were in the mid-to-late 1970s. If a 70s movie that had never been released came out in theatres today, most modern audiences would be confused. And I don’t mean they’d just be perplexed as to why the actors were all dead or the movies weren’t shot in high-definition. Movies worked differently back then. They were slower, more plot heavy and certainly less action prone than the blockbusters of today. And we could argue back and forth about whether or not movies from that era are better or worse than movies now, but you have to agree that they are different.
 
Thus, what was likely to have made Star Wars work so well when it was first released may not have had nearly the same impact on a modern film audience. Star Wars’ space opera grandiosity and world building heavy universe were far more unique in the late 70s than they would be in a film today. And that’s not to say that the original Star Wars trilogy doesn’t do a significantly better job at that stuff than a lot of blockbusters after it. But it’s the relative ease of creating a universe with seemingly massive scale which nullifies that element of Star Wars’ success in a modern context.
 
So, if blockbusters from the late 70s are slower, plot-heavy and less action oriented, modern blockbusters are quicker, character driven and more action-packed. And, again, you might think this is bad. That’s fine. But that’s how it is. And for Star Wars to continue to remain culturally relevant, it has to adapt to the more modern style of filmmaking we are currently seeing out of Hollywood blockbusters. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have wanted Star Wars to be like the 40 years of James Bond movies (before Daniel Craig and Martin Campbell actually changed the series).
 
The way I see it, there are two schools of thought, in the negative, if you accept the differences Star Wars is making.
 
One: If Star Wars has to change to stay relevant, it should just end.
 
This is the kind of “hindsight is 20/20” –esque thing that people love to say when a movie gets a less-than-satisfactory sequel. Why would they make a sequel to this? It was perfect the way it is. All new movies should be 100% original and never build upon previous source material.
 
And if you think that way about Star Wars: fine, I guess. Stay in a bubble and watch the original trilogy on repeat. But Star Wars is multi-billion dollar franchise. To assume that it would ever be stagnant is extremely foolish. So embrace the inevitable. There is going to be more Star Wars. So we should demand that they improve, not lazily rehash the same things that you think made the originals great.
 
Two: Star Wars can change, but there are 100,000 rules and guidelines that the sequel films will need to follow in order to “stay true” to the originals. And that list will make it impossible for any writer or director top have any kind of original vision with Star Wars.
 
This is seemingly the predominant ideology of the highly vocal Star Wars fan community. Star Wars fans like to claim that they have absolutely no problem with the concept of a new Star Wars film. But the degree of restrictions that are placed upon these new films by fans, in terms of strict adherences to what every individual fan seems to see as “true Star Wars” is not only complete arbitrary bullshit, but deathly restrictive to the franchises ability to grow.
 
And I’m not talking about the people who hate that Finn is a black Stormtrooper or harass actress Kelly Marie Tran because they think Rose is “the worst Star Wars character in history how dare SJWs force her into my Star Wars.” These people aren’t worth the energy of trying to combat. Inclusivity is a good thing. And while I didn’t think Rose was a particularly well written or fleshed out character either, a jump to her inclusion being part of a liberal agenda is sexist and racist.
 
I’m more talking about the people who will talk your ear off about how Yoda and Luke’s uses of the Force in The Last Jedi are “not how the Force works.” Or the people whose only criticism of Kylo Ren is that he isn’t just Darth Vader again. Or the people who say that Luke shouldn’t have been bitter and old because that’s not the Luke they remember. Or the people who just sweepingly declare that the new films are bad because they don’t feel like they think Star Wars should feel because of about 1,000 different minute factors.
 
All of these criticisms stem from the same general place: people want Star Wars to make them feel like a kid again. They don’t like that Luke has grown cynical because Luke was the optimist of the original trilogy. So they ignore the storytelling elements and themes of The Last Jedi which clearly articulate why Luke is like this now and skip directly to “but that’s not Luke.” They don’t like that Kylo Ren is a petulant child rather than a stoic badass because that’s what Vader was. But they completely overlook that Kylo Ren is a complicated and interesting character who actually has a hell of a lot more depth and nuance than Vader ever had.
 
And the mentality of wanting to feel that nostalgia at such a direct, one-to-one level is the core of the problem. Each aspect of the hardcore fans’ nostalgia has to be precisely integrated into the new Star Wars for them to “feel like a kid again.” This way of thinking fundamentally misunderstands the entire point of creating a new trilogy of Star Wars films. Yes, part of what these movies are trying to do is harken back to the originals to get older butts in seats. But from both a marketing and thematic perspective, the new Star Wars trilogy is meant for the same core audience the original trilogy was likely meant for: kids.
 
Now I feel like saying a thing that adults like is “for kids” automatically riles people up. Just because something was created with the intention of entertaining children doesn’t mean it can’t also be appealing toward adults or have the deeper theming of movies targeted for adults. Star Wars clearly worked for both children and adults. But children are the first priority, and have been since far before Disney purchased the franchise (Ewoks, Boba Fett and Jar Jar Banks are all clear examples of George Lucas pandering to kids or trying to sell toys).
 
So if Star Wars target audience is the youth of today, not the former youth of 40 years ago, it stands to reason that the newer films will contain more elements that today’s movie-going audience is more used to. This means more action, more witty dialogue from the characters rather than the dryer humor of the original trilogy and a larger focus on character than story. The key is that Star Wars has managed to do this while continuing to intertwine the themes and mythos that made the OG trilogy so memorable and timeless.
 
This is why it is so frustrating to see older neckbeards demand that their Star Wars satiate their need for nostalgia by shitting all over the new films’ minute changes to their interpretation of Star Wars while completely ignoring every effort these films are making to adapt. And this isn’t to say that Force Awakens and The Last Jedi aren’t flawed, or that you are one of these neckbeardy fans if you didn’t like either (or both) of these films. But I’d love, just once, to hear some legitimate criticism of these films from “fans” that doesn’t immediately dip into the kind of nostalgia-blindness that will hinder Star Wars if we let it.
 
And I’d honestly love to see Star Wars get even more different than it is. Rogue One was a step in the right direction in terms of creating anthology films in the Star Wars universe that feel tonally different. Solo...wasn’t. Star Wars needs a chance to breath and explore, come up with wild stories and crazy worlds that continue to enthrall children and impress adults. That’s not going to happen if we keep demanding to see the Millenium Falcon in every movie exactly the way it’s “meant to look” or refuse to accept well-written characters like Rey because she isn’t a Skywalker or Obi Wan’s daughter or some other contrived bullshit. We need to let go. Let the past die. Kill it if we have to.

There are some people who just sell dumb action well. The Rock seems to hit that spot for a lot of people. Others love watching Liam Neeson’s old ass Taken the shit out of bad guys. My soft spot is for the rugged cockney manliness that manifests itself as Jason Statham. The man is exceedingly charming and sells a punch like a guy who seen enough real-life scraps to know what getting hit in the face looks like. Movies like the latter Fast and Furious films, Safe and even The Expendables 2 do a decent job at balancing minimal attention to interesting plot or character with balls to the wall action and Statham is one of the main reasons these films work at all. Watch the scene in Fate of the Furious where he fights a bunch of guys while carrying a baby and try to tell me you didn’t start gleefully giggling.
 
That’s why part of me thought The Meg might work. A modern, action-heavy take on Jaws with some charismatic actors might make waves on the big screen. But, unfortunately, the film falls into the standard traps of the summer blockbuster, offering the occasional quip or solid cinematography but not enough so to distract from the film’s overall lack of substance.
 
Statham plays Jonas Taylor, an ex-rescue diver who is forced back into action when his ex-wife and her diving crew are trapped in a submarine. The team work for billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson) and scientist Suyin (Li Bingbing), who are attempting to discover a biome underneath the previously recorded lowest point on Earth. But when the rescue attempt causes a megalodon, a supposedly extinct giant shark, to escape, Taylor and the team must stop it before it kills a shit ton of innocent people.
 
The Meg is exceedingly tropey. The characters are all stereotypes to a tee. And the plot is as predictable as one would expect from this kind of movie. I don’t even really feel the need to describe the nature of the character archetypes featured in the film, because I am certain you have already figured out what all the characters are like. Sure, they all have a few decent one-liners that break up the monotony of their dialogue. But the majority of the quips fall flat, especially when they create tonal whiplash. For example, characters make jokes in the same sentence that they talk about the friends they just watched die.
 
And like a lot of recent action fare, there is the occasional decent shot and the score is pretty good (it’s by the guy who scored Shrek, so of course its gold). But the standard conventions of PG-13 action still stand. The camera shakes all the fuck over the place, so you can’t really see what’s going on. There aren’t many opportunities for Statham to show off his action choreography chops, seeing as he isn’t fighting people but a big ass shark. The majority of the action involves watching either a big shark eating people without actually being able to really see it, or Statham flailing around in the water and piloting a submarine, both of which are exceedingly dull.
 
I just read that The Meg was originally going to be an over-the-top R-rated bloodbath film. Maybe then it could have at least been fun. But the appeal to a more massive audience robbed the film of most of its potential hyper-violent glee. What results is something generic and expected. It is the quintessential bland August release.
 
Grade: C-

​I didn't really grew up with Winnie-the-Pooh. I recognize all the characters, know some of the catchphrases and can even recite the majority of “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers.” But I think that’s just because the characters are ingrained into the popular culture. I’ve never read the original stories by A.A. Milne, or any subsequent books. And if I ever saw any of the movies or TV specials, I certainly don't remember any details about them.
 
So it is fully possible that Christopher Robin will connect better with Pooh-heads (I know that’s not a thing, just let me have this pun) than it did with me. Perhaps the film’s charm is lost on someone who didn’t grow up with these characters. But, for me, Christopher Robin feels less like a nostalgic reinterpretation of the classic characters and more like the kind of slogging, poorly written movie that I’d expect to see on Lifetime.
 
The film follows a now adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), who lives in London with his wife and daughter and works at a luggage company. His friends Winnie-the-Pooh (Jim Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett) and more are waiting for him to return to the Hundred Acre Wood, but he has become too preoccupied with work to care about anything else. But when Pooh mysteriously ends up in London, they must journey to find the rest of the gang and rekindle Robin’s sense of adventure.
 
One of the chief problems is that the film’s interpretation of Robin is very hard to root for. The movie feels like it is trying to be like Hook, but McGregor doesn’t apply the same charm as Robin Williams. Adult Robin is unlikeable, and his complete lack of charm before he inevitably changes makes it very difficult for me to believe he is so reformed by the end of the film. The number of times he yells at Pooh about his VERY IMPORTANT IRREPLACEABLE PAPERS is exhausting.
 
The dialogue spoken by the human characters certainly doesn’t help. The screenplay dishes out trope after trope: missing a family vacation because of work, a character saying “where are my damn reinforcements” in the war scene, and an ending ripped straight out of Elf. Every human character is paper thin and exceedingly one dimensional. That being said, the Hundred Acre Woods characters are all as charming as ever. Cummings as Pooh is classic and Garrett’s Eeyore provided some of the only chuckle-worthy moments of the film.
 
And then there’s the visual style. The film is overwhelmingly grey. Occasionally, this works to the movie’s advantage at either building atmosphere or creating some pretty beautiful shots. But, for the most part, the visual style is a little too downtrodden. Combine that with some pretty poor editing and mediocre camerawork, and the film ends up feeling dreary and uninspired.
 
Besides the few genuinely heart-string tugging moments between Pooh and Robin at the end (carried by Cummings, might I add), the film didn’t make me feel much of anything. It was a mundane experience. The only real emotional response I ever had was annoyance at the lazy predictability of the screenplay. Christopher Robin is just a dull, uninteresting film.
 
Grade: C-

Heading into the press screening for The Equalizer 2, I had two thoughts: I have never seen a film with Denzel Washington in it where I felt Washington acted poorly, and I have never seen an Antione Fuqua movie that I liked. One of these two opinions changed while I was watching the sequel to Fuqua and Washington’s 2014 The Equalizer. The Equalizer 2 is the most bored and least-effort-giving I have ever seen Denzel Washington, and the film wastes his potential talent on a loosely tied together, tonally awkward, inconsistent, and formulaic plot.

The film continues the story of Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), a former member of a secret agency who now drives an Uber while secretly helping those in need with his badass skills. Things seem to be going decently well for McCall, who grooms a young man who lives in the same building as him to become a successful artist. But when McCall’s friend from the agency is killed on assignment, McCall is forced to dive into the fray. And this time, IT’S PERSONAL.

One of the only elements from the OG Equalizer film that I actually liked was the characterization of McCall. In that film, he was a likeable and kindhearted man who avoided violence at all costs, only getting involved when it helped an innocent person in danger. This made the badass nature of Washington when the shit hit the fan work, because it directly contradicted how his character was in day-to-day life.

The Equalizer 2 completely fails to do any of this. Washington and Fuqua seem to have either completely forgotten McCall from the first film or misunderstood what people liked about him. The McCall of Equalizer 2 is trapped in the badass mode, leaving the endearing moments feeling rigid. There is a scene where McCall saves his young friend from joining a street gang that feels insanely mishandled. Washington comes off more stand-offish and abusive compared to his fatherly personality in the original. Maybe this was intended as a character adapting, but that requires some level of effort to make me understand why he’s changing.

And then there’s the action. Equalizer 2 thinks it’s John Wick, but it’s missing two fundamental elements. One: McCall can’t get hurt. There are no scenes in which McCall seems to be in any kind of real danger, which negates any of the possible tension in the movie’s brutally violent action sequences. Two: the choreography and cinematography are both mediocre, blinding the audience to the majority of the action. These two elements combined defuse any enjoyment of the action by the time we’ve hit the 20 minute mark.

It also took a solid half an hour for me to realize what the plot of the movie was going to be. The film takes so long to get to the actual driving dramatic force. And not in a cool Marin Scorsese “we’re gonna get to know these characters and their world” kind of way. It’s more like a “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Denzel did these things that we can’t fit into the narrative structure of the film so we’ll just shove it in at the beginning” kind of way. Once the plot finally actually starts to kick in, its utter predictability makes for a yawn-inducing experience at the movies.

Equalizer 2 puts all of its bets on two things: Denzel Washington’s performance and violent action. And usually, that’s not bad call. But neither of things actually work in the film. The action is sloppy and repetitive and Washington’s performance is radically off from his usual charm. What results is possibly my least favorite movie from a director I already didn’t like.

Grade: D