Best Films Of 2016

2016 is already coming to a close. This is kind of insane, I cannot believe this year has blown by this fast, and it is time once again to talk about my picks for my favourite movies of 2016. A lot of people have referred to 2016 as not the greatest year for film, and I guess that’d be true if all of your hopes and dreams were riding on movies like Independence Day resurgence or Jason Bourne. If your livelihood rests on the success of those movies well then I'm sorry, this year's probably kind of sucky for you. Yes, there were a lot of misfires this year in the big-budget franchise category. We're going to talk about a few of the really good ones in that category, but there were a lot of films I think this year that flew under people's radar, and we're going to talk about a lot of those, and this year I do have a few honourable mentions, some great films that I really wanted to put on this list, but didn't quite make it, and those films are:

Hell Or Highwater

The Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Sing Street

Kubo And The Two Strings

Doctor Strange

Star Trek Beyond

 10 Cloverfield Lane

5. Moonlight

Moonlight; this is a film that I can't see myself re-watching a lot because it is very long and it's very depressing and it's very intense, in its depiction of a boy growing up in a harsh urban environment. But despite the fact that I can't see myself popping this Blu-ray in every once in a while, I couldn't find a single flaw with this movie. This film is directed so masterfully and it told that story with such beautiful, heartfelt emotion, I think if you miss this film in theatres, definitely seek out that Blu-ray when it comes out.

4. Deadpool

Deadpool; this was for me, one of the biggest surprises of 2016. I was excited about this movie; I was careful though. I was like ‘uh, last time Ryan Reynolds portrayed Deadpool in a film, that really went south.’ And all of my worries just went out the door with in the opening credits alone. This is one of the best adaptations of a comic book hero to the big screen, regards to capturing to feel, the tone, and the essence of that character. I loved Deadpool everything a blockbuster movie should be.

3. La La Land

La La Land; I had to see this one again, I saw it a second time, just to make sure where it was on my list. This film got even better the second time. I have only one flaw with La La Land, I think that's a little too long, I think maybe about 15 minutes could be trimmed off the runtime. Other than that, this is one of the best, if not in my opinion, the best musical since the Blues Brothers. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are brilliant in this film, there are so many amazing musical numbers and dance sequences, and it is as close to perfectly directed a film like this gets, it feels like you're watching a movie that was made in the nineteen fifties today, in the theatre. La La Land is amazing, if you missed it in theatres, definitely check this one out, because it is starting to expand more, it is one of the best films of the year, and for a musical to be this high on my list, you know it's pretty damn good.

2. Captain America: Civil War

They pulled it off. Captain America: Civil War was a total blast; this was my most anticipated film of the year. I would have liked to have seen it as my favourite film of the year, but in the long run, it's on my list because it actually was that good. Does Spiderman have to be in this movie? Yeah! He's awesome, he's Spiderman, he's one of my favourite superheroes of all time, and even though you can kind of look at that and say maybe they shoehorned him in, I think they found a really great middle-ground of introducing that character. It was a great conflict between our heroes, it wasn't just about battles and action, and I think it all came to a head beautifully. It was exciting, and again, this is everything a blockbuster movie should be.

Well guys, it has come down to this what is my personal pick for my favourite movie of 2016, the Blu-ray that I've watched the most, the movie that I went to the theatre the most times to see, well that film is…

1.The Nice Guys

The Nice Guys is my favourite movie of 2016. This is a film that people just don't make anymore, when's the last time you saw a great detective noir style mystery? These films aren’t on the market anymore, and it's no surprise this film tanked heavily at the box office, nobody saw it, no one's talking about it anymore. Everyone that I've talked to about this film that did actually see it, liked it or loved it, I have not talked to a single person that didn't like The Nice Guys.

I think it is such an original film. Shane Black wrote and directed the shit out of this movie, his script is so incredible, I just re-watched it last night on Blu-ray to make sure this is my favourite movie of the year, and despite having seen it multiple times already, I laughed my ass off the entire time. Gosling gives I think one of the best comedic performances that I have seen in the past five to ten years. Russell Crowe is such a great companion piece for him, they work together so well, the chemistry is amazing. If you watch these two in interviews for The Nice Guys, they are great, this is a movie that has a fight scene with Keith David in it, if you're a fan of the movie; They Live, well then you know that a fight scene with Keith David is a pretty awesome thing to see.

Let's talk about Angourie Rice in this movie: My God, one of the most underrated performances of 2016, her accent in this movie is perfect, she is so great in this movie and so funny, it's no surprise that she's in the new Spiderman film. If you watch the Blu-ray special features of this movie, and go to ‘always bet on black’ special feature you will hear shane black talking about the fact that he wanted to make a sequel to this, he actually says ‘I could make movies like this with these two characters for the rest of my life’, and he goes ‘I'm not saying sequel, but sequel’. And of course, no one saw this movie because you know there's no superheroes in it.

The Nice Guys is the type of movie that people who love film should support. Please go out and buy this movie on Blu-ray, or rent it on Amazon, don't download it don't torrent it, actually support this film. The novelization is really good, I've read it, it's good. The soundtrack is amazing, I bought it on vinyl. The Nice Guys is my favourite movie of the year I think it's incredibly funny, I think the action set pieces are great, I think it has two characters I would love to see more from, and the most underrated screenplay of the year. For me, The Nice Guys is 2016 Edge Of Tomorrow… except Edge Of Tomorrow is actually getting a sequel, supposedly as it made a lot more money.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Good way to cap off the year

It's safe to say that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was one of my most anticipated films of the year. I have lived and breathed Star Wars my entire life, ever since my dad sat me down with the original VHS tapes, and made me watch the original trilogy. I have loved this thing since I was a little boy, I've played with the toys. I love Star Wars, so naturally going to this film, I was on edge, I was trembling, my heart was beating, I was waiting to see just every little moment of this movie. I wanted to see how the very first ever Star Wars anthology film, would open what they have a crawl, would they not have a crawl? What would they do differently with the score, what would the characters be like, how would everything wrap-up.

I've avoided all theories and speculation articles about this film, I have not read a single spoiler which by the way, this review will also be spoiler-free. I went into this film as a humongous fan, but also with an open mind, who obviously knows what the majority of this film is going to be about, because if you've seen Episode IV: A New Hope, you know that Leia had the Death Star plans, but how did these plans come into the hands of the rebels, and that's where this movie comes into play.

The character Jyn Erso, portrayed by Felicity Jones, and a team of rebels go out on a very small mission, to attempt to retrieve these Death Star plans and hopefully turn the tide in the battle against the Empire.

Let's start with the pros first: I really like the fact that this was a grounded, realistic Star Wars movie, it was sort of like a very fun action film that takes place in the Star Wars universe. It feels suitably small-scale despite its massive budget and incredible special effects, despite the fact that they're traveling all over the galaxy to many planets, there was something that felt more contained about this movie, which was refreshing. The film also features gorgeous action set-pieces, with mind-blowingly good CGI, and I'm talking about the space stuff, the ship to ship battles, the stuff on the beach battle that we were all very excited to see. The CG here is virtually flawless.

It is so well imprinted within this film, that it feels completely seamless with the human characters. There's a lot of sequences, especially within the beach battle where you see the AT-AT is walking around, and it's often shown from the perspective of the humans on the ground, so you get a way of relating to it, and it also depicts the size very well, just something that Gareth Edwards, who directed this film, did a really good job in with Godzilla, making him look gigantic. You really felt the size of that creature in that movie, and you feel that with a lot of the CG in this film. It's very well incorporated with the people that are on the ground.

The performances are all (almost) uniformly great. Felicity Jones is terrific, Diego Luna is very good, Riz Ahmed is great. In regards to the new characters that are in this film, I would say that Donnie Yen and K2-SO the droid, are my favourite new additions to the Star Wars universe. I thought Donnie Yen was a complete badass in this movie, all his fight scenes were really cool, and I like his character, there's a lot of good humour there, and speaking of humour, K2-SO is by far the shining example of it in this film. He has so many great lines, he's such a fun and likeable character, he's easily my favourite part of this movie in regards to the characters. I also appreciated the brief call-backs, and references to other Star Wars films they're there, but they're not overpowering. The film is wise enough to trust its own story, and be fun in its own right, whilst not relying too much on things of the past that we appreciate. But they're there in small doses, and if you pick up on some of them it's going to make the experience more entertaining for you.

The aesthetics of the film are also beautiful, the production design feels used, dirty, lived in, the type of Star Wars we like to see, the sort of dirty futuristic world, where it feels tangible and real, and I love the prop creatures as well that were on display, a lot of really fun stuff. Also, this film puts to rest a decades-long complaint with Star Wars fans, I can't say what it is but this film addresses a very specific complaint that many people had with the Star Wars universe, and it did it in a very emotionally satisfying way. And let's talk about a certain character named Darth Vader that we all know is in this movie, he has an incredibly awesome scene, an extremely satisfying seen that gave me goosebumps. It is great, it is great…

…which leads me into my negatives, because this film is not perfect. Rogue One, I think is an enjoyable film, I do not think it's a great film. To be honest, I left the theatre, a little underwhelmed. I was kind of disappointed mainly with the characterization. Jyn Erso is really the only character that we’re given a reason to root for or care about. The majority of the other characters are set up in a very sloppy fashion. For the first act of this film, there are aspects of the first act that did feel messy.

This film underwent extensive reshoots, this was very well publicized, a lot of people were concerned about that, and it does show. There's an intriguing friendship set up between Donnie Yen's character and Jiang Wen’s character. But there's never a reason given for why they're friends. We actually learn nothing about either of those characters. They're just funny and the script has some good lines for them and they felt unfortunately safe. There just wasn't anything there beyond the ‘let's make some funny jokes’, and I liked Donnie Yen, because he's the badass side character, he can be that cool character who comes in and kicks ass, and you're like ‘yeah you're cool’, and K2-SO can be that cool droid character who comes in and tells jokes you're like ‘yeah you're funny’, but there isn't much else to them.

The characters that really needed focus like Diego Luna, except for one real outburst that he has, we learn nothing about him either. Instead of more characterization being given to these characters, and more reasons for us to care about them. We get strange, out-of-place scenes, like a mind-reading tentacle monster, I don't really know why that was in the movie. Forrest Whitaker is an actor that I really like. His character in the film is based off of a character who appears in the Clone Wars animated show. His voice in this film I can tell you is probably going to polarize a lot of people. My best way to describe it would be if someone stepped on my throat right now, I’m just talking like this yeah it’s like that, I'm not exaggerating that's really what he talks like. After a while, I was kind of like ‘I don't know about that either’.

There's a character in this film that is full CG, it’s a motion-capture face, it is something that had to be in this film. I expected it, I figured it would be involved in some way, I just didn't think it would get as much screen time as it did, and it was very distracting. Which leads me to Darth Vader. Now Darth Vader is one of my favourite characters of all time, in fact I think if you went out in public, and pulled say a thousand people, and asked them who the greatest movie villain of all time was, I bet you Darth Vader would be at least number two and probably number one, he's amazing, Darth Vader's like the greatest person ever I love Darth Vader, what I'm trying to say is the fact that Darth Vader's in this movie, I went to the theatre like ‘oh my gosh,  I'm about to hear James Earl Jones talking as Darth Vader. And he’s in the movie for about four minutes maybe…

Look, I enjoyed the newest Godzilla film which was also directed by Gareth Edwards, but I think the majority of people wanted more of Godzilla when they left that film, because Gareth Edwards, for whatever reason was like ‘hey I'm making a movie with Godzilla, let’s just not show him’, and for whatever reason again, we have a film that has Darth Vader, like he literally has the opportunity to show Darth Vader for this entire film, he chooses to show him like a couple times… Why? And I know what you're thinking ‘well you're just being a fanboy for Star Wars, and you want everything to be old, like the way it was, you don't want anything new’.

I loved the Force Awakens, and I went into the Force Awakens, expecting Luke Skywalker to be in the film, and if you've seen Force Awakens, you know it's not really the case. He's in there, but not really and I loved it. Why? Because I loved the characters Rey, Finn, Poe, Han solo, great characters kept me invested. Kylo Ren, I love Kylo Ren, these characters can be invested in this story, there isn't a character in Rogue One that I like more than Darth Vader, especially Krennic, portrayed by Ben Mendelsohn, who is suitably over-the-top, and I enjoyed his work in this film, but as a character and as a villain, he just does not stand up to Darth Vader so I constantly like ‘Where's Vader let's get some more of that’, because the other characters in the film aren't as cool or interesting. And, there's nothing really to them to make me more invested in them, like I was invested in the characters in Force Awakens, because when I left, Force Awakens, I was like ‘actually I don't mind that Luke wasn't in that movie’ because there are other characters that are great.

I don't have that feeling with Rogue One, which is why I wanted more Darth Vader, which brings me to that CG character, the majority of his scenes I was like ‘you could just have Darth Vader be in those scenes like I don't need this motion capture guy, just have Darth Vader do this stuff’. I understand that you need this specific character to be in the film because he's integral to this whole story. Haven't him be in like one scene, I figured he'd be like in one scene, but he was it like five or six, and for whatever reason, Vader was in literally two, and I'm like ‘I need more of that please’

To be completely honest, if you told me that the reshoots that were done for Rogue One were to add the character of Darth Vader to this film, I'd say that makes perfect sense, that's how little he's actually in the movie.

Full disclosure: my biggest issue with Rogue One is that nothing surprised me. Now I did not read a single internet article about speculation theories or spoilers, I stay away from all of that because I'm not really a fan of that, because it's like ‘oh this could happen, it’s gonna happen, okay maybe Kylo Ren's Luke Skywalker what if that was true, wow that would be weird…seriously. But still having read none of that information, nothing in Rogue One took me off guard, nothing surprised me there, wasn't a single moment where I was like ‘wow I didn't expect. Say for that one thing that I told you, addressed a flaw with the Star Wars universe, that people have complained about for years, that was the one thing I was like ‘that's awesome, I love that’ other than that, everything basically played out the way I expected it to. Except for the fact that I thought there’d be a lot more Vader.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking ‘man he really hates Rogue One’, actually no, I enjoyed watching this movie, I think it's good. It's just that when you are a giant Star Wars fan, when Star Wars is special to you, when it means something to you, when it has impacted your life in an emotional way positively, the things that aren't great about the Star Wars films, are going to stick out to you, and they're going to hit you on a deeper level than I think most. And so that's one of the reasons why you get such rage over the prequels, and the fact that people flipped out the Force Awakens was similar to a New Hope, because we expect so much out of these movies, and that's not wrong, but at the same time I must reiterate, that I did enjoy Rogue One, and I want to see it again. I thought it was a terrifically exciting and fun action movie.

But as a Star Wars film, I expected more out of one very specific thing the thing that makes me want to watch Star Wars over and over and over and the thing, that's going to make me show Star Wars to anyone I've ever met, or future children if I do have them: the characters. The characters of Star Wars are what keep us all watching it, and the characters in Rogue One let me down. There wasn't a sense of urgency or intensity with them, they were just funny and likeable. Jyn Erso did have a background, and there were reasons to care, but I wanted more from characters, because as a huge Star Wars fan, that's what keeps me coming back, and not the space battles, not AT-AT’s, not Darth Vader's lightsaber.

It's the characters, it's the fact that I would like to go to the cantina and have a drink with Han Solo, that's what makes me want to watch Star Wars. The action sequences are amazing, and roll one and it is definitely worth seeing, and I will buy the Blu-Ray, it is a very fun exciting Star Wars movie, but the characters for me we're lacking.

Grade - B

I must reiterate, I enjoyed the film, but it's not a perfect movie and I wasn't going to sit here and act like it was just because I love Star Wars

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them - In the words of the ninth doctor

Fantastic Beasts and where to find them, is directed by David Yates, who's made every single Harry Potter film in the franchise, ever since Order of the Phoenix, and the stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, a guy who is looking through old New York City, 70 years before Harry Potter ever read his book in school, for various creatures that have escaped his suitcase. He goes around collecting feared creatures, who a lot of people want exterminated immediately, because he feels that if he can take care of them and nurture them, he can create a relationship with these creatures. Thus, showing other people in the magic community at this time, some of these creatures really don't mean them any harm. So not only is Newt trying to go around New York City, and find all the creatures that have escaped his case, he's also trying his best to make sure that no one finds out what's really going on.

Now I'm a big Harry Potter fan, I enjoy all of the movies, some are better than others, so I was really excited for this movie. It's also written by JK Rowling, so this is the first time that someone who is a hardcore Harry Potter fan, can actually go to the film to experience things for the very first time, without actually knowing what's going to happen. Also, Harry Potter fans can go to this movie and not be wondering what they got right, and what they got wrong, when they're comparing it to the book, because this is her original screenplay, and once again, she has shown herself to be one of the most imaginative writers working today.

I really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts. I so admire her imaginative qualities as a writer, this world has so many cool things in it that make the child inside me get really excited. I love all the creature designs, everything looks so cool, just like all the other Harry Potter films. I want to own or at least be friends at least half of the creatures in this film, but pushing my fandom of the Harry Potter universe aside, what I really liked about this movie was the way it's constructed. David Yates once again proves that he's a director who understands this world, which is why I'm glad he signed onto the sequel to this film, and what he brings to this universe is a great sense of how to direct really epic action sequences and special effects. But he's also really good at slowly building and setting up characters, and making us appreciate this world without overly relying on our knowledge of the Harry Potter universe, or our love Harry Potter universe, and that's probably my number one favourite thing about this movie.

Unlike almost every prequel ever made, Fantastic Beasts and where to find them does not rely on our fandom of other films, to make us appreciate this one. Pretty much every remake, reboot, spin-off, sequel, prequel whatever, they all have ties to the other things that we like, and some of them do it way too much. But the entire creative team behind this movie have made a movie that stands on its own. You don't even have to have seen the Harry Potter films to understand and appreciate this movie, it can be a world on its own without having to even experience those other films, and that's something to be praised.

They didn't rely on tons of fan-service, and references and little visual cues to make us go ‘oh look that's that's great great grandfather of this character’, like we don't need that in this movie, because they set up a good movie on its own. Eddie Redmayne is fantastic as Newt, he's vulnerable, he's very likeable and he's an extremely accessible character, but also one that is good at hiding past pain without making it seem clichéd. And Dan Fogler as Kowalski, this normal no-mag, or muggle, who really wants to set up a bakery, who gets caught up in all this, he's the audience character, you know he's the guy who's constantly like ‘hey what's going on?’ And they explain things to him, but they're really explaining it to us, but he's that character. He was so good, he really added a lot to this movie a lot of really good humour while also being the audience character, he was the comic relief as well, and he never got annoying he never felt like a sidekick, and that's something I was really glad. Because as soon as he was like on the mission with Newt, I was like ‘Oh shit this could oh… ok’ and by the end of the movie that character was actually one of the most emotional elements of the film, that actually did bring a tear to my eye, and I was sitting there like ‘Am I kind of tearing up? Shit’.

I also really like Katherine Waterson as Tina, she's investigating the things that are going on in New York City, a lot of things are scaring people, weird sites, strange things are happening, and I'm not going to get too much into that, I think you should experience that aspect of the film without me even saying anything. What I will say is that it's awesome that's a lot of fun, it's the type of film that allows you to get excited about future instalments, without feeling like a setup movie. My two least favourite Harry Potter films, even though I like them were, the first two, because largely they did feel kind of like set up movies, those are my biggest flaws of the first two Harry Potter films. Fantastic Beasts does set up a new world that we can appreciate that we've already been to, but this is a previous time, but it doesn't feel like it's just a setup movie it feels like it stands on its own as an extremely entertaining film, and I loved it.

As for issues, I really only have a couple. In the earlier parts of the movie, there are two editing / CGI mistakes I noticed. The very first shot that we see, a wide shot the Statue of Liberty, if you look to the right of the frame, I noticed that the American flag jumped unnaturally, and I think that was actually a CGI mistake that's a nitpick. But since this is the first time I saw this movie, and I noticed that right off the bat, I think other people probably will too. There's also a really strange editing choice where two characters in the beginning are walking past each other, and the shots jump extremely fast to Katherine Waterson, and then back to Eddie Redmayne, and I was like ‘Wow, that's messy editing. There are some narratively rocky points in the first act were there are some scenes that feel kind of like they're just entertaining scenes that will be great as a scene that you watch again, but don't necessarily feel like they fit in this story. And just like with any film like this that requires a lot of explaining, there are some heavy exposition scenes, mostly given to Dan Fogler’s character, so that we as an audience can understand things and sometimes it does feel like school, and that's really it.

I had a blast with Fantastic Beasts. I think people are really going to enjoy this movie, especially if you're Harry Potter fans, but even if you're not, I think it's a fun and accessible movie that's going to get people excited.

Grade - A-

This is the ninth film in the Harry Potter universe, and they're still good…that's amazing.

Doctor Stange - Marvel gives us some Doctor Strange(Love)

Doctor Strange is directed by Scott Derrickson and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, a very successful but arrogant doctor who after a debilitating car accident, can no longer use his hands this is life now… that would suck. And when Western medicine fails him, he turns to Eastern medicine, and discovers this monastery of sorts, in which he learns about magic, sorcery and many different dimensions he never knew existed. As well as a mystical war that is raging, and he tries to find his place in between these two warring things.

My best way to describe this movie, I gotta say, I got to give the writers of this movie major props, because Marvel has once again introduced a very strange (pun intended) and obscure comic book character into the MCU, and made it work. I thought Thor and Asgard was going to be hard, I thought Ant-Man was going to be weird. One of the reasons this character works so well is because of Benedict Cumberbatch, in fact it is the biggest reason. He really gives a lot to this role, he has the perfect level of arrogance, comedy and confusion, especially confusion. But what I loved about his character was how passionate he was about bettering himself. He’s someone who takes his intellect very seriously, arrogantly so, but at the same time, he's also someone who just wants to learn everything he can to get better at whatever he wants to do. It’s one of the reasons why his character was such a successful physician, and it's one of the reasons he becomes such a successful sorcerer, because he wants to better himself in every way he can, and so that aspect of the character I really latched onto, and really appreciated.

What really blew me away in this movie where the visuals, this was a very remarkable 3-D experience. I do actually recommend that you see in 3-D, normally that's not something that I focus on, but the 3-D definitely added something to these city bending, world moving sequences that really made my jaw drop. The action sequences in this film are fantastic, except for one thing, I don't necessarily think Scott Derrickson handled some of the hand-to-hand combat sequences as effectively as he could have it's not shaky-cam, there was just a level of intensity missing from the simpler action sequences, that were given to the incredible visual effects heavy sequences. Which by the way, I say visual effects heavy, but I never really looked at something and I was like ‘man that’s such a computer image, I don’t buy any of this for a second’. These are class-A visual effects, some of the best I've ever seen in a superhero movie. And yes it is going to draw comparisons to Inception and The Matrix, that's inevitable but Doctor Strange as a comic, has been around for a while and this aspect of that world has been in those comics for a while but it's clearly drawing inspiration from Inception. People jumping on walls and the gravity-defying elements, it's just that there's a lot more of it in this film.

I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, he was a lot of fun. Tilda Swinton was very good as the Ancient One I thought she was great in the movie; it would have been nice to see that character portrayed by someone who is actually the ethnicity of the character in the comic I’m not gonna sit here and complain about it because she was really good in the movie. And one of my favourite actors; Mads Mickelson, oh my god I loved him, he was so good in this movie. His character could have been given a little more though, I would have appreciated a little more depth behind him. Another thing I really appreciated about this movie is it does feel very different from the other films in the MCU. Certain elements of the third act, it's extremely different from the way most of these big superhero extravaganza of visual effects beam in the sky, people blow up everything movies now. I love superheroes, I love comic books, I love comic book movies, but it was just nice to see one that fits into the world that has a similar warm colour tones and tongue-in-cheek humour and visual effects, and amazing action sequences. But it was nice to see one that genuinely felt of its own world.

As for negatives, I feel that the first act is a little bit clunky, in setting up the character and getting to the place where he eventually meets the Ancient One. The second she touches his forehead, from that moment on, I was in, I was locked into the movie, it was a really fun from there, but getting to that felt a little blocky, just a little bit, the pacing could have been a lot better. There's some humour also that doesn't always work. I would say it's about 70:30 for me in regards to humour and jokes that hit and it does kind of. Though some of his training aspects, you feel like there should be a little bit more, there are comparisons to be made to Batman Begins. Because with Bruce Wayne, that movie travels to this faraway land and learns all these mystical magical things. And with this one, it's a lot more literal in regards to the magic, but in Batman Begins, it was just paced better, and you felt that world building, and this movie, it kind of wants to get to Doctor Strange getting his red cape, The Levitation Cloak and everything being really cool and awesome. And it's cool to see everything happen, and you're excited that it's getting to that point, but I do feel like his training was rushed just a little bit.

The movie also suffers from a lot of exposition, and that's one of the biggest flaws. I would say of this movie, is the need to explain so much to us because it's such a weird different world from the other MCU films, that there are many scenes in which our hero is standing there listening to people explaining things to him, and we're gonna need some of that, and I wouldn't say that it wasn't interesting, i would say that it was mostly always fun and compelling to watch and learn about this world, it just does get really bogged down on exposition sometimes. As for visual effects in this movie, everything was mind-blowingly great, except for one visual effects character that I was just kinda like ‘That's a cartoon! I don't believe that's real!’ Also, I really liked Rachel McAdams in this movie, she plays the love interest of sorts of Stephen Strange, they have some off and on’s together, but I liked how he had to keep going back to her at certain points for help, it added a lot of humour to the movie, that mostly worked very well.

In the end Doctor Strange has incredible visual effects, a very cool hero, a very fun backstory that does get bogged down in a lot of exposition, mostly working humour, and a character that I can't wait to see more of. It’s not one of the best in the MCU, I wouldn't say it's one the worst, it's not as good as Deadpool and especially Civil War, but I had a lot of fun with this movie and I love Benedict Cumberbatch as this character and I'm excited to see him in other films.

Grade - B+

The post-credit scenes also set up the MCU fairly nicely 

The Girl On The Train - Gone Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train

The Girl on the Train is directed by Tate Taylor and stars Emily Blunt and this is the adaptation of the extremely popular novel of the same name. Emily blunt plays a very broken woman who is dealing with alcoholism, who rides a train every day and lives vicariously through the people that she views through the windows. She makes up stories about how she thinks they may live. And these fantasies she develops with these people in her head are what keep her going every day. Until she sees something that shocks her and leads her down a very dark path, to a place where a ‘whodunit’ mystery develops and we as the audience have to figure out what is truth and what is fiction, as this character also tries to figure out the same thing.

The marketing for this movie was really intense, it really beat you over the head, it was trying to make you think this movie was gonna be incredible. A lot of people have compared to Gone Girl because of similar themes. Every poster had the tagline ‘What did she see?’ in big bold letters all the commercial said this. ‘The thriller that shocked the world’ was what I kept hearing and so naturally, I was excited for this movie, because of course it was gonna shock me too right?

…

In reality, this is an emotionally vapid, dull, lifetime channel original movie given the Hollywood treatment, and an extremely overhyped marketing campaign to get everyone really interested in a film that's pretty much emotionally weightless. For the first few minutes of this movie, I was like ‘man Emily Blunt is really delving deep into this role this could be a really impressive film, I can't wait to see where this story goes’. But as the movie progresses and progresses… and continuously progresses and keeps progressing, I kept waiting for the movie to start and I think maybe about an hour and it starts. Everything before that is just a train ride (pun intended) to a destination that you're waiting to eventually get to, and once you get there it's okay, you’re like ‘alright that's interesting’ but then the movie divulges into extreme melodramatic territory, where characters make decisions that are purely based on hopefully shocking you, or maybe getting that extra dramatic punch in there when it really doesn't seem to work.

There are really fine performances in this movie. Emily Blunt is a lot better than this movie deserves. Rebecca Ferguson who was excellent and Rogue Nation is also really good here and Haley Bennett ‘at times’ is very good. Luke Evans is also good in this film, Allison Janney shows up and is excellent as a detective was trying to figure out what's going on. But for the most part, the performers in this movie are entirely reliant on whether or not the screenplay decides to give them good dialogue for the scene or Twilight fanfiction and dialogue. The dialogue in this screenplay goes in so many different directions, it goes from being good, to acceptable, to awful in the flash of a few minutes.

My next criticism is going to contain mild spoilers, so I'm just going to warn you. This is my best way to describe this film though. It starts out… fairly okay, and you're like ‘this could be compelling, this could be an interesting narrative’ and by the end of it, you realize it's just one of those movies where every character has had sex with each other and they want to try to ring every little bit of drama out of it they can. This film has some good performances, it has a story that could have been interesting, but the execution especially from Taylor does not fit this film. I found his direction to be very flat filled with odd choices, like using low framerate photography, which really made it look very ugly sometimes. And I just did not feel that his direction really added much to this story. In fact I think it detracted from it, and this is coming from the guy who made a movie ‘The Help’, which I thought was good. I don't really know what happened with this film. This is a film that has good marketing and good performances… and that's about it. 

Grade - C-

This film missed just about every opportunity it had to be a great film. I don't know what happened

Kubo And The Two Strings - Laika does it again

Kubo And The Two Strings is the latest stop-motion animated film from the studio Laika. You know them from films like Coraline, ParaNorman and the Boxtrolls, and this film tells the story of a young boy named Kubo, who through various circumstances that I don't want to ruin for you find himself on an adventure with a monkey and a beetle searching for three very specific objects that he believes he can use to do battle against an evil force from his past.

If you guys know anything about me, you know that I love animation, but I specifically love stop-motion animation a lot. I love this art form, I have ever since I was a kid. the early days of old animated shows like bump in the night to newer things like Wallace and Gromit, and then Laika came along with their beautiful films and have blown me away consistently, save for the Boxtrolls which I thought was just ‘fine’. But ParaNorman was fantastic and Coraline to me, is one of the best animated films ever made and I like Kubo even more than Coraline.

For me, this is Laika’s best film so far, and I am a huge fan of their studio. Similar to Zootopia earlier this year, this movie reminded me why I love animated film so much. This is a glorious, beautifully animated film that rarely has a dull moment, in fact it doesn't. This movie is constantly entertaining, this is such a well-directed movie too. Even though I am such a big fan of Laika, I just didn't expect this movie to be as thoughtful or mature as it was, and to use various themes that I think a lot of the kids that saw this movie probably aren't even going to pick up on yet until their older. But that's okay because this is also an action-packed extremely fun adventure film that can work on multiple levels. You can watch this movie as a more mature film or you can enjoy the adventure and the spectacle because it is beautiful to look at.

The voice work is all uniformly great, the animation as I've already said I could sing its praises forever, it's fantastic to look at and the amount of work that's put into these movies is absolutely staggering, and it's never been more impressive in any of Laika’s films than it is in this one. The action sequences are extremely fantastic, the characters are also very entertaining, the Monkey especially stole the entire film for me, you're gonna love the monkey she's awesome. It's also a film brimming with imagination that asks kids to be imaginative, to use their imagination and to think beyond our own physical world that's in front of us and to think about other more important things as well, which is a hugely important message for kids and adults.

I have but one small issue with this movie, and it's once the main villain is revealed, his motivation for being evil and for doing what he's doing is very murky and kind of unclear, and doesn't really make sense. I get it from the perspective that the film is telling me as I watch it, but it just doesn't really connect with me as a clear motivation for doing what he's doing. Before I started typing this review, I was like ‘should I say what I'm thinking but I'm thinking it so I'm going to say it’. I honestly think that if Laika continues on this level of animation, on this level of storytelling for the next few years in the next few decades, I think we might have the next Studio Ghibli on our hands. These guys are making quality films and my god Kubo is a beautiful one.

Grade - A

Besides the fact this movie is really that good, I strongly suggest seeing it because Laika’s film simply don't make enough money, and they need to, it's one of the biggest reasons why Studio Ghibli had to close its doors, they just weren't making enough money. Laika needs to make some money because they are making some of the best animated films out there. Go see this movie this weekend support them it's worth your time guys.

Suicide Squad - Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaaah

Suicide Squad is finally here from writer director David Ayer, the man who brought us movies like Training Day ‘yes’, Sabotage ‘meh’ . And if you guys know anything about this movie or these characters, you know that it is an assemblage of the baddies, this is like the Justice League of the bad guys. Viola Davis wants to recruit these people to go out into the city to defeat this thing that's wreaking havoc in the middle of the city, and a beam is shooting up to the sky and it's a big deserted City and there's a battle so you know it's a comic book movie… or the new Ghostbusters… that happens a lot in movies is what I'm saying.

Now I was really excited for this movie, not just because I enjoy the comics and I love these characters, but because of the cast involved and the director. I think Training Day is an excellent movie, and I like end of watch maybe even a little bit more. I think David Ayer is super talented, so I was so excited to see what he can bring to this universe because not only is he directing, but he's also writing so that's a big creative talent working with all these awesome characters, and a plethora of great source material we'll talk more about that in a minute.

Let's talk about pros first: Will Smith as Deadshot, I really like this character, he's one of the very few people in this team that’s given any bit of characterization. He has a daughter, you learn a little bit more about his past, there's a really integral scene involving another DC Comics character that gives him some humanity, and it makes you feel for him. I also thought he was very entertaining and a lot of his jokes hit. That's another positive, this movie is more lighthearted, it does have humour, and it feels like the characters are having fun. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, she was exactly like the animated series character, she did a great job capturing that characters unhinged insanity while also, similar to Deadshot, having just a small thorough line of humanity peeking out of it.

The first 20 to 30 minutes or so we're pretty good, although there is a lot of people telling us about characters. There's a big difference between us watching something happen to a character, and another character that we don't know just coming in and saying “here's what you need to know about this person, because we don't really have any time to set up these characters, let's just get to the big beam in the sky”. For instance, if you had never heard of Superman before, or he was a more obscure comic book character, and he comes on screen and somebody says “this is Superman, his planet was destroyed, he has no family, feel bad for him”. That's essentially most of the characterization we get for the members of the Suicide Squad, except for Deadshot and Harley Quinn, and a lot of their stories are told through excessive flashbacks.

The brief appearances by Batman were awesome. Ben Affleck once again looks amazing as this character and I want to see Ben Affleck as Batman in a great movie. Also, believe it or not, Jai Courtney was not awful, he was actually pretty good as Captain Boomerang and a fun and likable presence… miracles do happen. And last on my list of pros is Jared Leto as the Joker. I think that he is doing something really cool. I think that he's doing something very different, I like his portrayal of the Joker. It wasn't exactly like Nicholson, it wasn't exactly like ledger, it was sort of a combination of the best of the both, and he also had some really cool visual things going on with his face and his outfits, there were some good moments with him, and that leads me into my cons.

When I said there were some good moments with the Joker, that's absolutely what I meant. He's barely in this movie, don't go to this movie excited about Jared Leto as the Joker, because you're not going to get much of it. His scenes are so minimal that when I think back on the movie, I can't think of that one scene with the Joker. I can't think of a standout scene, he doesn’t have an interrogation scene like in the Dark Knight. He doesn't have a ‘Ahh, and I thought my jokes were bad scene’ he has nothing like that. He's just got a couple lines every here in there scattered throughout the movie, that was a big disappointment for me because a lot of the marketing kept his performance very under wraps like it was this big awesome thing, but in reality they just didn't have that much footage to work with because he's barely in this movie.

The second and third act is a gigantic city scene, it all just kind of bleeds together and becomes one big messy scene. I could tell they were trying to make a more contained film which I am all for, I love contained movies, I love smaller movies that have big ideas to take place in one small environment, but that claustrophobia just wasn't there and that feeling of in the moment, real-time action just wasn't there because there is some seriously choppy editing going on here, and a ton of shit was cut out I KNOW it. There has got to be a ton of deleted scenes on this Blu-ray, and I am really curious to find out about that, because there's also a lot of scenes that do feel very much so tacked on. There's this elevator fight scene with Harley Quinn that really felt like it was a reshoot scene.

From the beginning of the second act all the way to the finale, it just felt like so much had been cut out and removed from this movie, to where it was just bare bones action sequences and a few conversations. Now there was one aspect of this movie that I was very curious about because it was kept from almost all marketing, and that is the villain. Now if you don't know who the villain of this movie is and you don't want to know who the villain of this movie is, I'm going to talk about the villain now. I don't consider it a spoiler but if you don't want to know who the villain is or my thoughts on said villain, then I will let you know that I'm about to discuss it. That's my way of respecting you guys.

The villain in this movie is in Enchantress, she’s this which character who can do all kinds of crazy things, she has a relationship with one of the people involved with the Suicide Squad, and so there's some tension there because she's also this which enchantress that can take over people and make them do things, and she turns a random person into Incubus, and this guy just kind of starts wreaking havoc and she just starts running around and doing like hip moves and making like weird faces and twirling her arms around. One of my friends said she looked like she was hula dancing most of the time, and I gotta tell you guys straight up, there were aspects of this finale that reminded me of Fan4stic, it is THAT messy. At one point one character is in dire danger and you're positive this character is dead, things that are like tentacles are like going through this person's body and shit, and like five minutes later this character just walks on screen their clothes are perfect there's no dirt there's no sweat and there like “hey what's up - I'm fine”

So in truth, the storytelling here is very poor, it's a very choppy film, there are entire things that just feel ripped out and left on the cutting room floor. I'm very curious to see what this Blu-ray looks like in the special features. There are good portrayals some of these characters in this movie like the Joker, like Harley Quinn, like Deadshot. There are aspects of these characters I really enjoyed, I wanted way more Jared Leto, because I was intrigued by what he was doing. There are some good jokes, there are some fun scenes but the action sequences feel very pedestrian and there doesn't seem to be anything special about them, there's just a lot of weird shapes coming out of the sides of the frame and people slice through them and shoot them and nothing really happens of much weight or importance. Suicide Squad, while better than Batman v Superman in my opinion, was still disappointing.

Grade - C+

Also another quick pro, the score by Steven Price is very good as well