Conspiracy Theory

 Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Starring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, and Patrick Stewarttt

Directed by Richard Donner

Written by Brian Helgeland

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin, Noah Centineo, Nat Faxon, and Patrick Stewart

Directed by Elizabeth Banks

Written by Elizabeth Banks

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Movie Review - Green Room

Green Room (2016)

Starring Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, Eric Edelstein, Macon Blair, Kai Lennox, and Patrick Stewart

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Through a friend of a friend, a punk rock band gets a gig at a slummy Neo-Nazi bar in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest.  Following the show, Pat (Anton Yelchin) returns to the green room to get a phone left behind only to discover a stabbed dead body on the floor.  Privy to this murder, the leaders of the Neo-Nazi group refuse to let Pat and his bandmates (Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner) leave and the quartet is forced to figure out a way to try and save themselves before they end up with the same murdered fate.

Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier has crafted an incredibly tense and utterly frightening film in Green Room, a fantastic follow-up and improvement upon his successful prior film Blue Ruin.  In his two films I've seen thus far, Saulnier is admirably successful in creating a gritty atmosphere and then adding some less-than-kind characters to the mix.  Fully realized and feeling quite lived in, Green Room pulls the viewer into the claustrophobic atmosphere from which we beg to escape much like the trapped bandmates.

The cast -- including the late Anton Yelchin as a band member and a terrifyingly calm Patrick Stewart as the Neo-Nazi leader -- gamely accepts the roles of either the terrorizers or the terrorized, helping to strengthen the intensity of the horrific situation unfolding on the screen.  Green Room isn't an easy sit -- it's quite violent and things don't always turn out well for the protagonists.  However, auteur Jeremy Saulnier has proven once again that he is quite adept and capable of making a film that puts uneasiness and intensity on the front burner.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Starring Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Evan Peters, Ian McKellan, and Patrick Stewart

Directed by Bryan Singer

While perhaps an unpopular opinion, I think that X-Men: First Class is one of the best superhero movies of all time.  Upon a second watch right before viewing its sequel, I once again was captivated by the flick's stories, direction, 1960s setting, and acting.  So, X-Men: Days of Future Past admittedly had a tough act to follow and while it doesn't quite live up to the high water mark of its predecessor, the film's attempt to bridge both the current generation of 2010's X-Men franchise with the 2000s X-Men franchise is solid.

Sometime in the future, robots known as Sentinels are killing all of the mutants and Professor X and Magneto (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan) have devised a plan using Kitty Pryde's (Ellen Page) powers to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time in order to try and change their present.  It's determined that post-Vietnam War, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) was captured by the US government and her DNA was studied by military scientist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) in order to create the shape-shifting beings known as the Sentinals.  By sending Wolverine back to right before Mystique is caught, Professor X and Magneto are hoping that they can change the course of history and prevent the Sentinels from even existing.

Fortunately, the dank, dark, overly computerized world of the future takes a backseat to Wolverine's trip down the 1970s memory lane and the large majority of Days of Future Past takes place in the past with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender reprising their roles as the younger versions of Charles Xavier and Eric Lehnsherr (Professor X and Magneto, respectively).  Once again, director Bryan Singer does a really great job creating a believable 1970s world for the X-Men to inhabit and it creates a landscape we don't often see in superhero movies that are so often told in the present day.  This retro feel continues to work to this X-Men iteration's advantage.

For the most part, the acting ensemble works well together, although I found the focus on Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique to leave a little to be desired.  Behind all that make-up and computer-generated blueness for her character, Lawrence's emoting stays a bit hidden which is a bit of a shame.  Additionally, the actors that make up the "future" segment of the film aren't given a whole lot to do and what they are tasked with gets repetitive pretty darn quickly.

While X-Men: Days of Future Past isn't as interesting or compelling as First Class, I give the film credit for refusing to back down from its conceit of pitting the X-Men against one another as they struggle to figure out whether the US government wants to help or hurt them.  This creates a constant feeling of uncertainty amongst the characters that gives them all much more depth than we have come to expect in superhero movies and it's one of the biggest reasons I think this X-Men series has been so successful.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)

Featuring the vocal talents of Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Kelsey Grammer, Hugh Dancy, Megan Hilty, Oliver Platt, Patrick Stewart, Bernadette Peters, and Martin Short 

Directed by Will Finn and Daniel St. Pierre

***This film is currently strewing on Netflix***

$70 million was spent on Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return -- an animated film that picks up right where the popular and iconic 1939 film ends.  Where that dough was spent, I don't know.

Was it spent on a voice cast picked straight out of a 1980s casting call?  Although I can't say anything bad about their work in the film, Dan Aykroyd as the Scarecrow, Jim Belushi as the Lion, Kelsey Grammer as the Tin Man, Oliver Platt as an owl, Bernadette Peters as Glinda the Good Witch, Martin Short as the "evil" Joker, and Patrick Stewart as a tree stump (you read that correctly) likely aren't raking in the dough.  Although rumors of her diva antics run rampant, I can't fathom that Lea Michele's agents were able to snag a boatload of cash for their client either despite the fact that Michele takes on the role of Dorothy.  While all of the voice cast does acceptable work, the money wasn't spent there.

Was it spent on the conglomeration of songwriters (including 90s staple Bryan Adams) who contribute a song or two to the plot?  If it was, that was certainly not money well spent as the songs are laughably disappointing.  Yes, Lea Michele's voice fits many of the ballads well, but the numbers lack emotion and sound much too similar to one another to merit distinction.

Was it spent on the animation?  I sure hope not.  The film looks little better than a cheaply made computer animated tv show.  Yes, some of the design elements are innovative in that they take the world of Oz (originally created by L. Frank Baum although this story [which is a retread of The Wizard of Oz but simply places new characters in the place of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion] is based on the work of his grandson) and shine a light on its fantastical lands, but the characters themselves are wooden, static, and as bland as can be.

So where was that $70 million spent?  Certainly not on this film, right?  They inadvertently added a zero after that seven, right?

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Gnomeo and Juliet

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

Featuring the voice talent of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, and Patrick Stewart 

Directed by Kelly Asbury

Romeo and Juliet is a story that has been told many times, and while it may never have been told through the eyes of stone garden gnomes, it certainly wasn't begging to be depicted in that capacity.  Gnomeo and Juliet is a film that simply doesn't work from a story perspective and it's pretty obvious why this flick which was formerly under the "Disney" banner went out under the company's "Touchstone" banner.  The animation folks at Disney knew it just didn't succeed.  [Of course, Disney released Mars Needs Moms under the Disney banner and that was an utter failure at the box office, so maybe they need to re-evaluate things in general.]

Saying that Gnomeo and Juliet doesn't work as a story isn't a knock against the source material.  At its core, the tale of star-crossed lovers pulled apart by their feuding families is successful.  However, taking this very adult story and trying to shoehorn it into a cutesy plot about garden gnomes for kids just doesn't fit.  When you take the family infighting of the Montagues and Capulets and simply turn things into Red Gnomes thinking they have a better garden than the Blue Gnomes, this becomes an animated film that may work fine for kids, but doesn't translate well in the least to adults.

The voice acting is lukewarm at best.  Although everyone was serviceable, James McAvoy and Emily Blunt didn't bring anything exciting or invigorating to the two title characters.  They were simply "Generic British Voices" thrust into the film.

The animation is fairly poor.  While a movie like Toy Story amazingly gave plasticized items a heart and soul, Gnomeo and Juliet doesn't even come close to creating life behind the stony eyes of its characters.  Sure, there were some cute moments, but nothing was really great to look at from a visual level.

When the best part of your film is trying to pick out what Elton John song variation is playing on the film's score ("Oooh, is that a bit of 'The Bitch Is Back?'"  "Hey, isn't that "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word?'"), you know your film's in trouble.  For some reason, Gnomeo and Juliet was a fairly successful venture in theaters, but it's quite a disappointment for anyone over the age of twelve.

The RyMickey Rating:  D