Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Shaft

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Sometimes you will see a movie that is full of cliches, stereotypes, and so much political incorectness that you are sorry you wasted your money.  This was not that movie.  Despite being loaded with all those things, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Samuel L. Jackson plays Shaft, the ultra-cool, ultra-gritty, ultra-violent detective who has a son, Shaft, Jr. (Jessie Usher), whom he hasn’t seen in 25 years.  Shaft Jr. is now an FBI analyst, who abhors violence, wears designer clothing and is pretty intent on pursuing a successful career path in the Bureau.  The two join forces when Jr.’s best friend, a rehabilitated veteran, turns up dead under mysterious curcumstances and he needs the help of his long absent dad.  Between Junior and his very modern and centered doctor girlfriend, as well as his mom who Shaft had left when Jr was a baby, there is alot of interplay and adjustments to be addressed. There is also a lot of violence, as to be expected; but a lot of humorous banter, which was not expected. Look for Richard Roundtree (the original Shaft) as the kick-butt grandfather. This is not the kind of movie that will get good reviews, or win awards, but I found it highly entertaining.

John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum

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If you saw John Wick 1 and 2, what I am about to say will not come as a surprise: this movie is over two hours of killing.  The killing is not creative, is relentless, and rather boring.  Keanu Reeves reprises his role as John Wick, a kind of international assassin, who works for a shady and ambiguous group called The High Table.  He gets in trouble, is stripped of the group’s  protection and finds himself with  a $14,000,000 bounty on his head.  It seems there are potential bounty hunters everywhere and they all come after John Wick.  Little do these would-be assassins know; John Wick has plot armor.  No matter how many bullets are fired at him, they almost all miss! When he does get hit or stabbed, he stitches or patches it up, shrugs it off, and continues on unhindered.  Luckily for John Wick, he is such a sharpshooter he kills literally hundreds of people without missing a shot!  And he apparently took the advice of Tallahassee and Columbus from “Zombieland” to heart, as he double taps everyone – at a minimum!   Of course, he uses more than guns.  John is trained in martial arts and gets to show his expertise, especially against Zero ( Mark Dacasco) who is excited to get to fight, and hopefully kill, his hero!  Do not worry, John Wick prevails through all.  Ian McShane,  Laurence Fishburn and Halle Berry all lend a hand.  I found the whole thing bloody and silly.  I am sure John Wick has lots of fans, but I just can’t recommend this movie unless you plan on being an international assassin and are looking for a few tips.

Alita: Battle Angel

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“Alita: Battle Angel” is an adaptation of a manga series titled Gunnm  so you know it is going to be weird, dark and strange.  Alita is a cyborg whose head and partial torso are found in a garbage dump by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) who puts these discarded machines back together.  He also moonlights as  a bounty hunter who turns in the bad guys for a reward.  Waltz is surprisingly subdued in the Ido role, and appears to be sleepwalkiing through a pretty under developed character.  Other supporting players are Marshala Ali and Jennifer Connolly, whose roles are also poorly developed and add little of interest to the narrative other than conventional and trite ‘bad guy’ activities.  Edward Norton makes the briefest apperance, not  even getting a minute of screen time. He’s unidentifiable anyway. The special effects are pretty incredible though.  Iron City and the world of a futuristic motor ball competition are well developed; and Aita is definitely a great fighter, using a combination of martial arts, speed, strength and an almost impenvious cyborg body.  Despite the action, I found many parts of the story slow and even down right boring.  Characters are not developed, one dimensional even.  There is so much that people like me who haven’t read the original source will not understand and may even find confusing.  There were also many opportunities to inject a little humor or fun into the proceedings, but  no such luck.  I guess if you are looking for a movie with great CGI and special effects, some good fight scenes but not much of a plot and wooden acting – this is the movie for you.

Widows

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This movie wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be.  I thought it was going to be a revenge movie about a bunch of widows who get back at some baddies who apparently killed their husbands after a botched heist. I was way off!  What ‘Widows’ turned out to be is a complicated character-driven movie with a few well turned plot twists. Viola Davis plays Veronica Rawlins, married to career criminal Harry Rawlins (played by Liam Neeson). He was the mastermind who planned a number of successful heists, and took care of everything…until this one went wrong. He and his henchmen are killed, leaving their wives not only alone, but out of home and a living, In the meantime, Colin Farrell’s character is running the usual duplicious campaign for alderman against a local black community leader, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), who is also a crook.  His brother, played by Daniel Kaluuya of ‘Get Out’ comes after Veronica and the other widows. It seems the money Liam Neesen may have stolen was Jamal’s.  He needs the money to win the elction over Colin Ferrell.  He is not ready to give the widows any mercy, and the pressure is on.  Everyone in this movie has a secret, and no one is wholy innocent.  But the most noble characters appear to be the widows, who are forced to perform a robbery in order to save their lives and families.  It is rare that a movie of this genre plays out with well-developed characters. It is not just another cops and robbers movie.  It has a very film noir feel to it.  If you are looking for a very adult movie, that is definitely not a happy holiday movie, you may want to check it out.

A Star is Born

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This is the fourth time that “A Star in Born” has been remade.  The first time was in 1937, and the last, til now, in 1976 – starring Barbra Striesand.  It must be a pretty good story to get this much play in Hollywood – and it is!  The plot is not complicated.  An alcoholic rock star is starting to decline because of his addiction although he is still immensly popular.  He meets a talented singer-song writer who can’t catch a break.  He is blown away by her talent and decides to help her.  You can guess the rest.  They fall in love and as her career takes off, his begins to fade.  What makes the fourth remake of this simple plot shine though are the stars!  Bradley Cooper is perfectly cast (he directs too) and, suprise, suprise – he can sing!  He needs to because the other lead is played by Lady Gaga and her singing is breathtaking!  Check out her rendition of ‘La Vie en Rose’ at the beginning of the movie.  You will come away feeling that she can’t possibly top that – but she does!!  I read that Lady Gaga, Bradly Cooper and Lukas Nelson (Willie Nelson’s son) wrote the songs – and they are all great.  “Shallow” is a terrific song and one that I will definitely add to my play list.  This is a wonderful, albeit sad, movie and I highly recommend it to music lovers everywhere!!