Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Hotel Artemis

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Hotel Artemis is not your run of the mill thriller; kudos to Drew Pearce for the original script.  Set in the near future, Los Angles is being torn by riots.  In the middle of the chaos we  find The Hotel Artemis.  No longer a hotel, The Artemis has become a high end hospital for criminals.  As long as you keep your dues up to date, you can enter anytime  you are injured in the course of your nefarious activities. If you haven’t kept your dues in order, Everest the Orderly (Dave Bautista) will ‘gently’ help you off the premises. The Nurse (JodiFoster) uses state-of-the-art diagnostics and nano technolgy to treat her patients, who are lodged in rooms named after exotic locales.  You are welcome to stay as long as you need, as long as you follow the rules, which include “no killing each other.”  This and other rules are enforced by Everest the Orderly.  Things are going along fairly well, in spite of the riots outside the Hotel, until the owner, The Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum) is rushed in for emergency surgery, aided and abetted by his bad seed son (Zachary Quinto), and the wheels start coming off.  The Nurse makes things worse by taking in a wounded cop (a SERIOUS violation of the rules) connected to a distracting side story. The superb cast also includes Sterling K. Brown, Sophia Boutella and Charlie Day.  Now for the bad news.  Hotel Artemis just isn’t as interesting or as entertaining as I thought it would be.  The action lagged;  Jodi Foster’s Nurse’s  side story concerns her deceased son and wasn’t necessary.  It really took away from the rest of the story.   I wanted to see more of the day to day runnning and organization of this hospital.  Drew Pearce had such an original idea, I wish he would have really ran with it more.  This movie gets a very mixed review from me.  Two thumbs up for the creative premise and the brilliant cast, but two thumbs down for the execution and direction.

Upgrade

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Not many people have heard of this movie, and that is too bad.  This is a well done little gem, one that in bygone days would have been called a B movie. Think of a cross between Death Wish and Altered Carbon and throw in a little West World and Ex Machina and you have Upgrade.  Set in a near future society where most people have self-driving cars and classy tech, Grey Trace ( played by Logan Marshall-Green) is a throwback to a simpler time.  He restores vintage cars and sells them to bored rich people.  One of those rich people is a tech company honcho who shows Grey and his wife a special new gizmo that will ‘change everything’.  After their visit, something goes wrong while they are traveling home – his wife is murdered and he is paralyzed from the neck down.  Luckily for Grey, the billionare tech master and inventer has an experimental cure called STEM that can repair his body with an upgrade.  This upgrade leaves Grey with almost super-human strength, reactions, and agility.  But…and it’s a big but, STEM also has a personallity of his own.  With STEM’s guidance, Grey now has the ability to find his wife’s murderers and seek justice, or peprhaps it is just revenge.  Either way, things do not go as planned and there are several twists.  This taut thirller is well written and acted and even throws in a little humor. Do not take kids to see this though as the R rating is certainly justified and I found myself closing my eyes at some of the violence.  But all in all it remains an intriguing movie — a good summer popcorn movie to see in-between the super hero movies.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

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It can’t be easy to play a beloved character like Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.  I saw my first Star Wars movie in 1977, so  I have been in love with this character for over forty years and was very ambivilant about seeing somone else in the role.  However, since this is a prequel, and Alden Ehrenreich is playing a young Han, I decided to give it a try.  I was pleasantly surprised.   Ron Howard’s directing is competent and he doesn’t stray from the formula that has made the Star Wars movies so popular.  Alden does a decent job as the young Han, but I had more fun with the supporting players.  Woody Harrleson was great as Tobias Beckett, a smuggler always warning others not to trust anyone (does that include him?).  I also loved Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian,  who has a smaller but crucial role.  Interesting how he loses his prized Millenium Falcon in a card game…  But just as Han has his Chewie, Lando doesn’t pilot the Falcon on his own. What Star Wars movie would be complete without a sassy android?  This one is no exception.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays a combination C3PO – sidekick with an attitude, who incites other droids to throw off the shackles of human domination a la Westworld.  I also enjoyed all of the little origin tidbits like why Hans last name is Solo, how he meets Chewie, what the Kessel Run was all about and how the story gets to Mos Eisley on the backwater planet called Tatooine.  Emilia Clarke is also fine as Hans first love, who may have a dark secret or two.  Cue Paul Bettany as a delightfully evil Dryden Vos, gentlemanly but vicious head of a vicious criminal cartel. There is enough action to keep everyone happy although I did feel the movie was too long.  For a summer popcorn movie though – this isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Deadpool 2

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Deadpool 2 is exactly what you were expecting – no more and no less.  It is full of ‘wink wink’ jokes and exagerated gruesome violence, just like the first one.   Ryan Reynolds is fantastic again as Deadpool, the reluctant super hero.  In this outing, Deadpool joins forces with – among others – Domino, Shatterstar and Bedlam, to save a teeneage boy from Cable, who is from the future and wants to prevent the boy (who has X-Men like powers) from growing up and killing Cable’s family.  He plans to do this by killing the boy.  Along the way, Deadpool gathers other super heros to help him; creating his own team he calls X Force.  Success for the team is NOT an option.  He and TJ assemble an interesting assortment of ‘heroes.’  My favorite was Domino, whose super power is that she is extremely lucky!  This is not a spoiler, but if  you look carefully you can spot Matt Damon in a cameo as an old man; and some of the newer X-men, including James McAvoy.  The best cameo in my opinion though is when Brad Pitt shows up.  You have to look quickly though because if you blink, you will miss it.  Deadpool 2 is a follow on to the first in story line; and doesn’t deviate from the things that made the first such a success.  It may not be quite as entertaining as movies like Infinity War or Black Panther, but it is definitley funnier.  Oh, and I wouldn’t bring younger kids to see it, this isn’t an R-rated movie for nothing!

Overboard

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I love my comedies to be funny. So I was kind of shocked that Anna Faris (whom I love in “Mom”) would be in a comedy that isn’t really funny until the end credits.  This is a remake of the first “Overboard” starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.  I saw the original 30 years ago when it first came out, so my memories are a little fuzzy, but I am pretty sure it had some humor.  I would call this movie more heartwarming, as it does have an uplifting and sweet ending.  However, there is just not enough here for any of you to worry about paying money to go see it.  I don’t consider that I wasted money exactly, the movie was pleasant enough. I guess I just expected more than I got.