Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Rogue One

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Apple Rating:

This is definitely a movie for Star Wars fans although you do not have to know anything about the franchise to enjoy this movie.  I, for one, loved it!  This movie takes place right before the original 1977 Star Wars.  Remember that movie started off with a message from Princess Leia to Obi Wan Kenobi delivered via R2D2.  This movie explains the origin of that message, how the Death Star was built and how the rebels knew the Death Star had a weakness that ultimately helped them destroy it.  There is a lot of fighting, I especially enjoyed Donnie Yen who played a Jedi Knight who is sort of in control of The Force.  Diego Luna and Felicity Jones were fine, but I enjoyed some of the supporting characters even more.  The comic relief was supplied by the new K2-SO (voiced by Firefly’s Alan Tudyk), a sarcastic but resourceful droid.  It was nice to see Mads Mikkelsen play a relatively normal and heroic character.  But the biggest surprise was the appearance of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin.  Why was this a surprise, you ask?  Well, Peter Cushing died in 1994!  The technology needed to create that special effect just boggles the mind.  If you are a fan of the Star Wars movies, you will love the last scene – no spoilers from me though, my lips are sealed.  If you are going, get there early to avoid running into a sold out show, and may The Force be with you!

Westworld

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Wow!  What a great show.  If you haven’t had a  chance to watch this fascinating HBO series starring Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood and Ed Harris, you are missing out.  The series is based on the 1973 sci-fi movie thriller that starred Yul Brenner as a robot gone rogue.  This reboot builds off of that premise and runs with it.  Imagine an adult theme park  for rich vacationers manned by automatons who interact with you as if they are human.  Would you like to pretend to be a gunslinger, gambler, confederate soldier?  What about  school marm, madame or a Calamity Jane type?  Westworld caters to the basest and darkest sides of humanity.  You can kill (robots) with impunity while at the same time, they can not harm you……or can they?  There is so much to think about after every episode.  The first season ended over a week ago and I am still pondering the human and moral implications of what has happened so far.  I eagerly await season two!

FANTASTIC BEASTS and Where to Find Them

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Harry Potter fans are in for a treat with this movie!  I saw Fantastic Beasts today in 3D and I would highly recommend you do the same if you can.  The  creatures are everything I expected them to be, magical, colorful, imaginative and cute.  Eddie Redmayne is delightful as shy, nerdy Newt Scamander who collects magical animals from all over the world and keeps them in a very roomy satchel.  The surprise to me though was non-mag ( American word for muggles) baker Jacob Kowalski, played by Dan Fogler, who accidentally gets involved in some classic wrong suitcase shenanigans.  There is a dark side to this movie in the form of Colin Farrell and a child who is trying to suppress his/her magical side with tragic results.  There is also a budding romance that I hope gets explored in the next movie (I believe a total of 5 are planned).  SMALL SPOILER ALERT:  I do want to give you a heads up on a fun cameo.  I  think without this heads up you might miss him – I only spotted this famous actor because I read about his cameo on line.  Anyway, see if you can spot Johnny Depp —  let me know if you do.

Arrival

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Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, will not be everyone’s cup of tea.  In a sea of  super hero and action movies, it is relatively subdued and almost quiet in tone.  The story involves some unnamed aliens who come to earth and stay put in their impenetrable spaceships.  We don’t know their language and they do not know ours.  Do they come in peace?  Are they here to invade us?  We don’t know because we can not understand each other.  This is where Amy Adams comes in.  Her character is a language expert and she has been tasked with figuring out how to communicate with these potential invaders.  Jeremy Renner is the scientist who has been assigned to help her. What I didn’t expect was an Inception-like ending.  When the movie is over, you will be wondering, what just happened here?  If you have been reading my reviews these past 8 months, you know I love movies that make me think or leave me wondering.  Arrival does just that.  With all the political overtones of the past election, this movie also gives me hope for the future – these days,  a rare and welcome  distraction indeed.

Dr. Strange

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Benedict Cumberbatch is the perfect person to play Dr. Strange.  Stephen Strange is a gifted and arrogant surgeon whose hands are damaged in a horrible car accident.  When medical science can not help him, he travels East looking for a mystical cure and finds much more.  Through the teachings of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, he learns to channel his inner strength to become a powerful sorcerer.  If this doesn’t sound like your average Marvel super hero, you are right,  and that is why I loved this movie!  I watched it in 3D and I recommend that you do the same.  The special effects are incredible.  Let me know what  you think about a surreal scene showing Dr. Strange’s hands turning into something freaky and fascinating.  I have become a little jaded about superhero movies.  They almost seem to have been made on an assembly line and one is as good as another.  At last, a super hero movie that is different, smart, funny and action-packed, all at the same time.  There is one thing this movie has in common with all Marvel super hero  movies; stay until the end of the credits.  Apparently Dr. Strange is going to be paired in a future move with my former favorite Marvel hero (You will see who I mean in the credits).  I can’t wait to see what marvels are in store for Dr. Strange and we movie fans!