Southpaw

Southpaw

Rating 6 out of 10

I generally like boxing movies.  From the Rocky's to Cinderella Man.  Off the top of my head I can't think of a real bad boxing movie.  I liked Southpaw.  Didn't love it as much as some of my friends did, but I was entertained.

Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the current middleweight boxing champion of the world.  His style is a little unorthodox as he lets the other guy beat him to a pulp for ten rounds then uses that to get mad and knock the other guy out.  His beautiful wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is afraid his beatings will leave his head full of mush and wants him to quit.  Out of the blue a mouthy challenger pushes the wrong buttons on hot head Billy and very bad things happen.   Hope loses literally everything.  Finds himself living in a flop house and cleaning a low rent boxing gym after hours run by an old guru boxing instructor Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker).  As luck would have it Hope gets a shot at the title that is now owned by the loud mouth contender.  It's up to Tick Wills to whip him into shape physically and mentally in six weeks!

While it is a little paint by the numbers for me it is very well acted.  I could see Gyllenhaal getting an Oscar nod from this. Forest Whitaker is always good as is Rachel McAdams.  It helps the less you know about boxing.  Still I was entertained.

Ant Man

Ant Man

Rating 7.5 out of 10

While I am sure my comic book nerd brother inlaw knows all about the Ant-Man character and has read all the books I (like most of you) had never heard of him.  Even laughed a bit about a super hero that takes on the powers of an ant.  Crazy.  Also if compiling my list of male actors I would have never guessed to play a super hero Paul Rudd would be in my top ten along with Jack Black, Kevin James and the four guys on Big Bang Theory.    Turns out Rudd is not so pudgy now.  Worked out and pulled it off.  He does a good job.

Back in the 80's Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) invents the way to shrink the space between atoms thus making whatever he points his cool zapper toward becomes teeny tiny.  Amazingly enough instead of the people around him seeing all the wonderful things it can do they instead want to use it to weaponize and sell to the highest bidder.  Who woulda thought?  He puts them off for many years until after his retirement his young protege (Corey Stoll) puts together the missing pieces and figures it out himself.  Dr. Pym is now too old to put on the Ant suit so he recruits Scott Lang (Rudd) to shrink down and stop the protege from completing the suit and selling it to bad guys.

The action and effects are pretty good.  As I said Rudd does a good job.  Evangeline Lilly plays Dr Pym's helpful daughter (with the worst haircut since Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic World).  This is an entertaining movie.  It is definitely a notch or two below a more serious Avengers movie.  Hard to take it too serious when the big show down is on a toy train set.  Still when Ant-Man II comes out I'm sure my butt will be in the seats.

Trainwreck

Trainwreck

Rating 8.5 out of 10

When I first saw trailers on this movie I had moderate interest at best.  I have seen the movies writer and star, Amy Schumer, on talk shows and found her kinda funny.  She tends to go with the one joke premise of being loose with the guys.  Her love interest in the movie, Bill Hader,  I didn't care for at all.  I haven't watched Saturday Night Live since the 70's and the couple of other movies I had seen him in he was a bit of a dufus.  Plus I am not a big Lebron James fan.  Was he going to stare at the camera and beat his chest after every line he gets right?   Still there were a couple funny lines in the preview and more to the point it was one my hot date wanted to see.  Ant Man you will have to wait.  I'll sit thru this one.

I'll be damned if this movie didn't make me laugh.  A lot.  I don't think I have seen a movie this year that was as funny or even anything in recent memory.  Amy did a good job of writing.  I'm not sure if this was the first movie she has written or not.  There were a couple times it seemed a little rookie like while most of the movie had one good line after another.

In Trainwreck when Amy was a little girl when her parents were divorcing her sleezeball but likable dad tells her and her sister over and over that people are not meant to have one mate.  It's just not natural.  While her sister goes the traditional path and settles down and has kids.  Amy follows her dads advice and has one night stand after another.  She writes for a low rent National Enquire type magazine that leads with stories like the six ugliest celebrity kids or how to talk your girlfriend into a three way.

When the magazine out of the blue asks her to do an article on a sports medicine doctor that specializes in knee operations for big name sports stars she balks as she knows nothing about sports and cares even less.  The doctor (Hader) turns out to be charming and against her better judgement begins to fall for him.  

The courtship has many funny moments and even a couple sad ones that were well written.  Lots of great sports cameos.  As much as I hate to admit it even Lebron does a good job.  I was entertained.  My only wish is that I had seen it in a big theater of laughing people instead of the early show.  I may have to plunk down a few pesos and see this one again on a weekend night.

Minions

Minions

Rating 3 out of 10

I loved Despicable Me movies 1&2.  Both made my top ten lists the years they were released.  Unlike many I was not one that was amused by the little yellow Minions and had no plans to see this movie.  Sometimes you see a movie because the person you are with really wants to see it and there is nothing else out there.  This was that case.  If you are amused by the pill shaped yellow things that speak some sort of weird mumbling then you will enjoy this movie.  For me it was like watching someone scratch on a chalkboard for ninety one minutes.

This movie is intended to be a prequel to the Despicable Me movies.  It seems Minions just came walking out of the sea back in the dinosaur days.  They do not age or change in appearance.  Their goal is to find an evil person or thing to follow.  The movie follows along the years where they find despicable people along the way from a T-Rex to Napoleon.  They finally find the queen of evil in England who plans to steal the crown thinking somehow that would make her queen.

The plot is very secondary.  Again it goes back to if you think they are cute you will enjoy this movie.    I would have rather worked in the yard.

SELF/LESS

SELF/LESS

Rating 4 out of 10

I felt this movie had potential even though I put expectations on low going into the theater on a rainy Florida day during my sons baseball tournament week. A ruthless billionaire is dying.  He is approached by a secret group that has figured out how to transfer his brain functions into the body of a thirtysomething hard body to add an exciting 40-50 years onto his life.  Comes with a hefty price tag tho.  $250 million.  What the heck.  Can't take it with you.  Life is good at the start.  Driving a fast sports car and dating supermodel looking women.  What could go wrong?  Turns out he has to take a daily red pill to keep his brain in control of the new body.  If he misses a day he begins to have flashback memories of the guy who's body he has taken over.

As I said this movie had potential.  Good actors.  Ben Kingsley and Ryan Reynolds.  Flashy New Orleans scenery.  The problem is the story just turns into total nonsense.  Walking out of the theater I had this movie at a decent six.  Upon reflection later the rating dropped by two.  Tomorrow it may be three.

Ryan Reynolds tries.  He really does.  The story is just too silly for him to work with.  The way the cold blooded rich guy reacts once he realizes he is in the body of a real person rather than a constructed body is just absurd.  They charge $250 million a shot and do the operation in a sleezy warehouse with plastic sheeting for walls?

If you are a huge Reynolds fan you can wait a month or so and this will be out on Redbox. Otherwise just skip it.

Terminator Genisys

Terminator Genisys

Rating 7.5 out of 10

I am a big fan of the first two Terminator movies.  T2 would probably make my top ten of all time with T1 close behind.  T-G is no 1 or 2, yet I still found it entertaining.

T-G kinda throws all the other Terminator movies into the blender on smoothie then pours it into a nice sometimes complicated cup for your enjoyment.  This is still a bit of a reboot with new actors playing Sarah Conner, John Conner and Kyle Reese.  Arnie is back as as the main Terminator and does a fine job sometimes as the old Terminator and sometimes the young Terminator.

I'm not going to try very hard to explain the plot.  Partly because it would have spoilers and partly because I'm not completely sure I understand it.  Doesn't matter.  The movie starts with young Kyle Reese meeting John Conner and eventually becoming his number one man.  They do a good job of explaining how the machines ultimately take over.  Reese jumps in the time machine and follows the Terminator back to save Sarah Conner.  Only this time when he gets there things have changed a bit.

The goal is still to stop the evil Sky-Net and their computers.  The action is incredible.  The special effects are very good.  It's cool to see young and old Arnie fight.  There is time travel and things that go boom.

If you liked the other Terminator movies you will likely enjoy this one.  Not as much but you will feel you got your monies worth.

Max

Max 

Rating 6 out of 10

Taking the granddaughters to the movies.  Planned to see the animated film Inside Out, but it was sold out.  It was either this or Ted 2.  The girls were fine with the teddy bear movie.  I figured their mom would not be as thrilled.  Max it is.

Max is a military trained dog in Afghanistan.  His handler is Kyle who looks at the dog like family.  When he is tragically killed Max is deemed unusable by other soldiers.  They determine he will either be adopted by the Kyle's family or put down.  The family takes the dog in and puts Kyles younger brother with an attitude in charge.  The brother, Justin, at first wants nothing to do with the dog.  Later there is a side plot of bad Mexican cartels buying guns.

This is a cute enough movie that not long ago would be a Hallmark/Lifetime movie of the week.  It's mostly predictable but in a good way.  The acting is paint by numbers yet good enough.  Some actors you will recognize.

I was entertained.  Probably a good rental.

Magic Mike XXL

Magic Mike XXL

Rating 1 out of 10

Okay we know out of the gate when they did focus groups on this movie they didn't aim it toward 50 year old white guys.  I really wish I had listened.  I rented the first Magic Mike movie and found it to be all over the place.  Poorly shot and written by third graders.  Sad to say Magic Mike XXL is filmed just as poorly.  It looks like it was shot on my old betamax camcorder.  The third graders that wrote the first one were not available so they hired their younger brothers.  Even for this type of movie this is a waste of film stock.  I took my hot date to this movie and she was so bored and aggravated we left before it was over.  I'm sure we missed the big ending.  I'll have to live with that.

The plot, if you can call it that, goes like this.  Mike (Channing Tatum) has moved on from his exotic dancing and has a custom furniture business.  When the band of hunks roll into town on their way to a big male dancer extravaganza in Florida he decides to join in for one last ride.  They travel in a roach coach with plenty of unexplained stops along the way.  Kinda appropriate they ride in a roach coach as they take drugs and drink the whole way.

This is such a mess.  The dialog seems like it's made up on the spot with actors given a general idea what the plot is and told to improvise.  The dancing is pretty comical.

This was a total waste of money and time.  I was not entertained.