The Finest Hours

The Finest Hours

Rating 7 out of 10

In 1951 a terrible Winter storm is pounding the New England Eastern seaboard.  Thirty to fifty foot waves and gale force winds.  An oil tanker is trying to weather the storm not far off shore hoping to make calmer waters.  It's an old ship that has been pieced together many times over.  The middle part of the ship is literally held together by welds.  When chief mechanic, Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck)  pleas to the ships captain to slow down fall apart on deaf ears a big wave finally cracks the boat in half.  Somehow the back half of the ship stays a float while the front half (with the captain) promptly sinks to the bottom of the sea.  Thirty plus men are stranded on half a boat in a terrible storm six miles off shore.

This is the early days of the Coast Guard.  No huge tanker ships and cool helicopters to send to a rescue.  They only have smaller torpedo looking boats and four man crews to hopefully aid seamen in trouble.  This day the rescue falls upon young Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) and his three man crew to go out in weather even the local crusty sea captains call suicidal.  Seems the year before he was involved in a failed rescue that ended in the death of some beloved locals where many seem to hold Webber responsible.  He is determined this time he will succeed or die trying.

The acting is very good.  Lots of good character actors.  Ben Foster, Eric Bana and newcomer (to me) Holliday Grainger.  The effects of the freezing cold ocean are very good.  This is an entertaining and heroic movie. The only chink for me is the director or how they edited the movie.  Would have been nice to know how half a ship stayed afloat (never discussed) or what happened in the failed rescue attempt (barely discussed).

For me this is a good movie that could have very easily been a great one.  I recommend it.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

13 Hours:  The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Rating 8.5 out of 10

Normally January is the dumping ground for movie studios.  If they have a movie that is not that good or not nearly as good as they hoped it would be they dump in in January.  I guess historically it's the slowest month of the year for ticket sales and the weather is so cold you will go see anything?  I am happy to say that is not the case in this movie.

This is a movie Hillary won't be going to.  This is a telling of the true story of the Embassy in Benghazi being attacked and the US so called leaders refusing to send any help.  When the embassy is attacked by several hundred bad guys it falls upon six ex-military men the CIA hired to as security guards to protect the twenty five people inside.  To make things more difficult it's nearly impossible to tell the good Benghazi guys from the bad ones that want to kill them.

The movie does a good job showing how crazy the night was and the desperation when repeated calls for help go unanswered or denied.  Director Michael Bay shows us the problems without getting into the specific politicians.  Myself, I'd rather he named some names and pointed fingers.

Casting is spot on.  Skinny John Krasinski is all beefed up as are the other soldiers.  This is just a good flag waving blow them up fun movie to watch.

Royce's Top Ten/Worst Ten 2015

Royce’s Top 10/Worst 10

2015

1- The Martian- Lots of good movies.  Read the book first then saw the movie. Loved both!  I thought Matt Damon was great as was the rest of the cast.

2-Trainwreck- I rarely laugh out loud at movies.  Having an entire theater and my Hottie laughing along with me made it even better. Amy Schumer is VERY funny.  Story lags in the middle due to a first time movie script by Schumer, but funniest movie I have seen in a while.

3- Spotlight- A very well made and acted movie on a tough subject.  Definitely worth watching .  I see several Oscar nominations in the future.  I’m sure it will get a Best Picture nod.

4- Creed- Much better movie than I thought it would be.  We will be seeing Creed II, Creed III, ect.  Michael B. Jordan holds his own.  One of the better acting jobs for Sylvester Stallone.  Good movie.

5- The Big Short- Takes a complicated subject of the housing crisis of 2007 and not only makes it understandable but also entertaining.  A good cast.  I would see this one again.

6- Steve Jobs- Best movie so far about a complicated man.  Highlights three periods in his life and the complicated relationship with his daughter.  Michael Fassbender will surely get an Oscar Nomination from this one. 

7- The 33- Almost no one saw this underrated movie about the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground in 2010.  Antonio Banderas’s best work to date.  I really enjoyed this movie.  Make sure to bring your tissues.  Good rental.

8- Kingsman: The Secret Service- A sleeper hit about an English Secret Service group.  Colin Firth is great and newcomer Taron Egerton is starting what will most likely be a long successful career.  Good movie.

9- Star Wars- Okay, it was a near carbon copy of the first Star wars and there are plenty of plot holes.  Maybe my little stamp of approval here will help the poor guys with some box office support?  While it did aggravate me I felt it deserved a spot on the list.

10-The Intern-  This movie came out last January and many will have forgotten it.  Out now on dvd and worth a rental.  Not a unique story line.  Young/hot clothing designer has a business that is taking off yet unorganized.  In a publicity stunt they hire several retired people as interns.  Anne Hathaway is very good and I think this is some of Robert DeNiro’s best work.  He leaves the squinty eyed mafia guy that he has played a million times behind and is very likable.

Honorable Mention

1-Man from U.N.C.L.E

2- Ant-Man

3- The Duff

4- El Machina

5- Whiplash

Worst Ten

1- Jupiter Ascending- This movie is bad on so many levels.  Mila Kunis tries.  Channing Tatum has such a ridicules outfit and make up he could never recover.  Save your $1.29 on RedBox and don’t waste a couple hours of your life.

2- Magic Mike XXL- Wow, Channing Tatum holds down my top two on my Worst list.  I hope his career can recover from this.  : >  When the female audience this was clearly aimed at walk out you know something is bad wrong.  MM-I was bad.  This was ten times worse.

3- A Walk in the Woods- I know Robert Redford is getting up in years and has become a little more picky on his roles yet he choses this dog?  Nick Nolte looked such poor health I worried he might pass for real before the movie was over. This is a bad movie.

4- Taken 3- Liam Neeson is hot or cold.  He either makes very good movies or very bad movies.  This one falls in the second category.  I hope he got a good paycheck for this one.  He is a likable guy and good actor.  Wish he would pick better movies.

5- The Gunman- Sean Penn must have been hoping for a come back as a tough guy.  He clearly worked for months on his abs and biceps.  Sadly they worked minutes on the script. 

6- Fifty Shades of Gray- Oh good lord.

7- Minions- I LOVE the two Despicable Me movies.  Own both dvds.  I was never one of those that laughed hysterically at the goofy little yellow guys with no necks.  This movie was like scratch on a chalkboard for me.

8- The Good Dinosaur- Not a good year for animated movies.  Some did well at the box office because parents will sit thru anything to keep their little ones quiet and entertained for a couple hours.  This movie was too brutal in parts for little ones and too boring for adults.

9- Our Brand is Crisis- This movie couldn’t make up it’s mind if it wanted to be a funny political satire or a do-good tree hugger save the world film.  Ended up being neither.  This movie had lowest opening weekend for any Sandra Bullock movie and went downhill from there.

10- Point Break-  The X-Game scenes were indeed breathtaking.  The problem is most of those fit in the two minute movie trailer.  Then they had to fill in that time between.  Sorry.

Should have been better

1- The Hunger Games

2- Tomorrowland

3- Mad Max

4- SELF/LESS

5- Spy

The Revenant

The Revenant

Rating 7 out of 10

I was in on this movie from the first trailer I saw.  I tend to like these out in the wilderness type movies although of the top of my head I can't think of one.  I had very high hopes for this movie.  Maybe too high.  I think Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor.  He will get an Oscar nod on this for sure.  Maybe the big win he has been shooting for.  He does an amazing job here.

I know the job of a movie trailer or preview is to give out enough information to make people want to put their butts in the seats.  Sometimes they give a little too much info.  Watching the preview for the Revenant (Said to be taken from the French word to return) we see that Hugh Glass (Leo) is in the wilderness with a bunch of white men and his indian son.  He is brutally attacked by a huge momma bear and barely alive.  One of the guys in the group (a thinner than usual Tom Hardy) points out he needs to be put out of his misery.  When he tries to do just that the indian son tries to stop him and is killed.  Glass is left for dead in a shallow grave.  He fights back and comes to kill the man that killed his son.   This is in the preview.

The movie is a nearly three hour beautifully filmed version of just that.  It is pretty brutal from the indian attack in the first couple minutes to the bloody end.  On a gore scale where Braveheart is a 10 and Bambi is a 1, I'd give this movie a 14.  Tastefully done.  Not like a gory horror movie.  But consider yourself warned.  The bear attack is amazing.

I was definitely entertained.  I think they could have cut 45 minutes out of this and made it better, but I say that to most three hour movies.  Acting is first rate all around and the scenery is amazing. I came out of the theater being happy I was not alive back in those tough days.  Good movie.  Just try to keep expectations down.

Point Break

Point Break

Rating 3 out of 10

The preview for this movie pushes all the testosterone buttons to get male bottoms in seats.  Riding hundred foot waves. Racing an avalanche of rocks on a motorcycle.  Skydiving after stealing large pallets of money.  What more do you need?  A plot that makes a nickels worth of sense would be great.

This is supposed to be a remake of the 1991 Point Break movie with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves.  They problem is besides the title and character names this could have been called a remake of Top Gun.  It's very different from the first one.

In this movie after a couple X-Games style robberies FBI agent in training Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey) figures out this group is trying to complete the Miyagi Eight or was it knock of the Nakatomi Tower?  Doesn't matter.  Utah is promoted to temporary FBI agent and goes undercover to track down Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez) and his gang of thrill seeking criminals.

Utah goes through a fight club, riding huge waves, flying in those flying squirrel suit things, ect. trying to catch the guys in the act.  They take Utah under their wings and explain that an Asian master figured out if you can complete a certain eight adrenaline filled activities (skydive, ride a huge wave, snowboard down the side of a mountain, climb another mountain with no ropes, etc) while giving back to the planet they can reach the ultimate nirvana.

While the story is complete nonsense the visuals are quite good.  The acting by mostly unknown is okay.  Did I mention the visuals are quite good?  It's worth renting for those visuals only leave the volume down on the tv.