Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Rating 5 out of 10

I, like many, am a big fan of the first and second Alien movies.  Didn't care for the 2012 Prometheus movie that was a prequel to the original Alien.  This movie takes place after Prometheus and before Alien.

In Alien: Covenant there is a large colony ship called the Covenant.  It holds a ten person crew, an android and several thousand people intent on starting a new life in a distant planet.  When a solar flare damages the ship and wakes the crew killing two the remaining crew do what they can to repair the ship.  As they are doing the repairs they hear a distress call from what appears to be a much closer  planet that may fit the bill for their colony.  When they investigate the new planet they find it instead with one crazy android and way to many alien things to count.

On the good this movie has a killer cast.  Michael Fassbender (playing both androids), Katherine Waterston (daughter of Sam Waterston from Law and Order), Billy Crudup and Danny McBride.  The effects are first rate.

The bad:  The movie attempts to be too deep and instead has huge lulls in the story.  Most of the action you see in the trailers are the bulk of the action of the movie.  Too many "oh please" moments where a person having just watched one of their crew eaten by an alien he sees the big pod open up and he sticks his head in there to look around.  R rated when it really didn't need to be.  Some very bloody attack scenes and lots of F-bombs that don't really make the movie any better.  Even a brief shower sex scene that seems to have been thrown in to get the rating.

This is not a bad movie but it compares much more to Aliens III than either of the originals.  I was mildly entertained.  I'd say wait to rent

King Arthur : Legend of the Sword

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Rating 6 out of 10

Looking at the reviews I knew I was in for a long haul with this movie.  It currently stands at 27% on www.rottentomatoes.com.  But I had a standing date for this movie.  While Jim is not as attractive as my usual date he was definitely entertaining.  Went into the theater with expectations very low and was pleasantly surprised.  It was better than I thought it would be even tho some dummy (ME) picked the time that was only showing 3D.

One thing the movie showed me was how little I knew on the legend of King Arthur.  Everyone has heard of him pulling the sword out of the stone when no one else could, but I had no idea how it got in the stone got there to start with.  I thought about going to wikipedia to double-check the accuracy of the movie then figured I'd just post it here and someone will correct if it's wrong.

Here Arthur's dad is the king loved by everyone.  Everyone except his evil brother who ends up killing him and Arthurs mom.  Arthur escapes in a boat and is found and raised by a group of prostitutes.  He has no idea who he is.  When the now evil brother king several years later is trying to flush out his nephew by making everyone the right age try to pull the sword from the stone.  Once he does his removal things start kicking.

The movie is just over two hours and seems a little longer It does benefit from a great cast.  Pretty boy Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Jude Law, Eric Bana, Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones) and you can't make a movie like this without Djimon Hounsou.  It has some good action scenes.  I was entertained.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

Rating 7 out of 10

I don't think there is a movie this year I was more excited about than this one.  I also tried to not set the bar too high.  That is difficult as the original Guardians is in my top five movies of all time.  If not top three.  So the chances this one could live up to the original was slim.  Volume 2 is good although not nearly as good as the first.  : <

This movie takes up a few years after the last one.  The Guardians are hiring themselves out to other planets to take care of bad guys or monsters.  It begins with a long mostly funny battle with a huge octopus looking alien with huge rows of teeth that has come to a planet to steal their battery power.

Most of the story centralizes around Peter finally finding his father.  Ego (played by the always great Kurt Russell) is a being that fell in love with Peters mother and when she died hired Yondu to bring young Pete to him.

There are a couple other side plots but mostly I can't elaborate without giving spoilers.  My biggest problem with Volume 2 is it's way more slapstick than the first one.  You never feel there is even a chance the hero's will not come out on top.  The battles are too jokey.  For me it was almost like a parody of the first one.

Still I was entertained.  Love the characters.  Look forward to Volume 3.