Transformers: The Last Night

Transformers: The Last Night

Rating 5 out of 10

The fifth in the series of Transformer movies.  I think I have seen every one.  This version is getting pounded pretty bad in the reviews but these movies never review well.  Probably with just cause.  Is this a good movie?  No.  Was I mildly entertained for 149 minutes?  Yes I was.  I have to take young son Rocky to all these movies so he can translate for me which one of the robots are good and which are bad.  It's always confusing for me when they start fighting each other which one I should be rooting for.

Mark Wahlburg coming back for his second and hopefully last Transformer movie.  Several years since the last movie.  Earth has waged war on all of the Transformers good and bad.  Sending military out to destroy any that are left.  Wahlburg still protects some and is trying for world peace.  Somehow the bad transformers again are headed to Earth with plans of destroying everyone on it.  Earth has something that their planet needs to survive in a story that is way too hard to follow.  This story goes back to King Arthur and Merlin.

If you are a fan of these movies you will be mildly entertained with this one.  The reported budget of $200+ million shows on the screen  It's pretty amazing to watch.  Anthony Hopkins is always good as he is here and the pretty Laura Haddock is good as the English professor that helps Wahlburg save the world.

Side note:  If you are a parent of small kids please teach them how to eat popcorn with their mouth closed!!!  Three kids sitting behind us were so loud eating their popcorn I thought Rocky was going to beat them.  We moved to the other side of the theater and could still hear them chomping. Ugh.

47 Meters Down

47 Meters Down

Rating 7 out of 10

I did my first scuba dive MANY years ago.  Have been fortunate enough to do some fantastic dives around the world including an incredible shark dive in the Bahamas (twice) with reef sharks.  Doing a cage dive with Great White Sharks has always and still is on my bucket list.  Funny thing is for years my oldest son (also a scuba diver) has said he would never do the cage dive for fear the cage would break loose just like it did in this movie.

So opening night I grabbed the Hottie and headed toward the local Regal Theaters as it wasn't playing in our favorite NCG?  The movie starts off well and moves at a good pace until the crazy finale.  Two sisters, Lisa and Kate (Mandy Moore and Claire Holt) go on a Mexican vacation after a tough breakup for Lisa.  Kate is the adventurous one and after a night of drinking convinces Lisa that getting in a cage with 20+ foot Great Whites is a good idea.

The boat with Captain Taylor (Matthew Modine) is a rust bucket that anyone with common sense would not want to ride across the bay in much less play with huge man eating fish.  When it's time for the girls to go into the cage with several huge sharks swimming around everything is great until they start to wench them back in. The cage with two ladies free falls to the bottom of the ocean.  You guessed it 47 meters down (154 feet).   They have several problems on their list.  They have a limited amount of air and worse yet these huge hungry sharks between them and the boat.  Being that deep they can't drop everything and shoot to the top.  That would give them the bends and probably also kill them.

While this is a fairly low budget movie it gets the job done.  It relies on scaring you not grossing you out.  Not much gore for a movie like this. There were plenty of scenes that had the Hottie jumping in her seat.   Acting is mostly good.  I'm pretty sure this was filmed before Mandy Moore hit big with her tv show.  I was entertained even though I kept questioning why they used meters. I have never seen a scuba dive that went by meters instead of feet.  I guess naming the movie 154 feet didn't sound as good.

The Mummy

The Mummy

Rating 6 out of 10

This movie is getting pounded in the reviews so when my son inlaw Gerard and I working in South Carolina decided to catch a movie we kept expectations low.  That was a good thing.  By keeping expectations low it was actually better than we expected.  Not a great movie, but not something I regret seeing.

First of all this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the 1999 (has it really been EIGHTEEN years???)  Brendan Fraser movie of the same title.  Not one bit.  Not sure what they could have named this movie but it seems they could have come up with something different.  Here in the Middle East we have a couple military guys (Tom Cruise and Jake Johnson) more concerned with swiping gold artifacts than fighting ISIS.  When they stumble upon an ancient burial ground with a little help from Jenny (the lovely Annabelle Wallis) they to the surprise of no one in my theater (all six of us on a Wednesday night) unearth an evil temptress Ahmanet who (hold on to your hat) wants to take over the world and kill most if not all of man kind.

When she is brought up from her mummy state she is able to call upon her mummy friends to track down Cruise who somehow by killing him helps her take over the world.  A great cast including Russell Crow as Dr Jeckyll (still not sure what part he played) and the now popular Sofia Boutella as Ahmanet.

With this cast this movie should have been much better.  The end leaves open for a Part II which I feel will never come.  Action is pretty good.  Effects are even better.  Like I said great cast.  If you can catch it on an early show it's not bad.  Otherwise wait to rent if you like these type movies.

Baywatch

Baywatch

5.5 out of 10

Anyone going to see a movie based on pretty much any 80s tv show is not going for an intricate plot. That goes double for the cheesy beefcake tv show Baywatch.  Pam Anderson was fun to look at but not really worth sitting through many episodes.  With Baywatch the movie we get very little plot and again lots of beefcake.

The modern day Mitch Buchannon is now played by Dwayne Johnson. The ultimate hunk.  The first part of the movie is Mitch and his number two CJ (Kelly Rohrbach) needing to fill three empty spots on the Baywatch squad.  Former Olympic swimmer and bad boy Matt Brody (Zac Efron) is forced upon Mitch by his supervisor.  This leads to some of the funniest parts of the movie with Mitch calling him by boy band names.

The second half of the movie takes a bit of a dive.  Centered around Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra from tv's Quantico and the reason I paid eight bucks to see the movie) the bad girl who is smuggling drugs into the bay to finance taking over all the hotels in the area.  I wouldn't be surprised if this storyline was lifted by one of the tv scripts.  They could have done much better.

Overall I thought the movie had some laughs.  Fun seeing the life of a California lifeguard. I was mildly entertained.  If you have a rainy day and want a few laughs this one is not that bad.  Otherwise a good rental.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman

Rating 8.5 out of 10

When I first heard that the skinny gal (Gal Gadot) from the Fast and Furious movies was pegged to be the next Wonder Woman I was not happy.  I like every other teenage boy was a fan of the Wonder Woman tv show with the beautiful and very curvy Lynda Carter.  I thought Gadot was too slender for the part even though she is clearly beautiful too.  Turns out all you need is a cool WW suit with all the curves built in.  Gadot is a good actress that does the story and this movie proud.

Some origin movies suffer in the beginning when they tell the back story on the main star.  I would argue that this might be the best part.  The story begins with young Diana and her overprotective mother who knows her destiny yet wants to delay it or eliminate it all together.  When a hunky WWI pilot (Chris Pine)  crashes in the sea in front of Diana's island she saves him and learns the evil Germans are trying to take over the world and realizes it's her duty to stop them and the God of War that I can't remember the name of.

Action scenes are very good.  Gadot nails it as Wonder Woman.  Pine is great as the pilot/soldier.  Good supporting cast too.  Good movie for the whole family.  No bad words that I remember.  My five year old granddaughter loved it.  Shouting Girl Power on the way out of the theater.

Good movie.  I was entertained.