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.

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.

Gifted

Gifted

Rating 6 out of 10

I thought this movie looked cute from the first trailer viewing.  Good cast.  Was concerned that it had a limited release, but some time on my hands I decided to give it a shot.  It was a good rainy day movie.

The movie starts with little Mary begrudgingly going off for her first day at school.  We find out that Frank is her uncle.  When her mother (his sister) died he took on the task of raising her.  We soon find out that Mary is gifted to the genius status.  In first grade she is doing huge multiplication problems in her head.  The teachers of course want to send her directly to the school for the gifted but Uncle Frank promised her mom (who was also a genius) she would get a normal life with normal kids.

Grandma gets involved and wants to push her to the limits she did with Mom that caused her demise. Grandma is rich and controlling and sues for custody.

The film moves along at a slow pace and is fairly predictable.  What makes this an above average movie is the acting .  Chris Evans is very good as Uncle Frank and little McKenna Grace could not be cuter as Mary.  Octavia Spencer is also good as the neighbor that helps out with Mary.

I was entertained.  I would say when this hits RedBox it would be a very good rental.

Fate of the Furious

The Fate of the Furious

Rating 3 out of 10

Clearly this has been an interesting series of movies.  I have liked most of the Fast and Furious movies.  I think the apex was Fast Five.  They really should have stopped there.  The problem is the movies keep making a bazillion dollars so sad to say there will be more.  This Fate movie grossed over $500 Million world wide.  For me after this one I am out.

The Furious 7 movie was so over the top and unbelievable but still had a fun factor even though it seemed to have been written by a third grader.  So the bar was set pretty low with Fate of the Furious.  Sadly for all of us four guys that saw it the movie finished far below expectations.  As anyone that has watched tv in the past few months has surely seen the trailers for F8 knows this time Dom goes rogue.  The only thing the family can't handle is a bad Dom.  I'm not going to give spoilers as to why Dom goes rogue but I should to save you ten bucks.  The action is not very good.  Every fight scene with the Rock or Jason Statham is so full of shaky cam it was hard to watch.

The plot is so weak even that third grader that wrote the last one would say Oh Please!  Needless to say I was not entertained.  Slapped my forehead so many times I had a headache when I left.  I know you have to take these with a grain of salt. I just couldn't do it.

I would say don't even bother to rent but that's just me.

Boss Baby

Boss Baby 

Rating 7 out of 10

This was not a cartoon I was anxious to see.  It looked kinda dumb and predictable.  Maybe I'll rent it.  Maybe.  But when my beautiful granddaughter Olivia has a birthday she pretty much gets what she wants from me (most other days also).  We braved the thunderstorms and her momma Mandy met us there were a car load of young ones.  Two minutes before the movie started what must have been a bus load of kids invaded the theater.  Oh man, when the movie gets boring this is going to be painful.

Then the movie started.  Much to my surprise it was actually funny.  The kids were all laughing heartily and I laughed out loud a few times too.  The 97 minute movie moves along at a good pace.  Yes the story is predictable.  Young Timmy is loving life with his two caring parents (voiced by Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel) spoiling him with truck loads of attention. Then one day it's all ruined when a baby from the baby factory (Alec Baldwin).  There is a side plot where Boss Baby is a special baby that is being groomed to take over the Baby Factory except the bad guy is causing problems.  Timmy is out to do whatever it takes to get Boss out of his life.

My Grandkids laughed until their sides hurt.  I laughed and was entertained,  It was much better than I thought it would be,  I wouldn't rate it up there even close to Moana or some of the other great animated films of last year.  I won't buy the dvd but I will recommend it for kids of all ages.