a questionable love story - ***

This MGM produced film is based on a 2015 young adult novel of the same title written by Nicola Yoon.  She's written two books and Everything, everything was her first novel.  The film was directed by a black Canadian film director, Stella Meghie.  She studied screenwriting and this film is her second film but her first mainstream movie, being that her first film, Jean of the Joneses was considered an indie film. 

The film is about a couple of things; it is about a young lady trapped in her house because of some serious illness, who took the risk of dying in order to experience love and the ocean.  It is also about how love can cloud our judgement negatively affecting the people around us and most the ones we love.

This movie started of really nicely, the difficult conflict that it presents made it interesting.  There were some lines in the film that tugs your heartstrings and some motivational ones.  I particularly enjoyed watching the female lead, Amanda Stenberg.  She's a very pretty girl with very expressive eyes.  She played 'fragile' really well and it made it really easy to empathize with her character.

The problem starts when her character, Maddy meets and falls for Olly played by Nick Robinson.  Maddy is an extremely shy girl being someone who has never stepped out of the house since she was a baby and Olly being the new neighbor whose interactions with Maddy are limited due to her illness.  Most of their initial interactions were considered awkward because of  Maddy's emotional limitations and Olly's physical that it did not seem possible for them to fall in love the way they did in the movie.   Nick's Olly failed to develop her relationship with Maddy that his feelings comes off as ambiguous.  Is Maddy really in love with Olly or has she been too trapped inside her house that she falls for the first guy that she meets.  So short in saying the failure of the love story is caused by the questionable integrity of their relationship.

plagued with flaws - **

The Mummy is a reboot of the Mummy franchise that started in 1999 with the movie of the same title. then followed by two others, The Mummy returns and Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.  A fourth film was cancelled.  This new film is the first of a series that will feature other monster characters like Frankenstein, Wolfman and Dracula.  (see Dark Universe)

Princes Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), in ancient Egypt, wanted to grab the power from her brother, killed her family and made a deal with the evil god Set.   In exchange for power, the deal will allow Set to exist in corporeal form thru a human sacrifice.  But before she was able to kill her lover as the sacrifice, she was captured and was buried alive in Mesopotamia, now Iraq.  Her tomb was later discovered by Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) inadvertently freeing Princess Ahmanet and making him the new choice to be the human sacrifice to complete the promise of Set.

The character Nick Morton showed a lot of promise because of all the conflicts and the ironies that befall him.  He has done many mistakes in the past and is almost at the brink of change.  A grave situation is thrown at him and he had to make some big choices; to live or die, to be good or evil.  His character is conflicted and eventually became the unknowing and reluctant hero.  I like the character's potential and I was certainly interested in how his story will go.

Unfortunately this was not portrayed well by Tom Cruise.  It is a question of who will adjust, will the actor adjust to his character or the other way around.  But being the big Hollywood actor as he is the character was suited to fit his old Hollywood iconic image.  This movie lends itself to a lot of cliches that make the narrative almost incoherent.  It tries to please the audience by giving them what they think they want sacrificing the integrity of its characters.  And just a little short of becoming a campy zombie film. 

rhythm is marred by backstory, constrained comic attempts and a hesitant romantic angle - ***1/2

DC Entertainment President, Diane Nielson along with Warner Bros agreed that Wonder Woman is one of three priorities as solo film subjects that even though studies for this film had started since 1995, the idea to produce this film never fizzled out.  The material had gone through many changes and went through so many hands until it finally landed into the abled hands of screen writer Allan Heinberg in 2015.  According to a poll generated by Fandango with 10,000 respondents, Wonder Woman is the most anticipated summer movie of 2017 satisfying the high demand for a female superhero.

Thematically a coming of age story with World War I happening in the background.   An innocent Diana (Gal Gadot), Princess of Themyscera saved an american spy, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine),  working for the british intelligence whose plane crash landed in Themyscerian waters.  She learned of World War I and decided to finish it by killing Ares, the god of war. In his desperation to leave the island, Steve agreed to bring her where the war is even though the idea of killing one man to end the wars sounded a little silly to him.  She comes into the real world with fresh idealism and naivete but her exposure to the ravishes of war and the feeling of true love, allowed for her much strength and maturity to become the superhero we know now.

So many things I like in this film,  I like how the production created Themyscira, the island is fascinating,  the inhabitants' looks are consistent, the Amazons' costumes are feminine but not slutty.  The way the fighting scenes are staged they look like they have their own fighting style.  I love Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, she just grabs your attention with her beauty and you never get tired looking.  Her fight sequences were well crafted.  Her Wonder Woman started as innocent and pure but when she fights she still looks hot but being a 'badass' at the same time.

Between fight scenes is when you try to develop the story, or try to put in some comic relief to grab the audience attention.  This is where the movie fails a little. I got bored a little and almost fell asleep because of some lull in the story, some backstory that is not really necessary, comic scenes that were not quite there and a romantic angle that was not developed well.  It could be Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman fails to connect with other characters and it sort of makes the story a little messy. But overall I'm happy I saw this film and I am certainly looking forward for a sequel.