'Pirates of the Caribbean' sails into familiar waters - ***

Jerry Bruckheimer producing this series for the 5th time for Walt Disney Pictures came up with a totally different set of people to work on this possibly last episode. New directors, writers and composers try to work together to bring back the old charm of the first episode. Originally intended to be released in 2015, the film was delayed due to conflicts with the script and some budget issues. In other countries like the Philippines it is titled as Salazar's Revenge.

This is really about the search for the Trident of Poseidon, which was believed to be able to break all the curses at sea.  Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) wants it to save his father Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) from the curse of being bounded to the sunken ship the Flying Dutchman. Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) wants it to know more about her father who left her as in infant with the book that includes a map that leads to the Trident of Poseidon. Together they partner with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) as captain of the Dying Gull to help with the search.

This movie delivers a steady dose of action sequences and an impressive work on their CGI animation to match. It also tries to go back to the feels that the first episode has generated by adapting to what the original director Gore Verbinski has done.  Though the directors (Joaquim Ronning and Espen Sandberg) claim that they had simply executed what is, according to them on the 'impressive' script they had put their own Norwegian touch by involving more 'heart' and emotions into some scenes.  I am particularly impressed by the new characters in this story,  Javier Bardiem's Salazar is scary and vengeful , Henry Turner provides the heart in this film and Carina Smyth brings in a lot of emotions in this story while being strong at the same time.

After two episodes of this series I got tired already and did not watch the third and fourth.  I am even surprised that there is this 5th installment and there are talks that this film is just the beginning of the final episode.  I think I just simply lost interest in pirates and sea action sequences and it does not help that Jack Sparrow has been reduced to a drunken Mr. Magoo . Though the directors admit that they had made him like what  he was in the first episode which is 'not the main character' his character somehow became a nuisance to the other protagonists in this story. 

a modern take on a loose interpretation - ***

Intended to be a 6 part movie series by Warner Bros, this 2017 fantasy film loosely based on the King Arthur legends spent $175million in production cost and only getting box office returns at $55.2 million.  It started filming in February of 2015 and was intended to be released in July of 2016.  The release has been postponed several times until it finally opened in May this year.

Jealous of his brother's power as king of the Britons , Vortigem (Jude Law) orchestrates a coup and summons a demon knight to kill his brother King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) by sacrificing his own wife to the sea witches.  The King senses the plot and tries to flee his family to safety.  His infant son Arthur escapes by boat , his wife is killed by the demon knight and the king plunges in himself the excalibur and turning himself into stone to prevent Vortigem from acquiring the sword.  As destiny would will it,  Arthur comes back a grown man, reluctantly claims the sword and must accept his fate as the new king of the Britons.

Charlie Hunnam made quite an impression on me when I saw him on Pacific Rim. And I really said I will watch out for his next big film and this film was the next one that came along.  His King Arthur started out as someone from the streets trying to earn a living for himself and his foster mother and later would develop into somebody more concerned with the fate of the land and accepting a bigger responsibility.  Charlie is just part of an interesting set of cast members which include some very good uknowns along with popular ones like Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen and Eric Bana.  They have truly done their part as actors and have come together to make it an ensemble act to help further the story.

The director Guy Ritchie has his trademark firmly imprinted in every scene of this film.  If you have seen Sherlock Holmes you will notice how he is fond of some quick cuts to the next scene to demonstrate urgency and push the pace of the story.  Some of his shots and editing style were very expressive and gets the audience to feel what the characters are feeling. It helps generate excitement on a setting that  looks drabby and dark.

I was a little disappointed that the story is not really the classic tale of King Arthur but more of an artists interpretation of how he rose to power.  It is a loose interpretation that acquired too much artistic freedom breaking our own idea of what King Arthur should be like, others would use the word iconoclastic.  I had hope to see the classic story told in a modern way but it went all modern in style and somehow it did not gell very well together. 

as tiring as it is thrilling - **

Wikipedia - Alien Covenant is second to the prequel of the 4 Alien series; Alien (1979), Aliens(1986), Aliens 3(1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997).  It follows the previous prequel that is Prometheus (2012) and there are two more coming to finally connect the story to the first Alien film.  Of all the Aliens films, Ridley Scott directed 4 of them.

Covenant is a ship in 2104 that carries 2,000 colonists and 1,000 embryos.  It's mission is to reach a remote planet, Origae-6 with the intention of starting a new population of inhabitants.  The ship is manned by a synthetic named Walter (Michael Fassbender) while the crew and the colonists are put to cryosleep.  The ship suffered an accident killing several crew members including the captain Jacob Branson (James Franco).  The crew is awakened  to deal with the situation by fixing the ship.  While doing this they  intercepted a message coming from a planet later discovered to be habitable by human beings.  A contingent went down to investigate and discovered the earlier version of the xenomorph that was cultured by the only survivor of the Prometheus expedition, a synthetic named David who looks exactly like Walter. The investigation proved to be dangerous because of this and escape rendered necessary.

Ridley Scott has mastered this deep-space, close quarter suspense genre that it is almost iconic.  To me who is not really fond of this genre, I had a hard time watching this movie because one I don't like scary movies and two I don't sit well with a lot of gore and blood.  While this movie seemed to get the nod of a lot of critics I did not like it for its story..  The story does not really say much aside from what happened after the Prometheus expedition and maybe an introduction of what might happen in the following installment.  Being a prequel, this movie will just pave the way to the main story that is the Alien series and we will mostly know how this movie will end.   So what prequels can do is mention what is precedent to the main story and help us the audience understand the characters more by giving them more dimension. 

story suffers from a reluctant conflict - **1/2

This movie is based on a 2013 novel of the same title. It is co-written by the author of the book, David Eggers along with the director James Ponsoldt.  Aimed to be a techno-thriller, the movie did not reach its projected income on opening week and ranked 5th at the box office running behind The Fast and the Furious and The Baby Boss.

Mae Holland (Emma Watson)  was hired by a powerful internet company called The Circle upon the recommendation of a college friend Annie Allerton (Karen Gillan) as part of customer relations.  Getting the attention of the co-founders of the company, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) and Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt) she was asked to be part of a transparency experiment that later proved to be fatal to her and to her loved ones.

This movie boasts of a powerful cast,  a writer who also wrote the source material and the co-writer who also directed the movie.  It is about an issue that is so significant in today's era of the social media where privacy is cheap and almost non-existent.  But the movie fails to present an urgent conflict to make it interesting at best.  At the onset, when Mae got into the Circle, we as viewers were presented with what is obviously wrong with the company but it seems like the people in the story do not seem to recognize this.  And I feel I was pushed back just to allow the story to unravel and when it did I wondered where all the problem is coming from and I realized it should have come from the co-founders of the company but the actors who played these characters seem to be reluctant to be villainous thus making the story almost incomplete. I was a little disappointed watching this.  This is not Tom Hanks' best movie for sure. 

a hilarious crowd-pleaser -***1/2

James Gunn, the writer and director of this film said that he wanted this sequel to be fresh and different from the first one by giving it a totally different plot structure.  Furthermore,  he was not inclined on adding more characters for this sequel , and instead focus on the existing characters by adding more depth thereby allowing the audience to get know the Guardians emotionally.

Upon completing a mission , the Guardians set out from the land of the sovereign race only to be chased by remotely controlled ships in order to kill them due to Rocket's misdoing.  They were saved by Ego and had to land on a nearby planet.  Ego revealed that he is Peter's father but turned out to have some plot to conquer the universe and use Peter's and his combined celestial power to do it. A battle ensues between father and son, while the others plot to destroy the planet that will eventually kill Ego.

I think this was really an improvement of the first episode in terms of story.  We get to really know the characters very well in this sequel.  Drax the destroyer is showing more personality here and has proven that he is not just a killing machine.  Gamora has shown another side of her with the help of her half sister Nebula.  Rocket revealed more of his human side despite him being a genetically engineered mercenary and bounty hunter.  And we get to finally close the subplot concerning Peter Quill's mysterious roots.  So generally the story moved quite a bit forward while further developing the main characters without any sort of distraction from the other new support that came along.

With fascinating visual effects and very interesting worlds and aliens this movie tries to be a little bit of everything to please quite a diverse set of audience. Mostly funny and action packed, it also tries to be melodramatic, mysterious,  somewhat romantic.  It tries to get into family issues , with siblings and fatherhood.  It also tries to get into the psyche of why people behave the way they do. Though this diversity did not at all dampen the entertainment value of this movie, I think the vol. 3 sequel could use some more resolve.

A rivetting story simply told - *****

The writer and director of this movie Tom McCarthy along with co-writer Josh Singer completed the award winning screenplay in 2013.  He said that one of his goals for his film is to highlight the power of journalism which according to him was 'waning'.  The movie premiered to a 'sustained applause' by the audience of the 72nd Venice Film Festival in 2015 as a non-competitive entry. And in 2016 the movie won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Spotlight is a spot at the Boston Globe handled by a group of investigative reporters.  The story is about how the team came about exposing the systemic sexual abuse of Catholic priests in the Boston area, starting with the directive of incoming editor Marty Baron urging the team to pursue the story and ending with the exposure of more sexual abuses by the clergy.  The series of articles won for The Boston Globe the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003.

This film was superbly made in a way that everything was under control.  Even  the Catholic Church agrees how factual the story was presented regarding the Boston scandal.  Not over dramatizing it, not even exploiting the ploy of the victims, not demonizing the priests nor lionizing the journalists here that to me are the heroes, this movie really told the story as it is.  And it stars an ensemble cast of good actors nobody is dispensable.  I particularly noticed the kind of work that actor Mark Ruffalo puts in his role as Michael Rezendes.  His portrayal is deep into the bone, getting into the essence of his character ultimately changing his outward appearance from within.  I actually almost did not recognize him.. and I'm not talking about prosthetics. 

I feel very lucky having able to catch this film on a special screening.  I really rarely give a 5 star rating to any film because there wil always be something wrong.  But to me this film is what movie making should be all about. 

a contrived story that meant well - ****

Hugh Jackman was eyed to star in this film but he had to decline to be able to do the film Logan.  The producers thought of getting Johhny Depp until Overbrook Company  took over production and took on Will Smith to star in it as well.  The writer Allan Loeb had said that the idea of a depressed person due to death writing letters to the universe has been in his mind for so long that he was sure that it meant something. 

This is about a New York advertising executive trying to cope with the death of his daughter and how his three colleagues connived to save the company by proving his mental instability. It is also about how fate stepped in with the help of Death, Time and Love and tried to fix things for these four people.

I was so intrigued by this movie ever since I saw the trailer. I made a mental note to watch it when it came out.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to go to the theater when it finally did.  And so, now three months after, I am finally able to see it by renting it on iTunes. Really I am always concerned about what would the world say if it could talk.  Or what would abstract things look like when they are personified. The main character, Howard wrote letters to Death , Time and Love not knowing that they would one day come back to see him to reply to his letters.

Though this film did not quite turn out the way I think it would, to me it still sent the same  message despite taking on a course that the this movies trailer made me believe it would.  If that did not make sense to you, I can just say the trailer was a little misleading.   But I knew this movie would be somewhat heavy in feel and very serious in theme but there was nothing really remarkable about the way it was made except that, to me the two strongest points of this movie are script and casting. 

Though I have never been a fan of Will Smith, I know he has such a presence when he starts to speak and he probably gave his best in this film earning him a recognition by the NACCP Image Awards.  He is backed up by quite a strong ensemble cast led by Helen Mirren who is just delightful here as Death personified.  I like the sensitivity that Michael Pena gave to his role as one of the colleagues. Other cast members contributed in there own little way as well.

The script successfully strengthened the integrity of the characters who personified Death, Time and Love by saying things that really grab the essence of who they represent.  Like when Love said, something like love is present in the eyes of Howard's daughter it is also present in the tears that Howard sheds every time he thinks of her.  Or when Time told Howard that time is a gift and it is not for him to waste it. Or how the character Death reminds Howard that we as humans do not have control over death and that we should just accept.  On a certain level, we all know these things but to be able to hear it out of their mouths solidifies the truths that they stated.

Though the script was good the story to me felt too contrived that it was almost funny except that there was some doubt if they were really Death , Time and Love or are they were just actors pretending to be them.  Then it felt like there were too many coincidences going on that that makes you stop and think maybe they really are for no human could ever be that intelligent to be in the right place at the right time.  

Overall, I though this was a nice film although most movie critics will disagree with me. But I am glad I was finally able to watch and I am even thinking of watching it again.