Bird Box (2018) - Movie Review

  

It’s a little too easy to just cut to the chase and see this as an attempt to cash in on A Quiet Place. Atmospheric horror tied directly to one of the human senses, with heavy emphasis on parenthood through the characters; the ties exist, is all I’m saying. But more so than that, this concept feels like someone looked at The Happening and went “Okay, there has to be a way to do this story without it being completely stupid.” A mysterious force is making the human population commit suicide, and the few that remain have to try and survive without getting exposed to that force. It’s an idea that honestly is worth trying to make palatable, and the attempt made here ain’t half bad.

Jurassic World (2015) - Movie Review

Time for part two in our look into classic genre franchises from the 80’s-90's that are getting remakes lately… yes, this is enough of a specific trend for me to call this "a look into". Jurassic Park, the original at least, is the perfect example of the nostalgic classic: An old(er)-school sci-fi adventure that is unbelievably silly, and more than a little stupid, but it has held up far better than a lot of other films from the same era for most people and is considered still as good as it was when it came out. Watching it again, it’s kind of amazing how good it looks even today effects-wise, but that might just be the inner SF snob in me who has grown weary of the near-endless CGI. Then The Lost World came out, and aside from Pete Postlethwaite doing his best to salvage the thing, it was pretty god-awful. Then came the third film, which somehow managed to one-up the lack of effort from before and somehow made a film that’s worse. Between the sheer awe-inspiration of the first, the animal rights “we’re-making-28-Days-Later-look-restrained” idiocy of the second and the utter boredom of the third, this easily has the worst build-up of the three revamps I’ll be looking at: Say what you want about the Mad Max sequels, at least they have the benefit of being insanely influential in their own rights. Let’s see if this film can go above the low bar 2 and 3 set for it.

Focus (2015) - Movie Review

If I was asked a few short years ago what I thought of Will Smith, I would have said that he is one of the coolest and most charismatic actors in Hollywood. Nowadays, I’m more likely to say that he was cool and charismatic but After Earth ruined him for me. Yeah, I’m willing to stick up for him for lesser works like Hancock, I, Robot and even I Am Legend, but his usual smooth delivery being reduced to a complete drone thanks to M. Night Shyamalan kind of spoiled the fun for me as well as cementing Shyamalan officially as one of the worst directors in my book. Sure, my opinion of Smith picked back up slightly after his surprisingly nice turn in Winter’s Tale but… well, quite frankly, he was the only good thing about that turd of a movie. Then the trailers for this film hit and there was a spark of that old Will Smith on the screen; colour me excited to say the least. But will this be the great redeemer or just another let-down?