Movie Review - Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Joel Kinnaman, Jared Leto, Karen Fukuhara, Ben Affleck, and many more.

Directed by: David Ayer Written by: David Ayer Based on the comics by: John Ostrander Cinematography by: Roman Vasyanov Music by: Steven Price

Premise: After Superman's disappearance, there's been a growing concern. What if someone like him reappears. A super human who didn't care to play by the rules and decides to become a terrorist. Amanda Waller has a solution. Use a handful of dangerous, imprisoned felons to run covert operations. Expendable people who could be used to take out metahuman threats. And she's found a way to make them cooperate, whether they like it or not. (Rated PG-13)

Review:

1) Acting - Total Thumbs Up: Viola Davis proves once again why she is such a consummate actress. Her portrayal of Amanda Wallen is chilling. Will Smith showed multiple facets for the talented Deadshot. But it is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn who steals the show. Her scenes with Jared Leto, who plays the Joker, have all manner of lovely subtext. :) Theirs is a complicated relationship to the extreme. :) 

2) Special Effects - Total Thumbs Up: The special effects were outstanding. And it was the little things that really ramped them up. The smoke and burning embers around the Enchantress. The beautiful dancing fire figures created by El Diablo. The gooey remains left during the brother's attacks. The one scene where the changed man's head undulates. Lots of wonderful little details.

And Deadshot's assassination and later his gun play show - awesome!

On a larger scale: we get lots of explosions, crashing helicopters, and a super cool looking magical death machine. The obligatory column of light and ring of matter looked fabulous! And wait till you see what El Diablo can truly do when he lets loose. :)

3) Plot/Story - Thumbs Up: Many of the characters who belong to the Suicide Squad I was already familiar with and others not so much. While the film does try to get the audience acquainted with most of the members; they do so in a briefing type style. Yet because of the number of members, it slowed the pace of the film quite a bit.

The "object lesson" character didn't get introduced much at all. Might have had more impact if they had - but they did already have their hands full. This is one of the biggest problem with films where you have a lot of headliners. Someone will lose out - be it the characters or the plot. And sometimes it's both.

Several themes and objects of "food for thought" are brought to the table. Mankind's duality, family, how adversity brings all sorts of people together. The different facets of love, and how it can free you or enslave you. Even how evil can come from all sorts of sources and in all sorts of ways.

And sadly, the previews give away almost all of Harley Quinn's lines. :(  (Though they got her so right! Mr. J, Pudding, even the hammer. Lol.) 

I do have to say that since June Moone is now an archeologist - she sure didn't act like one. She would have been kicked out of academia for willfully destroying the priceless artifact that got her into so much other trouble. *sigh*

No real surprises in the plot. Once it gets going it speeds along pretty well. And make sure to stay through the first part of the credits for a couple of more important minutes!

4) Stunts - Total Thumbs Up: There are a ton of stunts pretty much throughout the entire film. From fighting the inmates to fighting the bad things. Lots of close combat with guns, bats, fists, katana, and boomerangs. Almost too much stuff to follow all at once. :)

5) Costuming/Makeup - Total Thumbs Up: Some great makeup work in the film. El Diablo's tattoos were everywhere and looked fab. Harley's white skin and her funky eye and hair makeup were great. The Joker was also a fun bit of work. The tattoo on his hand of the laughing mouth was too fun! And let's not forget Killer Croc! The face getup and teeth were amazing. The Enchantress (despite her being a different take than in the comics) looked awesome as well. Super creepy. :)

Conclusion: "Suicide Squad" is a bit top heavy at the start, but still quite fun. No real surprises. Most of the snappy one liners have already been revealed. Yet it was still entertaining overall. Stay through the first half of the credits! 

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 (Hubby's Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Movie Review - Blackhat

Blackhat

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Andy On, Christian Borle, Danny Burstein, Jason Butler Harner, Tyson Chak, Brandon Molale, and more.

Directed by: Michael Mann Written by: Morgan Davis Foehl Cinematography by: Stuart Dryburgh Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams, Atticus Ross, and Leopold Ross

Premise: When someone causes a nuclear reactor in China to overheat, then causes havoc on the New York stock exchange, China and the U.S. join forces to find the cyber culprits and stop them. But Dawai, the head of the Chinese contingent, decides they need one other person on the team if the bad guys are to be caught before they cause more chaos, his friend from his MIT days, Nick Hathaway - who's currently serving out a thirteen year sentence in a U.S. prison. (Rated R)

Review:

1) Acting - Thumbs Up: Chris Hemsworth did well as the guarded but helpful jailbird Nick Hathaway.  Leehom Wang, though, stole a lot of the spotlight as the smooth Chinese investigator Chen Dawai. Viola Davis also gave a great performance as Carol Barrett, the FBI agent in the joint task force. Wei Tang did well as Dawai's sister and Nick's love interest, though her accent was so heavy, it wasn't always easy to understand her English, so some important comments and moments were lost here and there.

2) Special Effects - Total Thumbs Up: The beginning of the film was a lot of fun as the special effects department worked some great magic and lovely use of macro photography to draw the audience down into the inner workings of the computers and the electronics of the Chinese nuclear power plant. This fun bit totally set the expectation bar high. Sadly, the rest of the film didn't live up to the great work in the beginning, though not from the special effects angle.

The explosion at the plant was well done. The small truck at the parking lot and how it's used was fabulous. Definitely a different approach to breaking and entering.

There's lot of gun play in spots as well as the use of other more potent armaments. There were at least two spots were the amount of lead flying was close to jaw dropping.

3) Plot/Story - Neutral: Sadly, there were a lot of fallacies in the film. While it is possible to be in jail for eighteen months and still be on top of the 'game' with programming, fifteen years or so is a lot harder to swallow. Operating systems change in but a handful of years and using illegal cellphones in jail are not going to keep you in the latest programing language.

This movie is long for an action film, 133 minutes, but the time wasn't always used to good effect, which was a pity. While we get some info here and there about Nick, we pretty much get nothing on Lien aside from her being Dawai's sister and a network specialist. There's a quick hint that Nick and Dawai were super close, once upon a time, yet nothing is even hinted at for this seeming closeness or the fact they allowed each other to lose touch.

As a bad guy trying to pull of an amazing feat of money making, he really wasn't very smart. Of all the places to try to use your 'special' program, why would you ever pick on a nuclear plant? The guy basically lit up a giant sign saying 'look look look at me!' when stealth is what was called for. It was a stupid risk and in the end, because he did it that way, he is eventually stopped. (And the equipment he was testing wasn't even that uncommon!) If he'd skipped the nuclear plant altogether and gone for a test somewhere less volatile, no one would probably have ever known he'd ever pulled his ultimate stunt and he and his cohorts would have made billions!

We're not going to talk about the lame love setup on this film. Had to have been pure hormones. Lots of long glances with strung out time which led to a lot of nothing.

And, if you don't want the audience to realize you're about to blow up the car - don't wait so friggin' long to do it! (I freaked my husband out. I did an aside and said "the car's going to blow up". Two seconds later, blow up it did! They really waited way too long - like holding up a sign.)

4) Stunts - Thumbs Up: The film had a nice fight scene in a Korean restaurant, though it was totally spoiled by the dreaded "shaky cam". Nothing wastes orchestrated violence more than the audience not being able to see it because the screen is shaking. Ugh. It moved around so much you couldn't even tell two of the guys had knives. All that beautiful stunt work wasted. Sigh. (The last half of the film was chuck full of shaky cam moments too. Double Ugh)

5) Locations/Cinematography - Total Thumbs Up: Aside from the beginning sequence, the locations and spanning cinematography shots at those spots were the most enjoyable parts of the film. Shot is Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and elsewhere, there was a lot of things to see. And they picked great times in the day and angles to do the spanning shots of these places as well - just at sunrise or almost past sunset - some truly amazing colored skies and clouds, as well as tons of lights shinning up from the darkness. Some truly gorgeous filming. Too bad it was wasted on such a slow, clunky plotted movie. The patchy editing didn't help much either...

Conclusion: Started out great, had some awesome cinematography shots, but the clunky, drawn out plot and lack of depth to the characters just bogged the whole thing down. A pity, really.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 (Hubby's Rating: Catch it on Cable)

Movie Review - The Help

The Help

Starring: Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sissy Spacek, Jessica Chastain, Ahna o'Reilly, Allison Janney, and more.

Directed by: Tate Taylor Screenplay by: Tate Taylor Based on the Novel by: Kathryn Stockett Original Music by: Thomas Newman

Premise:  A young woman, who's come back home from college, notices how the colored maids are being treated and decides she'd like to do a book from their point of view -- one where people can see what it's like to be them, how they feel, how they see life, how they do their work and raise other people's children in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s.

Review:  This was a beautiful movie with many levels.  It isn't just a film showing the travails of colored women, but women in all walks of life during the 1960's.

The chains were worn by not only by the maids but also by the white women who hired them. It's a movie about expectations.  Expectations for Negroes, for women (white and colored), from the different levels of society and their peers. 

The story unfolds slowly, like anything worth doing in the south. It's a testament of courage and trust and moving past what they've been taught all their lives, even as we see pieces of history happening in the background to ground the events in history. (One interesting thing was all the info on Medgar Evers - I'd not heard of him before this point but reading about him after was very interesting. A definite fighter for civil rights.)

It's quite possible Academy Awards will be won from the great work done in the film. Viola Davis has my vote, as well as Octavia Spencer. Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard as well. If Sissy Spacek does not win the Best Supporting Actress award, it'd be a darn shame.

The film is full of poignant and humorous moments. The building of several secrets and their revelations. What I liked most was that these ladies did what they did despite the very real danger they were in. A danger that is subtly shown and you can feel the fear and uncertainty as matters move along.

This would be an excellent film to show younger generations to give them a taste of a way of life they know nothing about. Very well worth it. And if you're like me, make sure to take a hanky. You'll need it by the end.

Rating: 4 out of 5 (Hubby's Rating: Worth Full Price of Admission)