Since the release of the impressive “Atomic Blonde” in 2017, Charlize Theron has now become a highly skilled Martial Arts actor, that now also includes the new Netflix movie “The Old Guard”.

The Old Guard is one of those science fiction action movies that requires the audience to suspend all common sense, because this story is about a group of immortal soldiers who have been alive for about 1000 years. They cannot be killed, even when they are shot in the head or riddled with bullets. The one trick in this plot is that, after being killed unknown number of times these soldiers are no longer able to come back to life. Due to all of this absurd life and death complexity, this film runs a fine line from being entertaining mostly because of the Martial Arts action to being ridiculous because the immortality angle mostly does not work.

Originally there are 4 soldiers led by Theron who have been traveling the world for centuries fighting in wars and saving lives, but through their common dreams they find out about a new immortal soldier Nile, currently in the US army, played by KiKi Layne. What follows for the rest of this story are events we have seen before including a scientist who wants to capture all the soldiers so they can be studied and fighting various enemies with gunfire and Martial Arts. The last quarter of this story is mostly about the group’s ongoing attempts to evade capture by this evil scientist. At the very end of this story, there was a very strong suggestion that this is the first of a series of movies with these characters, that will probably be determined based on the Netflix ratings for this first installment.

Despite the strong 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I give this movie a 70% rating and a very marginal recommendation, mostly for fans of solid Martial Arts action.

The new movie “Greyhound:, starring Tom Hanks was originally scheduled to be released to movie theaters, but due to the Pandemic, it is only available on Apple+ streaming service. Greyhound is a Naval war movie starring Tom Hanks, and his performance reminded me of his incredible performance in “Saving Private Ryan”, released in 1998 – arguably the greatest war movie ever made – and arguably the greatest performance in Tom Hanks impressive career.

The events of this film are fiction, based on the book “The Good Shepherd” by C.S. Forester. The screenplay for this movie was written by both Tom Hanks and C.S Forester. During World War 2, in the battle of the Atlantic, “3500 ships were lost carrying millions of tons of cargo were sunk and 72,200 souls were lost”.

From the start, the commander of a battle ship, Captain Earnest Krause, played by Hanks is in charge of the protection a crowd of freighter ships in the North Atlantic in 1942 from German U-boats. What impressed me the most about the constant danger throughout the start-to-end battle within this story, was the complex maneuvering and the barking of orders from Captain Krause, where one small misstep could cost the lives of everybody on board of the battleship he commands. Krause’s ship is surrounded by submarines, and other German battleships involving excellent special effects within very choppy ocean water. There are at least 3 almost collisions with Krause’s battleship and other ships as Krause tries to avoid the constant attacks by the enemy.

Most unusual about this entire movie is that there is really no story, instead just a series of non stop events in the life of a battleship and its crew during a high point of the Naval battles in the North Atlantic in 1942.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are only about 76% and my rating is more in the 90% range, mostly because of the special effects and Tom Hanks performance. I highly recommend Greyhound as one of the best Naval War movies ever made. See the Greyhound WW2 movie trailer below.

Since the release of Hamilton on the new Disney+ streaming service on July 3, 2020 one would have to guess that there has been a huge increase in subscribers, at least for one month.

Even for those who hate musicals, and I am one of those people, you cannot help but admire the enormous amount of work the creator of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda, put into composing so much music and rhythmic dialogue for a production that is over 2 12 hours long. Then add all the singing and rapping of so many words that the entire cast had to memorize for so many musical numbers in this long production. Years ago, nobody would have guessed that someone could make an entire musical from the life of Alexander Hamilton who lived from January 11, 1755 – July 12, 1804. At its peak, Hamilton was the most attended and popular musicals in the world.

This movie, that is only available on the Disney+ service is a recording of a Broadway performance in June 2016 at the Richard Rogers theater. It plays exactly like you are sitting in the audience, watching a Broadway play. Ever aspect of the production is excellent and I agree with the very high 99% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. For me the standout performance was the actor who played King George, Jonathan Groff. He was both an excellent singer and very funny during all of his standout musical appearances. The entire rest of the cast, especially Miranda were all outstanding.

Hamilton is a must see, for the high level of acting, music and production.