Author Archives: jjcwn

Past Movie Review: Flight

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In all my years as an avid movie-goer, I dont think I have ever seen a movie with better airplane special effects than the movie “Flight”, starring Denzel Washington, released in 2012. This movie, and specifically this one scene when the pilot Whip Whitaker, played by Washington – is not for those who fear flying. After a major part failure on the plane, Whitaker had to make the airplane turn completely over on its back, to prevent a straight into the ground crash. This scene was amazing with both the special effects, and Washington’s expert-calm-acting where he prevented the crash, but not without 6 people dying out of the 106 onboard.

The real story of Flight is about alcoholism and drug abuse. It turns out that Whitaker is a very serious drug addict, who is very good at hiding his problem, for many years. Despite his brilliant flying to prevent a horrendous tragedy, the toxicology report showed that he had cocaine and a very high alcohol level in his system after the accident. After the accident this story is all about a massive coverup to kill the toxicology report and save Whitaker from a very long prison term that may even include life in prison. The point here is, it doesn’t matter that the pilot saved 100 lives, all that matters is that he was operating an Airline Jet while drunk. This movie might have been based on recent true stories about pilots who were flying under the influence that came out within a few years of the release of this film.

Flight is one of Denzel Washington’s best movie roles and performances, along with Don Cheadle who is Whitaker’s lawyer who will do anything to keep him out of prison, John Goodman who almost steals the movie as Whitaker’s drug hookup and Bruce Greenwood as Whitaker’s friend. All of the performances were outstanding in this very memorable film. The direction of Robert Zemeckis was also great.

There are many messages in this story, but for me the most important one is, when you are addict you never think you are addicted and you will continue to use, even if it might mean that as a result of your drinking and drug abuse you might kill many people even if you are an airline pilot.

Once again, the critics back in 2012 were wrong, this is not a 77% movie, its more in the 90% range and I highly recommend it.

Netflix Movie Review: Thunder Force

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I have always wondered when a bad movie is released, how the people who spent 1-2 years writing and creating the production feel, when it gets very low ratings. One of the best examples of this is the movie “Gotti” released in 2018, which received a 0 total rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After all of of those years of hard work, writing and acting, and in the end, a bad movie is still made. Very often the people involved are not even aware that the movie is bad when they are making it. Critics are extremely cruel and Gotti was not a zero, but it was also not a very good movie. Gotti should have either not been made, or delayed until a good script was re-written. Very often due to budget concerns, or a deadline that just had to be met, becomes just another reason why a bad movie is made.

Melissa McCarthy is married to actor Ben Falcone, who both wrote and directed the new film “Thunder Force”, about high school friends who later become super heroes to fight off human mutants known as miscreants who were infected with cosmic radiation that affects each of them with dangerous super powers.

The idea behind this film, is an attempt by the screenwriter to cash in on the huge interest in Marvel Comics and Super Hero movies. In this case, Thunder Force is mostly a comedy, but unfortunately most of the comedy does not work. There was a good amount of money spent for special effects, with one of the highlights – “Melissa McCarthy who plays Lydia Berman throws a bus down a street”. One of the miscreants, a character called “The Crab”, played by Jason Bateman has lobster claws for hands. My assumption is that was idea was created entirely because they thought that having lobster claws for hands “looked funny”. It did not look funny.

Lydia Berman’s friend Emily Stanton is played by Octavia Spencer who is also best friends with Melissa McCarthy in real life, otherwise it is hard to understand why Spencer, who has won an Academy Award, decided to make this movie after reading the script. This production is a friendship collaboration that started with Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy coming up with this idea, writing the script and then hiring their two best friends to make the movie. I was surprised how few of the jokes were not funny in this story, visual or otherwise. Movie making is a long and arduous process and so many ideas that seemed so good at the beginning, fail either while trying to fix the script or on the cutting room floor. Melissa McCarthy is extremely likeable and funny, so hopefully this bad film will not do any damage to her career as a comedic actress.

I mostly agree with the very low 4.2 rating in IMDB and 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This one is a surprisingly big miss, unfortunately for everyone involved.

Movie Review: Godzilla vs Kong

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For all movies like “Godzilla vs Kong”, with great special effects and a preposterous story, we all forego logic and common sense, in order to be entertained by great action scenes. Unfortunately for most movies special effects movies, almost without exception, there is no great and enjoyable underlying story. All that matters is the computer animation and special effects. Everybody respects the software developers who create great action scenes and in the case of the new movie “Godzilla vs Kong” fight scenes between Godzilla and King Kong are spectacular. However like always, there is no real story that makes much sense.

This time around we are told that there is a part of the planet earth that is called “hollow earth” where huge creatures like King Kong and Godzilla have come from. In most of the previous movies, the explanation had something to do with a nuclear accident that revived prehistoric creatures from millions of years ago. I would have preferred this idea instead of a bubble in the middle of the planet earth as would most fans of the Godzilla and King Kong movies. Both ideas are ridiculous, but less ridiculous is animals from millions of years ago being revived by nuclear power.

Returning to this new Godzilla movie are the 2 of the actors from the bad “Godzilla: King of the Monsters“, released in 2019 including Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler. New actors include: Rebecca Hall, Eiza Gonzalez and Brian Tyree Henry. There are at least 2 sub stories in this film, that seem to be mostly disconnected, all culminating in huge fight between Godzilla, King Kong and a giant robot Godzilla created by some evil company. Like so many movies like this, it seemed at time that whatever the screenplay might be about, the important thing was to create the special effects first, and then write a story around it.

The Rotten Tomatoes ranking of 80% is not correct, this movie is mostly in the 60% range, mostly because of the bad story. See this movie for the special effects and do not expect much more than that. I do not recommend Godzilla vs Kong.