The problem with all science fiction movies like “Replicas” is that you have to forgo any level of common sense to buy into the plot. For instance, there is technology that might be doable 500 or 1000 years from now, but people are driving around in cars that are from today. There is software and AI with a user interface that uses holograms – extremely far fetched and unnecessary for this story. At first the idea is to transfer the contents of a human brain from someone who has just died into a the computer brain of a robot, only to change all of this later in the movie to transfer the contents of one human brain into another human brain – a completely new and much higher level of technology. This idea seemed like it came out of the 30th re-write when they realized that having robots that were the cloned children and wife of the scientist Will Foster, played by Keanu Reeves would not make any sense. For the sake of the audience, you cannot change the technology of a science fiction movie on the fly to make up for mistakes in the screenplay. There is a level of far-fetched for this film that gets idiotic very quickly and it has happened many times before with other movies like this one. Like most Hollywood Science fiction movies, Replicas degrades into a formulaic series of chase scenes and an ending that was even more outlandish than the rest of the story.

The actress Alice Eve plays Keanu Reeves wife and I thought that the acting was overall good in this movie. The car accident that caused the death of Will Foster’s entire family was rather intense and hard to watch and you cannot help to think how anyone would survive losing their entire family in a car accident.

It is no surprise that this movie has a very low 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the reasons are all the same – its just too ridiculous and does not make enough sense to be a viable and intelligent science fiction movie. For these reasons I cannot recommend Replicas.

Someday, someone will do a study on how many dogs or cats are rescued from shelters or adopted after a movie like “A Dog’s Way Home” comes out. Over the years we have all heard about dogs that have gone through a miracle journey of hundreds or even thousands of miles to find their way back to their owner. Despite this, this story is not a true one and I thought that a better movie could have been made with a true story. This is a good movie about a Dog who gets separated from its owner and finds its way home and along the way goes through several hellish and depressing experiences. The worst part of this journey was when he wound up with a homeless man played by the actor Edward James Olmos – a part I would have left out of this movie. The dog also befriends a mountain lion and I thought that a flaw in this movie was the poorly rendered CGI for the mountain lion that looked very fake.

Several good things stand out about this film, starting with the incredible loyalty of dogs, who will go through anything to be with their owners. Where this level of loyalty and love comes from with mans best friend is one of the best things about owning a dog. As with most movies about pets, the downside of shelters and the realities of laws about controlling animal population comes up. The law in this movie is that Pit Bulls are outlawed in the Denver Colorado area, the reasons for this rather obvious due to the extremely severe damage a dog like this can cause with the strength of its bite.

This movie stars the actress Ashley Judd, who for several years after her extremely hot career in the 1990’s has been making movies like this one, forgoing a return to the big movie star status she had about 15 years ago. This movie is not for the younger children as some of the scenes would probably be too intense, but for any child over 13 I would say its an acceptable family movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is only 60%, I would give this an average 70% rating due to some of the flaws, but overally I do recommend A Dog’s Way Home.

The new movie “On the Basis of Sex” is not really a biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but instead in the first 1/3 of this film shows Ginsberg’s early college years at Harvard Law School as a married woman with a child, her husband Martin Ginsberg played very well by actor Armie Hammer. Most impressive about Ruth Ginsberg in her college years is that due to her husbands cancer diagnosis, she attended all of his law classes as well as her own, to keep him on schedule with his law degree. Not only did she graduate Harvard, help her husband and raise a young child, but she also finished first in her graduating class. Despite her great accomplishments at Harvard, she faced nothing but condescending discrimination in the New York City job market, because she was a woman. Eventually, her only alternative was to become a law professor because she had no other offers from any law firm. While watching this movie it was easy to understand the extreme anger Ginsberg must have faced after so many years of never getting what she rightfully deserved.

What I thought was unusual about this film is that the the remaining part of this story is about an obscure legal case in Colorado involving a single man and caretaker for his mother, was denied a tax write off. The only reason for this tax deduction denial was because he was a man and the reason for this was the title of caretaker always implied a woman. Amazingly this obscure case was the first landmark and the beginning of a whole series of supreme court arguments for equal rights championed by Ginsberg. Over many years the discrimination of women within unfair and outdated laws were overturned. I thought the idea to center almost this entire movie on this one case and the background and arguments leading to the final trial was unusual, but effective. The ending scenes and arguments to the Colorado Supreme Court was very impressive with some great acting by Felicity Jones who played Ruth Bader Ginsberg. In my opinion Jones should receive an Academy Award nomination for best actress, but unfortunately due to no nomination for the Golden Globe, this is probably unlikely.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews for On the Basis of Sex are a very surprisingly average 71%. I would give this movie at least an 85% and I give this film a strong recommendation.