It’s relatively rare for a big star like Tom Hanks to star in a low-budget art house type of a movie but “Hologram For The King” is one of those kinds of movies. This film gives an insight into what is probably happening more and more in the Software Development/Information Technology field in the last few years, ie. more and more American’s traveling to Saudi Arabia and Dubai to sell state of the art technology to a massively expanding area of the world. It was interesting to see the hot flat desert life of so many people where despite the stifling heat, blinding sun and sand, the most construction in the world is going on. How can workers build so many huge buildings under such horrible conditions is a mystery, as well as what it must take to build the foundations of buildings in the sand to support so much massive weight. The part of Saudi Arabia where this movie was shot is in the early stages of new huge development probably which is being created because this location within Saudi Arabia wants to try and catch up with Dubai. Clearly they have a long way to go.

This movie starts in an extremely unusual way; opening with Hanks walking out of his house followed by blue puffs of smoke as his house, car and wife disappear while he walks forward narrating something about leaving things behind. This opening scene gives the viewer the impression that the rest of the movie might follow this unusual approach but it then immediately reverted back to a normal movie, which I thought ruined the strange opening of the film. Thereafter, we find Hanks traveling to Saudi Arabia where he is trying to sell Hologram software to a Saudi King who he never meets during weeks of trying to have meetings with important Saudi officials only to find out many times that these meetings were being delayed or canceled.

Hanks collaborates with 3 other members of this software company who are burdened by having to work in a tent which had no food, internet access or at a later time no air conditioning. Another unusual aspect of this movie is the sudden appearance of a huge cyst on Hank’s back which leads to a doctor’s appointment and later a love story with a Saudi doctor who like Hanks, is also getting divorced and has children. The cyst was found to be pre-cancerous and had to be surgically removed, and leads to a later scene that enhances the potential romance with the Saudi doctor.

This film has many flashbacks that include Hank’s previous employment as a Schwinn Bicycle company executive and the layoff of many employees, his divorce and various conversations with his teenage daughter who he can barely afford to send to college due to his divorce. I thought these flashbacks did fit well into the story mainly because they were short and to the point and did not affect the flow of the story other than to enhance it.

What was really not that believable was the developing love story between the Saudi doctor and Hanks which blossomed mostly at the end of the film. I thought the woman who played the doctor was really not attractive enough to have a romance with Tom Hanks and because of this I thought she was miscast in this role and the love story was not believable enough.

Due to the unusual nature of this film and the insight into some Saudi culture and the country, I do mildly recommend this movie.

IMDB – A Hologram For The King

Under the conditions of a guaranteed audience and box office from fans of previous Marvel Comic’s movies and the original comic book characters, is it even possible to come up with a coherent and enjoyable story? So far based on a string of previous Marvel comic movies recently, I would say that the odds of this are very low. It seems the executive producers who make these movies don’t really care about a great story and a script that takes a long time to write and then re-write because they already know, just like they did with the recent Batman Vs Superman movie, that the money is already there and they only care about getting it out as soon as possible to maximize their profit. Unfortunately sitting through movies like this can be long, boring, repetitive, annoying and ultimately disappointing.

The newest Marvel comic movie, Captain America: Civil War is a giant 2+ hour excuse to create a conflict and then have all the different super hero’s karate fight each other and other criminals, create explosions and show more special effects, most of which we have all seen many times before. There is nothing new or groundbreaking about this movie and the story is all over the place; almost as if so many people and actors and ideas were involved that when it was all shot, it was impossible to connect all the small stories together to make a compelling story that keeps your interest the entire 2 hours. I for one was very bored and after 90 minutes of this, I could not wait for it all to be over.

Robert Downey continues his role as Iron Man and he has to now hold the all-time record for playing a superhero in so many movies that we have all lost count. The money Downey has made playing this one Iron Man character may also be an all-time record when he has played Iron Man for the last time if he has not reached that record already. Chris Evans reprises his role as Captain America and the reason for the conflict between Captain America and Iron Man is because of a disagreement about signing a United Nations charter that would allow the UN to control the Avengers. Iron Man is for this agreement, and Captain America is against it. I thought it was a stretch to believe that this one disagreement would cause a near death battle between the 2 superheroes at the end of this movie or that the 14 super heroes would break off into 2 factions and fight each other of this one issue. Scarlett Johansson reprises her role as Black Widow and its always been hard to fully understand what her superhero powers are, other than being very good at martial arts.

Opportunities for instant death for the Black Widow and Hawkeye played by Jeremy Renner during so many long fight sequences make it implausible that they are really superheroes​ because their only skills are not skills that would make you impervious to explosions and violent conflict which you would think would be some kind of a prerequisite for being a super hero in the first place. For some reason even though just about every superhero is in this movie, the Hulk does not appear which is disappointing because he is the most interesting of all the Marvel characters in my opinion.

After over two hours of set-up and then fight scenes, mostly involving karate and explosions it was time to end this movie which is about 30 minutes too long. Just like I when reviewed Super Man vs Batman about 2 months ago, I cannot really recommend this movie because to make a good or a great movie, you need an interesting story first and this one just does not have one.

Captain America: Civil War – IMDB

I always think about what are the main reasons to go see a movie and what makes a movie great? One of the main reasons to go to a theater and watch a movie for two hours is to escape reality and think about other things. Another reason could be to compare your life to other people and perhaps imagine how you would react or deal with a certain challenging or even funny situation. Another reason could be to learn something new about a historical event that you never knew or learn about some true story that you never knew about before. After that, when you pay money to see a movie you expect some effort in terms of writing the screenplay and the production quality and this certainly is something that is never guaranteed when you pay to see a movie.

In July 1998 after several months of previews, there was a huge amount of buzz about the release of a new Steven Speilberg film entitled “Saving Private Ryan” , which was not only about the June 6, 1944 Normandy Invasion but also loosely about the true story of The Niland Brothers, and how the United States Army was trying to save what they thought was the only surviving brother in World War 2. The previews of Saving Private Ryan were initially showing Tom Hanks on a boat about to invade the coast of France in the beginning of the Normandy invasion and all the talk on the internet was about the realism that this movie would show about the horror of war. This is where “Saving Private Ryan” set itself apart from all other movies that have ever been made. For the first time, there was a war movie that showed what it was really like for thousands of young men during World War 2, most of them not even 20 years old who were killed and wounded during the largest invasion in human history. Even more remarkable about this groundbreaking film, the best Speilberg ever produced, was the fact that soon after the movie came out in July 1998, the veterans of the Normandy Invasion came out and spoke of the realism of this film and most especially what happened during the Normandy invasion.

While watching Saving Private Ryan for the first time in July 1998 and again in September 1998, I remember having thoughts of what it must be like for so many of these young men who thought they were invincible but in an instant their war experience was over in 20 seconds as soon as the door dropped down from the boat they were in and they were killed by massive incoming German machine gun fire, or they drowned because of their heavy equipment on the ocean floor or while trying to find cover, they were killed on the beach trying to get out of the Normandy coast onto land. For those few who made it to the cover of some of the cliffs of Normandy, they had to witness the horrible deaths of so many other men their age who were struggling to survive the first few moments of the invasion. Witnessing a horrible death in front of you as you follow had to be one of the worst experiences of these heroes whose actions that day, saved the world. The thoughts of terror of watching many other horrible deaths and knowing that you are next for me had to be one of the most extraordinarily difficult experiences these young men had to live through. This movie reminds​ all of us, better than any other War movie ever has, that in this life there is War and then everything else. Compared to the horrors of war, everything else is bullshit and pales in comparison.

After Saving Private Ryan came out many people came out and protested the extreme violence and death depicted in this movie, forgetting that showing this level of violence and war realism for the first time was the whole point of the film. Showing what really happened during a horrible war demonstrated a level of appropriate respect to those who survived and those who died not only during the Normandy Invasion but in all wars. I remember hoping that if more movies like this were made and enough people saw them that just maybe humanity would have fewer wars or think twice before sending so many young people to their early death.

Sadly due to the insanity of the Oscars, Saving Private Ryan did not win the best picture in1998; instead, the movie Shakespeare in Love won, for reasons unknown. Speilberg did win for best director but Tom Hanks did not win for best actor which was a major mistake, mostly likely due to the fact that he had already won 2 best actor Oscars which should have no bearing on who wins an Oscar each year.

Like all greatest of all time movies, you remember little scenes along with the big ones. For me the scene where Tom Hanks is getting his orders from his commander and looking at the high-octane Army coffee and sandwiches being made at a nearby table, the view of Normandy Bay where he looks at and notices the ships and thousands of soldiers in the biggest invasion in human history stand out as memorable. Finally Tom Hank’s “Earn it” at the end of this great film is one of the greatest lines ever spoken by any actor in any movie.

The odds are low after all these years that many people have not seen Saving Private Ryan, but if you haven’t you owe it to yourself to see one of the greatest movies that will ever be produced.

15 Facinating Facts about Saving Private Ryan