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Movie Review: A Quiet Place Part II

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In the history of movie science fiction, in my opinion the Matrix series had the best scientific concepts. Using human beings as batteries, an alternate world where people have to plug into a computer to see the world as it really is, excellent special effects of robots attacking humans and karate sequences. All of these ideas are great and spawned 3 movies, ending in 2003.

“A Quiet Place”, released in 2018 and now the sequel “A Quest Place Part 2”, released originally in 2020 and delayed until 2021 – has the second best movie science fiction concepts in movie history. Aliens from another planet have invaded Earth and they kill anything that makes a sound – a great an original idea that results in film that has very little dialogue and a high level of terror. With both movies, the special effects with these insane looking alien creatures is outstanding, as is the acting, most especially with the main character Evelyn Abbot, played by Emily Blunt. The good thing about this sequel is that the movie starts by showing the invasion of the aliens of the small town that occurred before the beginning of the first movie. However, the big flaw I found in this sequel is that in a situation where Evelyn Abbot has an infant child and two young children younger than 13, why are there so many scenes where all of them are separated? In real life, nothing like this would ever happen. Most especially in a scene where Evelyn leaves her injured 12 year old son and infant alone so she can collect more supplies. This makes absolutely no sense and lacks any level of common sense. Screenwriting is an extremely challenging art form because a story has to be plausible and entertaining at the same time.

This movie also stars Djimon Hounsou and Cillian Murphy in excellent supporting roles.

Despite the flaws, I mostly agree with the critics who give this sequel some very high ratings, mostly for the brilliant concept and the excellent special effects with the rampaging aliens who can kill humans so easily.

Movie Review: Dream Horse

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Once again, the best movies are always based on true stories. The new movie “Dream Horse” starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis is based on true story about the horse “Dream Alliance”, who was purchased by a group of ordinary people who lived in Wales some 20 years ago. Trained from birth by an alliance led by Jan Vokes (played by Collette) Dream Alliance eventually became a miracle horse. The movie Dream Horse is not quite at the level of two other great horse movies “Secretariat”, released in 2010 and Seabiscuit, released in 2003 – but it is still a very good horse movie.

What is good about this film is how it shows the ups and downs of the business of horse racing, always a very risky financial endeavor. In the country of Wales – the location of this story – horse racing is all about horses racing but also leaping over hurdles. In just about every race shown in this movie, a horse falls after jumping over a hurdle. My question was, why race horses like this, when the odds of injury and even death are so much higher than for normal horse racing? What does it prove to have a horse race with hurdles, rather than just a straight up race with no hurdles – especially considering the risk to the horses. The cost of the insurance of each horse is also much higher for the owners considering the dangers of jumping over so many dangerous obstacles. Considering the purchasing of the horse, paying the trainers and handlers in horse racing, turning a profit must be a very precarious business at best.

I thought the acting in this movie for both Collette and Lewis was very strong, with Jan Vokes, played by Collette an ordinary person working as a cashier with a very boring and depressing job, and Howard Davies, played by Damian Lewis, as down on his luck tax accountant. Just about everybody can relate to these two characters who are living average lives, but dream of so much more. I thought this aspect of the story, works the best in this film.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Dream Horse are a very high 89%, and I both agree with this rating and recommend this movie.



Movie Review: Spiral From the Book of Saw

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As long as a horror movie franchise as popular as “Saw” has been, there will be more Saw movies and it does not matter that the last Saw movie ended the life of the main character. As long as movies like this make money – there will be more of them.

Spiral is a new variation with the same idea behind it. Someone (in this case police officers) have done something bad in their life and gotten away with it, and now it is payday. Unfortunately for the victims in these films, payday consists of a horrendous and painful death along with an equally painful decision they have to make (like sawing off an arm) to try and save their life. The question I have always had is, who are the people who think of the death and torture scenes in these Saw movies – is a documentary within itself. The sadistic imagination behind some of these scenes is in some cases rather unbelievable. Why do some of us like to see movies like this, at this extreme level of cruelty? If there were not so many millions of us who like movies like this, they would not exist in the first place.

So far there have been nine Saw movies with this one the first new variation from the original that was released in 2004. Obviously, there will be many more new variations of this same general idea. I remember the first Saw movie had an outstanding ending scene that caught everyone by surprise, but since that first solid firm, most of the movies that followed have been mostly about horrendous torture and death scenes.

For this film I was surprised to see Samuel L. Jackson in this movie as the father of the main character Detective Zeke Banks, played well by Chris Rock. Perhaps Jackson just wanted to work with Chris Rock and did not care about the quality of this movie. In the past few years and especially with his appearance in the latest television series based on the movie Fargo, Chris Rock has completed in some very impressive acting roles. Unfortunately the decision to make this movie was not a good one, mostly because the script was not strong enough to recommend.


I agree with the low 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I do not recommend this film.