For two reasons, this blog and the relatively high ratings for “Girls Trip”, 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and 71% on IMDB, I decided to see this movie. Everybody can tell just from the previews that this film was going to be pretty raunchy and it was, but what is funny? In my opinion, not funny enough because there were not many laughs in the theater I was in and in my opinion the last movie that created the perfect combination of raunchy and funny was the film “Animal House” that was released in 1978.

If I were Jada Pinkett Smith and I read the script for this movie, I would have demanded that some embarrassing scenes that included her character on top of a zip line in New Orleans urinating on people on the street below or some of the other overly raunchy or embarrassing scenes, be either toned down or eliminated altogether if for no other reason than pride or reputation. But, once again the pressure to remain relevant and active in Hollywood seems to be greater than pride for too many actors today who are lucky enough to be in movies and this would include the two other famous actors in this movie Queen Latifah and Regina Hall.

I thought the bright spot of this film was Tiffany Haddish who showed some real comic timing and instinct and to some degree almost saves this story, which is about 4 old friends from college that are reunited in New Orleans for a festival for black women. Some of the later drama that included Regina Hall’s husband having an affair and that affair threatening the release of their new book, was well done but rather misplaced in a raunchy comedy like this one.

Even allowing for the fact that some people might find a movie like this entertaining, I cannot recommend it, because there were not enough laughs to cover up the many flaws in this film that included a story that for the most part was not unique enough to anyone to remember.

I am very amazed at the very high scores for the new Christopher Nolan film “Dunkirk”, 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 89% on IMDB. I thought this was a war movie that was trying so hard to be different that it forgot to teach the audience the history of what really happened on May 26 to June 4th 1940, during an important battle of World War 2. One scene jumps to another scene, there is no real story or character development and at times I found the movie boring. Considering this is a war movie about an important battle of World War 2 “The Battle of Dunkirk” I was not expecting to be bored. I believe that in order to be respectful to the men who died in a major battle in any war, you cant try so hard to direct a movie where your goal is more about trying to tell a story in a different way rather than creating an accurate depiction of an important battle of World War 2.

This movie stars Tom Hardy who spends his time in this film in the cockpit of an airplane and most of his face is covered by a mask which I thought was highly unusual. Kenneth Branagh plays Commander Bolton one of the leaders of the trapped forces who appears mostly towards the end of the film. Both of these actors seem to be misplaced in this film, almost as if they were added on at the end, so the movie would have a few more famous actors to perhaps generate box office.

The bottom line is that this movie does not educate the audience about exactly what happened during the Battle of Dunkirk because it tries to tell a story in a new way and because of this, it ignores the most important part of a war movie, which is to tell a story accurately and to respect the people who died in battle.

For these reasons I cannot recommend Dunkirk.

The reviews for “War for the Planet of the Apes” are very high, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and 83% on IMDB. I am surprised at numbers that high for this film, because for me, for reasons I will explain I am more in the 70% range as overall I thought this was just a good and not a great movie.

However, I do give the special effects and the “Performance Capture” technology a 100% grade and you realize immediately that none of the 3 recent Planet of the Apes movies would be possible without this technology because the actor would be in a makeup chair for 8 hours a day. The technology they use involves the capturing of the movement of each actor and then filling in the ape makeup using CGI later. The facial expressions of the apes, as well as the hair on the body and the movement of each ape actor in this movie, is flawless and extremely impressive. Where this film becomes more average is with the story, that I thought was too simple, took too long to progress and in the end was pretty average.

The original Planet of the Apes was released in 1968 and was one of the first films I had ever seen in a movie theater. The original story had to do with a nuclear holocaust where the apes take over after humans destroy the world and this movie explains more about a virus that followed the nuclear conflagration that made apes more intelligent and humans more like animals, starting with their inability to talk. The acting is very good, including Woody Harrelson who plays an evil Colonel and Andy Serkis, who reprises his role as Ceasar, the leader of the apes for the 3rd time, I was hoping for a more interesting story here and I thought that the story for this movie dragged on too long and was too simplistic.

I give War for the Planet of the Apes a mild recommendation.