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Movie Review: Someone Like You

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The new movie “Someone Like You” is from the best-selling book with the same title, written by Karen Kinsbury. This is a tear-jerker type of film that we have all seen before, and most of what happens is predictable, but it is performed and told well enough to receive a solid recommendation. The other reason to like this film is because of the cast, starting with relative newcomer Sarah Fisher, who plays London Quin. Fischer has a face and a radiant smile that is so likeable and relatable that her appearance on screen alone, practically steals this entire movie.

The premise of this story is both highly unusual and complex, involving invitro fertilization and a woman who provides two eggs to a fertilization facility, using only one of them. The other egg was implanted into another woman who lives in another city. Some 24 years later, there is a tragedy that starts the somewhat far-fetched events that follow that at least for me, was told well and included very likable characters making this mostly run-of-the-mill tear-jerker very enjoyable. There are several well-performed scenes involving emotional situations that are very well performed that ultimately made this a good film.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are once again too low at 60%, with my rating a solid 80% and a recommendation.

Movie Review: In the Land of Saints and Sinners

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Around this time every year, the movie-going world expects the release of another Liam Neeson film. This yearly movie tradition has been going on ever since the release of the outstanding film “Taken”, which came out in 2008 and is one of the best action movies of its kind, ever produced. The fact that Taken was so perfect for Neeson and has not happened again, is all about how difficult it is to write a great screenplay and then have it performed by the exact right lead actor.

The next two Taken sequels were nowhere near the exceptional quality of the original with the last version a bad film. Since then, Neeson has followed with movies that were mostly average with a few that were bad and some that were bordering on good. Neeson’s latest movie “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is a good, but nowhere near a great film, but hopefully a step in the right direction.

The story is all about the violence, murder, and retribution in the 1970s by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in the country of Ireland. This story starts with the accidental murder of young children during the bombing of a local bar and what follows is a series of revenge killings by the main character Finbar Murphy, played by Liam Neeson. The problem with the middle part of the story is that most of it is too slow and boring, making it hard to stay focused on what is happening. There is a major conflict with the original bombers that killed two children at the beginning of the film, leading to a shootout at a bar at the end of this story that I thought was well shot. Other than all of this there is nothing new or innovative within these two hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating is a routine 80%, with my rating only 70% and a very marginal recommendation.

Movie Review: Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

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If any moviegoer of the latest Godzilla movie, “Movie Review: Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire”, after seeing this giant mess were to be asked about the story, or his/her understanding of what they saw during these two hours; to a person, they would have no clue. This disaster of a film is nothing more than pre-canned computer-generated action scenes involving King Kong, and Godzilla, that were thrown together making a total of 2 hours of another forgettable and bad action movie. Unfortunately, this process of making bad action films seems to be the latest trend in the movie industry, including the latest and also bad Ghostbuster sequel.

There are several CGI movie companies that every year, spend millions of dollars to create monster movie graphics and to make back the money they spend on development, all of these scenes are thrown together into ridiculous disconnected scenes in action movies. Then some screenwriter has to try and assemble all of these scenes into a story that has no chance of making any sense. This latest Godzilla movie is one of the best examples of this ongoing stupid method of movie production.

One of the best reviews on Rotten Tomatoes I have seen about this film is from Odie Henderson of the Boston Globe: The problem with “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the same as so many of these franchise-based films: They’re all soulless special-effects extravaganzas where CGI takes the place of character development, good writing, and emotional connection. This one sentence describes the entire problem with movies like this perfectly.

The main character in this latest bad action movie is Rebecca Hall, who plays scientist Ilene Andrews whose entire purpose is to try and narrate this impossible series of monster events. Brian Tyree Henry plays a podcaster, who for some reason goes along for the ride and like the rest of us is trying to understand what is going on. Kaylee Hottle plays Jia, a young girl who is the standard young child who has some kind of a mental connection to King Kong. Considering how bad this story is, who cares about this?

When you consider movie franchises like “Toy Story” and others like it, so much money is spent on outstanding CGI technology that a great screenplay has to be created first, to honor how much hard work is required for the CGI. This continuing trend of CGI first, nobody cares about the screenplay, disrespects the movie-going audience – the most unfortunate aspect of having to waste 2 hours sitting through these horrendous movies.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is too high 54%, with my rating only 10%, only for some of the CGI scenes, and a big miss this mess recommendation.