Movie Review: Plane

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Around mid-October 2014, the idea for starting this movie review blog began – in the hope of a new business idea – something far different than the normal working life of most of the world. All things being equal, working for others will always be considered a “second place finish”, and working for yourself and in charge of your own income and destiny – the ultimate dream for all of us.

This review of the new movie “Plane” is the 1000th blog post within this movie website, that has reviewed past and current movies, award season winners and losers, several tributes (the most recent being for the late Olivia Newton-John) on August 8, 2022, and at times some political and current events commentary. Some two years ago I am very proud that this website was added to the top 100 movie review websites on the internet with Feedspot. This has created 8 new opportunities where I have been asked by both producers and directors to review Independent low-budget movies. These review requests have been a direct result of my high ranking on Feedspot and the popularity of this website – that now is much more about writing than a blogging business.

This ongoing hobby of movie-going and reviewing is a big part of what I do now and I don’t see it ever ending. However, what has been discouraging in 2022 to see the positive reviews and even awards for the two horrible movies of 2022, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “Babylon”. I can only hope this has not introduced a new trend in the movie industry, where garbage and weirdness is considered good – only because its different. Every aspiring screenwriter studies movies to gain ideas and perspective on the extremely challenging art of screenwriting. I view these two worst-ever films as a huge step backward for all of us, on the outside looking in.

As far as the new movie “Plane”, starring Gerard Butler, this is a new example of a trend of “Gerard Butler action films” that now can probably be considered a new buzzword in the movie industry. The good part of Plane is the fact that the screenwriter has taken overdone ideas involving a large Jet, passengers, and a prisoner being transported and crashing on a deserted Island and was able to introduce enough new and good ideas to make this movie worth recommending. The transported prisoner Louis Gaspare is played by Mike Colter, who has starred in the Luke Cage TV series and is an action star in his own right. Over time, the pilot of the plane Brodie Torrence, played by Butler, and Louis form a kind of nervous friendship as they try to rescue the passengers after they are kidnapped by local Island terrorists. I thought the action scenes were both strong and believable with a conclusion showing good imagination. The back story is also well done as the airline and FBI work to both find the plane and rescue the passengers. Leading this effort is someone named Scarsdale, played by Tony Goldwin.

This film is far from the best Gerard Butler action movie – that honor goes to “Olympus as Fallen”, released in 2013. Still, it is 2 hours of solid entertainment and my rating is 80%, higher than the once again wrong Rotten Tomatoes rating of 71%.

Movie Review: A Man Called Otto

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In the movie “Boomerang”, released in 1992 and starring Eddie Murphy I remember thinking at the time, that Halle Berry (in one of her early roles) was probably just about the most attractive woman to ever appear on the screen. Some four years later, Berry mentioned that her favorite sport was Baseball, referencing her current husband David Justice in the very good movie “Executive Decision”. About a year later, who would have guessed that Halle Berry was in her garage with her 2 dogs sitting in her car trying to commit suicide because the man she thought was the love of her life was divorcing her. It was only because of her two dogs that Berry decided against ending her life almost 26 years ago.

The new and very good movie “A Man Called Otto” is about grief and loss at the level that Halle Berry experienced in 1997 and the main character in this movie Otto, played very well by Tom Hanks, also tries and fails to kill himself several times in this film. The reason for this is that Otto also lost the love of his life and suicide was his own personal solution while failing to cope with the tremendous pain of losing the one person in this world who he thought was the only one for him. Probably the greatest pain in this world is the pain of the loss of a long-term life partner or the person that you think is definitely the love of your life. Some of us find ways to move on, others of us turn to alcoholism, and others turn to suicide like Otto and Halle Berry.

Otto’s unbearable grief manifests itself with episodes of extreme anger towards everyone who lives in the townhouse development he lives in. He wants everything to be perfect, for people in his neighborhood to follow the rules and even to be fairly treated in his job. Even though for all of us, working for other people in too many cases can be too much about injustice and never enough about fairness.

Over time, through a family that moves across the street in Otto’s development, Otto slowly learns that relationships with other people and a sense of purpose in helping others can for some of us, be one solution for unbearable grief. I thought the slow, long-term relationships that Otto maintains throughout this story are the best parts of this film, causing Otto to transition from the bitter and angry man he understandably is, into someone who actually cares about other people. It is his sense of purpose and friendship that helps Otto move forward from his extreme pain. Otto’s life story is told through flashbacks showing Otto’s relationship with his wife from when and how they met, and through all of the tragedies they lived through. All of this is very well performed, highly emotional and at times, hard to watch.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a way too low and insane 68% and are once again, dead wrong. With this movie – because of its powerful message and storytelling is a solid 90% and a strong recommendation.

Movie Review (M3GAN)

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The new movie M3GAN – is about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Robotics. The science fiction story of this film is rather ridiculous, formulaic and of course, we have seen this before many times. But the special effects of the 4-foot robot doll are exceptionally well done, which is why this movie is getting ratings as high as 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie is also arriving at the right time, with the release of the amazing new AI website ChatGPT and some years ago the release of the AI Chess playing engine called Alpha Zero (developed by Google) – that taught itself to play chess by playing 40,000 games against itself and then easily defeated the top Chess playing engine in the world Stockfish. Alpha Zero is the most impressive AI software ever created.

AI software is here to stay and the long-time worry has always been that when a machine’s ability to learn and teach itself becomes dangerous to humanity. The thoughts about machines going rogue and destroying the world have been a topic of science fiction books and movies for decades – the most popular being the Terminator movie series. The story of M3GAN is about a toy manufacturer who is making inroads toward making more sophisticated talking dolls and unfortunately, this doll goes on a murderous tirade – which is the part we have all seen before.

M3GAN stars Alison Williams who is the genius AI robot inventor and employee of this Toy company. At the start, the unlikely possibility that a Toy company would be making huge inroads into AI and Robots is one flaw in this screenplay. The rest of this story, which involves a young girl who lost her parents in a car accident at the beginning of the movie, and then lives with the sister of her mother, played by Williams is an idea that has been done way too many times. For this reason, I am surprised at the very high ratings for this film, despite the special effects.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for M3GAN are too high 93%, with my rating only 80% and a modest recommendation.