Tag Archives: David Harbour

Movie Review: Thunderbolts

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There have been more than a few bad Marvel movies released in the last few years, most recently “Captain America: Brave New World” (2025) and “The Marvels” (2023). The release of the new Marvel movie “Thunderbolts” was an opportunity to greatly improve the quality of this franchise. Unfortunately, mainly due to the crazy and mostly boring screenplay, this movie cannot be considered a step in the right direction.

The story starts with the main Marvel characters Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh, Bucky Barnes played by Sebastian Stan, John Walker played by Wyatt Russell, Ava Starr played by Hannah John-Kamen and a new superhere they call “Bob”, played by Lewis Pullman all trapped in a warehouse, for the first 10-15% of this film. There is no real way to make scenes where several people are trapped in a large series of rooms – interesting, especially in a film that is supposed to be a superhero action movie.

We later find out that Bob has superpowers that greatly exceed the powers of all the other superheroes, and later Bob turns to the dark side and has evil forces that can send people into some other dimension. All this does create several scenes of extreme special effects, but not enough to cover what I thought was a surprisingly bad screenplay.

There are some good father-daughter scenes between Velena and her father, Alexiei Shostakov, played by David Harbour, but not enough to fix what could have been a far better screenplay.

I was surprised that Julia Louis-Dreyfus took the part of politician Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, after reading this script. She seems completely miscast in this role, regardless of the mostly ridiculous story.

I have no idea why the Rotten Tomatoes ratings are on average 88%, with the most accurate review from critic Jeffrey Harris:

“The film exemplifies how The Multiverse Saga constantly stumbles and fails to find its footing, with the entire narrative amounting to little more than a groan-inducing, bait-and-switch joke.”

Due to the many flaws, and mostly bad screenplay I do not recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

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The new movie “Gran Turismo” has “Based on a True Story” added to the title. This is another one of those movies that were it not for it being a true story, nobody would believe it.

It turns out that the technology and accuracy of a playstation game called Gran Turismo is so good that it is almost exactly like driving a real race car. From a group of addicted players of Gran Turismo, an executive at Nissan Danny Moore played by Orlando Bloom thought of an idea to have video game contest to see who was the best player and the winner would be eventually become a professional race car driver. It is this crazy idea that is the reason why “based on a true story” was added to the title of this film.

The main character Jann Mardenborough played by acting newcomer Archie Madekwe is good in his role, but seems to be either depressed or low energy during this entire movie, one of the flaws of this film. Jann’s parents are played by Djimon Hounsou and Geri Horner, in small roles, but overall they are both good and believable in their parts. David Harbour plays Jack Salter who is a former race car driver and becomes a mentor and friend to Jann. It is this relationship that is the best part of this story.

This movie has very good special effects that show not only how difficult it is to be a top race car driver, but also how extremely dangerous driving race cars over 200 miles an hour can be. One small mistake can cost you your life or the life of another driver. Over the years, the techology of how cars crash, collapse and fire proof clothing to protect drivers from being burned has vastly improved, but drivers still die, and as is shown in this film, so do spectators of racing events.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is too low 61%, with my rating 75% mainly because this is an interesting true story about car racing and video games with good acting.

Movie Review: Black Widow

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For the new movie “Black Widow” I would have liked to have much more background and setup explaining how this “Black Widow Family” has powers where it seems they cannot really be hurt or killed, at least not very easily. Where do they get their fantastic martial arts skills? Early on the two girls in the family; Natashia played by Scarlett Johansson and Yelena, played by Florence Pugh are placed into some kind of a spy training camp for unknown reasons at very young ages. At this point it would have been logical to see some of this training, explaining some of their impressive skills. Maybe this important part was cut out of the film because it was too long.

What is explained is a foreign spy syndicate that is involved with mind control to train young women to be spies and killers using brain washing chemicals. Unfortunately, the ending is completely out of sync with the sudden appearance of a far into the future huge space ship at the end of this film. This ship looks like something that might be built 100 or 200 years from now, definitely not present day. This is yet another example of special effects over story, almost as if an incredible idea for a fantastic ending with explosions, fights and action on a space ship had to be melded with a present day spy story and as a result we have a time-line that once again makes absolutely no sense.

The special effects and acting in this movie is very good, with a standout performance from Florence Pugh who is becoming a very well known actress who has a perfect face for the movies. With all of that in mind, why Florence Pugh has not changed her last name is about as mysterious as a good part of this screenplay.

David Harbour plays Alexi the girl’s father along with Rachel Weisz who plays Melina, their mother and in my opinion that twist at the end of this story, involving Melina and Natashia, has trouble making enough sense to round out the ending.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie is in the low 80% range and I mostly agree with this rating and do recommend Black Widow.