Movie Reviews from Chris

★ ★  out of ★★★★ The Creator (2023) Runtime: 133 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence, some bloody images and strong language. Note: Criticisms regarding the film also includes discussions about the plot. You have been warned. Numerous things go boom and various cars flip over and crash in director Gareth Edwards’ The Creator, an ambitious science fiction piece that echoes the likes of Star Wars, The Matrix and Blade Runner. Unfortunately, despite gorgeous set pieces and impressive performances, the script from Edwards and Chris Weitz ultimately falls short compared to its technical achievements, reducing potentially great ideas into a generic battle between human versus AI, without giving us much introspect into why a war is necessary or why artificial intelligence is so important in our lives, especially the emotional components (besides, obviously, completing our tasks efficiently), instead boiling it down to a simple misunderstanding be...

★ out of ★★★★ Heart of Stone (2023) Runtime: 122 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and some language. Since, perhaps, movies like Red Notice that have debuted on Netflix with dull thuds, I've been deathly afraid of every blockbuster manufactured by the gargantuan streaming service. It all just adheres to an overly-familiar formula, where the talented cast are given nothing to work with, while showcasing luxurious places around the world. These blockbusters are distancing, forgettable, and make me approach future projects with a certain amount of dread. Some of this can be applied to Tom Harper's "Heart of Stone", although it looks less grand and more ambitious. However, the problematic execution results in a film that succumbs to unreasonable tonal shifts, plot twists, a lack of emotional connection, and terrible film-making choices that make it difficult to approach. It doesn't feel as formulaic as the...

★★ ★  1/2 out of ★★★★ Nimona (2023) Runtime: 101 minutes MPAA: Rated PG for violence and action, thematic elements, some language and rude humor. We've all heard of the "Once Upon a Time" story countless times, and the opening of "Nimona" spells fear. Would a generic storyline follow up? Would the construction of characters and scenes be depressingly derivative and half-hearted? It's all dispelled within minutes in "Nimona", a terrifically entertaining film with cute details, smart gags, placing objects and people in just the right and funny places, and dazzling action. While I'm not sure whether the tonal shift completely works in the slightly cluttered mid-section as pieces start to unfold in uncertain directions, directors Nick Bruno and Troy Crane find their emotional center and transcend the premise, leading to an inspiring and completely heartbreaking finale that left lumps in my throat countless times. You'd have to be a cold-hearted...

★★ ★  1/2   out of ★★★★ John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) Runtime: 169 minutes MPAA:  Rated R for pervasive strong violence and some language. At approximately the 118-minute mark, as John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is getting chased by bounty hunters across the world, he, in a stolen car, enters the  Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, where we witness a continuous and stunningly crafted piece of action that solidifies the genre's goods. My parents so happened to mention that they had visited this monument back in the early 2000's, and according to them, the traffic is reportedly worse than the endless stream of cars in the film. Each person gets knocked down by cars multiple times everywhere, but if what they said was true, imagine being run over thrice as frequently. This is a location in Paris, France, and throughout the rest of the film, we also witness buildings and grand locations across New York, Osaka, and Germany. Yet, the entire project reeks of style and elega...

★★ 1/2  out of ★★★★ ( 👍 ) 65 (2023) Runtime: 93 minutes MPAA:  Rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi action and peril, and brief bloody images. "65" falls into that category of 'it could be better, but at least it's not terrible'.  This is an example of what  Ghosted  would have been if it had maintained its mediocre quality. "65" works best as a survival action film, with enough sequences of Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs and him and another survivor hopping from place to place, blessed with stunning scenery that remains interesting even if there are logic errors, the narrative falters, and that the family drama is underwhelming. It starts off with so much potential, and the concept is so intriguing; advanced human-like civilisations existed 65 million years ago, and that Earth was an unknown planet at the time. Fortunately, it never crumbles to zero after crash-landing on planet Earth and finding a way to escape it. The pacing also feels intentionally...

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★ Cocaine Bear (2023) Runtime: 95 minutes MPAA:  Rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout. Cocaine Bear is really trying to test our patience, but luckily I have a lot of it. It’s a crazy reimagining of a real-life story, in which an American black bear (known as Pablo Eskobear) was discovered dead in Northern Georgia, 1985, after ingesting fatal doses of cocaine. Drug smuggler Andrew C. Thornton II and an accomplice dropped 40 plastic containers of cocaine and jumped out of the plane above Tennessee, with Thornton dying when his parachute failed to open. After the dead bear was discovered, it was stuffed and is currently displayed at the Kentucky Fun Mall. I hope they’re not planning on Kentucky Fried Bears. Director Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear, with a script from Jimmy Warden, wants to be the type of B-movie that delivers and does precisely what it’s title says: a bear doing cocaine and going on a murderous rampage. D...

★ 1/2   out of ★★★★ Ghosted (2023) Runtime: 116 minutes MPAA:  Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence/action, brief strong language and some sexual content. "Ghosted" has a decent first act, setting up the plot, giving us over-the-top, hilarious action, and several nice but repetitive cameos. Had it consistently maintained its mediocre quality, "Ghosted" would have been so much more tolerable. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It's simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished, throwing in too many threats, characters, themes and stakes, yet never attempting to clearly convey its meaning. The action sequences are clunky, quite badly edited, and generic (mind you, I had a tough time figuring out what was happening at least half of the time), but that it starts off pretty solid and tells us that relationships are not so easy perhaps makes it not entirely terrible? This is essentially a 'Red Notice 2023 version', mixing in huge stars, luxurious loc...