Tag: Jackie Chan

Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Rowe

To be frank, I just never got the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing. I like the original live-action movie well enough, but it’s not a franchise that I ever got invested in as it just felt like one of those Gen-X holdovers that overstayed its welcome. Well, now the joke’s on me as my childhood is now getting eye rolls from the Zoomers who also can’t escape the prevalence of their previous generation’s obsessions. It’s the circle of life I suppose, and TMNT is taking yet another stab at staying relevant to the youngsters. Will this be another hit for the franchise to go alongside Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or will we be begging for the Bay-Turtles to come back by the time this is over? Let’s find out!!

In the beginning, there was ooze; and said ooze landed on a quartet of cute turtles as well as a very paternal rat. The ooze mutated them to be humanoid, but their ninja skills came from their adoptive rat-dad Splinter (Jackie Chan) looking for a way to protect his kids from the outside world. The turtles are now teenagers named Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello (Nicolas Cantu, Shamon Brown Jr, Brady Noon, and Micah Abbey) and while they can kick all sorts of butt with their ninja skills, they’re mostly used to get groceries and hide in the shadows; away from the scary humans who would surely reject them if they were to come out of the sewers. Sounds rather bleak if you ask me, but fortunately, they run into a high school reporter named April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) and she doesn’t immediately turn them in to the authorities to be dissected but instead comes up with a plan to make them heroes so that they can be accepted and go to high school, and she can get the scoop of a lifetime! Their mission is to take down the mysterious Super Fly (Ice Cube) whose been wreaking havoc all over the city with daring heists of top secret scientific hardware, and while the Turtles want nothing more than to live normal lives, getting closer to Super Fly also gets them closer to some very uncomfortable truths about themselves. What is this Super Fly after, and are his goals as evil as his means of achieving them? Is this a win-win scenario for all involved, or will the world never accept them even if they do save the day? Would we honestly be that shocked to learn of sentient turtles in the sewers who fight crime and eat pizza? I mean Congress had a hearing on UFOs and that barely lasted a day in the news cycle!

“I’m just saying, everyone thinking we’re from Krypton is gonna help us with our PR problem, and it’s not like they can prove otherwise! Heck, we don’t know where that Ooze came from! Maybe it’s from space!” “I think you’re stretching there, Mikey.”
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Cinema Dispatch: The Foreigner

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Foreigner and all the images you see in this review are owned by STX Entertainment

Directed by Martin Campbell

FINALLY!  I’ve been waiting to see this movie for MONTHS considering how bad ass that first trailer was!  Jackie Chan in a gritty action film where he’s blowing stuff up and shooting people in the face!?  It’s like those Liam Neeson films only with an actor who ACTUALLY know how to fight instead of just being really good at pretending they can!  Now I’ve seen my fair share of Jackie Chan films, but the dude is so prolific outside the US (he’s a freaking POP STAR SINGER in China!) that no matter how many films they sneak onto Netflix, there’s always gonna be a lot more that flew under the radar.  That’s why I’m so glad to see him headlining a big mainstream (at least for the US) Hollywood film to remind people that he’s still the freaking man!  That’s not even getting into the solid team behind this which includes both James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and James Bond director Martin Campbell; both of whom may not have the BEST track record but can certainly produce some solid work when the need arises!  Can this dark thriller starring the most delightful man in existence live up to the huge expectations set for it, or are we doomed to be disappointed once again like we were with Green Lantern, Mamma Mia, and Rush Hour 3?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with the typical overprotective dad Ngoc Minh Quan (Jackie Chan) picking up his teenage daughter from school (Katie Leung) when BOOM!!  She gets caught in a terrorist bombing from a group known as the Authentic IRA who shaking things up in the UK; especially for Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan) who’s now an elected official but was a member of IRA Classic.  With little else to turn to, Quan starts to zero in on Hennessy as the one person who might have a clue as to who are behind the bombing that killed his daughter, and he’s also the target of the English government who are hell bent on stopping whatever this group has in store next.  Can Quan get the justice he seeks for the death of his daughter?  Does Liam Hennessy actually know more than he’s letting on about the recent bombings?  Seriously, why wasn’t THIS guy in those taken movies!?

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“You think THAT guy had a particular set of skills!?”

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Cinema Dispatch: The LEGO Ninjago Movie

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The LEGO Ninjago Movie and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan

What, another one of these already?  Didn’t we JUST see the one with Batman a few months ago!?  Clearly Warner Bros has hit on something big with the success of both The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie, and I can only assume it’s what will keep them afloat while this DCCU thing burns itself out.  Still, they seem to be moving at quite a quick pace with these and to top it off, this is based off of their Ninjago line of toys which is something that a lot of movie going audiences might not be familiar with.  Can The LEGO Formula succeed for a third time in surpassing audiences expectations, or will this be the LEGO straw to break the LEGO camel’s back and shatter it into a million pieces that’ll be really annoying to clean up?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is set in the world of Ninjago; a land full of anime nerds who have surrounded themselves in Asian culture; to the point that they have a bad guy named Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux) with robots who is in constant need of walloping by a bunch of ninjas with robots.  Seems simple enough, right?  Well you’re WRONG, because this is a LEGO movie and if there’s ONE thing LEGO movies are known for, it’s daddy issues.  It turns out the Green Ninja’s secret Identity is Lloyd Garmadon (Dave Franco); the son of the bad guy who’s always wrecking things and is therefore rather unpopular at school despite his alter ego being one of the beloved protectors of the town.  With his fellow ninja friends Kai, Jay, Nya, Zane, and Cole (Michael Peña, Kumail Nanjiani, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, and Fred Armisen), they’ve managed to maintain peace in this town despite there being much unrest within Lloyd himself who REALLY doesn’t like his dad, and rightfully so!  Still, things can’t go on like this forever and he eventually screws up badly enough that not only has Lord Garmadon taken over the city, but he ALSO unleashed a horrifying monster as well which is wreaking havoc all over the place!  His only option now is to go on a Ninja Quest with his Ninja Master Wu (Jackie Chan) and his Ninja Buddies to find the ULTIMATE ULTIMATE weapon that will stop the monster and free the town.  Can Lloyd manage to redeem himself for his failure to protect the town while ALSO finding a way to get past his daddy issues?  Will Lord Garmadon realize the error of his ways and reconnect with his neglected son?  How can they be stealthy when they don’t even have proper articulation!?

 

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Oh, well there you go!  Just put them in giant robots!

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