Tag: Michael B Jordan

Cinema Dispatch: Sinners

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Sinners and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Ryan Coogler

I may be coming to this one late, but it’s not like it’s gotten any less relevant since I saw it on opening weekend! The biggest news story in Hollywood, aside from all the depressing news about tariffs, has been the runaway success of Ryan Coogler’s action-horror period piece. It’s managed to keep audiences’ coming back for more week after week even in the face of the Marvel Movie Machine which admittedly snatch the first place spot from this, but staying at number two with strong weekly returns is an impressive feat in its own right. Still, a successful movie is not always the same thing as a good movie, and while Coogler’s record has been strong, he’s stretching a bit outside his comfort zone with a big budgeted movie outside of a recognizable franchise. Did this movie earn its impressive box office on its merits and through strong word of mouth, or did the hype surrounding this swiftly outpace the quality of the film itself? Let’s find out!!

Set in the small town of Clarksdale way back in 1932, we arrive on the scene just as two prodigal sons return; Elijah and Elias (Michael B Jordan) known by their nicknames “Smoke” and “Stack”.  They bring with them tales of the War and the bustling city of Chicago where they may or may not have done some questionable things that brought lots of beer and stacks of cash to the small town where they plan to open a juke joint for their community.  Caught up in their machinations are their cousin and the preacher’s son Sammie (Miles Caton) who, despite the protestations of his father (Saul Williams), is more than happy to play the blues for them on opening night where all their friends, as well as a few troublemakers, will be doing as the title of the movie suggests.  The raucous party is so good, in fact, that it catches the attention of a nearby vampire who sees plenty of fresh meat to sink his teeth into if he can just find a way inside.  Will this creature of the night find a way into the hearts and minds of those who have been marginalized and may be enticed by the powers that await them?  What brought the “Smoke Stack” brothers back to their home town, and are there things in this world that terrify them more than a literal vampire at their doorstep?  Whatever they did, I’m guessing it was worth it given the quality of those suits!

“Best part is, they’re both in my size!”     “Mine too!  What a coincidence!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Sinners” →

Cinema Dispatch: Creed III

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Creed III and all the images you see in this review are owned by MGM Pictures

Directed by Michael B Jordan

Who would have expected that we’d get two movies back to back starring Jonathan Majors, and even more unlikely that there are a lot of similarities between the two?  Perhaps it’ll be worth probing into those odd connections later, but for now, we’re here to talk about the latest entry in the Creed franchise and the directorial debut of its star, Michael B Jordan!  He’s got some big shoes to fill; not only with this being the latest entry in the venerable Rocky series but also coming in after Ryan Coogler and Steven Caple Jr left their own marks on the franchise.  Is it a worthy successor to everything that came before it, or is the Creed franchise destined to repeat the mistakes that the Rocky movies made once they got a few sequels in?  Let’s find out!!

Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) is on top of the world as the boxing champ and has decided to retire while he still can, so instead of preparing for yet another fight he’s training an up-and-coming talent (José Benavidez Jr) with the help of Little Duke (Wood Harris) and the only thing that could get in their way is… I don’t know, perhaps a part of Creed’s past coming back to haunt him.  Then again, what are the chances of that, am I right?  Oh, wait, it looks like an old friend of his just got out of jail and is throwing more than a few subtle hints that he wants a shot at the title.  Yes, the blast from the past turns out to be a guy named Damien (Jonathan Majors) who seems cool at first as Creed’s longtime friend who’s ready to turn his life around, but he ultimately lives up to the name and before long he ends up on top of the boxing world under very dubious circumstances.  Creed having to confront his past brings up some very mixed feelings that start to affect his relationship with his wife and daughter (Tessa Thompson and Mila Davis-Kent) and when it comes down to it, does he have what it takes to set Damien straight and stop a monster that he has inadvertently created?  Will his family be able to follow him on his path to redemption, or are the wounds of the past too deep for them to heal?  Sure, this guy beat Drago Jr, but I don’t know; maybe Kang the Conqueror is just a hair outside of his league?

“OKAY! *COUGH* “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Creed III” →

Cinema Dispatch: Creed II

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

CREED2CD0

Creed II and all the images you see in this review are owned by MGM Pictures

Directed by Steven Caple Jr

Back when I reviewed the first movie, I made a note that my conception of Rocky for the longest time was just the first three films, so the whole Ivan Drago thing always felt like an afterthought despite it being so iconic for many fans of the franchise.  That said, when the first one came out and was about the son of Apollo, yeah there was NO WAY that a sequel could exist without bringing Dolph Lundgren back into the mix which thankfully they managed to do here with what is probably the last necessary sequel to Rocky we’ll ever need (unless we want to bring back Clubber Lang) and they can either continue the franchise without the baggage of the original films or let this series finally lay to rest.  Do they manage to do justice to the story of Ivan Drago and Apollo Creed in this tale about their sons settling a decade’s long rivalry, or should the franchise have stopped while it was ahead?  Admittedly if they HAD stopped while they were ahead we probably wouldn’t have gotten the first Creed, but in any case LET’S FIND OUT!!

The movie picks up a few years after the first film where Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) has risen in the ranks of the boxing world with the help of his wise mentor Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and the loving support of his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson).  After winning the WBC World Heavyweight Championship, he has FINALLY reached his dream of reclaiming the belt that his father lost those many years ago!  Well that’s great!  So now what?  He decides to marry Bianca for one, but even with a loving wife and a sterling career, something feels… missing.  Despite being the best of the best, he can’t seem to find the joy in it and pretty much immediately starts looking for a new challenge.  Fortunately a very helpful fight promoter (Russell Hornsby) saw this coming a mile away and knew that once Adonis became champ that there was only one challenge left for him to face, and by challenge I mean one BIG spectacle of a fight to rake in millions of dollars!  We are of course referring to, a rematch with Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren); the man who killed his father.  Or at the very least, Ivan Drago’s SON (Florian Munteanu) who as far as I know hasn’t killed anyone, but that might change if Adonis takes the bait and faces him again in the ring.  If you’ve seen a Rocky movie, you know the basics of what happens next (i.e. Adonis loses the fight at the halfway point), but what does it mean for him to have his first taste of true defeat, and will he be able to face him once again, as well as all his fears and insecurities that have held him back from reaching his true potential?  What will the strain of this lose put on his marriage to Bianca, and will she be able to live the life of a boxer’s wife; something that she’s never had to face since Adonis has never truly lost a fight on his own terms?  Perhaps most importantly, DOES ADONIS COME OUT TO LIVING IN AMERICA!?

CREED2CD1
It’s hand to HAND across the nation; not hand to FACE!

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Creed II” →

Cinema Dispatch: KIN

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

KINCD0

KIN and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Jonathan Baker and Josh Baker

Oh goody!  Another film I literally knew nothing about before I went to go see it!  It doesn’t necessarily bode well that I had never even seen a poster for it, let alone a trailer, before heading to the theater to see it, but I like being surprised by something that I have no expectations for going in.  It doesn’t ALWAYS work out as the recent Alpha and A.X.L have proven, but a kid with a space gun sounds like a great place to start; especially if this is gonna be anything like Laser Blast from 1978!  Admittedly there’s not much chance that a movie like THAT would be made nowadays (especially starring a kid) or given a wide release, but I can dream, right!?  Does this manage to be an excellent gem that no one bothered to give the time of day, or was this ultimately buried in late August for a darn good reason?  Let’s find out!!

Elijah Solinski (Myles Truitt) is your average fourteen year old boy stuck in a crappy situation.  His mom’s dead, his brother’s in jail, and he lives in Detroit with no Robocop in sight to make things better.  Well at least one of those things is about to change (no, not Robocop) as his brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) has been released from prison and is gonna stay with him and their dad (Dennis Quaid) until he can find a stable job and get his life back on track.  This is proving to be a very difficult thing however as he apparently owes sixty thousand dollars to a local gangster (James Franco) for protecting him while in jail and he wants the money back NOW.  He doesn’t wait until Jimmy can get a decent job to garnish his salary, he doesn’t even have some dangerous job for him to do as a way of paying down the debt.  He expects Jimmy to pull 60K out of his behind right away, which I guess makes James Franco “quirky” instead of “very bad at his job”.  Despite how foolish his business model is, Jimmy DOES actually pull through for the guy as the two of them along with Franco’s brother (no, not Dave) rob the safe at his father’s construction site.  As fate would have it though, dear old dad walks in on the crime and gets killed by Franco which means that Jimmy in turn kills his brother and runs to find Elijah alone in the car.  Thinking fast, Jimmy spins a tale about a road trip where their dad will meet them later and the two of them rush off with whatever money Jimmy could scrounge up and not much more than the clothes on their backs.  Needless to say that Franco is a bit peeved about the whole “you murdered my brother” thing, and so he follows in hot pursuit looking for Jimmy and the one thing left in his life that he cares about.  Oh!  I almost forgot!  Apparently Elijah found a space rife or something and is carrying it around in secret while aliens in Space Marine armor are trying to find it.  For some reason the SPACE GUN managed to get kind of lost in the shuffle here.  ANYWAY, will Jimmy and Elijah be able to start a new life together and escape the wrath of James Franco?  How long can Jimmy keep up this ruse and what’s his plan once they DO find a place to settle down?  Seriously, HOW DO YOU MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT A SPACE GUN THAT’S ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE EXCEPT THE SPACE GUN!?

KINCD1
Sir Not Appearing In This Movie.

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: KIN” →

Cinema Dispatch: Black Panther

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

BLACKPANTHERCD0

Black Panther and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Ryan Coogler

It’s time once again for the Marvel Money Machine to give us all yet another excuse to give Disney ten more dollars of our hard earned cash to people with super powers in profoundly silly costumes punch each other between humorous quips and callbacks to previous films!  The sooner we declare Marvel release dates to be national holidays the better off we’ll all be (who DOESN’T like getting a Friday off!?), but until then the film critics must continue to go to the multiplexes, sit for two and a half hours as the lights and sounds dazzle our senses, and then tell you what you already know; namely that these are still good and that you’ll spend your money on it no matter what!  Now as cynical as this never ending cycle of unimaginable profits can seem, it STILL manages to keep its head above water at least with critics by having that one thing that many other blockbuster franchises DON’T have.  What was it?  Oh right!  Talent.  With pretty much every one of these films, Disney went the extra mile of hiring talented and sought after filmmakers to play around with their billion dollar toys, and so far we’ve had a near perfect success rate!  Okay, Jon Favreau didn’t QUITE capture lightening in a bottle twice with Iron Man 2 and there was the whole Ant-Man debacle with Edgar Wright, but for the most part they’ve had a good eye for picking out talent; especially considering they got Ryan Coogler of Fruitvale Station and Creed fame to start his blockbuster career with them.  Will this be a monumental addition to an already astronomically successful franchise, or… well okay, there’s no chance this is gonna be BAD, but will it be… MEDIOCRE!?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins not long after Captain America: Civil War (so… presumably BEFORE Spider-Man Homecoming?) where T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is returning home to Wakanda to be crowned king after the death of his father T’Chaka (John Kani).  Here, we all the important people in his life including his mother (Angela Bassett), his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his top general and most dependable ass kicker Okoye (Danai Gurira), and an accomplished spy for the Wakandan military Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend.  Anyway, we spend some time with T’Challa as he’s getting used to the heavy burden bestowed upon him, but he doesn’t have much time to adjust as Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) from all the way back in Age of Ultron has resurfaced and is still on Wakanda’s shit list for stealing Vibranium like twenty years ago.  With this chance at capturing one of Wakanda’s greatest enemies, T’Challa suits up to take the mantel of Black Panther once more and even takes Okoye and Nakia for backup.  Things don’t go quite as planned however as the CIA operative from Civil War, Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) is onto Klaue as well, and Klaue seems to be working with a guy that REALLY has a grudge against Wakanda and is known simply as Killmonger  (Michael B Jordan).  Can T’Challa unravel the mysteries before him, and will he like the answers that he finds?  What are these ruthless villains planning that could endanger Wakanda and the rest of the world with it?  How exactly does he breathe in that thing if it doesn’t even have a mouth hole!?

BLACKPANTHERCD1
“IT’S SO MUGGY IN HERE!!”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Black Panther” →

Cinema Dispatch: Fantastic Four

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 9 Comments

‘The Fantastic Four’ by 20th Century Fox.

Fantastic Four and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by Josh Trank

Look, you all knew this movie would be bad, right?  The negative press coming out of the screenings for this was fucking insane and there’s no way it’s gonna be a hit.  It MIGHT make some cash its first weekend, there isn’t a ghost of a chance that it survives into next week.  That’s not what you want to know though.  The box office totals are secondary to the quality of the actual film, and you’re ALL here to take a safe glimpse into the utter madness that many of us had to suffer through.  Well never let it be said that I’m not about giving the reader what they want, so step right up as I take you through this modern day monstrosity!

The movie is about super genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller) who is discovered during a science fair by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey) who is the father of Johnny Storm (Michael B Jordan) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara).  Franklin offers Reed a full scholarship in exchange for working at his lab on a teleporter that can send organic matter between dimensions, which Reed eagerly accepts.  With the help of another protégée of Franklin’s, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), they build said teleporter, but it backfires and gives Reed, Johnny, Sue, Victor, and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) who is Reed’s best friend, superpowers.  Will they use these powers for good, or will their actions lead to the destruction of Earth?

Will they EVER find a way to make a movie out of these characters!?  It can’t be THAT hard, right!?
Will they EVER find a way to make a movie out of these characters!?  It can’t be THAT hard, right!?

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Fantastic Four” →