Been a busy few weeks, folks. Sorry about the delay. Six trips to the theater in the month of February, although I only saw four new movies. There were several movies I had a small interest in seeing I decided not to bother with. Two of which came out the weekend after Valentine’s Day. Onto the show.
I finally went to see Hidden Figures. And I enjoyed myself. As you may remember from the previous article, I gave it an honorable mention, 85-89 range. It had a lot of cliché “standing up to the man keeping me down” type machinations in it. And they had Mahershala Ali, the love interest for the main character, be randomly really sexist out of nowhere when he first meets the woman who he eventually marries. Just pointless and done merely to give us some righteous grandstanding from said main character. The soundtrack, composed and mostly sung by Pharrell Williams, is well done. Not the best of the year, as was previously noted a few articles ago, but I did buy it.
SEE IT MORE THAN ONCE.
The LEGO Batman Movie was so much better than it had any right to be, just like the previous film in this brick by brick cinematic universe. It is wacky, non-stop, and self-referential to an absurd degree. Every strange supervillain Batman has ever had in any format including the Adam West Batman days gets thrown into the mix. Egghead, the Vincent Price portrayed egg-themed bald supervillain, is in this. I laughed heartily when he showed up. The jokes at the expense of the DCEU are amazing and many of them are really subtle (and a few very much not subtle at all.) Michael Cera somehow makes Robin not dreadful by actually giving him a personality outside of “perfect youth with perfect manners and perfect sensibilities.” Not to say the animated television portrayals of Robin are bad (they’re actually fantastic to varying degrees,) but movie Robin has never been compelling to me. Until now.
SEE IT A MILLION TIMES!
No point in sugarcoating this: John Wick: Chapter 2 was damn awesome. Obviously, my movie of the month. I saw it three times in theaters in less than a week. It is up there for movie of the year (although, a movie I’ve already seen that came out in March might be better.) You could hardly find a better action movie sequel in both overall quality and comparable quality to the first. Both are as near perfect as possible (and that’s extremely rare with action movie franchises.) The fight scenes are a thing of beauty. The world building, much like the first one, adds such a rich layer of intrigue to the whole enterprise. The concluding film of the trilogy is gonna be so badass. I have a feeling the Triads and/or the Yakuza will be involved somehow.
SEE IT A MILLION TIMES!
Get Out is the best horror movie since… Well, Split was really good. It is certainly in the top five of the last ten years. Jordan Peele showed directing skills I didn’t think he had. The comedy, which is expected from such a director, somehow didn’t seem out of place in this dark as all Hell horror movie. I really can’t say anymore without spoiling vast parts of the plot, so I won’t. Go into this movie blind. You’re going to want to experience the twists and turns for yourself.
SEE IT A MILLION TIMES!
March has been a good month for movies so far, but largely due to my avoidance of certain clearly terrible films. The CHiPs movie reboot looks incredibly horrible. Thankfully, it will more than likely bomb magnificently.