Ant Man and The Wasp
Do I really have to approve this movie for you to go see it?
Paul Rudd stars again as Scott Lang/Ant-Man. It is a good movie but really more
of the same. Scott is funny, Hope (Evangeline Lilly) is cute and bad ass, and
Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is gruff and irritable. I kinda wished the movie
went somewhere different but this movie is safe and fun. Nothing too outside
the box. I enjoyed this movie and while I was told that seeing it in 3-D was
worthwhile, it isn’t that dramatic. Overall
there isn’t much to hate and not much more to love. If you liked Ant-Man… you’ll
like this. If you didn’t… you won’t. This is about as simple an equation I can
make for a movie.
Mr. Unhappy sez:
Josie
Josie is a different type of movie. Sophie Turner plays the
title character Josie, a young girl on her own living in a residential hotel
and being way too flirty with the resident weirdo, Dylan McDermott’s Hank. Hank
is a recluse who prefers his pet tortoises to the people in his small Texas community.
He works as a security guard of sorts at the local high school being abused by
the students more than keeping them in line. Josie arrives, and his world is
turned upside down. We’ve all had those women who enter our lives and make us
crazy with desire and the flirting games they play with us. Josie plays Hank
like a fiddle. Coming on to him only to hit on Marcus, a rebellious teen who is
a constant thorn in Hank’s side. Dates are made and canceled until the secret
Josie is keeping is revealed. Josie isn’t a movie that will surprise you at
every turn but it is a competent thriller. You root for Hank and against
Marcus. In the end, Josie isn’t an innocent teen as she appears and Hank isn’t
the ignorant hick he portrays to the world. Josie keeps you engaged and is
worth a watch if you want to.
Mr. Unhappy sez:
Josie is no pussycat but maybe I’d like it better if she was.
It (2017)
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, It was a
movie I was very interested in once it was announced. As much as I’d love to
look back fondly at the 1990’s miniseries with Tim Curry as Pennywise the
Dancing clown, I can’t. Is it always gonna have a place in my nostalgic heart?
Of course but it is not a good movie. The latest It is a good movie, scary,
creepy and a little bit nostalgic itself. The story involves a group of preteens
who stumble across the monster stalking the children in their small town.
Together the Loser’s Club team up to fight and kill IT before IT can kill more
kids. For this movie, the moved the story up to the 1980’s from the 1950’s and
the sequel will take place 27 years later in modern times. The kids are really
the story here and Andy Muschietti gets that telling the horrors of youth
through a coming of age movie. Pennywise is real and a little more menacing
than Tim Curry ever was but to be fair they aren’t playing the same character.
Bill Skaarsgard plays Pennywise as a monster while Tim Curry played him as a
clown…quite literally. That’s probably the only mistake I can see in this movie
is that Pennywise is given no real humor. The common complaint on the internet
is that no child would approach this Pennywise. Curry’s Pennywise was genial
and happy, relishing the knowledge that when he kills, it will be with the full
trust of the child. That makes him slightly more frightening from a character
standpoint. Yet even with constant creepiness, Pennywise is scary and
interesting in this new iteration. I love the novel and am hopelessly nostalgic
about the miniseries. This movie gets me scared the way I was when I read the
book the first time when I was 12 (way too young but I always wanted to read
the books my brother did) and I had to turn the cover face down before I went
to sleep so the clown wouldn’t come out of the book and get me.
Mr. Unhappy sez: This is the It you would’ve hoped for in
the 1990’s if you knew it could be done. This movie floats high and creepily
above most movies. Hopefully Chapter 2 will float too.
Almost Friends
Another Hulu impulse watch like Josie, Almost Friends is
about Freddie Highmore’s Charlie, a 20 something stuck in life. Once a rising
star as a chef, Charlie has moved back in with his mother and stepdad, and
works at the vintage movie theater, not going anywhere. He’s in stalker love
with the local Barista, Amber, who is dating the local track star. Soon Amber
begins to like him back or maybe she just isn’t happy with her boyfriend. The
romantic story in the movie is slow and realistic while continually making
Charlie look foolish. Amber is not a sympathetic character. She plays as though
her boyfriend is inattentive and self obsessed and in many ways he is but she
doesn’t ever really give him a chance to step up. Instead she leans on Charlie
and leads him into believing she’s falling for him. She might be but she should
probably figure that out before she turns to Charlie. There are a lot of
moments in this movie but it never really takes off. The love story is
complicated, the family story is predictable, and Charlie never really loses
out on anything. I enjoyed it but only so far as I always root for any
character played by Freddie Highmore. Even his Norman Bates was someone I
rooted for and he was killing people. Freddie Highmore deserves better and while
it is good to see Haley Joel Osment again, I wish he could find a better role.
The talent is still there. Ultimately Almost Friends fails because it isn’t a
fan of it’s own story. It never chooses a lane. I guess it could be considered
more realistic but when I watch a romantic movie, I don’t want realism. My empty
bed that I come home to every night wishing that she’d be there, wake sleepily and say “Where were
you babe?” gives me enough of that. I want hope for love and kisses that look
as though the two leads have actually kissed someone before.
Mr. Unhappy sez: Competent but not great. Smart but not
brilliant. Romantic but not unrealistic enough. Worth a look if you want to see
Christopher Meloni’s ass.
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