Jigsaw

Thirteen years ago on Halloween weekend – "Saw" and the character of JIGSAW introduced the world to a new face of horror. For seven straight years “If it’s Halloween it must be Saw” was a holiday tradition. After a series of murders bearing all the markings of the Jigsaw killer, law enforcement find themselves chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade and embroiled in a new game that’s only just begun. Is John Kramer back from the dead to remind the world to be grateful for the gift of life? Or is this a trap set by a killer with designs of their own?

I really am not sure that there was a need for the Saw franchise to return.  The movies are literally carbon copies of each other.  If you like the idea of seeing people get out of the traps - cool.  If you don't - then these movies are garbage.  This is pretty much more of the same.  No sort of reinvention.  Just another copy of the whole "story".  I'm not saying that it was bad.  It really depends on if you like these kinds of movies.  

I would recommend anyone who liked the other Saw movies to watch this one.  You will most likely enjoy it.  Otherwise - stay far, far away like you did with the others.

Geostorm

After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world’s leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep everyone safe. But now, something has gone wrong—the system built to protect the Earth is attacking it, and it’s a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything...and everyone along with it.

This movie was awful.  This had so much less to do with end of the world natural disasters than it did with a silly ass plot to control the world with some weather station and the voyage to shut it down.  I don't even want to waste more time writing about it.  It was such garbage.

I wouldn't recommend anyone bother with this.  Total waste of time and definitely not worth any money being spent to see it.

Blade Runner 2049

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

This was one of the most amazing visual movies ever.  It is basically a current day wow type of movie visually like the original Blade Runner was way back then.  The number one rule of a great sci-fi movie is that it fully transports you to their alternate world and makes you feel like you are really there.  This movie absolutely delivered on that.  And it was a great, well developed story.  I will say that the movie is about twice as long as it had to be but it was still a very enjoyable watch.

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It's a great watch and one of the more excellent visual movies ever.

Happy Death Day

Blumhouse produces an original and inventive rewinding thriller in Happy Death Day, in which a college student (Jessica Rothe) relives the day of her murder with both its unexceptional details and terrifying end until she discovers her killer’s identity.

This was basically a scary movie version of Groundhog Day.  It seemed like it would be a really stupid idea/movie.  But I was very pleasantly surprised.  I enjoyed this movie a lot and it was done in a way that was both scary at times but very, very funny.  

I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  Never thought I would be saying those words going in, but this movie was a lot of fun. 

The Snowman

Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson and Charlotte Gainsbourg star in The Snowman, a terrifying thriller from director Tomas Alfredson, based on Jo Nesbø’s global bestseller. When an elite crime squad’s lead detective (Fassbender) investigates the disappearance of a victim on the first snow of winter, he fears an elusive serial killer may be active again. With the help of a brilliant recruit (Ferguson), the cop must connect decades-old cold cases to the brutal new one if he hopes to outwit this unthinkable evil before the next snowfall.

This was a massively disappointing movie.  If there was ever a movie that should have just been done like a Criminal Minds episode and it would have been awesome - this is the one.  Instead it was massively overdone, sloppily edited and boring as hell.  I wish that they would have put half as much effort into making the movie creepier - especially with how the opening 5 minutes had you in a paralyzed feeling of watching extreme awkwardness that teased that the whole movie would be like that - instead of pushing the country of Norway as some sort of a character kind of.  It was very strange and beyond disappointing.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone bother with this.  Like I said - it could have been soooooooo good but they completely dropped the ball.

IT

New Line Cinema’s horror thriller "IT," directed by Andrés Muschietti ("Mama"), is based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name, which has been terrifying readers for decades. When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

This movie was everything that I hoped it would be.  It focused on the kids part of the story and took the time to develop all of them.  This gave the movie a real ET or Goonies feel in that aspect.  Penny wise the clown was AWESOME and creepy as hell.  Every time he spoke you were on the edge of your seat and it wasn't cheesy scares.  There was outright tension and fear throughout.  This was honestly one of the better overall Stephen King adaptations ever.  Like on the Stand By Me or Shawshank Redemption level.

I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  It was an excellent watch and easily one of the better made scary movies in a long time.

The Foreigner

The Foreigner, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan, is a timely action thriller from the director of Casino Royale.  The film tells the story of humble London businessman Quan (Chan), whose long-buried past erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when the only person left for him to love -- his teenage daughter -- is taken from him in a senseless act of politically-motivated terrorism. In his relentless search for the identity of the terrorists, Quan is forced into a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official (Brosnan), whose own past may hold clues to the identities of the elusive killers.

This was a very enjoyable film when the action was happening.  Jackie Chan was awesome as always.  The only thing was that the movie was paced like a race between snails.  It dragged massively and really didn't have to.  They could have stepped on the gas a lot more.  

I would somewhat recommend people checking this out.  It's not great but is still a decent watch.

American Made

In Universal Pictures' American Made, Tom Cruise reunites with his "Edge of Tomorrow" director, Doug Liman, in this international escapade based on the outrageous (and real) exploits of Barry Seal, a hustler and pilot unexpectedly recruited by the CIA to run one of the biggest covert operations in U.S. history.

This is one of Tom Cruise's better performances in a long time because he let go of the need to be in action all the time and just played a guy in way over his head with a situation spiraling more and more out of control.  This movie developed excellently and was basically a movie version of the Netflix show Narcos BUT through the eyes of a pilot transporter who never should have been involved to begin with.

I would sort of recommend people checking this out.  It's not a must see but it is definitely an enjoyable watch and nice to see that Tom Cruise can still actually act outside of running and fighting all the time.

Marshall

Long before he sat on the United States Supreme Court or claimed victory in Brown v. Board of Education, Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) was a young rabble-rousing attorney for the NAACP. The new motion picture, Marshall, is the true story of his greatest challenge in those early days – a fight he fought alongside attorney Sam Friedman (Josh Gad), a young lawyer with no experience in criminal law: the case of black chauffeur Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), accused by his white employer, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson), of sexual assault and attempted murder.

This was a great story and very well acted by all parties involved.  The problem is that even with that being said, the movie ends up just kind of being there and is easily forgettable.  It's a shame because the three main actors continue to get bigger and bigger and this movie will surface years from now as a "remember when" type of movie.

I would recommend people check this out still.  It really was a good movie.  It will just be forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

Battle Of The Sexes

The electrifying 1973 tennis match between World number one Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) was billed as the "Battle of the Sexes" and became the most watched televised sports event of all time. The match caught the zeitgeist and sparked a global conversation on gender equality, spurring on the feminist movement. Trapped in the media glare, King and Riggs were on opposites sides of a binary argument, but off-court each was fighting more personal and complex battles. With a supportive husband urging her to fight the Establishment for equal pay, the fiercely private King was also struggling to come to terms with her own sexuality, while Riggs gambled his legacy and reputation in a bid to relive the glories of his past. Together, Billie and Bobby served up a cultural spectacle that resonated far beyond the tennis courts and animated the discussions between men and women in bedrooms and boardrooms around the world.

This was an excellent autobiographical movie.  Emma Stone and Steve Carell were both awesome and brought so much more to each of the people that they were playing then just a tennis match.  The build up to the match was incredibly well done but it was them playing these people behind the scenes of it all and behind closed and very private doors that really made this movie a joy to watch.

I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  It has great build, great acting and really is an excellent story.  

Flatliners

In Flatliners, five medical students, obsessed by the mystery of what lies beyond the confines of life, embark on a daring and dangerous experiment: by stopping their hearts for short periods of time, each triggers a near-death experience - giving them a firsthand account of the afterlife. But as their experiments become increasingly dangerous, they are each haunted by the sins of their pasts, brought on by the paranormal consequences of trespassing to the other side.

The original Flatliners was a favorite of mine growing up.  I used to watch that movie all the time.  I can't possibly do justice to how not excited I was to see that they were remaking this.  And my crappy expectations turned out to be dead on.  This was nowhere near the level of the original Flatliners.  It had some super small scares here and there but not nearly enough.  And the casting was horrible.  Especially the one guy that I guess was trying to do the Kevin Bacon role from the original.  Every time that guy spoke or did anything I wanted to yell shut up at the screen.  He was so bad.

I would not recommend that anyone waste their time with this.  It's definitely one of the lamer remakes with the flood of them that have been done.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.

Wow!  This was one hell of an intense war movie from beginning to end.  And it was done in such an engulfing your senses way that you feel like you are there through all the chaos.  No time for a "story" or for character development.  Honestly, I don't even remember a single characters name.  And it didn't matter.  You were just there with these soldiers trying so desperately to survive through three different stories/vantage points that all eventually converge.  Christopher Nolan truly is the genius filmmaker of this generation.  

I would absolutely recommend that everyone check this out.  It's easily the best war movie I've seen since Saving Private Ryan and is a lock for one of the best movies of the year.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie

In this big-screen NINJAGO adventure, the battle for NINJAGO City calls to action young Master Builder Lloyd, aka the Green Ninja (Dave Franco), along with his friends, who are all secret ninja warriors. Led by Master Wu (Jackie Chan), as wise-cracking as he is wise, they must defeat evil warlord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), the Worst Guy Ever, who also happens to be Lloyd’s dad. Pitting mech against mech and father against son, the epic showdown will test this fierce but undisciplined team of modern-day ninjas who must learn to check their egos and pull together to unleash their inner power of Spinjitzu.

This was yet another enjoyable Lego movie.  It's nowhere near the laughs and enjoyment of The Lego Movie or the Lego Batman Movie because the characters are not already known entities and what not.  I liked that it was a Princess Bride type thing with live action narration that they would go back to.  It also had tons of funny moments sprinkled throughout just like the others that were absolutely more for the parents/adults than the kiddies.  

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It was a fun watch and the kids will love it. 

Mother!

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. From filmmaker Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan," "Requiem for a Dream"), "mother!" stars Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer in this riveting psychological thriller about love, devotion and sacrifice.

This movie is exactly why artsy movies should not star huge actors and be advertised as a mainstream movie.  I knew going in that this would be one of those massively mismarketed movies and my expectations were spot on.  This is an artsy movie filmed in a visionary style that film studies people could easily examine and rave about.  It is NOT a mainstream movie in any way.  I honestly said "what the f am I watching" out loud about 70 times.  This movie was off the charts strange and all about being open for interpretation.

I would only make the suggestion that filmmaking buffs see this due to the visionary style of Aronofsky.  Outside of that - this will pretty much be seen as a massive turd by all.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Kingsman: The Secret Service introduced the world to Kingsman - an independent, international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion, whose ultimate goal is to keep the world safe. In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, our heroes face a new challenge. When their headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, their journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy organization in the US called Statesman, dating back to the day they were both founded. In a new adventure that tests their agents' strength and wits to the limit, these two elite secret organizations band together to defeat a ruthless common enemy, in order to save the world, something that's becoming a bit of a habit for Eggsy...

I forgot how much I enjoyed the first one until I had a chance to rewatch it a second time a couple weeks ago.  It was lots of awesome off the wall action and Matthew Vaughn really doesn't make non-enjoyable movies.  This one is pretty much more of the same from the original.  The off the wall is definitely there.  The characters that you have come to love are definitely there.  Just an enjoyable ride.  The only knock I could make is that the movie was like a 1/2 hour too long.  

I would definitely recommend people check this out.  It's a fun take on the whole James Bond like world just like the original.