Tomorrowland

First Hit:  Interesting scope, parts that excelled, but overall this movie fails to deliver an engaging film from beginning to end.

The film’s early opening scenes included Casey, a truly curious smart girl (Britt Robertson), trying to hamper a rocket’s launch thereby keeping her engineer father employed. It also included Frank Walker (Young Frank played by Thomas Robinson and older Frank played by George Clooney) telling the story through two sets of eyes, the young curious smart boy and the wise old man who’s given up hope.

These three characters are pulled together by Athena (Raffey Cassidy); a robot created from the future whose mission is to find hope in the human race and give them the clue to the possibilities by giving out Tomorrowland pins.

The point of the film finally comes towards the end, when Nix (Hugh Laurie) gives a speech about how humans don’t care enough to fix the problems they are facing. The lavish way this film is presented is wonderful and engaging. The movie felt long which isn’t good and at 130 minutes, it was long.

Robertson was good and I felt that she did a great job of embodying her role. Robinson was cute and his early scenes were wonderful to watch. Clooney was good but there was something missing that kept me thinking “Clooney” and not about the role he was playing, Frank Walker. Cassidy was fantastic. I was fully engaged when she was on the screen, her way of being this robot was amazing. Laurie was a wonderful antagonist and his colloquy on the future was on target. Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird wrote a lengthy screenplay which is a commentary on how we are mortgaging our future and not paying attention to our self-created predicament. Bird did a great job of creating wonderful pictures of the now and the future, but it dragged on and could have used some snipping to tighten it up.

Overall:  A bit overblown, visually nice, but in the end not a very good film.

Mad Max: Fury Road

First Hit:  One very, very long chase movie consisting of unrealistic and poorly choreographed scenes that were generally bad enough to have the audience laugh.

Yes the fun things about the original Mad Max films were the bizarre chase scenes. However, what made it watchable and interesting was the story line outside of the vehicle chases. Here there is little story and even less of anything of interest.

Max (played by Tom Hardy) says so little that virtually no emotion comes from him except when he hallucinates his daughter in front of his eyes. Then there is Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, a driver for Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) the emperor, sort of speak, of his group of people. I cannot go into the story because it is simply one long huge chase scene and the hero’s survive - what else would I say?

Theron is OK but I’m puzzled as to why she would take this role – it just lacks the depth I’m use to seeing from her. Hardy was OK as well and I don’t know why he made this film except maybe for the money. George Miller and Brendan McCarthy wrote a meaningless script filled with staged chase choreography. Miller directed this film with this vision: How many crashes can I get on film (one - beginning to end), how bizarre can I make the vehicles (electric guitar and player as a hood ornament) and how can I bury any semblance of a story (just have people chase each other).

Overall:  Not much of a film and less of a story.

Hot Pursuit

First Hit:  Mediocre story, partially slapstick, occasionally good out-loud laughs, but in the end it just wasn’t enough.

The set-up is that Officer Connor (Reese Witherspoon) grew up admiring her police officer father. She always wanted to be a cop. But with an embarrassing incident early in her career, she finds herself down in the evidence room. She gets a call to assist moving a drug informer and his wife to Dallas to testify against the head of a drug cartel.

The wife Daniella Riva (Sofia Vergara), is an opposite type person from Conner, her protector. The rest of the film is about putting them in instances where their differences are expounded. From the type of underwear to how they talk, their body styles, height and age.

The quips by the news organizations about their age and height were funny as was some of the dialogue on the bus they found themselves riding. However, the same bus scene had a shooting sequence when they were driving the bus that I found awkward and poorly designed.

This was the way of the whole film, poorly crafted scenes mixed with funny scenes (like her Cooper changing clothes in the sporting goods store).

Witherspoon was, at times, amazingly engaged and funny, like her very fast talking after being covered by cocaine powder. At other times it didn’t work and the scripting and acting felt tried. Vergara was really funny when she was talking about her shoes and what she can and cannot do. But I also found her restricted by the storyline. David Feeney and John Quaintance wrote an uneven script, which the director Anne Fletcher failed to remedy.

Overall:  Although amusing at times, the outtakes at the end showed how fun and funny this film could have been.

The Gunman

First Hit:  This film tries to be interesting and fails.

Using the politics of forced mining in the Congo as a backdrop, what the story is about is how a man slowly comes to grips with his killing past. What is unfortunate is that using this and his redemptive actions of drilling for clean water to make Terrier (Sean Penn) someone we care about failed.

I did not care one iota about Terrier’s self-redemption. Walking into the theater I expected to sit through a bunch of scenes of people shooting (and missing) at each other but for it to be so poorly done was disappointing. True to Penn’s own publicly pushed political stance – there are scenes where he’s the good guy, however, he’ll do anything to keep himself and his girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca) alive and shooting people is what he resorts to doing. He continues to state that he's got no choice.

Javier Bardem, as Terrier's co-worker Felix, was a poorly created and acted character. He’s required to be extremely jealous and a drunk, and neither of these were done well. At least 3 times during the film, I was sat there thinking, I just wanted this movie to be over.

The best part of Penn’s performance was that he was in great physical shape but to have him smoking in so many scenes is downright stupid. His character didn’t need it. Trinca was OK and although she exemplified being a good person in love with someone who has a history of killing people for money, she rose above the stupidity of this film and delivered what she could. Bardem was a wasted talent in this role. Ray Winstone as Stanley, Terrier’s only true friend, was strong in his supporting role. He was the only bright light in this film. Don MacPherson wrote this mess and Pierre Morel did his best to shoot this film in an interesting way.

Overall:  Poor story, poor acting, and lousy characters make for a waste of time.

'71

First Hit:  This well shot, dark, and a brooding film sheds little light on the Catholic / Protestant conflict in Belfast but shows how England didn’t know what to do at that time.

Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell) a private in the English army is sent with his unit to Belfast to quell an unrest and assist in arresting an IRA sympathizer.

When the English Army gets attacked by the locals, he and another soldier are sent to chase down a kid who took an English soldier’s gun. The crowd erupts and Hook is left behind fighting for his life. This story is about how there is compassion, hate, honor and deceit.

O’Connell is very good as the left behind soldier. Although there are other actors in this film, the focus is on Hook and the others represent ideals and beliefs and in their way they were amazing. Gregory Burke wrote a very strong screenplay. Yann Demange directed with film with wonderful vision for the feel of the time and the situation.

Overall:  I liked the film and would have loved seeing more of the roots of the conflict.