A Walk in the Woods

First Hit:  Enjoyable, interesting at times and funny – it was “A Walk in the Woods”.

This film has two veteran actors past their prime, showing why they still have something left in the tank.

Bill Bryson (Robert Redford) and Stephan Katz (Nick Nolte) are two old friends who’ve not seen each other for quite some time. Bryson gets an idea that he needs to change something in his life and decides to walk the Appalachian Trail (From Georgia to Maine).

His wife Catherine (Emma Thompson) doesn’t want him to do this, thinks he’s too old and makes a stipulation that he has to do this with someone. He calls lots of people and everyone turns him down, except Katz who wasn’t asked directly but heard it from a mutual friend. He’s interested because he has arrest warrants out against him and this will give him some relief from those worries.

The characters are clearly defined, Bryson refined, well spoken, and intelligent, while Katz is rude, crude, and well worn. But during the walk we see their likeness and learn of their history together. All the while each is walking in this beautiful part of the country for their own reasons.

They meet people along the way that supposedly challenge their beliefs, but only one, hiker Mary Ellen (Kristin Schaal), challenge them as a team. I never got a solid clear feeling as to why Bryson did the hike in the first place but it probably wasn’t important.

Overall, Redford was strong and was perfect to play this reserved controlled character. Nolte has had a lot of hard miles on him and was perfectly cast in this role because his character called for his background. Thompson was effective in her small role. Schaal was perfectly annoying and wonderful in her role as fellow hiker. Rick Kerb and Bill Holderman wrote a good screenplay that effectively highlighted these two disparate characters. Ken Kwapis got a fair amount of great scenes from these two, but some of the scene sets were obviously done in a studio.

Overall:  This was a very enjoyable film.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

First Hit:  This film was action packed although it did not unnecessarily make much sense – but who cares – it's really fun to watch.

Each MI film is a stretch of the imagination and Rogue Nation continues the tradition. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) never plays by the rules because he knows better than any other character in the film. And as obnoxious as that is, it works really well.

Cruise makes statements so strong and with such confidence that certainty of his plan or statements are never questioned, despite the strong smart people on his team. In this film in the opening scenes (which is also in the trailer), he grabs on to the side of a plane taking off so that he can get inside and foil the bad guys who are transporting poisonous gas. His crew William (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Luther (Ving Rhames) are here again and with the introduction of Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) as an English agent representative working the same sort of case.

The villain they are after is Atlee (Simon McBurney) who portrays an evil doer looking for a huge payoff. The action scenes are not so elongated that the audience tires, yet the film is filled with them. The chase scenes are long and short enough to capture interest. The quips by the MI team are well thought out. Is this film filled with award winning performances? No. Is the storyline one for the ages? No. Yet the film works and is very fun to watch.

Cruise is easy to watch. He’s competent at making the audience think and believe he’s the character. Cruise does intense and action well. Simon Pegg is funny and good as the head support guy in the MI group. Renner is OK in a more subdued role and delivers what is required from the part. Ferguson is strong as an English counterpart to Cruise. Rhames is OK is a small and important part. McBurney was good as the villain. Christopher McQuarrie wrote a strong action script and did a really good job of directing this action film.

Overall:  This is a fun action film.

Jurassic World (3-D)

First Hit:  Although the CGI is great, the whole film felt staged like it was a sequence of scenes strung together to make a story.

I liked Jurassic Park enough to want to see this leap forward film. This story has us, the visitors to the park (world), always wanting something new and different or else we won’t spend the enormous amount of money required to visit the amusement park and make it profitable.

This is the “why” they genetically created this new dinosaur (Indominus – Rex) as an attraction. To bring more people to fund more generic engineering. Then there is the story about the Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who works at the park but is being neglectful of her nephews Zack and Gray (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins respectively) who come to visit her at the park.

Then there is Own (Chris Pratt) who works at the park and is “training” the Velociraptors to respond to his commands. We’ve got Claire running through the jungle and the film in high heels (although there is a scene where she has flats on). There are a number of misrepresentations during the film, but the fun factor makes it rise above mediocrity, but not by a whole lot.

Pratt is fun in his best interpretation of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He’s good in this rough and tumble role. Howard is good as the female interest of Pratt’s as well as the key female character in the story – she’s the one from which the story binds. Vincent D’Onofrio as Hoskins the quasi-military oriented guy who wants to use the dinosaurs as a weapon was very formula driven. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver wrote this overly ambitious script. Colin Trevorrow directed this film. Unfortunately, the bigness of the task at hand was beyond his ability to rein in the ideas into a single cohesive story.

Overall:  The ambitiousness of the concept and the multitude of stories ran further than the abilities to make this film work.

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.