Author: Caillou Pettis

Charismatic and complex, Sergio Vieira de Mello (Wagner Moura) has spent the majority of his storied career as a top UN diplomat working in the world’s most unstable regions, deftly navigating deals with presidents, revolutionaries, and war criminals for the sake of protecting the lives of ordinary people.

But just as he readies himself for a simpler life with the woman he loves (Ana de Armas), Sergio takes one last assignment — in Baghdad, newly plunged into chaos following the US invasion. The assignment is meant to be brief, until a bomb blast causes the walls of the UN headquarters to come literally crashing down upon him, setting into motion a gripping life-or-death struggle.

Greg Barker’s Sergio is a film that has a lot in it, while also having next to nothing in it. Even though the film has a running time of approximately two hours, there really isn’t a whole lot that happens in terms of a visual and physical standpoint within this story. There are some plot beats that progress the plot forward obviously, but they happen so few and far between that it is hard to feel deeply invested in the story in the long run.

For the first thirty minutes, the movie’s slow pace didn’t really bother me all that much, mainly because I assumed that the story would pick up the speed after a while. Although this film doesn’t delve deep enough into Sergio de Mello’s life nearly enough as it should have, there were, thankfully, a handful of scenes that told me things about his life that I never knew.

My favorite scenes in the entirety of Sergio were the ones were the title character interacted with his love interest Carolina Larriera. This is mainly due to the absolutely excellent chemistry between Wagner Moura and Ana de Armas, the latter of which is making quite the name for herself in the film industry lately. With her chilling performance as Joi in Blade Runner 2047, her breakout performance as Marta Cabrera in Knives Out, and now her role as Carolina in Sergio, she is most definitely a star to be looking out for in the near future.

Here, she is asked to do a lot. Her character is one that is carefully quiet but also has a lot to say whenever necessary. Where she truly shines is in her emotional scenes, though. Armas completely sells her crying and emotional breakdowns here and it completely blew me away. The dynamic between Armas’ Carolina and Moura’s Sergio, who is also great in the film, was terrific.

But aside from those scenes, like I touched upon earlier, the movie just doesn’t have a bunch of things to say. I really wished it took a deep dive into the life of Sergio de Mello and his work, his influence and how it deeply affected the people around him. There is maybe one scene that did this excellently, but the rest of the movie did this on a disappointingly bland level. We really should have gotten a story that told a gripping tale of his work in the United Nations, but instead, we got a movie that oftentimes feels strangely more like a more edgy romance movie than a gripping drama like it should’ve been.

Ana de Armas and Wagner Moura are wonderous in Sergio, a movie that is otherwise disappointingly bland and tells its story in an unrewarding, traditional manner.

When 11-year-old Leo Thompson (Seth Carr) discovers a magical wrestling mask that grants him super strength, he uses it to enter a WWE competition. With the support of his grandmother (Tichina Arnold), Leo will do whatever it takes to achieve his dream of becoming a WWE Superstar. Can one kid win it all, in the face of epic challengers in the ring?

Wrestling and the world of the WWE has been a big event that people have enjoyed for decades. There is just something super exciting, fun, and somewhat ridiculous about watching two grown adults get into a big (albeit staged) fight with each other. Many people from all around the world gather around the television to watch wrestling on a regular basis.

I’ll admit – I am not the biggest wrestling fan out there. At the same time though, I know several people that love wrestling and I do respect the field and think that it can be a fun thing to watch on the television every once in a while. I can only list a handful of wrestlers, though – mainly the big name ones such as Hulk Hogan, the Undertaker, Andre the Giant, John Cena, etc.

Also, last year, Stephen Merchant released the excellent heartfelt comedy-drama Fighting with My Family, starring the always phenomenal Florence Pugh as WWE superstar Paige. That movie was filled with heart, humor, and wasn’t afraid to get dramatic whenever it needed to.

Unfortunately, The Main Event, the latest feature film from director is absolutely none of the things that Fighting with My Family was. It’s a movie with incredibly poor writing, mostly bad acting, and an ending that is so predictable, you will see it coming a mile away.

But let’s talk about that story. The concept behind a young boy with big dreams of becoming a wrestler in the WWE one day that manages to obtain a magical mask that gives him extraordinary strength is honestly an exceptionally fun concept that could have some really fun potential behind it. Is it incredibly goofy and a little bit corny? Absolutely. But there is still some fun to be had within that concept.

Sadly though, the movie is way too campy and often comes across as a Hallmark movie that you’d find on the TV one day while you’re bored. There are way too many sappy scenes that feel so out of place and unnecessary. The movie follows a formula that is ridiculously easy to pick up on while watching it.

Throughout the movie, we will watch a scene where Leo, in the disguise of Kid Chaos, does something that is meant to be funny or cool. A scene or two after this, we get an “emotional” scene with his grandmother or his father, and after a while, it just felt so tired and boring.

Speaking of the grandmother though, she was the funniest character in the whole film. As for the acting for the character by Tichina Arnold, it’s decent. There are a ton of scenes where she acts super goofy and it is meant to be hilarious, and sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes its really terrible. By far the best actor here is, luckily, main actor Seth Carr who portrays lead protagonist Leo. With that being said however, even he isn’t great here. Virtually every single actor involved with this project feels a little bit off of their game.

For those that are seeking out an entertaining popcorn flick, it is just okay. There were a couple of moments with some genuine fun, cheery action sequences. But, there are also some scenes that are immensely horrible. All of which take place in a wrestling ring. In fact, there is one scene in particular in this movie involving a character named Stinkface (Otis Dozovic) that was so hilariously awful that it almost came across as a parody. While watching this scene, my jaw truthfully dropped and I was staring in utter amazement at what I was looking at, but in all the wrong ways.

The Main Event is a corny, poorly written mess with bad acting and doesn’t explore its fun premise as well as it could have.

While trying to ensure that his sister’s wedding day goes smoothly, Jack (Sam Claflin) finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend, an uninvited guest with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl that got away — as alternate versions of the same wedding unfold, Jack seeks his own happy ending with chance dictating his future.

Dean Craig’s Love Wedding Repeat is yet another romance movie that you probably had no interest in seeing just by looking at the trope-filled poster and synopsis. Released straight to Netflix this past Friday, the new film is being watched by a high number of people, likely due to the fact that nearly everybody in the world is in quarantine right now.

Surely this movie isn’t in the charts on the streaming platform right now because of the film’s quality, because it is a bad movie that has nothing interesting or exciting to say. It’s more proof that a large portion of romance movies these days are incredibly boring.

For the first thirty to forty minutes in Love Wedding Repeat, virtually nothing happens. Literally. We witness lead protagonist Jack get into an awkward conversation with his love interest Dina (Olivia Munn) when his friend Bryan (Joel Fry) happens to intervene. This entire sequence lasts about ten minutes when really, it should have only lasted a few minutes. From that point onwards, it just gets more boring by the minute.

The screenplay here by Craig is not only the most dry and uninvesting script of the entire year so far, but it is one of the most dull scripts in years. Look, I have seen some tragically boring and bad films over the past few years. But this one is on a whole other level. None of the characters are developed enough for us to genuinely care about them and their goals. They all just have their own little quirks and as a result, we have characters that feel incredibly one-note and generic.

All of the characters end up going in directions that are so predictable that it’s not even funny. I am willing to bet that the majority of people that go ahead and watch this movie will be able to predict the ending a mile away.

But, I must admit, the acting on display from the whole cast is actually quite great. They give their all in a movie that clearly doesn’t deserve their hard work and effort. Out of the large cast though, the best performances come from Sam Claflin and Olivia Munn, who have excellent chemistry with one another and feel authentic and excited to be a part of this movie.

In addition, the cinematography by Hubert Taczanowski is greatly pleasing to look at. Everything is framed extremely well and nothing looks bland or lifeless. It’s an incredibly lively looking picture. It’s just a shame that the rest of the movie was exactly that – bland, lifeless, and generic.

With a dull and tragically boring script, Love Wedding Repeat is a predictable, trope-filled romance film executed poorly.

Trolls World Tour – The BRWC Review – Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick) and Branch (voice of Justin Timberlake) discover that there are six different troll tribes scattered over six different lands. Each tribe is also devoted to six different kinds of music — funk, country, techno, classical, pop and rock. When rockers Queen Barb (voice of Rachel Bloom) and King Thrash (voice of Ozzy Osbourne) set out to destroy the other music, Poppy and Branch embark on a daring mission to unite the trolls and save the diverse melodies from becoming extinct.

The fact that Walt Dohrn’s Trolls World Tour released straight to video on demand is kind of a blessing in disguise. Had this movie been released in theatres like it was originally going to, I would have had to sit in a crowded theatre filled to the brim with dozens of loud, cheery children as they sing along to the cover songs sung by the ensemble cast of singers.

If you liked the cover songs from the previous installment, you’ll probably like them here too. I won’t lie – they’re not bad. I wasn’t miserable while watching them play out in front of me, but they’re not necessarily good though. But what’s even worse is that its basically the entire movie. There are so many songs throughout the film to the point where you could honestly classify this as a musical of sorts.

Is there a story here? Yes, there is. But the problem is that it gets so lost along the way thanks largely in part to the overabundance of music throughout. The only reasons why there are so many songs in the film, in my opinion, is because the studio wanted to make some money and also, they knew that they didn’t have an interesting enough story so they wanted to create as many Troll-centered covers as possible in hopes to entertain its target audience.

And that’s the thing. This is going to entertain children. Adults on the other hand? Not so much. There is next to nothing for older audiences to enjoy here besides a couple of jokes that are actually not too bad, and the animation is obviously incredible as per usual for DreamWorks.

The story is extremely predictable and boring to follow. There isn’t much to care about here, and the majority of the characters make ridiculously dumb decisions that make it hard for you to root for them. What’s funny though, is the fact that this movie’s plot is basically just the plot of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War. Yes, you heard me right.

How so? Well, let me explain. In Infinity War, we follow the evil Thanos as he goes on a journey to obtain all six infinity stones – space, reality, power, soul, mind, and time. With these stones, Thanos can then put them in his Infinity Gauntlet, and, once they are all in the gauntlet, he can snap his fingers which will allow him to wipe out half of all life in the universe.

In Trolls World Tour, we follow the evil Queen Barb as she goes on a journey to obtain all six music strings – pop, country, funk, techno, classical, and rock. With these strings, Barb can then play the ultimate power chord which will give her the ability to turn every troll into a rock troll. It’s blatantly obvious how much this movie borrows off of Infinity War and it’s kind of hilarious to think about.

So at the end of the day, this movie doesn’t really have a whole lot to offer. If you want to put on a movie that will entertain your kids, this is more than likely going to do the trick. They’ll probably be singing the songs for weeks on end. But if you’re not in the target audience, the problems with the film are way too prevalent to ignore. It’s a film that has a boring, recycled, and dumbed down story and is filled with way too many songs for there to be any sort of character development along the way. In other words, it’s essentially an hour and a half long music video with some admittedly great animation and fun colors.

It may have some fun music and great animation, but Trolls World Tour‘s bland and recycled story accompanied with the weak characters make this adventure a bore.

Pin-Jui (Hong-Chi Lee) is a free-spirited yet impoverished young Taiwanese factory worker, who makes the difficult decision to leave his homeland — and the woman he loves — behind in order to seek better opportunities in America. But years of monotonous work and an arranged marriage devoid of love or compassion leave an older Pin-Jui (Tzi Ma) a shadow of his former self. Unable to sympathize with his daughter Angela (Christine Ko) and at risk of living out his retirement in solitude, Pin-Jui must reconnect with his past in order to finally build the life he once dreamed of having.

Quiet, emotional, and slow-burning are perhaps the best words to describe Alan Yang’s Tigertail. His feature film directorial debut is filled to the brim with passion, regret, and love and explores these themes in a beautiful yet heartbreaking way that is sure to leave you teary-eyed come the final act.

The screenplay that Yang wrote is one of the most simplistic yet realistic scripts in a while. While watching the film, it genuinely felt as if I was peering at the life of a man, Grover (Tzi Ma) and the people around him and how he handles his dream to live and work in America. He may have to leave behind the people he loves the most, but he is willing to take that risk if it means that he may have a better future.

Speaking of Grover, the lead performance here from Tzi Ma is truly terrific. He never once felt like he was acting. Every single frame with his character is extremely poignant and interesting. You never feel tired of seeing how his story unfolds. In fact, by the time the movie ended, it truly felt as if I had just watched somebody’s entire life story presented in front of my eyes.

But, as carefully quiet and slow-burning as the movie is, I must admit, for the first twenty to thirty minutes or so, it was quite unclear as to where the film was going storywise. Not too much happens in that time frame, and while it’s not boring, it was just a little bit confusing as to where things were heading.

Once you see where the story is going and what it was all building towards, it ends up becoming a terrific cinematic experience that is sure to encapsulate the hearts of viewers all around the world.

It’s a beautiful film to look at thanks to the excellent cinematography by Nigel Bluck and the direction of Yang. There is not a single shot that is wasted here. Each frame has something interesting and profound to say. The images that were presented to me will be in my head for a long while. The same can really be said about the film as a whole.

It does take a while for things to get going, for sure. But as soon as the second act kicks in, Yang’s picture becomes something incredibly unique and definitely welcomed in these times.

Alan Yang’s Tigertail is a beautifully poignant and staggeringly realistic look at the life of a hopeful man and the loved ones around him.