Author: Caillou Pettis

Old-school cops Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) team up to take down the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel. Newly created elite team AMMO of the Miami police department along with Mike and Marcus go up against the ruthless Armando Armas (Jacob Scipio).

The Bad Boys franchise is one that I have never really been the biggest fan of. Sure, they are fun serviceable movies, but that’s about it in my opinion. I have never watched these films hoping for anything more than an entertaining popcorn movie, because that’s what they are. If you go into any Bad Boys movie expecting it to be a possible contender for any awards, then I think you are going into it with the wrong expectations.

Even though I found the previous entries to be mildly entertaining, I don’t really like them all that much. They, unfortunately, suffer from what I like to call “Michael Bay-isms”. Since he directed those two films, it contains every Bay-ism there is really. Explosions, fast cars, lens flares, you name it.

But this new 2020 sequel to its 2003 predecessor, Bad Boys for Life, brings on new a pair of new directors to (hopefully) inject some brand new life and a fresh vision for this franchise. Something that I was genuinely concerned about before going in to the movie was the fact that it was a sequel that was releasing long after its previous installment. I find that sequels that happen several years after the initial film’s release tend to be not all that great. Nonetheless, I was curious to see what Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah would do with this movie.

This is also a January release, and as most of you probably know, it seems like studios usually dump out the worst possible films in January in hopes that you will forget about them come the end of the year. After seeing Bad Boys for Life, I have to say that I am kind of surprised that it is one of the first releases of the new year, because it is actually a decent film. It is absolutely not perfect, but in the long run, I did end up enjoying myself.

The chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence here is some of the best I have seen in some time. They truly do feel like two best friends reuniting after all these years and seeing them on the big screen together one more time was exciting. They work amazingly off one another. They will often playfully insult each other and it feels authentic.

For the most part, the humor worked really well for me. Granted, not every joke in the movie made me laugh. In fact, there were some moments where something was said that was supposed to be funny, but it just didn’t make me laugh. But I would say that a good 75-80% of the jokes landed, with two in particular actually making me laugh quite hard.

It also has some incredibly fun and fast-paced action sequences that were helmed impressively. I thought that a lot of the film would have shaky cam and would be hard to see what was going on, but that was never the case thankfully. Everything is in camera and looks great.

Something that I really liked here was the main villain, Armando Armas, portrayed by Jacob Scipio. At first, he may seem like a cliché villain which was a bit disappointing, but as the film progressed, the more interesting he became. There are some really strong choices they make with his character that took me off guard.

That being said, his character, and a lot of the characters really, do feel like superheroes. They get shot quite a bit and there is a ton of things in the film that happen to our characters that should seriously injure or possibly kill them, but they manage to be completely okay.

Plus, like I said in the opening, this movie was really just a fun, fast-paced time. Those going into Bad Boys for Life expecting an immensely gripping story with a dramatic story are going to be greatly disappointed because this movie never wants to go for that, which was wise. It wants to be a funny, stylish comedy with tons of fun and exciting action, and it succeeds at exactly that.

Bad Boys for Life may not contain a gripping or dramatic story, but it does contain exactly what it should; exciting action sequences, great humor, and fun performances.

During World War I, two British soldiers — Lance Cpl. Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Cpl. Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) — receive seemingly impossible orders. In a race against time, they must cross over into enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their fellow comrades — including Blake’s own brother.

War films can be some of the most brutal and hard-hitting pictures out there in cinema. A lot of the time, war movies are based on true events and some depict all of the events as they happened in real life. Either way, these movies are often depressing but take you on an emotionally powerful journey with these characters with everything heightened because of the dire situation everybody is in.

My personal favorite war movie from the 2010s has to be Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson. That was a picture that was so emotional, riveting, and had some of the most suspenseful sequences in film in years. Another favorite of mine has to be Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. If I were to compare 1917 to any other existing war movie it would have to be the latter, and that is not a bad thing.

The hype surrounding 1917 for me was incredibly immense. Everything about the film looked like it would be an incredible thrill-ride and now that I have seen it, I can happily report that it is most certainly that and so much more.

You may have heard by now that 1917 was designed to look like it was shot all in one take, and that was probably one of the things that I was looking forward to seeing the most. How would all of the shots look? Would it be easy to tell whenever there was a subtle cut? Well, firstly, the cinematography here is some of the best these eyes have seen in ages. If this ends up winning director of photography Roger Deakins another Oscar for Best Cinematography at the upcoming Academy Awards in February, it would be incredibly deserved.

Every aspect of the cinematography is breathtaking. We as the viewer typically follow behind our main characters, making everything that much more intense. Whenever a character turns a corner, there is always a sense of fear. Will there be somebody hiding behind that corner with a gun and ready to kill? Will there be tripwires or mines on the ground anywhere?

This was one of the most anxiety-inducing movies I have seen in a while, but that is a good thing. There is rarely a chance to breathe here. There are really only two or three moments where we can take a breather. The rest of the time we are always moving and there is always something exciting happening on screen. However, despite that, the one scene in particular where we get a couple of minutes to breathe honestly took me out of the film a little bit. We go from an extremely exciting and white-knuckled sequence instantly to a quiet and almost relaxing scene and that was jarring. It’s also worth noting that the scene felt pointless and really did not add anything of value to the story. It felt like a scene that was added just to increase the overall running time perhaps.

In terms of the characters here, they are decent. While I did want our lead protagonists to succeed in their journey, I feel like I could have cared a whole lot more than I did. We really do not get that much character development which was a shame. The aforementioned Dunkirk had a similar problem for me. That film’s technical aspects were so astounding and it was an emotionally powerful movie as a whole, which was great, but it had nothing in terms of characters. While this is definitely an improvement on Dunkirk with its characters, they still were not as fleshed out as they could have been. This is a film about the situation that our protagonists are in. It is a film that is meant to show us the size, scale, and impact of this event, and is less interested in developing characters, which is both a positive and a negative.

All of the musical cues here are exceptional as well, and it is accompanied with truly masterful editing by Lee Smith. Like I said earlier, I was worried that I would be able to tell whenever a small cut was made with the cinematography, but it was effortless. Plus, all of the exciting action scenes, while not as many as you may think, hit hard. The sound design is award worthy, and really everything about 1917 is. Those looking for a highly immersive cinematic journey into World War I will not leave the theatre disappointed.

1917 is an uncomfortably tense and suspenseful thrill-ride that is boosted with its masterful editing and cinematography that makes you feel like you’re really there.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood: The BRWC Review. Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) is an investigative journalist who receives an assignment to profile Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), aka Mr. Rogers. He approaches the interview with skepticism, as he finds it hard to believe that anyone can have such a good nature. But Roger’s empathy, kindness and decency soon chips away at Vogel’s jaded outlook on life, forcing the reporter to reconcile with his own painful past.

The opening frames of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood set up the rest of the film perfectly. Director Marielle Heller wants to welcome you into this beautifully touching and emotionally strong story and the opening of the film being a recreation of the opening to the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was an incredibly sweet and joyful way to kick things off.

Out of all the movies that I have seen recently, this is one of the most wholesome overall. It’s not just because of the sweet and often heartfelt screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, but it is also because of the film’s overall message. Love is an extremely powerful thing and so is forgiveness, and this film says so many important things and says them in a powerful way.

But perhaps my favorite aspect to A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the legendary Tom Hanks himself, who portrays beloved television icon Fred Rogers. Whenever he is on screen, he radiates such a strong sense of love, warmth, and kindness. Hanks is the perfect choice to play such an amazing man, as he is widely known as one of the, if not the, nicest celebrity out there. He did a truly fantastic job portraying Rogers and his performance uplifted me greatly.

He works so well off of the other actors as well, namely the film’s lead actor Matthew Rhys. At the center of the film is a story of these two men, and how Rogers is able to give people a better outlook on life. The film’s lead protagonist, Lloyd, is not one that is easy to root for at first. We see him treating people, particularly his family, rather rudely.

This is an issue that I had with the 2017 horror feature Happy Death Day upon my initial viewing. Jessica Rothe portrayed a character, Tree Gelbman, that was so rude to everyone that it was hard to feel for her for a while. But as the story progressed and we see where her character ends up by the end of the film, and the emotional journey that she goes on throughout the film, you end up rooting for her one-hundred percent by the end. The same can be said about Rhys’ Lloyd Vogel. At first, I thought he was an extremely unlikable character, but after I saw where the film was taking him, I ended up feeling immense sympathy for him and wanted him to be happy.

This movie also utilizes some remarkably clever cinematography by Jody Lee Lipes, making a lot of the scenery look like toys. For example, we may get an overhead shot of a city that it made of sculptures and the cars that pass by on the streets are toy cars, giving it the feeling of the opening of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It is a gorgeously shot film and its camera work was terrific.

There are some times in which the film’s story can feel a bit familiar and often falls into a lot of the tropes that come with these types of stories, but it was still enjoyable and emotionally powerful nonetheless. It just would have been nice to have had some more originality injected into the way the film played out, as it can often become predictable at times.

But this is a film that is so uplifting and wholesome that it really is quite difficult to dislike and I wholeheartedly believe that there is going to be something for everybody in this impressively crafted picture.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is an incredibly impressive and uplifting film with a touching message and a heartwarming performance from Tom Hanks.

Dr. John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.) lives in solitude behind the high walls of his lush manor in 19th-century England. His only companionship comes from an array of exotic animals that he speaks to on a daily basis. But when young Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley) becomes gravely ill, the eccentric doctor and his furry friends embark on an epic adventure to a mythical island to find the cure.

Stephen Gaghan’s Dolittle, a new 2020 film adaptation of the beloved tale of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, is the first film in six years starring Robert Downey Jr. that is not a Marvel movie. He is of course best known as his role as Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and, this decade, has played the iconic superhero in blockbusters such as Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: Civil War, and Iron Man 3 just to name a few. What is disappointing, however, is that he chose Dolittle as his next project outside of the MCU, because this is an extremely underwhelming and incredibly weak film.

Don’t get me wrong, Downey Jr. is actually pretty good in the role. He gives a lot to the character of Doctor Dolittle and it is apparent when watching this film that he genuinely had a ton of fun portraying such a beloved character. He is really the furthest thing from the problem. The problem is the film’s script written by Stephen Gaghan, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand. This is one of the most unexciting and unfortunately flat scripts I have seen so far this year. Yes, there are a few charming moments akin to the source material, but they are so little and far between and the story was just a mess and was boring.

There is no sense of urgency to anything going on in the story. The entire thing feels like mindless adventures and pointless action scene one after another. We do get some time to breathe, it is just that the film is seemingly uninterested in fleshing out a large portion of its characters and doesn’t really have anything exciting to say. This kind of feels like what I like to call a “Saturday morning cartoon movie”. It’s a movie that will probably entertain extremely young children, and it may have some adventurous sequences throughout, but it is something that you will forget about in a day or two.

Something that a lot of people called out from the initial trailer that was released a couple of months ago was the computer-generated imagery. Just by watching the trailer it was too hard to judge it, and I was saving my thoughts until I had seen the full movie. Unfortunately, a lot of the visuals here look a bit dodgy. It is not awful looking by any means. It is just, rather, obvious at times that you are looking at something that was created artificially on a computer. Gratefully, though, it is one of those movies where you just kind of get used to how things look after a while and it doesn’t bother you as much after a while.

This is not the worst movie I have ever seen though, not even close. There are things to like about Dolittle such as its fun performances. As I mentioned earlier, Downey Jr. does a good job in an otherwise dull movie and he by far delivers the best performance among the cast. The others are mainly just the voices of celebrities, providing the voices for a large portion of the animal characters. Something that was quite fun to watch was people like Tom Holland voice a dog named Jip and Selena Gomez voice a giraffe named Betsy. All in all, the performances were quite a bit of fun to watch.

Danny Elfman’s musical score is also a treat to listen to. While it is nowhere near his best score, it is still a good and fun score. He is one of those composers where it seems like he is genuinely incapable of making a poor score, and this movie proves that.

Aside from the performances, a couple of fun scenes and a fun score, that’s all the praise I can give Dolittle. Everything else was massively disappointing, sadly. Its story and script are terribly boring and uninteresting as it almost never aims its sights on telling a compelling story with interesting characters. It does have some strange visual effects and, also, a lot of the humor is hit or miss. However, if you have a really young child, they may be somewhat entertained by this film.

Robert Downey Jr. gives a fun performance in Dolittle, an otherwise tragically boring and uninteresting mess that has shoddy visuals and mindless adventure sequences.

When Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) slaps Fox News founder Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) with a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, not a soul could predict what would happen next. Her decision leads to Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) coming forward with her own story, as well as multiple other women, inciting a movement that reverberates around the world.

Jay Roach is a filmmaker that I respect even though I am not always the biggest fan of his films. He has made some fun movies in the early 2000s such as a few of the Austin Powers movies but I usually find that he has a hard time telling a dramatic story and telling it well. Back in 2015, he directed the biographical drama Trumbo which was a decent enough picture, but one that I found lacked an emotional punch and whose story was stretched out.

This is why Bombshell was a movie that I was not extremely excited for. Even though, the initial trailer did impress me and the makeup team looked like they were doing fantastic things. But there were two things that were compelling me to check out this film – the first being its screenwriter, Charles Randolph. Randolph served as co-writer on The Big Short; a movie that I actually quite enjoyed despite some flaws. It was a deeply interesting and incredibly well-told story, and when I learned that he was penning the script for Bombshell, I was more intrigued.

But maybe the thing that excited me the most was the cast. This is a star-studded cast to say the least. We have legendary actors such as Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman in the leading roles, with relatively new and revolutionary actress Margot Robbie serving as a supporting actress. On top of that, we have other supporting actors in the bunch such as John Lithgow, Connie Britton, and Allison Janney.

Gratefully, Bombshell was a movie that was decent enough, although almost nothing about it blew me away. Its story, while definitely interesting during certain elements, just did not have that emotional impact that I was hoping it would have. This is one of those films where you get more interested in what’s happening as the film progresses, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing. It took me a great deal of time before I was interested in our lead protagonists, but luckily, I did care after a while.

It’s just that the approach to the screenplay is so unconventional, really. With a better script, this could have been a really great film, but its writing is often times too quirky and its strange style bog the film down during some parts. Also, there are numerous moments in which some of the characters break the fourth wall. The previous film Randolph wrote, the aforementioned Big Short, also had scenes where characters would do this, albeit much more exaggerated. There was an entire scene in that film where Margot Robbie, as herself, was in a bathtub giving a gigantic monologue right to the camera.

There are no sequences as meta as that here, which is a good thing. It was something that took me out of the story a little bit in The Big Short, and while Bombshell does do this every once in a while, it did not bother me too much.

Something that genuinely deserves a round of applause here is the makeup and hair-styling team. They just received an Academy Award nomination for the film during the writing of this review, and it is not hard to see why. The team did a truly remarkable job at transforming Theron into FOX News anchor Megyn Kelly.

Speaking of Theron, the strongest element to Bombshell is without a doubt its cast and how good they are here. Theron is asked to do a whole bunch here and she makes it look so easy. Never once did I see Theron in the role. It truthfully felt like I was watching Kelly on screen, and not an actor.

Easily the best performance this film has to offer though, comes from Robbie who portrays Kayla Pospisil, an employee at FOX. Not only did I think she delivered the strongest performance of the entire cast, but she is the character that I was perhaps the most interested in. The film gives here some good development over the course of its running time, although it would have been nice if the film spent just a little more time with her character, as it really primarily focuses on Theron and Lithgow’s characters.

There is one scene with Robbie towards the third act that impressed me greatly. Its an incredibly emotional and raw scene that Robbie acts beautifully in. Right down to the timing of a single tear drop dripping down her cheek to a subtle shake in her voice, it is truly astounding what she was able to do with the role.

Finally, something that really bugged me about the film was its editing by Jon Poll. It is not good. It actually kind of reminded me of the editing in Bohemian Rhapsody a few years ago. One sequence in particular taking place inside of a restaurant had an absurd amount of quick cuts and after a while, it just became annoying.

But nevertheless, this is a decent movie with a story that gratefully gets better and more interesting as the film’s running time chugs along, but it suffers from a somewhat dull and often times strange script that doesn’t have enough of an emotional impact. What really keeps this film afloat is its remarkable acting by all of the leads as well as some of the supporting cast, as well as its good direction and sleek cinematography.

Bombshell is a terrific showcase for Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie’s acting abilities and is great in its technical efforts, but often lacks in its storytelling.