Tag Archives: Matt Damon

Drive-Away Dolls – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a wild but somewhat inconsistent ride that will bring the laughs but probably does not have the lasting effect they were going for.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Love is a sleigh ride to HELL.

Drive-Away Dolls Review –

The early 200s was a wild time for the raunchy road trip film, with gems like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and EuroTrip. For a while, they had fallen out of fashion, maybe because the old focus of those films no longer ran true for modern audiences. However, in the last few years, we have started to see a resurgence in this genre, and it is just such a film that we are looking at today.  

So to set the scene, we opened in Philadelphia in 1999 on the cusp of the new Millennium or, as it was known at the time, the Willennium. Here, there are two good friends, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), who could not be more different. But when Jamie breaks up with her girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), well more, she gets dumped after multiple cheating incidents. Jamie decides to tag along on Marian’s trip to Tallahassee, Florida, to help Marian get some. The only problem is that Jamie persuades Marian to use a service to cut down on the cost by driving a car down there for free (a drive-away). The only problem is that something else might be taking the trip with them, a something that many people want.

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Oppenheimer – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A visual spectacle and a masterclass in dissecting a complicated life.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains a scene that may cause distress.

Exploding Flames.

Oppenheimer Review –

Every now and again, my old life and new life collide in interesting ways. All those years of teaching and exploring Arms Control and Disarmament finally became relevant in my current career. The story of the Manhattan Project is fascinating, as was the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose scope I doubt even three hours can completely cover. But given my general love of Christopher Nolan’s work [see Inception and Dunkirk], I knew I could not miss this one.

So to set the scene, the world is at war as Germany marches across Europe and Japan across the Pacific. This is already a dangerous predicament, but the world of theoretical physics has been running leaps and bounds forward, and everyone can see the endpoint, a bomb, a bomb of devastating potential. What happens if the Nazis get a bomb that can destroy cities? As the world scrambles, only one person in America can lead the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). However, his past might contain more problems than the government can handle.

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Air – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is both a well-acted and constructed film while also being one of the weirdest premises that I have ever seen for a biopic

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Ben Affleck looks out a window

Air Review –

There are many feelings that you may want to elicit from your audience as they walk out of the cinema. It could be triumph, anger, joy, or even deep sadness. But today was a new one because I had never felt peculiar and odd when I walked out of the cinema before. A feeling of ‘well, that was fine … but what was that for?’. Well, this is the film that we look at today.

So to set the scene, it is 1984, and while the general Nike brand is doing well, their basketball division is in the slumps. No matter what they do, they can’t outperform Converse or Adidas, grabbing a measly 17% market share. It is so bad there is a strong suggestion they should shut this down entirely and focus on jogging where they make bank. Well, Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) has the plan to fix that. It just happens to be targeting the unobtainable Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young). But Michael’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), his agent David Falk (Chris Messina), the other two companies, and even Sonny’s boss Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), might have a different view on the matter.

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Thor: Love and Thunder – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it was missing some of the substance of the last film, I found Thor: Love and Thunder to be a fun romp through the galaxy.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid and a post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Thor sits under a tree as four suns set.

Thor: Love and Thunder Review –

I don’t think I have made it any secret that I found Thor: Ragnarok one of the best films in the MCU, and indeed a film that I will always sit down and watch when it is on. But I thought this would be a one-off because of some unwritten rule that stops solo films after three outings. Well, call me surprised when it was announced that we were getting Thor 4 because that was probably the best news out of this somewhat fractured start of Phase 4.

So to set the scene, we open in on a parched land as Gorr (Christian Bale) and his daughter Love (India Hemsworth) walk one step at a time, praying for deliverance from their god Rapu (Jonny Brugh). But there is none to be found as Love dies from exposure. Gorr is beside himself when he hears voices in the wind and stumbles into an oasis, where Rapu is having a glorious feast and does not give a hoot about Gorr or his daughter. In that moment of horrific destruction of faith, the Necrosword appears in his hand, and he slays the god and begins a campaign to exterminate all the gods. Meanwhile, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been hanging out with the Guardians of the Galaxy, trying to find his place in the world. When Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) calls out, Thor comes to her aid and discovers that a mad man has their next target, New Asgard.

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Movie Review – Deadpool 2

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TL;DR – Takes everything that worked in the first film turns it up to 11 and then gives it real emotional stakes.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – there are two mid-credit scenes

Deadpool 2

Review –

Back in 2016, there was this little film that could that exploded out into the zeitgeist of the film world. The first Deadpool (see review) was a passion project for all involved because it took years to get it greenlit, indeed, it took test footage being leaked to finally convince the studio to start it, and even then they cut the budget drastically before shooting because they had fears about what an American R-rated film would make at the box office. Well as we know it make bank at the box office and now we get to see the fruits of that decision with Deadpool 2, well also it probably helped convince 20th Century Fox to finally let them do Logan (see review) as they really wanted, so thanks for that too. So today we are going to look at the follow up to the merc with the mouth, can they capture that same feeling that exploded out on screen both literally and metaphorically, well let’s dive in and see.

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Movie Review – Suburbicon

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TL;DR – What a waste of time this film was, save yourself the trouble and go see something else like Thor

Score – 1 out of 5 stars

Suburbicon. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

To give you an overall impression of the film, at the end of the film as the screen faded to black I was stunned by how a film with such a talented cast could be so bad, so I wondered who could have directed that mess. It was at this point when ‘Directed by George Clooney’ popped up on the screen, and I was shocked, because from my experience George is a talented director. However, then I went, ok look no matter who the director is, if the original script was bad there might be not much they could have done to make it a workable film. Well, it was at this point that the writing credits appeared and when I saw Joel Coen, Ethan Coen & George Clooney’s names I audibly gasped in the cinema. I was completely not expecting a film of this level of disaster to be crafted by people that make masterpieces. So you can probably tell from just that what my feeling about Suburbicon was, but today we’ll go into detail about just what went wrong, and there are a lot of things.

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Movie Review – Thor: Ragnarok

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TL;DR – A visual extravaganza, Taika Waititi with the cast and crew gave their all to this film, and it amazing to watch.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is a Mid and End Credit Scene

Thor: Ragnarok. Image Credit: Marvel/Disney

Review –

Wow, what an amazing end to a film trilogy, and one of the strongest so far for Marvel. I’ve always had a kind of indecisive feeling towards the Thor films so far. They have been a case of fantastic casting matched with just ok storylines. Now when you have Anthony Hopkins going gangbusters, then even a bad script will look good, but overall I just thought the Thor films were ok and nothing more. To be fair, I think it was a testament to the quality of Marvel’s films that while Thor might have been my least favourite Marvel films it was because they were only ok, not fantastic. However, I was honestly wondering with everyone doing their big Cinematic Universes now if superhero fatigue would set in given my relationship with the films so far, but nope this film was a riot from start to end and I highly recommend it. So today we will set the scene, and then have a look at all the factors that went into making the film work. However because of the nature of Thor Ragnarok and its story, we are going to hit spoilers much earlier than we would normally do, so to be on the safe side I am implementing a [SPOILER] warning from this point onwards.

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Movie Review – The Great Wall (Cháng Chéng, 长城)

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TL;DR – The action sequences are some of the best I have seen in a very long time, truly epic in scope, the only problem is you have to sit through a lot of rubbish in between it

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

The Great Wall (Cháng Chéng, 长城). Image Credit: Legendary.

Review –

The Great Wall is interesting just from its very existence, it is the most expensive movie ever made in China, and it is a real indicator of the continued rise of Chinese cinema and the continued push of Chinese soft power diplomacy. Like Kung Fu Yoga, this leads to some interesting features, but it also leads to some issues. The Great Wall ends up being a film that is dependent on its action sequences because there is not a lot else going for it.

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Movie Review – Jason Bourne

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TL;DR – This movie is everything you have come to expect from a Jason Bourne film, but that means all the good and the bad is here.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Jason Bourne. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review –

I have to say before we start that the original Bourne Trilogy (Identity, Supremacy & Ultimatum) is probably one of my favourite trilogies of all time, for me I put it up there with the original Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The follow-up Legacy had some interesting ideas but it lacked the style and understanding of the previous films, and it felt like they had just inserted the Bourne universe into an original IP. So given how high my impression of the first films was, and how low the follow up was, I was preparing myself for this iteration to be a train wreck, but thankfully it’s not. For me, it is everything the old Bourne’s were, however, the last of those films were made almost 10 years ago, and that is a bit of the problem if you are just doing the same thing over again.

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Movie Review – The Martian

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TL;DR – A movie with tension, humour and humanity, go watch it

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

The Martian. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

The Martian is a film about adversity and challenge in an environment that will kill you, which would make a very interesting film, now take that environment and put it on another planet and then leave your protagonist alone as everything crumbles around them.

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