Tag Archives: Zazie Beetz

Bullet Train – Movie Review

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1

TL;DR – Several interesting ideas are going on here, but they never coalesce into something worthy.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Brad Pitt punching a life sized mascot.

Bullet Train Review –

When you are making an action film, there are many different styles that you could employ. There is the grizzled machismo of movies like Rambo, the high-octane yet safe for families action of the Fast and the Furious films, or the grimy rawness of films like The Northman. But one of the more recent action styles has been this smooth, free-flowing, and fast-talking style of cinema that was thrown into the spotlight with Deadpool. While that style has been divisive, I have generally enjoyed it, and today we see another example of it in the form of Bullet Train.       

So to set the scene, it has been a long road of recovery for ‘Lady Bug’ (Brad Pitt) since he got shot doing a job in Johannesburg. But he is finally ready to take on a new mission, and his handler (Sandra Bullock) has picked an easy one for him. He must go on to a bullet train stationed in Tokyo, Japan, retrieve a briefcase with a train sticker on the handle, and remove it before the train reaches Kyoto. The only issue is that ‘Lady Bug’ is not the only operative working a job on that train as “Lemon” (Brian Tyree Henry), “Tangerine” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), “The Wolf” (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio), “The Prince” (Joey King), “The Father” (Andrew Koji), and “The Hornet” (Zazie Beetz) all have their own plans in how this will go.     

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The Bad Guys – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  While it is not doing anything ground-breaking, strong animation and voice casting means that this was a blast from start to finish.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

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

The Bad Guys. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

The Bad Guys Review –

If there is one genre of film that I typically enjoy, it is a good heist film. I love the setup, the planning, the twists, the betrayals, and the score at the end. I don’t mind if you are going for a hard heist film or a more loosey-goosey affair. So, I like my Ocean’s 11 and my Ocean’s 13. Well, when I was invited to a screening of a new animated heist film based on a beloved children’s book, I had a feeling I was going to have a good time, and I was right.

So to set the scene, we open with a heist in progress as Mr Wolf (Sam Rockwell) introduces us to himself, and as the car chase continues, the rest of the crew. We have Mr Snake (Marc Maron), a safecracker. Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos), the muscle. Mr Shark (Craig Robinson), a master of disguise, and Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina), the tech wizard. As they celebrate Mr Snake’s birthday, they wonder what their next heist could be? Maybe the Golden Dolphin, the most un-stealable treasure in the city.

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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 – Geostorm

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TL;DR – Its, well it’s, ok, it’s not great, it’s not awful, it’s just ok.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Geostorm. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –
So there is a satellite system that controls all of the world’s extreme weather, with a flip of a switch you can take out that cyclone barrelling towards the Australian coast, that heat wave over Paris gone, that mark-5 tornado, what mark-5 tornado. It all sounds great, but if you can see the flaw with this plan, well you can see where the film is heading. Overall, it has been a while since I have seen a big scale disaster film, maybe 2012 was the last one, so it was at least interesting to visit this genre. However, just be prepared that this is science-fiction, not science-fact film, I’m pretty sure there are some laws of thermodynamics that get thrown to the wolves to make this movie happen, nor do we have enough material to build a partial Dyson sphere. So overall I found Geostorm to be well fine, it had some things I liked and some others that I didn’t, and mostly they cancelled each other out. So today we will look at both sides of Geostorm, the good, the bad, and the surprisingly Scottish.


So to set the scene, in 2019 global warming sent the plant into a spiral of extreme weather events which killed millions. Looking death in the face, the world on the brink of destruction put aside years of amenity to create the ‘Dutch Boy’, a series of satellites around the world, designed to stop the extreme weather events. The main engineer of the project was Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) a man who is equal parts brilliant as he was obstinate, and after many years of work his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) who is employed by the White House was forced to fire him after a bad Senate hearing. Well three years later, and a couple of weeks before Dutch Boy is meant to be officially handed over to an international oversight team, a village in the heart of Afghanistan is discovered to be completely frozen. The Dutch Boy system had never failed before, and given the potential fallout from the lack of trust, or even a cascade of failures, it was a serious issue. So the Secretary of State Dekkom (Ed Harris) recommended to President Palma (Andy García) that there is only one person for the job, yep fired former main engineer Jake, so up he goes, but the clock is ticking.

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