Rampage

Actors: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Rating: 7 out of 10, This movie would not have worked, such as it does, without the Rock. He’s one of those rare, generational actors who make something like this worth watching. It is a little bit of sneaky fun as well. Rock plays an ape specialist, granted – a bit of a stretch, who has an almost too familiar relationship with an albino gorilla. When that gorilla along with a wolf and an alligator are accidently mutated into gigantic killing machines by the inevitable evil corporation the fun begins. Miss Moneypenny shows up to help the Rock emote as they trail their friend across the country after an ape induced plane crash. He and his two buddies are doing their best to level Chicago with the help of the US military until the Rock shows up to put things right. He finds a very interesting way to introduce an antidote into his gorilla bud and they team up to take on the other two creatures. Best line in the movie, “Of course the wolf has wings!”. So……it’s that kind of movie, harmless escapist fun with just the right leavening of humor and, of course, the Rock.

MVP: The Rock, of course

Ready Player 1

Actors: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance

Rating: 10 out of 10, The movie was fabulous and should be required viewing for any self-styled pop culture geek. Guilty. Those references are almost non-stop and it becomes a game to pick up on the most subtle of these.. It’s Spielberg so there’s a very earnest hero pitted against the forces of corporate evil. In the not too distant future society has descended into a bit of self-indulgent morass as people can escape their difficult real world circumstances in the VR world of the Oasis where they can be anything or anybody. The hero is on a quest with his gang of buddies (which Spielberg always does well) to find the hidden clues that will turn the Oasis corporation over to them. He’s pitted against that evil corporation which can field a literal army of players in the Oasis to combat our plucky heroes. This was just plain fun as 70s and 80s pop culture have achieved a form of religion in this future world and played to the hilt. One of the key scenes has the players transported literally into the original Shining movie with hilarious results. I can’t recommend this highly enough and unless you’re overly self-important it’s a very fun ride.  Annal-Nathrak, indeed.

MVP: Rylance lends so much heart into the deified inventor of the oasis

Pacific Rim Uprising

Actors: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona, Zhang Jin, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman

Rating: 8 out of 10, Any blockbuster sequel has a hard row to hoe but this succeeds because it trusts the actors and they deliver, especially John Boyega. He continues to prove he is so much more than a reformed storm trooper and delivers the right combination of humor, panache, and charisma as the son of the last movie’s hero. Thankfully Charlie Hunam was jettisoned for a younger, more appealing crew of jaeger pilots. Jing Tian steals every scene she’s in, just as she did in The Wall. The kaiju are back menacing a rebuilding earth and Boyega along with Clint Eastwood’s kid are responsible for saving humanity. This movie puts to bed the notion that kaiju only fight in the rain and the CGI work was impressive as poor Tokyo is once again leveled by marauding mega-monsters. My only issue is with the climactic battle where the kaiju are so formidable that the jaegers are basically useless. Still it was pure popcorn driven fun with hardly a thespian utterance heard.

MVP: Boyega, spreading his wings as a lead

Tomb Raider

Actors: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas

Rating: 8 out of 10, I was pleasantly surprised at this reboot as the filmmakers decided to go away from the focus on mammary endowment and short shorts to cast a really good actress as Lara Croft. Alicia Vikander is superb and kicks some serious ass in a more realistic hero than the over the top Angela Jolie versions. While I’m sure the adolescent male target audience of the original video game will be disappointed at the lack of shirt movement Vikander dominates both physically and emotionally as a daughter seeking a long lost father in the wilds of an ancient island temple. She’s ably supported by Daniel Wu who got out of the Badlands long enough to serve as an able partner to Croft’s wanderings. Goggins, who’s usually so good as a bad guy, sleep walks through his performance as the villain. The action as exciting even with the usual abundance of CGI and that’s a tribute to the great shape Vikander obviously got into to play Lara. A nice re-boot of the character with a more able and believable actress in the title role.

MVP: Vikander, obviously, in the title role

Annihilation

Actors: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac

Rating: 8 out of 10, I was interested to see how this very complex novel would be translated to film. It’s always a challenge when a very dense, albeit excellent, novel has to be condensed into a two hour movie. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see the basic story line survive but modified enough to keep the audience fully involved. If anything, I liked the movie’s take better than the book’s; that is rare indeed and a tribute to the screenwriter. Natalie Portman plays a scientist on an all-female team sent in to investigate a mysterious extraterrestrial zone that is threatening to encompass the earth. Her husband recently returned from an earlier effort into the same zone and lies stricken by the effects. As soon as they enter the zone they’re exposed to time distortion as well as fantastically mutated plants and animals. This was science fiction done well without sliding into the trap of over emphasis on CGI although there is plenty of that. It was a little jarring to see Jane the Virgin (Gina Rodriguez) swearing like a sailor but she was excellent as were all the members of the team. The women were all kick ass and it was nice the filmmakers didn’t feel the need to have men come to their rescue. I also really liked the ending.

MVP: Portman as the very reserved Lena

Red Sparrow

Actors: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeremy Irons

Rating: 8 out of 10, I’d watch Jennifer Lawrence in anything (well except mother!) and she is at the top of her game as a Russian ballerina turned spy. She is very good (as expected) in a very subtle way as she works her way through training as a “honeypot” to seduce enemy agents. There are double and triple crosses involved once she is sent to the field and I honestly didn’t know which side she would end up on until the final, startling conclusion. It was all very Russian. The only miss in the casting was Joel Edgerton as the American CIA agent. He was clearly fighting well above his weight trying to serve as a love interest for Lawrence, absolutely no chemistry between the pair. This wasn’t an action flick, if you discount Lawrence’s bathing suits, but exuded a very cool style throughout. It’s one of those movies I want to see again to see all the seemingly harmless clues that were provided throughout that come to bear at the end. I’m convinced Lawrence can do anything.

MVP: Lawrence as the deadly Dominika

Game Night

Actors: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, Kyle Chandler.

Rating: 9 out of 10, This was really funny and not in the usual raunchy, adult manner of so many of today’s R-rated comedies (not that raunchy is a bad thing). Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play a hyper-competitive married couple who host a weekly game night with equally competitive friends. A supposedly staged kidnapping turns out to be the real thing with the game players only gradually coming to realize it. Each of the ensemble cast has their moments to contribute and the snarky one liners are almost non-stop. I was afraid this was one of those movies where all the funniest lines were spent in the trailers but that was not the case. Jesse Plemons as the creepy cop neighbor steals virtually every scene he’s in but this movie belongs firmly to Bateman and McAdams. This type of quick witted comedy is right in Bateman’s wheel house but McAdams is more than up to the challenge of keeping up with him. It’s a smart, adult movie that never takes itself too seriously.

MVP: McAdams as the wifely side of the competition