Black Mass (2015)

Black Mass is one of those movies that I really look forward to. Even from the trailer, you can see it checks all of the boxes: movie about a real gangster, set in the 70's, a great cast and great actor diving deep into the main role. Black Mass delivers on all of this. Mostly...

Black Mass, from this point in the review will be abbreviated to BM, which will certainly not cause any confusion with anything else, starts off with great dialog and a compelling story. I had no familiarity with Whitey Bulger before seeing BM, but it took no time at all to get into it. The story builds and builds, but then due to the nature of how the real life events played out, it loses steam towards the end. I won't spoil it here, but if you're familiar with Whitey Bulger, you might already know what I'm referring to. It doesn't necessarily ruin the movie necessarily, but it's an unsatisfying climax.

Welcome back, Johnny Depp. We missed you. After a series of shitty movies and silly roles, it's nice to see Depp return to serious acting. He's freaking fantastic and unrecognizable at times. Colored contacts usually weird me out, but here they were used to great effect. It really made his performance of Bulger that much more chilling and creepy. Don't be surprised if gets nominated come awards time. Joel Edgerton is great as well (supporting actor nod?). Just when I thought The Gift was the best I've seen him, he takes it to another level here. Jesse Plemons also really surprised me at well. The cast overall is fantastic. It's so stacked that there just isn't enough time to dedicate to everyone. How often can you say that guys like Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon and Corey Stoll were underused?

BM also does one of my favorite things where at the end they show you pictures of the real people, and in some cases you'll see how much they really nailed the casting and look. They also use this to wrap up the loose ends to the story that they don't show you in the film.

Overall, Black Mass is an entertaining gangster drama and worth watching just for Johnny Depp's performance as Whitey Bulger. It's nothing you haven't seen before, but totally worth a matinee. If you wait for video, it would make a good double feature with The Departed or The Town.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Ant-Man (2015)

One of the funnier Marvel films to date. I can see why James Gunn gave it such high praise. It's one of the lightest in tone of all their films. I laughed out loud during Ant-Man almost as much as I did during Guardians. It's a shame I saw this on such a small screen with only about 15 people.

Ant-Man is also another good example of great casting (something Marvel seems to keep nailing). If you don't cast someone as funny and charismatic as Paul Rudd in the lead, it's likely the whole film doesn't work. I'm a huge fan of Michael Pena and he worked great as additional comic relief. Evangeline Lilly was great as well. It's ironic that she's an actress that's actually athletic enough to pull off a superhero role, but yet still doesn't get to play one. It looks like she might get her chance soon though.

I'd say Ant-Man's biggest fault is that it's yet another origin story, and it's pretty formulaic as far as that goes. Also, in a lot of places it feels like it exists just to bridge some of the other Marvel films together. Fortunately, the bridging is done in an entertaining way, and some of the flashbacks and cameos made me geek out. Ant-Man doesn't require that you've seen all the other movies or are super familiar with the MCU. It's pretty accessible compared to some of the other MCU films.

I don't know the reasons why Edgar Wright left the project, and one can only imagine how this would have turned out had he stayed on. You can see his fingerprints on the final product in a few places.

I did see this in 3D, which of course, was a total waste of time and did nothing for the film. It was unfortunately my only option, but I advise you to skip it if possible. Visually the effects were good though.

There are two post-credit scenes, so get comfortable during the credits if you don't want to miss them.

Ant-Man isn't the strongest of Phase II, but it's one of the most fun. Those looking for some late summer entertainment won't be disappointed. Totally worth the price of admission.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Non-Stop (2014)

At this point, doesn't Liam Neeson seem way overqualified to be an Air Marshall? It used to be that he had a particular set of skills, but now it seems that he has every set of skills. If they ever did a celebrity season of Survivor, I'd put my money on him to win it all.

Bill Marks (Neeson) is manning a non-stop flight from New York to London. He's an apparent alcoholic, which seems to be a common character trait with flight films recently. This all comes into play later though. Shortly after takeoff, Bill receives a series of text messages saying they will kill someone on the plane every 20 minutes if $150 million isn't wired to an account.

He initially has everyone's cooperation, but it's found that the account is in Bill's name. This points all fingers and suspicion his direction, because I guess everyone believes Bill is dumb enough to hijack a plane and use an offshore account in his own name. You'd think that would be enough keep him in the clear, but his past and personal demons cast a cloud of doubt. Bill is desperate to uncover who's really behind this, with few people he can trust.

Non-Stop has an interesting enough premise and actually does a good job of building tension. Though it's all pretty standard thriller stuff where you are thrown constant red herrings. It seems that everyone has some kind of distracting character trait giving a reason to think they are the mastermind.

I found many of the characters annoying and rude enough that I entertained thoughts like maybe they should just shoot the plane down. As they board, you see the kind of self absorbed behavior that makes people hate flying and people in general. I was surprised they didn't have someone with a anxiety dog with them. Many refused to follow directions, while demanding they had the right to know what's going on. Nobody ever seems to consider that maybe it's best they don't know what's going when there's potential hijacking risk. Maybe you're guy he's looking for, so why should he tell you anything? Anyway...

The bigger problem is when we get to the conclusion it's wildly unconvincing and borders on the ridiculous. It's the kind of ending where they went too far out of their way to have an "original" motivation for the bad guys. It would have been a bigger twist if they just had basic goals in mind. Complexity isn't a requirement for a good thriller; you can still be relatively straight-forward. Why can't it just be about the money? Why do their actions have to make a statement?

There's also a terrible quick-cut, shaky-cam fight during this climax, which was a shame because earlier there's a fight that takes place in a bathroom stall that I thought was shot really well. More than a few things happen towards the end that had me shaking my head at how far-fetched they were. It's a shame the end subtracts so much.

Really the only reason to watch Non-Stop is for Liam Neeson. His commitment lends credibility and makes you take the film more seriously than if another actor had been cast. You get the wrong guy as your lead and you have another Passenger 57 on your hands. The rest of the cast is a waste, which is a shame because I love Julianne Moore and Corey Stoll. Stoll, in particular, was criminally underused. Fresh off her breakout role in 12 Years a Slave, Lupita Nyong'o has a small role, but isn't asked to do much either. I didn't even realize it was her at first. Only Michelle Dockery stood out to me, as she's the only person besides Moore that has much face time with Neeson.

Here's one weird nitpick. At one point, Liam Neeson puts his hand on the seat in front of him and there's a close up shot of his hand. It's a totally unnecessary shot, but the weird thing about it was that the close up was very likely of a hand model. If you notice his hands in any other scene, or pretty much any movie he's ever been in, you can tell the hands and nails didn't match at all. This isn't a knock on Neeson, as he's the kind of rugged man's man that wouldn't get a manicure. It wouldn't fit his character either. Just a weird shot since there was no need for it at all.

Non-Stop is a serviceable thriller that's watchable mainly due to the presence of Liam Neeson. It's the kind of forgettable film that's best enjoyed if you don't think about it too much. If you're all caught up on your Oscar flicks, and have nothing else to do, there are worse ways to kill two hours. I'd recommend saving it for rental though.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Bourne Legacy (2012) - Movie Review

Rental month continues with the latest installment to the Bourne franchise.  I guess it would have to be a franchise now, as The Bourne Legacy is neither a reboot nor a direct sequel to The Bourne Ultimatum.  The events of Legacy seem to take place around the same time of the events of Ultimatum, but I'm not entirely positive of that, as it's been a while since I've seen any of the previous Bourne films.  In fact, I would strongly recommend that you refresh with at least Ultimatum before seeing Legacy if you have the time.

The movie starts with a shot of Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross in the mountains retrieving an object.  Then, you're taken back to Stacy Keach and Edward Norton talking about shutting programs down and containment.  There are lots of callbacks and references to the previous films as they are doing this.  There are tons of code names and terms being thrown arond and it was tough to keep it all straight without a cheat sheet or something.  This goes on for a large portion of this 135 minute movie.  At times I felt like you could have called this The Bourne Meeting.  It really felt like much of this movie was Edward Norton's character talking about shutting things down, ordering people around and trying to do damage control.

While this managed to keep my interest, since it is a good cast and it's well acted, I kept wondering when they were just going to get on with it.  There are very few action sequences in the entire movie and most of the early scenes with Aaron Cross are very short.  It's not until almost the last 20-30 minutes until it really takes off.  I just wish there had been more of it or maybe quickened the pace the first hour or so.  They simply took too much time to tell the story they did.

Cross's main motivation in the film is to get more chemicals.  They explain that there are two types of chemicals these agents take: a green pill and a blue pill.  Once enhances the body, and the other their mind.  The catch is, if you don't take them at regular intervals or run out, your abilities degrade rapidly.  They mention these 'chems' a lot, and with all this talk of greens and blues, I couldn't shake the craving for M&M's throughout the film.  I had to pick up a bag after the movie.  Bring M&M's if you plan on seeing this.

Anyway, so Cross runs out of drugs and is simply trying to get more so he can retain his abilities.  That's it.  He's not trying to expose anyone, there's nobody he wants to kill, or anything like that.  This leads him to seek out Rachel Weisz, one of the scientists that used to do work with the agents.  Weisz is also on the run once the cover up operation is in effect and everyone starts getting killed.

What keeps your interest are all the performances.  Jeremy Renner is focused as Cross.  Renner is one of those actors that you just can't take your eyes off of even when he's not saying anything.  The scenes with him and Weisz were very interesting.  Edward Norton was good too, but they didn't really give him much to do and it kind of felt like he was just playing Edward Norton.  There's not much to any of these people as far as character development or personality.

It's unusual that this is called The Bourne Legacy when the screenplay by Tony and Dan Gilroy (Tony also directed) has very little to do with the the actual Bourne book of the same name.  The story is after the original director backed out of Legacy, Matt Damon did too - MATT DAMON! - so they went back to the drawing board and decided to do another movie set in the same universe, but not actually about Jason Bourne.  I actually don't mind that they did this.  It opens up the possibility of bringing in other actors or going down different paths if they do additional movies.  At the same time, they could have simply continued with the Bourne story and just cast different actors, similar to what they do with Bond.  Oh well...

While I don't think The Bourne Legacy is a bad movie, I was a little disappointed.  It's strong cast keeps you interested, but there's too much behind the scenes action and not enough focus on the main character.  It's slowly paced and doesn't have the same punch (literally) as the previous films.  This is something much better suited for a rental.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars