Operation Finale Review

Operation Finale is an extremely well-acted true story film held back due to some pacing issues. This movie is about the true story of Israeli secret agents who tracked down Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. Oscar Issac gives a terrific performance. He is able to add multiple layers to a very straightforward character. Ben Kingsley gives a fantastic performance. The scenes with just him and Issac talking are among the film’s best. Melanie Laurent and Haley Lu Richardson both give really good performances in their smaller roles. Chris Weitz did a great job directing. He mostly succeeds at keeping the tension high. The script is really good, though drags some moments on for too long. At 122 minutes the movie moves at an okay pace, but slows down too much in its third act. Overall Operation Finale is an extremely good movie but does not reach greatness.

7.5/10

Beautifully Broken Review

Beautifully Broken, while not without its flaws, was a compelling true story drama. This movie is about a family of refugees from Rwanda and how their life intersected with two other families. Benjamin A. Onyango gives a great performance. His character is by far the most compelling part of the movie. Scott Winters gives an okay performance. He has a few great moments, but a lot of his performance is cheesy. Emily Hahn gives a really good performance. Not all of her moments work, but she has the best moment in the whole movie. All the other performances are very mediocre but watchable. Eric Welch’s direction is serviceable. However, some of the editing choices are downright terrible. The script has some cheesy moments, but overall has a good plot with characters I cared about. At 108 minutes the pacing moves fairly well only occasionally dragging. Overall Beautifully Broken, while not perfect, was a compelling true story with good characters.
6/10

The Happytime Murders Review

The Happytime Murders was an enjoyable comedy that never achieved its full potential. This movie is about a disgraced puppet detective who must team up with his old human partner to stop the murders of the puppet cast from an 80s kids TV show. First thing I want to stress immediately is this movie is Rated R. Just because it involves puppets does not mean this is a family movie. Melissa McCarthy gives a good performance. Her chemistry with the puppets was extremely believable. Maya Rudolph and Leslie David Baker are a lot of fun in their supporting roles. However, this movie belongs to the puppets. Bill Barretta gave a fantastic voice performance and his work as a puppeteer is incredible. All the puppeteer work from the entire cast was extremely well done. Brian Henson’s directing is good, especially in the scenes that only involve puppets. The script is a bit of a mixed bag. While there are hilarious moments to be found here, they do not come as frequently as you might expect. However, thankfully due to likable characters and a compelling plot, I never lost interest. At 91 minutes the pacing is good, but could have been improved with a few more big laughs. Overall The Happytime Murders was not as great as I had hoped, but I still had a fun time.

6.5/10

A.X.L. Review

A.X.L. is a mediocre, albeit serviceable, kids movie for its target audience. This movie is about a teenage boy whose life is changed forever when he comes across a highly advanced robot dog known as A.X.L.. Alex Neustaedter gives a good performance. He has a likable screen presence and his friendship with AX.L. is fun to watch. Becky G gives an okay performance. Her character is very simple, but she has good chemistry with Neustaedter. All the other performances from smaller characters are corny and out of place. The script is very mediocre. The lead characters are likable enough and A.X.L. is fun to watch, but the movie lacks a compelling plot. Oliver Daly’s direction is competent but nothing more. The visual effects are mostly great though a few terrible moments remain. At 100 minutes long the pacing is all over the place with some scenes going way too fast and others lasting way too long. Overall A.X.L is a serviceable kids film, but has too many flaws for me to recommend seeing this in the theater.

5/10

Alpha Review

Alpha is a terrible movie and was heavily mismarketed. This movie is about a young caveman injured in a hunting accident, who befriends an injured wolf. First of all, this is not the family movie it was advertised to be. This is a slow-paced PG-13 movie that is completely subtitled with no dialogue in English. Kodi Smit-McPhee gave an okay performance in the lead role. All the other performances were horrible. Albert Hughes direction is average at best and occasionally terrible. The script is atrocious and pointless. There is no character development and I cared about no one other than the wolf. Also, there is barely any semblance of good storytelling. Some of the scenes with the wolf are cute, but they are rare moments. The cinematography is by far the best part of this movie. Some of the scenery shots looked absolutely stunning. At 97 minutes the movie drags through the entire runtime. The first half is nearly unwatchable. However, the second half slightly improves with a few decent moments. Overall Alpha is a horrible movie that I recommend to no one and is one of the worst movies of the year.

3/10

Mile 22 Review

Mile 22 was an intense thrilling action film. This movie is about a secret group of Special Forces operatives who must escort an informant 22 miles. Mark Wahlberg gave an incredible performance. He plays his typical fast-talking character and was fantastic in the action scenes. Iko Uwais gave a great performance in his American film debut. He played off the cast well and did an incredible job in every action scene. Lauren Cohan gave a really good performance. She does great in the action scenes and you care about her character. Ronda Rousey gave an okay performance. However, in my opinion this is her best performance yet.  John Malkovich is also a lot of fun in his smaller performance as the group's commander. Peter Berg did a fantastic job directing. The action sequences were frequent and thrilling to watch, though they did occasionally include too many quick cuts. The script, while simple, was really good. The characters are developed enough that you care about them and the plot kept me guessing. At a brief 90 minutes, this movie flew by extremely fast. Even during the setup, I was fully engaged in the plot. Other than some questionable editing, I had no other flaws with this movie. Overall Mile 22 was a great action thriller with an intriguing plot and good characters.

8.5/10

Crazy Rich Asians Review

Crazy Rich Asians is a culturally significant, albeit, underwhelming entry into the romantic comedy genre. This movie is about a rich guy who takes his girlfriend home to meet his family. However, the girlfriend is unaware that the family is extremely wealthy. Constance Wu gave a fantastic performance. She did a good job selling a character that is just as lost as the audience. Henry Golding gave a great performance. He had fantastic chemistry with Wu and they were a believable couple. Michelle Young gave an incredible performance. She brought multiple layers to a straightforward character. Awkwafina gave a hilarious performance and all her scenes are high points in the movie. Jon M. Chu did a great job directing. He especially handled the large-scale scenes well as they were truly stunning at times. The script, however, is good but not great. There are so many characters that I struggled to keep up with who was who. Also, there is a ton of filler including numerous sequences of just the family showing off their wealth. However, the main romance story is sweet and believable. The comedy when it is there hits. For me, though I felt the movie could have used more jokes as there are long periods without any. At 121 minutes this movie is far too long and really drags at times. You could easily compact the script down to 90 minutes and the movie would be stronger for it. The big discussion around this movie has been about the fact that this is the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to have an all Asian cast. To that fact, I am happy this movie exists for a culture that is far underrepresented in Hollywood. Overall I had a good, but not great, time with Crazy Rich Asians.

6/10