Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Nothing comes close to the beauty and flawlessness of this film known as “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016) directed by the brilliant mind of Travis Knight and his team from Laika Studios. Stop motion animation is a rare breed in today’s film making world, but Laika keeps this patience driven art alive in their films. Every frame is carefully placed. Every piece of the set is accurately detailed to that of Medieval Japan. And the story is so well put together, that every character, every scene, and every object serves a purpose to Kubo and his mission to defeat an old sorcerer after his remaining eye.

I won’t go too deep into the plot, but I will say that Kubo gets help from a snow monkey voiced by Charlize Theron and a warrior beetle voiced by the great Matthew McConaughey. These are two actors who lend there voices, giving their stop motion heroes spirit and personality. Both of them in their first draft on paper sounds a little bit crazy. How could a one-eyed boy get along with a talking monkey and giant beetle? The writing makes all of this work with both of them being cunning and funny in their surroundings. I was laughing up a storm amidst all of the sadness surrounding Kubo. This film knows how to mess with the audience’s emotions. I laughed when the scene called for it. I was nervous when the action and tension increased, and I cried when the sadness and happiness collided.

Stop motion has been around for decades and I have never seen animation done this successfully and joyfully. I use joyfully, because this film gave me joy! Yes. This film gave me and my son a bonding relationship in the theater that brought us together. Kubo suffers a lot in this film. More than any character in any other animated movie. He takes his sadness, heartache, and fear in his life and turns it around to make him into a strong and determined hero. And he finds joy in his own life, regardless of his sorrows that continue to pile on top of him. Believe me, he has big reasons to hate life. I’m glad and grateful to be a parent and a husband thanks to this film. There’s so much to love in life.

“Kubo and the Two Strings”

Jason Bourne (2016)

Paul Greengrass brings us the fourth installment of the Jason Bourne franchise, hoping to reignite the ten year gap from the ” The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007). Greengrass succeeded bringing back Bourne, but the film itself is rather weak. Jason Bourne-now David Webb- steps out of hiding to find and hunt down the men who traumatized his past, particularly involving his father. I don’t want to give away too much, but it turned out to be a playing-by-numbers story. Hero looks for answers about his past from his fiends, then from his enemies, then someone who was after him becomes his friend and all is well, and the hero goes his way, leading the story open for another sequel. A simple plot for a simple action film. Quite routine.

With a cast like Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Riz Ahmed, and Vincent Cassel, I expected a deep and intense film. All of the actors in this film seemed they had no vitals. Alicia Vikander’s acting was minimal as her American accent was very wooden. She spoke more like a robot than human (no pun intended with  Ex-Machina (2015)). I would’ve liked it if the writers had made her an immigrant from Sweden. That would have made her more relatable in the film, and makes no reason to hide her accent.

I was disappointed that “Bourne” had very obsolete writing which spoon-fed me to the point that I was rolling my eyes. “Of course you said ‘He’s going down the alley!’ We just saw it!” That’s my pet peeve with movies. I hate it when everything is spelled out for the audience. I love a movie that uses less dialogue and more action and camera work to tell the story when appropriate. “No Country for Old Men” (2007) comes to mind. Man, that told a great story without dialogue!

So the script was mediocre, the acting minimal, the story simple, and the action was mellow. It missed the grit and intensity what the other three Bourne films had. They had heart. “Bourne” has arteries, but no heart to go towards.

Tommy Lee Jones (L) and Matt Damon (R) in “Jason Bourne”

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

The third film of the new X-Men trilogy (directed by Bryan Singer) and the eighth in the franchise-wait, okay… with “Deadpool” (2016) it makes it the ninth. Correction is key when it comes to these kind of things. But I also don’t want Deadpool commandeering my review and saying a whole lot of mumbo jumbo. He’s busy so I think I’m safe. Sorry for going of tangent there. I want to say that “X-Men: Apocalypse” revolves around the X-Men in the 80s facing off against a powerful mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Issac), with Professor Charles Xavier (John McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) helming the story. It’s a comic book film in regards to the scale it was going for, but gets very diluted as did “X-Men: The Last Stand” (2006). Except “Apocalypse” wasn’t as bad.

I didn’t care all that much for this film. I was excited for it at first when the new year started, but as soon as May rolled around, I had lost interest. My co-workers were going to go see it, so I went along for the ride. We got in our seats and I was mostly bored throughout the whole thing. There was a pretty exciting hook in the first scene, but after that, it got slow and boring when Apocalypse was traveling the globe searching for his Four Horsemen that would help him take over the world. It got exciting again, but fell flat with some action scenes that were repeats of the action in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014).

I’m a singular character driven guy and get pretty worn out if the story is trying too hard to focus on an ensemble if not done correctly in a comic book film. “Captain America: Civil War” (2016) did this flawlessly. They had a ton of characters, but I cared about every one of them because they added humor with drama evenly. “Apocalypse” had a  lot of drama, but not enough humor or letup to give me some feelings to compare. I think that’s why I was bored. There wasn’t enough balanced feeling in this film to mix in with the action. It all got bland and wasn’t exciting for me. Again. Bored. One exciting part in this film is a cameo by a very familiar mutant, and that was my favorite part of the film. Everything else didn’t matter to me. So looking forward to “Wolverine 3!”

Michael Fassbender in “X-Men: Apocalypse”

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is taken through a whirlwind of action-packed adventures while trying to save his friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) from the hero turned hunter Tony Stark (Robert Downy Jr.). This is an understatement as the plot goes through tremendous turns and explosions. Literally. Half an airport blows up because of Cap. Besides the destruction of Europe’s infrastructure, Anthony and Joe Russo combine their sibling brains once again and give us movie-goers and fans a great feast of comic book galore, great story telling, and a ton of action, while balancing over a dozen superheroes in the process. That’s not easy to do successfully.

From start to finish, I was entertained and geeking out watching this film. My wife, Stephanie, was with me and we had a bit of an disagreement on something outside the theater and that caused some tension between us. Iron Man and Captain America go through their own bickering and fight each other over a reason that seemed avoidable if they just sat down, talked, and listened to each other. Let me say this right now that “Civil War” halted my quarrel  with my wife. So this film is a disguised therapist in that respect.

Comparing this to “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” I must admit that Marvel films are doing a better job with story telling and character development. In the end, Marvel is just producing better movies. Where “BvS” fell short was its lack of likable characters. Sure Cap and Iron Man have flaws, but they learn to let out their humor in the midst of the darkness. It makes them seem more human. That’s not an intended pun for Superman by any means. But it makes sense that “BvS” and the new DCU are trying too hard to make their films intentionally dark and grim. “BvS” makes the characters dark while the MCU makes the situation dark. This gives the characters control of how they embrace the suck.

Let me focus on all of the characters Marvel managed to cram into this thing. There’s a lot. You have Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Falcon, War Machine, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier, Vision, Scarlett Witch, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man! That is such a large cast of people in one film! Usually a film with this many characters would get diluted and confusing for the audience. “X-Men: The Last Stand” (2006) failed miserably in this by putting in characters for the sake of pleasing fans. “Civil War” didn’t do any of these. The story was written in a way that it was easy to follow, and every character in this film had a part to play. Once you watch this film and see the airport fight scene, you’ll think you were watching a harmonized orchestra with super heroes playing the instruments. Bravo Marvel! Bravo!

Chris Evans in “Captain America: Civil War”

 

The Jungle Book (2016)

A vicious Bengal tiger, an Indian boy, and a lot of CGI. Sounds like the sequel to “Life of Pi” (2012). I’m so funny like that. Anyway,  Jon Favreau directed this wonderful and joyful adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic novel for the big screen. I was very pleased with what Disney was able to do with this film by taking the 1967 animated version and give it a modern take with 21st century technology.   Even the voice acting is spot on. Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, and Christopher Walken all lend their voices to give the animals feeling and personality.

The main focus of the film is the visual effects. I’m still awed how Favreau and his production team were able to take CGI and incorporate it into animals, trees, water, fire, and dust in the air. Every scene I saw made me forget I was watching CGI! The only thing in this movie that’s real is Neel Sethi as the boy Mowgli. So I guess this doesn’t count as a ‘true’ live action film. The actual live action “The Jungle Book” film that I hold dear is Stephen Sommers’ 1994 version, and it’s my favorite out of all of them.

It’s a simple film and that’s okay. Mowgli gets raised by wolves, a tiger named Shere Khan wants to kill Mowgli, and Mowgli and the animals join forces to defeat Shere Khan. Simplicity is never a bad thing in a movie, unless it dumbs it down to the point where my intellegence is insulted. “Lost in Space” (1998) comes to mind. Fortunately, this one didn’t do that. I laughed when I needed to, cried at the right moments, and was entertained throughout the entire movie. Mission accomplished. Now if Mowgli and Shere Khan had ended up on a boat together out in the middle of the Pacific, then we’d have something.

Neel Sethi in “The Jungle Book”

 

 

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Zack Snyder once again gives us a visually stunning film that takes it’s audience into a world of super heroes and philanthropists. However awe inspiring, the film itself disappointed me in the theater. It was cut poorly, a lot of story felt overlooked, characters were underdeveloped, and I was over all bored. How could I be bored in a superhero film with Batman and Superman in it?! I nearly fell asleep face first in my popcorn. If a film failed to entertain me to the point where I was falling asleep, then the film failed. True. all film is subjective, but this film didn’t do it to me as it was a bloated mess.

Not all the details of the film are bad. Standing over all of the flaws of this film is Ben Affleck as The Dark Knight himself. Baffleck is what fans are calling him these days. Quite catchy. I’m game. Anyway, I love Affleck as Batman in this film as he’s the most developed character in this two-and-a-half hour film. Where the movie dulled out, I almost forgive it with the action I got from Batman. I’m referring to the warehouse scene. It’s intense and full of Batman kicking some bad guy butt. I would’ve rather seen a Batman solo film than this one. Where was that?!

Superman (Henry Cavill) was  the most underdeveloped character in this film. The son of Jor-El fell flat  with trying to investigate The Caped Crusader and expose him as a common vigilante. Batman/Bruce Wayne did a better job at trying to justify stopping and fighting Superman. The fight itself was a little forced with other reasons other than their hatred towards one another. Once you see the film you’ll know why. Mainly on Superman’s part. The fight was underwhelming for me because for two hours we get a boring buildup to an epic showdown, and the fight doesn’t exceed my frozen chicken to defrost. I felt cheated.

The last bit I want to mention in this review is the extended cut of BvS on DVD and Blue Ray. I haven’t seen it and I don’t intend to. Most of the critics I follow on social media who have seen it say that it’s an improvement and fills holes in the plot. I’m a pure theater guy and won’t be watching the longer cut because the main product that Warner Brothers wanted to produce for consumers was the theatrical cut. Warner Brother’s produced a poorly edited and executed product and it didn’t please most critics, and the box office wasn’t all as impressive as they wanted it to be.

I’m out of ideas now, but I just need to squeeze in Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Lex Luther here. It was just weird.

Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne