'Sully' Review

Nominated For: Best Sound Mixing.

Sully tells the story and surrounding events of "The Miracle on the Hudson", the January 15, 2009 emergency forced water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 onto the Hudson River by Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenburger. 

Clint Eastwood handles the controversy of Sully's actions with poise by interjecting multiple perspectives, eyewitness accounts, and the media backlash. Eastwood's proven he's capable of directing biopics about American heroes with American Sniper, but in this film he knowingly brings up the possibility Sullenburger endangering the passenger's lives instead of simply glorifying Sully's decision. Eastwood maintains an effective balance between the two opposing views of Sullenburger throughout the film's running time and the political controversy makes for an entertaining watch. 

Eastwood ensures every thing feels real: the stakes, the crash, the rescue, and the surrounding circumstances. The water-landing sequence expertly crafted suspense that had me on the edge of the seat despite the fact I knew the outcome. The flight attendants yelling instructions to the passengers to brace for impact gave me chills every time I heard it. One strange creative choice however was the interspersed use of flashbacks to shed light on Sullenberger's previous aviation experience, as these scenes didn't enhance the narrative in any way and thus seemed irrelevant. 

Todd Komarnnicki's screenplay does a great job keeping the story in shades of gray with no clear high moral ground or clear cut solution to National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the events. I would have liked for Komarnnicki to delve more into Sullenberger's psyche and personal life but the attempts to do so are certainly commendable as scenes of Sullenberger's nightmares are understandably tense. 

Tom Hanks' portrayal of Captain Sullenburger is one of the film's highlights as it's a subdued performance with inner complexities. Aaron Eckhart and Laura Linney are both solid supporting players as copilot Jeff Skiles and Sully's wife Loraine respectively, although I would have liked to see more of Linney and her interaction between her and Hanks.

 Overall, Sully serves as an interesting portrayal of American heroism thanks to Eastwood's direction, a fantastic performance from Hanks, and a solid supporting cast. I'd recommend it to those interested in the events or fans of Hank's work, otherwise you could probably skip out on Sully in favor of waiting for more worthy Oscar bait. 

Film Assessment: B

Throwback Thursday Review: 'The Dark Knight'

This week I'm reviewing The Dark Knight to tie in with the release of this weekend heavily anticipated Suicide Squad since both feature incarnations of the Joker and I wanted to review the Dark Knight Trilogy which I already began with my review of Batman Begins and I'll finish it out when I review The Dark Knight Rises in three weeks. In between then and now expect Throwback Thursday reviews on Disney's older Pete's Dragon with the release of the new live action version followed by the beginning of my series of Harry Potter reviews with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone where I will be rereading the books and reviewing each Harry Potter film every two weeks till the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. New reviews you can expect in the next two weeks include Suicide Squad, a review I've already writen that will be posted immediately after this review is uploaded, Pete's Dragon (2016), Sausage Party, and 

Florence Foster Jenkins.

'The Dark Knight' Review

Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor; Heath Ledger, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. 
Won: Best Supporting Actor; Heath Ledger and Best Sound Editing.

The Dark Knight picks up after Batman Begins. Batman's tidied up the streets of Gotham, but Joker has arrived to wreck havoc and unleash chaos. The Dark Knight is the summit of Christopher Nolan's exceptional Dark Knight Trilogy, and what a glorious peak it is! In the Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan continues to transcend the superhero genre with a hyper-realized take on the Batman including complex messages and themes that explore the very meaning of Batman and Joker's ideologies. 

Nolan again takes up the responsibility of directing in addition to writing the screenplay alongside his brother Jonathan Nolan and working on the story with David Goyer. The trio craft a story that brings out an interesting message that darkness is hidden within all of us and that even the best of us can steep into darkness if molded correctly. Nolan, cinematographer Wally Pfizer,  and editor Lee Smith brilliantly fabricate suspense, raise tension prior to big twists and turns, and the gorgeous scenery is all cut together seamlessly. 

The practicality Nolan focused on in Batman Begins continues as he introduces the Bat-Pod, a new vehicle in Batman's arsenal, and plenty of new gadgets for his utility belt. The practicality help make the action sequences more exhilarating and believable as they are marvelous to watch. Other remarkable technical elements include the costuming, makeup, and visual effects that look phenomenal. The Dark Knight not only look great but sounds awesome as well thanks to a tremendous score composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. 

Even better are the performances with Christian Bale once again delivering a solid dual-portrayal of billionaire Bruce Wayne and vigilante Batman. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are both great as Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox respectively. Gary Oldman remains to be a terrific Jim Gordon and this time around gets to delve into some more emotional ground. 

Maggie Gyllenhaal's Rachel is an improvement over Katie Holmes' depiction, serving less as a damsel in distress, but an important character in this story relative to her relationship with Bruce Wayne. 

Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is commonly overlooked, but his performance is truly something! Eckhart is a bright spot of the trilogy as we see him morph into Two-Face and watch his descent into darkness, proving the best of humanity can be corrupted.

Heath Ledger brings the best depiction of the Joker onscreen, as a brilliant strategist intent on unleashing hell and anarchy to prove his point. It's tragic that Ledger died shortly after, as the role took it's toll on him and caused him to eventually overdose, considering it's one of the best villainous performances in recent memory. The entire cast deliver in spades and beyond in some cases.

In summary, The Dark Knight is a cinematic masterpiece thanks to technical precision, talent in-front-of and behind-the-camera, a rousing score, and an intelligent story with sophisticated themes about the truth of humanity. The Dark Knight is easily one of the best comic book films-to-date. 

Film Assessment: A+

'London Has Fallen' Review

I would like to apologize for the very late review of London Has Fallen, I got busy with a multitude of things and only recently got around to seeing it last Thursday. London Has Fallen is very derivative of Olympus Has Fallen, the difference being that it's set in London of course, but I can accept that they would be similar because this is a potential budding franchise and in a franchise all films have a lot of similarities for good reason. This time around, all the world's major leaders gather in London following the death of Great Britain's Prime Minister and city-scale terrorism ensues. London Has Fallen has a lot of large scale action like the original and that's where the film hits it's mark. A majority of the movie outside it's action is honestly pretty bad. The editing is really choppy and the film feels the need to include a LOT of text for establishing shots and literally everytime anyone of importance shows up they feel the need to bring up text with the character's name and occupation but it comes and goes way too quickly so even if someone actually wanted to read it, they wouldn't be able to. It didn't bother me to much in the case of the establishing location shots, but a majority of these include recognizable landmarks that renders the text useless. However for the characters it was very obnoxious, especially since most of these characters deliver one or two lines and are of virtually no importance to the story, it felt very inorganic and pointless. There's also some scenes included that are literally 30 seconds that attempt to establish the world leaders but they are so brief that you don't care about them when some meet their inevitable demise during the terrorist attack. While on the subject of the terrorist attack, it seemed extremely impractical that a terrorist group would be able to infiltrate every level of Britain's law enforcement and manage to destroy literally every iconic London landmark, I'm not saying it's impossible as terrorism recently has managed to be much more widespread but I can only imagine these groups destroying one or two of these landmarks at most. That's a minor nitpick and this is a ridiculous action movie after all so many people can probably ignore some of these issues. One thing that's very hit or miss in the film are the visual effects, that can look very believable at times and in some moments obviously computerized. I think that's the result of the budget restrictions but I think that if a production team realizes their budget isn't large enough for a grand action sequences they should probably just nix it. Despite all of this, there are a few positive aspects. One being the action, it's just plain dumb fun action. Despite the impracticality, the action is all very entertaining and awesome to watch. The other pro being the cast, primarily the principal actors. Gerard Butler definitely is the glue that holds everything together. Butler returns as the everyman Secret Service Agent Mike Banning and really nails delivering the cheesy one-liners and is the charm of the film for sure. Aaron Eckhart also returns as President Benjamin Asher with much more charisma this time around. Eckhart gets to pal around with Butler and the two have great buddy-cop type chemistry onscreen. Morgan Freeman is back in the situation room again, this time as the Vice-President, and he's terrific but that can be expected. One downfall is that Alon Moni Aboutboul is such a blatant stereotype as the Middle Eastern villain scheming behind the scenes and isn't even in the film that often. So yes, the film has plenty problems but has some charm in it's action and performances. London Has Fallen aims to be bigger than it's predecessor and certainly is, but bigger doesn't always equal better. London Has Fallen is solid as a dumb action movie that would make a great rental, but beyond that isn't that great.

Film Assessment: D+

Throwback Thursday Review: 'Olympus Has Fallen'

This week has two big releases with Disney's Zootopia and London Has Fallen. To avoid having to do two Throwback Thursday Reviews today, I reviewed The Lion King last week since it was  Disney film centered on talking animals similar to Zootopia. So this week, I'm reviewing Olympus Has Fallen for a few reasons. First off, I actually haven't seen the film till watching it today to review it but was anticipating it back when it was released and just never got around to watching it. I figured this would be perfect timing and provide a Throwback Thursday Review to coincide with the release of it's sequel 'London Has Fallen' this weekend. I plan to review both Zootopia and London Has Fallen in the near future and am unsure of which I will wind up seeing and reviewing first. Next week's Throwback Thursday Review will be for Cloverfield to correspond with 10 Cloverfield Lane's release. I initially had it planned out to review Divergent but I will save that film for the following week.

'Olympus Has Fallen' Review

The premise of Olympus Has Fallen involves a North Korean terrorist group taking down one of America's most secure locations, the White House. The internet has dubbed the film to essentially be "Die Hard in the White House"and that's probably the most apt description so if that intrigues you in the slightest, you will love Olympus Has Fallen. Olympus Has Fallen is a very entertaining film that has moments ranging from excessively destructive to just plain awesome. The film has flaws, including a rocky start that was irrelevant to the plot, setting up character relationships that were unfortunately not explored in any further depth. However, much like the Fast and Furious films, you can't watch this film and expect to take it seriously but it's more of a "popcorn flick" that's essentially dumb action followed by even more ridiculously construed action sequences. Not only are the action scenes awesome, but they are lended more credibility thanks to some spectacular special effects. Also the film bolsters a cast with some great acting chops and gravitas to help realize the film. The standout is Gerard Butler, who plays an ex-secret serviceman Mike Banning who must stop this terrorist group, and he makes for a great "John McClain" stand-in as the everyman hero everyone will root for. Butler is very believable as a highly trained agent and is the most interesting character in the narrative thanks to his previous failure that's shown in the beginning of the film. Aaron Eckhart is serviceable as the President but lacks the charisma or charm to really invest the audience in his character. Morgan Freeman is great as always, in the role of Speaker of the House. The antagonist portrayed by Rick Yune is a brilliant, villainous mastermind, who is as bright as he is intimidating. Yune makes for a fantastic villain and definitely one of the better performances. The remaining cast is primarily one-note stereotypes, who aren't given much screen time. The film is super predictable throughout and there are a few stretches of doldrums, where I lost interest in the story but overall, Olympus Has Fallen is certainly a solid action film. Unfortunately, it doesn't traverse new roads and seems very derivative of previous action films but I can recommend it for anyone who at least is interested in the premise and enjoys action films.

Film Assessment: C+