Movie Review: Joy Ride (R – 95 minutes)

 

I enjoy a fun raunchy comedy and Joy Ride delivers on that promise.

Audrey and Lolo have been friends since they were little, being the only two Asian girls in their area/school.  Audrey was adopted, and Lolo was there with her parents. As they get older, Audrey becomes the responsible adult while Lolo becomes the freewheeling artist.  When Audrey gets the opportunity to go to China to close a big deal for work, meeting up with her college friend, Lolo goes along as translator, and brings her cousin, Deadeye.  Hijinks ensue.

Apart from the usual drama of your childhood best friend encountering your college best friend and the jealousy/bonding that can happen there, the girls encounter a drug dealer, a basketball team, impersonate a k-pop group, and then decide to find Audrey’s birth mom, which does not go as planned. 

Directed by Adele Lim, this movie is fun and touching, and manages to walk the line between standard girls trip style comedy while adding in the layers of what it means to be a woman of color, in this case Asian-American, the feeling of belonging and not belonging as the characters discuss being too Asian but also not Asian enough.  I appreciated that the movie brings that in and layers it over the comedy.  No race is a monolith and exploring stereotypes and expectations can really bring dimension to comedies as well as dramas, so it is nice to see that here. The cast is great and the comic set pieces are ridiculously fun. I particularly enjoy how the four ladies manage to destroy an entire basketball team.

The cast is wonderful and the four leads play off each other very well. Ashley Park is absolutely the stand-out from Emily in Paris on Netflix, and it was wonderful to get to see her lead this movie. Sherry Cola brings an ease to Lolo and Stephanie Hsu proved how wonderful she can be in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, so it is no surprise she’s fantastic here playing the two sides of Kat – the publicly buttoned up persona and the wild friend.  Stand up comedian Sabrina Wu brings the oddball nature of Deadeye into the combination, providing both outlandish bits and some hard-hitting honest moments. 

Everyone else is basically cameos around the quad, which is as it should be in a movie like this.  Desmond Chiam as Clarence, Kat’s fiancée is charming. Ronny Chieng continues to reliably play the same character everywhere – hey, he’s great at it – let him keep going!  Baron Davis as Baron Davis was the surprise for me, he was genuinely funny!  Also – any movie that adds Daniel Dae Kim is hitting the right notes. 

Overall, the movie is fun and sweet, certainly worth streaming, maybe not necessary to see in the theater, but definitely worth a watch - if only for the cautionary tale of where not to get a tattoo!

6 out of 10

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (PG13 – 154 minutes)

 

In my opinion, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best movies ever made.  Temple of Doom is fine and I really enjoy Last Crusade.  I do not think we need to mention the other one.  I was a bit nervous about this, no one really was asking for more Indiana Jones movies, but here we are, and I went in cautiously optimistic.

I was pleased with Dial of Destiny. It maintains the sense of fun and adventure and definitely functions as a decent send off for Indy.  The movie begins with a flashback to the end of WWII as Indy is rescuing his friend from a train full of Nazis.  The Spear of Longinus makes a brief cameo as a red herring of the Macguffin of this movie.  Side note – the Spear of Longinus always makes me think of the 1997 TV show Roar. If you are not familiar with Roar, go ahead and look that up - you’re welcome!

As Indy goes through train car after train car full of Nazis, he eventually rescues his pal Basil from the evil Dr. Voller’s clutches while Basil collects half of the Dial of Destiny – apparently created by Archimedes to predict time-space anomalies. They escape from the train and we reencounter Indy years later living alone in an apartment yelling at his loud neighbors as the city is about to celebrate the return of the moon landing astronauts in 1969.  Marion has left him after their son Mutt died in Vietnam and he is retiring from his teaching job at the university.  Basil’s daughter, Helena (Indy’s goddaughter) shows up to steal the half of the Dial of Destiny – to sell it.  This launches the adventure as Dr. Voller and his henchmen show up to collect the other half of the Dial, leading to a global chase and some fun archaeology as they try to chase down what the dial does and prevent the bad guys from getting there first.

Directed by James Mangold, I found this to be charming and entertaining. It feels in line with the Indy we have come to know. The action sequences are great – the entire train chase bit at the beginning is fantastic, and I enjoyed the little tuk tuk race in the middle. I didn’t mind the digital de-aging in the cold open – I feel like it looked pretty good.  I also didn’t mind the end, which I have heard some people grumble about. For a character that has dealt with ghost in an ark, heart-ripping in a cult, and a ghost protecting a cup – the end of this movie made sense to me.  I feel like it understood the tone and everyone in it was on board and committed to having fun while delivering on what was asked.

Harrison Ford loves playing Indiana Jones and it does show, I appreciated his grumpiness in the beginning but his gradual loosening as he allowed himself to have fun when he got back to adventuring.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge was a good counter-part as Helena and certainly could keep going with these if she chose.  I did not understand why there was a kid sidekick and felt like that could have been removed. 

It was a thrill to see John Rhys-Davies back as Sallah, and I could have used a little more of him and his whole mess of kids helping Indy out of jams.  Mads Mikkelsen is a flawless villain and was coolly nasty as someone who was determined to solve the issues of the third Reich in order to make it ‘better’.  Boyd Holbrook shows up as his number one henchman in a weird including-the-CIA-in-the-story-for-no-good-reason bit.

I was slightly mystified by the inclusion of Antonio Banderas for approximately one and a half scenes.  If you have someone that charismatic, why not give him actual stuff to do?  Maybe he was busy.

Overall, the movie was fun and entertaining. Not flawless, but I absolutely enjoyed it. It’s a little too long, and certainly some bits could have been cut out, but I do love to see Indy figuring out puzzles as he digs through a tomb and/or cave. 

7 out of 10

Movie Review: Fast X (PG13 – 141 minutes)

 

Way back in 2001, if you had told me when I came out of the theater after watching The Fast and The Furious that I would be watching the tenth installment in that franchise in 2023 – and absolutely looking forward to the eleventh, I am not sure I would have believed you – and I loved that first one.  After all, that movie involved a cop going undercover with a street racing gang to bust them for stealing DVD/VCR combos.  To date, the Fast & Furious franchise has spawned ten films, with two more on the way, one spin-off, amusement park rides, games, and could honestly go on and on. There is not really a secret to the franchise’s success, it is pretty straight forward globe-trotting action set pieces with a central theme of family, both chosen and blood - who can argue with that?

In this episode of the Fast saga, we catch up to the Torettos as they are enjoying barbeque, family & Coronas at the house in L.A., continuing their trend of letting the antagonist from the previous film be a good guy in the next one.  Suddenly, their old nemesis Cypher shows up to let them know that a new threat has arisen.  If you remember way back in Fast Five, Brian and Dom drove a drug dealer’s safe through much of Rio de Janeiro, causing huge amounts of damage in a chase that ended with the drug dealer losing his life.  The son of that dealer, Dante, is now coming for the Toretto crew and he is particularly vicious and crazy.  Along the way, Dom and the others have to pick up materials, allies, a couple enemies, all while stopping this new threat and trying to keep their family safe. 

I loved this movie – it is completely over the top bonkers nonsense and knows it.  And yet, this one is a little more grounded than the last one.  This one is directed by Louis Leterrier, a French action director out of the Luc Besson stable. He has done some things I really loved (The Transporter, Unleashed, the Incredible Hulk), some things that were okay (Now You See Me), and some things I have not liked (the Clash of the Titans remake).  In Fast X, he takes the franchise back to mainly car chases and action sequences – and yes, those have been key to all of the movies, but admittedly, in the last one, they drove a car in space. 

The action here is great, the bomb vs. car sequence in Rome in the beginning is ridiculous and entertaining. The helicopter vs. car sequence near the end is fun and the hand to hand combat between Charlieze Theron and Michelle Rodriguez is particularly fantastic.  

There's so much in terms of cast, it's tough to talk about all of them, but the family core group all continue to be wonderful, even if by now we have so many lead characters not everyone is getting enough screen time.  Thank goodness Han is back for real, I love that Mia gets one badass action sequence per movie, but it's too bad she then has to pretend to go back to Brian and their kids.  Tej and Roman continue to get on each others' nerves, Ramsey still has nearly nothing to do.  While John Cena’s Jakob Toretto was an interesting foil last film, he felt stiff and forced. Here he is wonderful. He seems to have been let off the leash and completely understands the movie he is in.  

Honestly, most of the cast has a good time and plays these flicks with a wink&nod. It’s just Vin Diesel that takes them a little too seriously – but you need that at the center of the movie so that everyone else can be crazy. Also - we have the fantastic addition of Rita Moreno as Grandma Toretto (I sort of hope we get to see an action sequence with her and Helen Mirren's Queenie in the next movie).  

The addition of Brie Larson as a new Nobody – the daughter of Kurt Russel’s character from a few movies ago – helps keep the Torettos involved with The Agency (who knows who or what they are, or what goals they have).  And we get to add in the wonderful Alan Ritchson as a new Agency heavy hand, making this the first movie I can think of with two Aquamen in it.

And speaking of crazy – what a glorious addition Jason Momoa is.  It is as if he was given the sole direction of ‘have fun and bring complete chaos’ and my goodness – he is extra in every way. It lightens up the movie while bringing a definite threat.  That dude is living his absolute best life.

Overall, I really loved this one, maybe more than the last couple and I really liked the last one.  If I had to rank them, it would look like this:  1, 5, 10, 9, 6, 4, 7, 8, 2, 3.  Hobbs & Shaw being a spin off is not in that count and honestly, that ranking is basically arbitrary anyway. They’re all silly and wonderful!  Grab your family, popcorn, and a Corona and check it out.

9 out of 10 – but really, shouldn’t it be 10 out of 12 since two more of these are guaranteed on their way?

Movie Review: Polite Society (PG13 – 103 minutes)

 

Every once in a while, I see a movie that I feel like has crept in under the radar and is cool, different, really entertaining and I hope more people get to see it. In April of 2022, it was Everything Everywhere All At Once, which ended up doing just fine.  This year in April I saw Polite Society and I feel the same way, hoping it gets more eyeballs as the year goes on. 

I had seen the trailer for this movie and knew it would be up my alley.  Ria is a young English woman growing up in a Pakistani home with conservative and traditional parents trying to navigate the social and economic circles of their friends and family.  Ria’s passion is martial arts and she eventually hopes to become a stunt woman like her idol, Eunice Huthart.  Her older sister Lena, an art school dropout, helps her make online videos practicing her moves while she writes to Eunice for advice and guidance while the girls’ parents are discouraging both of their dreams. 

At an Eid Mubarak party hosted by a suspiciously wealthy friend, Raheela, Ria grows suspicious of Raheela’s matchmaking attempts for her son, Salim – but Lena finds him charming and suddenly they are dating and then engaged.  Is Ria right to be suspicious?  Or is she overreacting?  To find out, Ria enlists her friends and frenemy to discover the truth about Salim and his mother and rescue her sister from what may or may not be an evil plot. 

The movie is directed by Nida Manzoor who also did the show We Are Lady Parts.  The scenes between the two sisters are wonderful with Priya Kansara as Ria and Ritu Arya as Lena. It is very easy to believe their relationship and how far Ria will go to protect Lena.  I absolutely loved the support they show for each other and even when they are fighting, it feels like a gut punch.  I also loved the relationships between Ria and her school friends.  They were there for her when she needed them, but also called her out when she was acting unhinged. While you may expect the family and relationship drama portions to be great, what surprised me was how fantastic and epic the action sequences are.  Just about everyone is a martial arts master for no reason whatsoever other than it makes the fight sequences absolutely cinematic. 

Overall, this movie is fun, action-packed, hilarious, and also warm and touching. It is a genuine joy to watch.  I really loved it, and I hope you check it out – you can currently catch it on Peacock Premium.

9 out of 10

Movie Review: Transformers Rise of the Beasts (PG13 – 127 minutes)

 

I really enjoy the first one Bayhem Transformers movie from 2007 where Shia LaBeouf meets BumbleBee and helps the Autobots hide the Allspark from the Decepticons.  Then there were a few others, and I enjoyed the prequel (?) BumbleBee movie.  This one seems to not pay any attention to any other story continuity.  You’re probably best off if you just go in considering it a stand alone story.  Likewise, I remember watching the Beast Wars cartoon a couple of times, but I do not remember any particular stories from that series. 

In this story, Unicron is a giant ball of anger that is cruising across the galaxy eating planets.  He has a dude working for him named Scourge who has stopped on a planet that may be in the distant future?  On the planet are the Maximals – living machines that transform to and from animal shapes. To save the planet, one of them stays behind and battles Scourge while several of the others take the key Scourge needs to give Unicron access and go into hiding.

Years later in 1994 we meet regular human Elena Wallace who is working in a museum and does some research on a statue that has come in, accidentally activating the key.  Noah Diaz who is living in New York with his little brother and mother. His little brother Kris is having some health issues, and so veteran Noah is trying to pick up a job to help out. Struggling to find work he decides to take a quick car thief job and attempts to steal Autobot in disguise as a Porsche, Mirage.  Mirage connects Noah with the other Autobots who are stranded on earth for some time and want the key to get home (despite having arrived on earth in the 2007 movie at that time – like I said, do not get caught up on the details).  Noah agrees to help them in exchange for money, and he and Elena just barely escape an encounter with Scourge.  At this point, the Autobots meet Air Razor who takes them to meet the rest of the maximals who have been in hiding in Peru, guarding the other key. As they prepare for the final battle, Optimus Prime has to learn to put others before himself, Mirage has to learn teamwork, Noah has to learn how to trust, and everyone works together to defeat Scourge, his team, and prevent Unicron from showing up and eating everything. 

Directed by Steven Caple Jr., the movie is fast paced, and like the other Transformers movies, looks great. The CGI is very impressive and while the story might not make a ton of sense, the action is entertaining. The big fight sequences set in the jungles in Peru were particularly striking.  While Noah and Elena are key to the story, the Transformers are the driving part of the story, which is nice because in some of the other movies, there are just too many humans.  All the voices for the transformers are great including the wonderful Peter Cullen and adding Liza Koshy, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, and Michelle Yeoh.  Also, Pete Davidson plays Mirage, and he’s still annoying, but since Mirage is supposed to be somewhat annoying – it works!

Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are fun and do a great job of running and being terrified of giant robots until they need to step up and join the fight, then they are both great action leads as well. 

Overall, the movie is plenty of fun, just the right run time, and definitely worth a watch. Clearly Bumblebee is still everyone's favorite because he gets some truly fantastic moments even though Mirage is the 'lead' in this one.  Having graduated high school in 1994, let me tell you – easily my favorite part of this movie was the soundtrack – filled with a bunch of great songs that I haven’t heard in way too long. Supposedly this is the first in a new trilogy, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

7 out of 10

 

Movie Review: John Wick Chapter 4 (R – 169 minutes)

We may have finally reached what seems to be the end of John Wick’s ongoing journey of revenge.  In case you aren’t caught up on the John Wick saga – essentially Keanu Reeves plays a retired hit man who was quietly living his life and coping with the death of his wife when he encountered the son of a local crimelord. This jackass broke into his house and killed the puppy his wife had left for him.  John then proceeds to get back into the business to wipe out the kid and everyone around him. 

In the second and third movie, the story expanded as John continued to piss off hitmen and criminals who had been content to let him retire.  We learn about the various Continental hotels that provide safe havens for killers during the course of their business as well as the High Table – which seems to be the organization that collects and directs the various hitmen and assassins.  Although, really – none of that is important.  Wick stepped back in after being allowed out, and has spent the last couple of movies trying to find his way back out. 

In Chapter 4, Wick is still being hunted by just about everybody and the Marquis currently in charge of the High Table is sending more and more after him.  He even sends a Harbinger to close down the Continental in New York that had helped Wick.  As Wick pursues the Marquis, he encounters various allies and foes, battling all the way to the very end.

Again -the story doesn’t really matter here.  Wick is trying to find peace in the most violent way possible. Director Chad Stahelski once again elevates the stunts and action to be on even par with the story – perhaps even to be more important that the story as really what I remember most from this movie is various action set pieces and Donnie Yen being awesome. 

The movie begins with a high-octane desert horse chase as Wick chases down some folks and lets us know what his game plan is for the movie. Basically - eliminate the head of the table and get back to his retirement. 

There is an incredible battle in the Osaka Continental featuring the wonderful Hiroyuki Sanada versus the fantastic Donnie Yen.  I love that John Wick stepped aside so that action movie fans could really watch these two own the screen with the bonus of singer Rina Sawayama as Sanada’s daughter – who gets some great fight moments of her own.  

John also has to go to a raging EDM club to track down and eliminate ‘Killa’, played by the fantastic Scott Adkins in a fat suit for some reason. The battle between he, Wick, his henchmen, and Donnie Yen’s Caine is huge and wet.

Wick eventually gets to Paris to negotiate a duel with the Marquis beautifully framed on the Trocadero in front of the Eiffel Tower. The Marquis agrees to meet him at sunrise, but in the meantime, calls on every single hitman, assassin, and thug in town to eliminate Wick before he can get there.

There is an amazing sequence in a building that is shot from top-down and seems to be a single shot as Wick moves from room to room taking out henchmen as Shamier Anderson’s Tracker named Nobody makes things more difficult. It looks incredible and very much like a video game.

Another epic set piece takes place as Wick gets to Paris and is hunted by a group of killers in various cars around the Arc de Triomphe – if you’ve never been there, the traffic around that landmark is truly insane and this is the first movie I have ever seen that incorporates that crazy traffic into the action as the combatants have to dodge all the cars to make contact with each other.

My absolute favorite set piece happens as Wick is trying to make it to his final duel with the Marquis (played with slick evil by Bill Skarsgard) which will be hosted by Clancy Brown’s Harbinger. He has to make it by a set time, and it is set to take place in front of Sacre Coeur. Again – if you’ve never been there, it is at the top of a hill with 222 steps to get to the top. As Wick climbs the stairs with limited time, he has to battle Marko Zaror as Chidi and his various henchmen all the way up.  The last time I was there, I went up the back way since I had a wicked case of food poisoning.  You can also take a funicular (a little tram that will take you up).  It must have not been working that early in the morning as Wick has to fight up each and every stair. I’ve never seen anything like it and it was both exhausting and exhilarating.

It was a little painful to see the wonderful Lance Reddick reprise his role as Charon in this, and then get killed on screen as he had passed away the week before the release.

Overall, the action was fantastic, the characters continue to be intriguing, and if this is the last chapter – it was a great closer. It was way too long – it’s just shy of three hours, but honestly – I did not feel the length. The action is so consistent you don’t really notice.  I think this may be my favorite of the Wick flicks.

9 out of 10

Movie Review: 65 (PG13 - 93 minutes)

I love a good dinosaur movie – the problem is, they are few and far between.  As both a positive and negative, the Jurassic Park franchise has spoiled audiences with really fantastic practical dinosaur effects mixed with near-flawless CGI dinosaurs. That sets the bar really high for anything else promising dinosaur action.

65 tells the story of Mills, a pilot with a loving wife and ailing daughter.  In order to get the money they need for her very expensive treatments, he agrees to take on a two year job piloting a ship of folks from his planet to another.  While en route, the ship encounters an asteroid (those asteroids, always causing havoc for traveling ships) and breaks apart as he attempts an emergency landing on a nearby planet.  It just so happens that planet is our earth, 65 million years ago, and that asteroid mess he ran through is the planet killer that’s about to slam into the Yucatan and end the stretch of dino-dominance.

Once on the planet, we get varying degrees of Pitch Black-style setup as Mills realizes all the passengers are dead and decides to not call for help, but then finds one passenger has survived.  It’s a young girl and since she is from a different area of his planet and his universal translator is broken, they do not understand each other.  She gives him a reason to keep going, call for help, and search for the part of the ship that had the rescue vessel in it. The good news is that its intact and they can get off this planet, the bad news is that it’s on the next mountain over, the space between is filled with dinos, geysers, quicksand, and other scary hazards.  Oh, and that asteroid is still on its way.

The movie is written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.  I appreciated the run time, any longer than an hour and a half on this would have been way too much. The action is good, and I liked that the story and character development was done through flashbacks and video watching. We learn that Mills’s daughter died after he launched on this mission and that adds to why he was so quick to give up once they crashed. 

Both Adam Driver as Mills and Ariana Greenblatt as Koa are great, I really enjoyed the translator being broken so they had to work to understand each other.  Driver is expectedly competent at portraying a man who is capable of action, but definitely aching and blaming himself about the loss of his daughter. Greenblatt is even better since we don’t understand her either, but she clearly communicates what she is all about – feisty and invested.  I loved that she had to rescue Mills a couple of times from both quicksand and help with climbing a cliff. It made their relationship more of a partnership and more engaging to watch. 

I was a little disappointed by the dinosaurs themselves. Of the various species portrayed in the movie, I recognized one for sure (oviraptor), another one as a maybe (Dsungaripterus), and then the others were a little confusing, but I assume that was a T-Rex near the end. They were all the same shades of gray and mostly appeared in the dark.  Again, we are spoiled by Jurassic Park which worked with paleontologists to ensure their dinos are mostly correct.  Here, some of them just seemed like the team went ‘close enough’ and called it a day.  But I did love the oviraptor – always one of my favorites. 

Overall, the movie is quick and fun, with lots of action. I loved the fact that the impending asteroid impact put a ticking clock on their efforts to get to the ship, and I really loved how they worked together on their adventure. 

6 out of 10 – perfectly fine and certainly entertaining enough, and reminds you to watch Pitch Black  again.