NEW THIS WEEK
This
80’s set prequel sees Professor Xavier’s young team face off against ancient
Egyptian mutant Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) and his plan to conquer the earth.
We Said: “As a life-long
X-Men fan it's tough knocking X-Men: Apocalypse for what it gets
wrong, but such a high bar has been set by the previous films that this one
just can't measure up.” Rating: 3 out of
5
The Good: Obviously, it’s
fun to see these characters back on screen, and a lot of the cast really gets a
chance to shine once again. Michael Fasbender, for example, is just as awesome
as ever as Magneto. Dude can’t give a bad performance. I loved the new
additions to the team. They were all very well cast and convincing as the
younger versions of the characters we’ve seen in earlier films. They managed to
live up to the now iconic original actors’ portrayals of the characters, while
still bringing their own unique spin to the roles. It’s great. Some of the
action scenes were fun as well, and as a fan of the comics, there were several
winks and nods to different storylines that got me pretty psyched.
The Bad: As a sequel, this
movie makes no sense. It’s no secret that the X-Men series has an insane
lack of continuity, but in a post Deadpool world, it’s pretty hard to
accept this kind of thing again. We’ve now seen this franchise openly,
brilliantly mock their own shortcomings, so to see their next installment
continue these problems without changing a thing is very disappointing. The
plot is absolutely insane and hard to follow.A
lot of the characters aren’t given very much screentime at all,
basically wasting half the cast on anti-roles. The character design is
genuinely hard to look at. Most of the exciting moments are retreads of scenes
we’ve seen before in previous X-Men films. For the most part, this
is a very messy movie.
Overall: Apocalypse
is definitely not the worst the X-Men franchise has offered so far,
but it is also far from their best.
The
third (and final?) film in The Purge horror trilogy focuses on
the political side of the controversial “Purge Night” of legalized murder. Frank
Grillo’s character from the previous film returns, now working as a body guard
for Charlie Ronan, a senator who’s divisive anti-Purge campaign as made her a
high-risk target for this year’s killing spree. The two find themselves fleeing
through the violent streets of DC on the most dangerous night of the year.
We Said: “Call it a
dystopian vision of Trump's America if you want, but The Purge: Election Year
is terrifying because it's not as far-fetched as we may want to believe.” Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The Good: Like the other two
movies in The Purge series, Election Year is simultaneously a
violent, bloody slasher film, and a dystopian political satire. I’m happy to
say that The Purge: Election Year manages to balance these two tones the
best the series has so far. The action is exciting, the suspenseful moments
really work, and the political subtext is actually rather thought-provoking. I
was surprised by how much I enjoyed the latest Purge.
The Bad: Unfortunately, Election
Year does still fall into a lot of the shortcomings of the other Purge
movies, with characters being boring plot devices that just exist to be
killed, and cheap jump scares thrown around to keep the younger horror audience
satisfied. It seemed as if the movie was afraid of being too smart at times. As
soon as an interesting concept was brought up, they’d cut to a violent action
scene to make sure they didn’t lose their target audience. Election Year still does
handle these problems better than the other two Purge movies, but it still
falls back on them quite a bit.
Overall: The
Purge: Election Year is both fun and smart without really compromising
either tone too much. It has both scary kills and scary concepts and handles
both better than any of the other films in the series. Whether you like your
horror movies to be political, or your political thrillers bloody, you’ll
probably enjoy the latest Purge.
A
very lonely man stuck on a deserted island (Paul Dano) meets a magical farting
corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) and together they navigate their way home, become
best friends, and learn about love in what is undoubtedly the strangest movie
to be released this year.
We Said: “[The Directors]
deserve credit for making such a risky venture, and if the split reaction from
Sundance is any indication this will definitely be divisive.” Rating: 2 out of 5
The Good: This is an
incredible polarizing movie. Personally, I side more with the audience members
who appreciated the strangeness of this film. I found the offbeat humor and
surrealism to be incredibly fun and different than just about any other movie I’ve
seen. I found Swiss Army Man to have a surprising amount of heart behind its
weirdness, however, and appreciated the more somber things the film had to say.
Reliant mostly on montages and visual gags, the dialogue scenes that are in the
film are clever and occasionally touching, showing the unlikely friendship
between these two characters in an unexpected way. Regardless of its bizarre content,
however, it is undeniable that the shots in this movie look beautiful, and
Daniel Radcliffe gives an excellent performance in role that reason says should
have been a one-note joke.
The Bad: A great many people
who have seen this movie have walked away hating it for the same reasons I said
I enjoyed it. While some find the film to be quirky and unique, others find it
pretentious and insane. Swiss Army Man is one of those
movies that will likely leave audience members with very positive or very
negative feelings about it, and directing team Daniels seem to have very little
interest in which way you feel. It is an incredibly inaccessible movie.
Overall: Sometimes sweet,
sometimes gross, and always polarizing, Swiss Army Man is a movie unlike
any other.
