I need you to exhibit some attention seeking behaviour (Charlie's Angels 2020)

254.
Charlie's Angels




3/10


Charlie's Angels are something I have never gotten into, not that I have given them a chance. This goes for the original tv series, the movie that came about afterward and I'm quite surprised I was ready to give this remake a go. It's a little off-putting when they remake things within what seems like a short time but there is again no excitement about it what so ever. This time Elizabeth Banks shall be writing, directing and starring in the movie which brings us Naomi Scott, Kristen Stewart, and a somewhat unknown Ella Balinski as the angels. Turns out, this is a continuation from the other two movies and which was announced by Banks herself after many thought differently. Let's get down to it then I suppose
The movie is centered around these three ladies, each with their talents but before this comes together, we go through a little recruiting. We have a quick mission, to begin with, Sabina played by Stewart and Jane played by Balinski. They finish the mission, in walks John Bosley the main man, played by Patrick Stewart.

 Elsewhere, Naomi Scott's character Elena is in her normal job as a tech-head, ready to dish the dirt on her employer as she knows the device she has created is still dangerous and can cause seizures if operated. Her bosses fare from giving a shit and know there is a chance of some money and go ahead with the launch. Elena's only option is to use a card she has found to alert the agency of what is going on. This becomes a task though as an assassin is sent her way, only for the angels to step in and save her. Hence the step into recruiting. No as for John Bosley, the last mission was actually his last and Rebekah 'Bosley', played by Banks is due to be taking over but there is something about her, with some dodgy eye contact on John's farewell do. She's definitely slipped something into his drink and is making sure that he drinks it.

As for the three angels, that's right, Elena is now on board. They are sent by Rebekah to infiltrate the tech lab. Their mission is to steal the prototypes before they can be sold. There is only one left though and Elena needs to use it to escape. One of the superiors is seen as the thief, the exact one that Elena was passing on her concerned opinions to in the beginning. He is tracked to Europe and is ready for a deal when the girls step in. He is dealing with the guy from the beginning mission who is now somehow free to wander about and this starts kicking in some questions for the ladies. As the girls are out numbers, Rebekah disappears and leaves them in the lurch big style. The bad guys escape and the angels are left with more questions than answers. Sabina is the main angel who believes that Rebekah could be letting on more than she knows and to the audience, that could explain the spiked drink. They are back at the safehouse, just before it becomes a little less safe due to plenty of explosions, a massive reveal some home truths. John has appeared to save Elena from the agency but it turns out that he has actually been setting up his own network, ready for his being removed from the agency. The remaining girls have sought medical help as Rebekah clues them in and we are onto our final part of the mission.
John takes Elena to a party, hosted by Brock, her old boss. He reveals that he was the one behind Elena's assassination attempt but was not aware of John trying to weaponise the tech called Calisto. Soon after, with this new side of John, he gets Elena to program Calisto into a weapon that will kill her and a dorky colleague that has been following her around for the second half of the movie. One ace up the sleeve of the other angels is that the plan is known. Jonny Smith, the lad who was caught at the beginning has now defected to the 'good' side and gives up John's intentions.

With some final fights between everyone involved, Rebekah finally catches up with John as he thinks she has him outnumbered but every female at the party is planted by her and they are all angels. Sabina knocks his lights out, Jane gets into a relationship and Elena is finally recruited after some final tests. In the mid-credits, Elena gets an angel tattoo and congratulations from Charlie himself.
Not too sure where to start with this one. It wasn't awful but it wasn't too good either in my opinion. Let's sandwich the good stuff in between the unfortunate bad moments. The cast was ok at best. With a mixture of talents and characteristics, each one seemed to bring their styles to the table, just like their angel did. One major problem I felt and that was not being invested in anyone. Not sure if this is because I'm a gent watching the movie and you know, go feminism right now, but they were at no point relatable as human beings for me. I get that they were invested in their missions but it was very robotic, especially from female Stewart. I enjoyed Patrick Stewart's character a lot more than anyone else.
This leads us nicely onto the storyline. It is one we could have seen 100 times before, with the same outcome but I have to admit, for a long time during the movie I was still adamant that Banks' character was the hidden villain. Safe to say that when this was getting further and I almost worked it out, it was still a cool moment to find out who the real villain was and even the villains to have plotted against each other.
This movie was always going to be one for the ladies though. Women win, men lose and the only male characters were either incredibly stupid, evil or the only good guy being a gay guru or something. I may have already mentioned that I hadn't seen the movies with Cameron Diaz and Co and from some of the really old trailers, they looked like an absolute ball of cheese. This one was a little more serious, it did have someone one-liners but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone told me I would never see this movie again in my lifetime.

The mind is a blackboard and this is the eraser (Dr. Sleep 2020)

253.
Dr. Sleep

7.5/10


Back to a genre that is by a long way my favourite. Horror movies make you feel like no other genre has the ability too. It can keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for a jump scare or it can leave you feeling psychologically uneasy, depending on where the story wants to take you. This time we have a sequel to The Shining which was a novel from 1977. This book was written in 2013 and hopefully, it can make more of an impression on Stephen King than The Shining movie adaptation did as it is well known that King hates the movie. If you've not seen The Shining, some scenes are recognised to the world anyway. The little boy on his tricycle, going through the corridors of the creepy hotel is going to be our main character in this movie. Ewan McGregor is going to be Danny Torrence, decades after his old man had tried to kill the family with an axe. Rebecca Ferguson, fresh of the back of The Greatest Showman and Mission Impossible is also about so let's see if this is up there with the other King adaptations. 

The movie begins not long after the events at the Overlook Hotel and Danny is still seeing the ghosts from the hotel but this time, in his own home. He has befriended a ghost, who teaches him how to lock these spirits away in a box inside his head. They have moved from the hotel to chase him down since they are now starving. They feed on his psychic ability called 'The Shining'. Elsewhere, some psychic vampires are tracking down kids with the ability, so that they can feed off of the steam that is produced when they are tortured. This then lengthens their lifespan. Keeping up so far?

Decades on from the first scene, Danny is now an alcoholic to suppress his ability and once he steals some money off a woman after a one night stand, he knows he has hit a new low and it's time for a new start. Heading to a new town, he starts to turn his life around until he is contacted by a young girl, also with 'the shining' but her talents are a lot stronger. During this time, Danny earns his name of Doctor Sleep as he works as an orderly, being around the patient's last moments and using his ability to comfort them in some way. On the other side of the US, Ferguson's character, Rose the Hat, has been recruiting but letting a girl feed off the steam of a child we had seen them kill earlier.

Another 8 years pass, the girl that has been getting in contact with Danny, Abra Stone, has now been experiencing a lot more. Every time Rose takes life with her gang named the True Knot, she feels it drastically. The main problem, Rose can see her watching. This now sets a massive target on her back. Abra contacts Danny by writing MURDER on his wall with her ability, read backward it's REDRUM, just as the door in The Shining.

 Realizing the danger and lack of help from Danny, Abra ends up tracking him down knowing that she can track down the cult with her ability. Instead, Danny is pretty pissed off to see her and tells her to suppress her ability to stay safe. The cult is starving and Rose sends her consciousness across the country to find Abra but instead, finds a trap once infiltrating her mind. She is injured and around the campfire, a member dies and Rose sends the rest out after Abra. 

Danny's ghosts comes for a visit one more time, telling him to protect Abra has Danny was once protected. Recruiting a few more, including Abra's father to protect her body as she projects herself to a campsite elsewhere, the fight is on. Most of the cult gets killed but the girl who was recruited earlier, Andi, makes Danny's mate kill himself. Back at Abra's house, the dad is killed in a raid and Abra is abducted in a hidden plot. She is drugged, unable to use her full ability but she instead lets Danny control her body to overpower the driver and crash the van. This leads to a reunion of Danny and Abra whilst Rose consumes the remaining steam and heads for revenge.

 With one last plan, Danny takes Abra up to the famous hotel. An ongoing fight with Danny's consciousness and Rose as they try to trap her in one of his boxes means that we get a lot of links to the first movie, including the hedge maze. Once she gets the better of Danny, Rose starts feeding on his steam and he's only got one left play to make. He releases all of the old ghosts within his mind which brutally kill Rose and make their way after an injured Danny. He quickly becomes possessed and chases Abra around the hotel, to that once-famous room.

 As he first entered into the hotel, he starts pissing about in the boiler room, he knew it may come to this. He overcomes the ghosts for a short second and tells Abra to escape. He heads back to the boiler room and before the hotel can stop him, he starts a fire, bringing down the hotel once and for all. A vision of his young self being protected by his mother comes to light as the fire begins to take over. 

A while later and Abra is talking to Danny's spirit. She tells him that they are going to be alright, as even her mother is now coming to terms with her ability and talking to her deceased husband. As Abra's mother leaves the room, Abra heads to the bathroom where we see the ghost of the rotting woman from the hotel, the one we saw a young Danny lock away into his first box, just as Abra is about to do.

Not one to read books, or even listen to them as you can these days, which sometimes can put me on the back foot a little. It had been a long time since I had seen The Shining and if I'm honest, a couple of things came back to me when watching some of Ready Player One. With the beginning of this one and the scenes back at the hotel, the first movie did start flowing back. Stephen King movies are flowing out write now with the IT movies and Pet Cemetary, but where does this one rank? To be honest, somewhere around the middle for the latest movies. It was enjoyable and dark and not just a killing spree, there were some underlying issues of how Danny had controlled himself since the terrifying events of the decades before and how he turned protector for a young girl. There was plenty of dark, as we come to know from a King novel and as what seems to be the norm with him, some children getting killed. I have heard that the hotel was actually in bits after the first book but not so in the movie and that was indeed carried on with this one too. I not sure about Dr. Sleep the novel, as to whether the hotel was brought back in such a light but only time will tell. The storyline had more than enough to keep me gripped and at times, I honestly didn't know which side was ahead of the other. Plenty of twists and turns and sure as hell, I did not expect the sacrifice. 

Ewan Mcgregor gave this role a great go. There were moments that you could sympathise with him, be in complete disagreement with him and then finally, accept his flaws for the ending that he indeed gave. Kyleigh Curran as Abra was played extremely well. At times it can be a little bit of a struggle watching an unknown youngster on the screen and a lot of the time they are robotic and never seen again. Kyleigh's role needed action and a form of innocence at the same time and this was balanced well. At times, she was the adult and showed immense bravery throughout the ordeal.

The film had a big contrast between good and evil and each scene resembled this. The scenes focusing on Danny and Abra's side of the story would always be during the day, bright and airy, whilst the Cult scenes were always taken at night, inside some mobile homes or sneaking around the dark, abducting children. This was a good switch throughout the movie. It would then mean that we expect the movie to end in a sun-kissed moment but instead, it took a few minutes of heading back into the darkness for us to realise that the story would never be over for Abra. I wonder if Stephen King was a fan?

We have awaken a sleeping giant (Midway 2020)

252.
Midway

7/10

There are a couple of war movies in the next couple of months that I wanted to experience in the cinema setting. Midway was the first of these and looked action-packed, to say the least. Focusing on the time of come after the attack on Pearl Habour and getting into the Battle of Midway, I'm far from a historian but littles bits seemed to spark some memories from school. Roland Emmerich gave this movie everything as a director and producer. At first, the stories were that he struggled to get the funding need to create this movie but after some funding, it wasn't long until he was creating a massive ensemble and bringing the movie to life. Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Nick Jonas and Luke Evans to name but a handful will be taking us back to 1941 and hopefully keeping this makeshift history lesson an interesting one. 

We are thrust straight into the fight as Pearl Habour is attacked to set the scene in which we will see the retaliation of the Americans.

We find Patrick Wilson as the main interceptor of messages from the Japanese to find out where they will be striking next, all whilst the trigger happy Americans are looking for any sort of revenge. The 'higher-ups' refuse to believe Wilson's character Layton, who strongly believes that Midway is going to be the next target. The movie switches between the intelligence teams, some kill hungry pilots and good old fashioned Admirals who want to give their pilots the chances they crave. There are some tensions between the higher command and these pilots but as they start to lose their men, the pilots have to step up and Skeirn's character Richard Best is one of the most experienced and I suppose you could say, most reckless, in a good way. The guy has the confidence to take the extra step but also take the rookies under his wing, mind the pun. The movie draws to a close as the pilots finally make their way through the anti-aircraft fire after the intelligence makes their point heard and the Americans catch the Japanese off guard with their plans. Secrets can never stay a secret for long when the right people are listening in. The remaining pilots are given their freedom as Best steps up to take the lead and the final attack of the movie ends with the Japanese retreating and going down with their ships in what honor they have left.  

Although there were plenty of characters in the movie, with a wide range of personalities, we were made to feel like we were following the storyline of Richard Best, the erratic pilot who would soon need to step up to lead his friends as his seniors began to drop. This means that over the next hour, we would watch this guy go from the joker he was shown to be within the first hour, disobeying his senior and not taking things too seriously and then suddenly becoming someone new. He firstly became a worrier behind closed doors after he knew the task ahead and then he stepped up to the plate, earned the respect of the new compatriots who were once his seniors but more importantly, he would start to show them the respect that they deserved. We ended up getting our hero moment out of Best, which we knew was always going to happen.

 Skrein played the part really well and after seeing him as Ajax in Deadpool, the cockiness was once again played in the beginning but the man moved along with Richard Best. Quickly switching to all other characters, it was great to see so many household names on one screen but also that each one was a completely different character from the last. From a stern Lieutenant Commander in Luke Evans, who was not down for anyone's shit, to Dennis Quaid as a Vice Admiral, refusing to leave his men, even though sickness was getting the best from him. We even had a Jonas brother back on the screen as a mechanic who showed bravery in bringing down a suicide bomber, threatening his ship. It was literally all hands on deck. 

Like I have already mentioned, I'm far from a historian and able to claim how historically accurate this movie was from time to time but during the end credits, it was really good to sit and have a little read as each character was shown along with photos of the real gentlemen who the movie was based on. Each had a write but about what would happen next in their lives and what they had sacrificed to keep the freedom of their country.

I really enjoyed this movie for what it was. Compared to something like Pearl Habour which ended up being a bloody love story, this movie was action from beginning to end and that's exactly how you grab my attention when it comes to history and that's why I learn from Indiana Jones, apart from the fourth installment. We did have the breaks from the fighting as it was important for the storyline to show how the intelligence team intercepted the messages from the Japanese, which apart from the attacks that would follow, is clearly the most integral part of the story. The movie reminded me of something that Michael Bay would be proud of with explosions galore, whether they be in the air, on land, on the deck or even at submarine level, there was plenty to go around. Don't go thinking I'm getting carried away though, this was at best a popcorn movie that was a good watch, something that I might watch again when it makes it to the living room screen but a one time watch is enough for the enjoyment and action.