Argylle

Okay you got me. More different than you would expect.

I'll give credit where it's due, Matthew Vaughn knows the movies he is good at making and keeps doing them, even if he adds a lemon twist to some. Argylle couldn't be more of a twist if it tried. I'm not sure if the movie is a legit adaptation of a book or series of books but boy would I be interested to pick up one of those. Following the massive shift in lifestyle choice from quiet and simple book writer to full blown espionage agent, Elly Conway meets up with an unexpected ally named Aidan intent on keeping her safe as it appears that life is truly stranger than fiction when the pages of her recent novel are occuring in reality. I'll admit the trailer does a mighty good job making you want to see the film, because you're just wondering what in the flying pink pachyderms is going on here?? Pretty much the line, "You're a goddamn fortune teller Elly. Everything you wrote down has happened." and you wanna know why! You get your answers for sure, this ain't no bait and switch or come to your own conclusions, but maaaaan I really cannot talk about shit here. I am wandering amidst a minefield of spoilers! There are more twists than a contortionist at the circus, and granted I didn't call them from a mile away but I did call some a smidge before they happened. And while the film has flourishes of comedy, the actors commit full force and do mighty good work. Bryce Dallas Howard is truly the star of the picture, and my God does the woman act realistic in these batshit situations showcasing a lot of emotion and quick breathless line reads, she fully nails this performance to the max! Of course seeing Sam Rockwell is a treat and to know he is a legit spy but nowhere near as dashing I rather appreciate, him and Bryce have good chemistry and they are a duet through the vast majority of the film. Plus any excuse to see him bust a move is Kino. I actually expected Bryan Cranston to be the head of this government secret service but to see him as the villain was cool and while he doesn't quite get the material of espionage elite villains like Auric Goldfinger or Ernst Stavro Blofeld he works just fine. I kinda knew Henry Cavill was really just gonna be seen here and there and far from the focus but the way they incorporate his scenes in the world of the book was done rather uniquely. And I need to shoutout my gurl, the one and only, the lovely lady woman I have missed for literal years Sofia Boutella, it's been too damn long in my opinion and she's exactly how I remember her. I seriously need this damn movie to hit video quick because I need to break this down! The only thing that I could give away and that's if a very very select few individuals catch my drift here, if you are familiar with Star Wars games from the early to mid 2000s...they go there. Go see it. It's a weird movie that kinda flips the spy genre on it's head, but you have to make your own conclusion on it. The only real negative I could say and this is probably just me but this movie gets fuggin' silly. I mean ludicrous to the point of stupidity. I never thought in a trillion years I would use the words sappy or downright saccharine to explain a ffffffudge packing firefight, in fact it's probably the biggest action setpiece of the films and you know, as a lover of the lavishly ludicrous....it went too far. Dare I say jumping the shark. But you know what? It commited to that vision, it didn't hold back or apologize, and it certainly didn't give a rat's ass what I thought about it either. And the movie has that more tongue in cheek Roger Moore style of James Bond movies with the crazy gadgets, lighter tone, and essentially is a sweet distraction for an hour or two. So hey man, just because that one detail threw me off my game doesn't mean somebody else can't love it. It isn't a bad film, it's got a solid foundation with a lot of good elements on top of it even if it has it's more hokey moments. I give it 3 stars, 7.5/10! New month already and we got a few more new releases before shifting gears back closer to normal.

Tales Of The Jedi

Season two, please and thank you.




I do actually hate how short it is, that's my only complaint. When I heard we were getting a 6 episode mini-series, I was hoping in vain that they would be like, okay guys brand new animated Star Wars show, 6 episodes, 30 to 45 minutes a piece, get in! Nope. Whole damn thing is barely more than 90 minutes with credits. But like I said it's just criminally short like with Visions, you want more because there is always more to tell. Make season two take place in The High Republic era, we got Old Republic/early Empire days with this focusing on brief stories around fallen Jedi Count Dooku and rising padawan Ahsoka Tano. What's interesting though is every episode time jumps ahead, we see little baby Ahsoka OH MY GOD I would steal that child hard f***ing core, we see a really expertly designed episode where we see her evolution from newly appointed padawan of Anakin's to competent warrior straight to the goddamn Venator crash, and then we literally pick up after series finale of Clone Wars and partially see her life after the war but before she started aiding rebel scum. But my favorite parts were the Dooku parts, I had to pick up Dooku Jedi Lost and read that as homework before this show came out and it helped a lot filling in a few more gaps, as we see how increasingly disillusioned he becomes of the Senate and his constant pushing to becoming Darth Tyranus. I would watch an entire series dedicated to a mostly still unknown Sith Lord that's been around for 20 years since Attack Of The Clones came out, there ain't much Dooku media and this could be the start of rectifying that situation. I'm not one for blue lightsabers but I'd take his! It still has that distinct Clone Wars animation style yet it looks more glossy and clean, almost like a perpetual soft focus is employed. Now I have a wee theory for that, since more than half the show takes place before the Jedi are even aware the Sith have returned, it's a period of peace and prosperity for the Republic so it has a unique style to the look of everything. There's no rough scarred detail to ships and armor, you see a lot of nature shots that are akin to paintings, even when conflict arises and lightsabers are drawn it seems more mythical like seeing knights with swords right wrongs to help people, until Dooku turns heel at least. So obviously it's a Dave Filoni show with Clone Wars animation so we get our regular voice cast back, and it's always grand to hear Ashley, and Corey, and Matt, but special love for Bryce Dallas Howard voicing Yaddle and Liam Neeson's son Michael Richardson voicing Qui-Gon Jinn, that was so rad man! Lucasfilm needs to stop giving me animation blue balls though, I mean really think about this. Clone Wars started back in 2008 and was cancelled in 2014, Rebels picked up the slack the same year, had 4 seasons and ended in 2018, two years later Clone Wars comes back has 12 episodes and ended in 2020, one year later Bad Batch comes out and actually gives us a proper season, then later in 2021 Visions comes out with 9 short ass episodes, and now one year later we're still in that same boat with Tales Of The Jedi. I know Bad Batch season 2 is coming soon so we're kinda getting back on track, and I know Lucasfilm is pushing for more TV instead of films for the moment in time, I love the live action stuff but the animated fans are kinda starving for a full fledged show here. But screw it, Star Wars is Star Wars and I'm happy. 4 stars, 8/10, and we got one more before the end of it all.

Jurassic World Dominion

Alright, not a bad way to end. Now don't f*** it up and make another movie 30 years later.

Yeah, it took until the 3rd movie of the Jurassic World series to give us a jurassic world but honestly it all could have been handled much poorer. Now the plot I am about to describe might sound like they done goofed severely, because the movie's central dilemma isn't about dinosaurs. It has dinosaurs in it and they utilize them all very well, but our respective teams of old cast and new cast are brought together through the machinations of a corporate business that has developed a creataceous strand of locusts that can bring global catastrophic damage, while also kidnapping Blue's hatchling and Maisie. I know, I know, they could have made it anything but corporation baaaaad, but truthfully I was rolling with it enough to like the movie's other aspects. As I said, beautifully done how they show the world coexisting with dinosaurs and while it's not the full focus it is spotlighted long enough. I actually applaud the movie for going all out, trying to explore as many facets, angles, and situations with this backdrop of then extinct creatures in today's world and they wanted to go balls out for it and they somewhat succeed. I can appreciate that. Do I need to talk about cast? We have Laura, Sam, and Jeff back and I'll give you a twenty if you can guess how they were. It might seem like they don't have much to do and are brought back for the novelty, but it is nice to see them together again and they can have fun with it. Chris, Bryce, and Isabella still do good, particularly with Isabella getting that teen angst and attitude down to a pitch perfect science. And...as upset that I am we didn't get much Daniella Penada beyond one scene we have another new addition. Yes, hi, welcome to another edition of The Crush Chronicles vol. 98, where I now say...oh my God. DeWanda Wise, holy moly. That woman is literally so beautiful my soul ached every time I gazed at her, and she was a fun add to the cast even if everytime she was on screen I couldn't look anywhere else. A small price to pay. Moving swiftly on. Colin Trevorrow, yes the director of the Episode 9 that never was and got an upgrade from co-writer of Fallen Kingdom straight to director's chair, fairly good work I found he did. He takes advantage of nature scenery to the max, knows when to bring the movie down but also ramp it up effectively, overall did solid competent work. Better than Fallen Kingdom? Uh, no shit. So now the question becomes where does it rank for me? It's better than Jurassic Park 3, World, Fallen Kingdom, so it's top 3. But remember what I said last time. 3 stars, 7/10, from the ancient pass to the space faring future and beyond next time.

In Retrospect: Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom

Alright we gotta set the cards on the table, no matter what you see and no matter what you hear, past, present, future, there is exactly one good Jurassic Park movie. Everything else is in freefall.

Even I was shocked I never wrote an in retrospect of Fallen Kingdom cause honestly it had enough stuff to talk about twice. Now I know I dropped a huge spoil bomb in my original review, and even ranked it just below Jurassic Park but in a series like this the majority is flux. I wouldn't say it's good watching it again, I can imagine how many people and critics used the title Fallen Kingdom to get a sucker punch in on the series at that time. I liked two things both of which were seen sparingly in the film, James Cromwell and Daniella Pineda. Everything else was average at best. Daniella Pineda was rad man, full of energy and sass, intelligent, supremely easy on the eyes, her performance was just right for this movie and she did it flawlessly. James Cromwell, I'm never gonna stop praising this man. Though he is in a grand total of maybe 3 scenes, I saw that twinkle in the eye, magic dust, extraordinary effect that Sir Richard Attenborough had in the first two films. No horseshit Jack. I mean the rest of the cast is fine, there's no real bad performances albeit Justice Smith is too geeky and annoying for his own good, but the script needed a few more months to fully gestate. Now as a brainless, summer action movie, that shouldn't be held on any kind of pedestal because it's a Jurassic Park movie, is okay. It keeps up the pace, tension, and action beats rather well honestly but even when the movie tries to have a quiet slow moment it kinda fumbles and I feel the reason is it wasn't that kind of movie to begin with. It's shot competently and has some nice visual moments from time to time, but maaaan does this f***ing director love some dinosaur reveal shots. It could be a drinking game, everytime there is a flash of light or any kind of illumination that shows off a dinosaur for a moment take a swig of alcohol, but I wouldn't want anything to adversely affect your health. I can somewhat appreciate what it does for the characters but it does come off as window dressing nine times out of ten, the dinosaurs are still cool of course and look good yet strangely don't have a strong impact on the film ironically considering it's all about ensuring their survival with some moments thrown here and there. I will say however, I'm not sure if I ever wrote this down in any review since this movie came out but I was severely reminded of the Indoraptor or as I call it the Pedoraptor, like this science project gone horror show has a real fascination with getting this little girl man. It's just weird, first time you see it it runs it's claws through her hair and I'm just like, "That's a f***ing bad touch bro, hands of the no-no zone you creepy bastard." this isn't ha ha funny funny, like it was messing with me guys seriously. And don't get me started on the implications of this girl, my point was clearly made in the review and I think perfectly encapsulates just how off this series got from the tracks. If I had to give it a score, in my original first viewing I would have given it a 7 maybe even 7.5/10 but on rewatch it's dropping. 2 stars, 6/10, Dominion is coming up next so sorry about the short week of reviews, I should scrounge up some stuff for Lightyear so no worries there. I will goddamn well have words if they kill off people in Dominion that's all I'm saying.

Eclipse

Yep I was right! I hate being right about bad movies!!

Nothing happens in this movie. A conflict is resolved that has no major standing or satisfying conclusion and the movie ends where it practically began. That is not good storytelling! How do you do that? How do you have a movie about a small underground vampire army led by loose end Victoria from movie number 1 waging war on the Cullens, forcing them to team up with the wolves and take them out, and make it the most boring shit and completely irrelevant story I have ever seen in my life? Two major developments happen in this movie, Edward asks Bella to marry him after what, 3 years at best of dating(?) and the redhead gets out of the picture and both takes over an hour and a half to complete. So what you might ask happens in the intervening hour and a half? Not much! We still get brief glimmers of good characters and moments but we still revert to melodrama bullshit that would be laughed off the Lifetime channel. We get a tiny bit more lore about the werewolves which is infinitely interesting and could be it's own movie, I genuinely like how there is this great sense of family and loyalty within the pack which I liked. Further backstory is given to a few of the Cullens, both of which is interesting and even a bit enlightening almost as if the writer said, oh yeah we have other characters of this family and we don't know much about them so let's give them some story. And it's good stuff! It's original, and fascinating, and even a bit emotional stuff that we desperately needed more of in this series. I refuse to call it a saga, I will not insult your intelligence like that or my own. There's actually some hilarious dialogue from our three main leads, yet again showing how the dialogue could be more dynamic and fun, but it's so few in such a long movie. I do not like these characters very much, Bella is harboring on sociopathic and completely refuses to listen to EVERY SINGLE PERSON EVER telling her that her decisions could and will have consequences and that maybe she should sleep on the whole vampire thing. But no. As stubborn as a bull. And the fact she has the...ovaries to just make out with Jacob not 20 feet away from her future husband that I'm pretty sure every woman in the theater watching that scene had their hands down their pants, but whatever. Class act as ever Bella!! Edward is surprisingly okay even though he gets catty with Jacob every two seconds, but I like the talk they have near the end and just kinda hash things out and are kind of okay with one another, that was a nice change of pace, they don't duke it out they just talk. But Jacob, ooh boy, Jacob gets a little creepy. I'm talking obsessed, stalker, kinda rape-y creepy, it may not be for that long but Jesus fish it still happened and it's...off putting shall we say. It just has issues that could be fixed and salvaged and to add insult to injury there is always a few good things in each movie, whether they be cute little moments like the fact Charlie and Alice chit chat for awhile and they seem to get along really well. Like can I just get a movie where we see the day to day stuff of everybody besides our love triangle? I would pay to see a movie where Charlie pals around with his friends, goes to bars, fishes and hunts, and just get a little slice of his life. Or you know, getting a collage of all the Cullen's backstories and major defining moments of their lives. There is so many little gems of just good moments, and writing, and characters it boggles my mind how we end up with this. You tied up a loose end and set up a wedding. Yippee. And you know what? Stephanie Meyer ended the series with this. No seriously, this was how it was supposed to end, but people clearly did not like it just sort of ending more abruptly than The Sopranos so they wanted a real ending. Well sometimes you better be careful of what you wish for, cause now I have not one but two movies to review, and I don't want to ffff***ing watch them!! Cause we couldn't wrap it up in one movie, we had to rip off Harry Potter and do the last story in two parts! I'm gonna break something, I am so frustrated, this is gonna degrade fast into an hours long rant I need to stop.

Home stretch people, we'll see if I make it.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Okay, I may need to break my rule here about spoilers. It's not a bad movie, in fact it's one of the better Jurassic Park movies so I do say go see it but full SPOILER ALERT ahead for those who have not seen it.

The second Jurassic World follows the vein of The Lost World, you know how Jurassic World was a bigger scale Jurassic Park? Same thing here but with The Lost World. So, Jurassic World is abandoned and apparently there is a volcano active on the island, cause that happened because shut up we need a new movie, leading Claire and Owen to rescue as many dinosaurs as possible but that's only act one! Apparently people are still on the whole "we gots to weaponize dinosaurs" boat, so after the island goes kaboom our heroes have to keep the dinosaurs safe from idiot corporations. So that's story, and I bring good tidings! The characters have gotten better, Claire is now heavily intent on saving the dinosaurs, becoming a more feeling and more intimate human being since the last movie. Owen gets a lot more development with Blue to the point where it's like father and daughter and it is very touching. We get new characters, Franklin and Zia who are pretty half and half. Franklin is a screaming bitch, and Zia is everything I love in a woman. James Cromwell is in the movie (huzzah!) and he mesmerized me in his first scene, he really did, I loved him in this movie! But then I thought, aw shit I could see James Cromwell get eaten by a dinosaur. He doesn't, but I'm not sure which is a greater insult either him getting devoured or being taken out by his punk bitch of an "heir" if one can say such a thing. That sucks dude. I love the third act though, all set in this gothic mansion with this mysterious new dinosaur we have seen in the trailers. It gets into horror territory, this movie is so much more the thriller than the other movies. You saw that scene in the trailer with the little girl in her bedroom, that is the stuff of fraking nightmares okay. Nothing could be more scary than that! But here comes the supernova sized plot hole which I need to talk about because it seriously kinda pissed me off. So they are still cloning and making new dinosaurs, the newest being the Indoraptor created from the Indominus Rex DNA (Seriously did the writers have the biggest hard on for the Velociraptor?) but this is where the series finally jumped the shark or Mosasaurus if you will. The little girl we see in the trailers, she is a clone of a human being. So....why are we still riding this "make dinosaurs weapons" dead horse? You can clone human beings! Granted she is very young and might not live long, but what do you have to lose? Pull a Star Wars, find a perfect soldier template, get a clone army, shazam! You win! The Clone Wars 2.0 bitches! I'm pretty sure if I pitted 5 or 6 tanks against a Triceratops, the tanks would win. So why are we focusing on Dino-Riders? I have no idea. It is absolutely beyond stupid guys! Humans you can train, dinosaurs are gonna eat your face or stomp you into the ground! Ugh. Do you see my issue? And we got one more movie apparently so get ready for that old dance to be done again! And yet, this movie is high on my list! I'm gonna rank em' right now. Ready?

1. Jurassic Park
2. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom
3. The Lost World
4. Jurassic World
5. Jurassic Park 3

So obviously it's a good movie, flawed yes but good regardless. Better than the last, and the ending just makes you wonder how. Won't spoil that for you although you can probably guess it. I do suggest you go see it, very entertaining, dumb at moments, but a perfect summer movie to see with family and friends.

Jurassic World

Well it was slightly better than the last movie.

Okay, so Jurassic World. It is....I don't even know. Is it bad? Not really. Is it good? Not exactly. Okay so imagine if you will Jurassic Park actually opened, it got approved, and has been a thriving buisness for years. Now imagine even further that somehow people got tired of dinosaurs, to the point where they are combining DNA of several dinosaurs to create brand new ones. This is where issues crop up. Like cloning dinosaurs wasn't a bad idea enough, but now you make far more deadly and dangerous dinosaurs by playing cocktail maker. The premise is interesting! Jurassic Park is open to the public, that is a cool idea, imagine the havoc and chaos that would ensue if we had a rerun of the first movie only now, there are over 20,000 people at the park. They do one scene. Oh think of the countless varieties of gene spliced dinosaurs, the possibilities are ridiculous! They only make one, and it supposed to be this big reveal that it's about 50% Velociraptor, even though it primarily looks like one. And the worst insult of all? People got bored of dinosaurs. Are you dead sucking ferious?? What reality? I want to know. What universe is this where the human race looks at a Triceratops like an elephant at a zoo? And the oddest thing is, it almost seems like the movie is trying to send this message. They bring up stuff like, the new owner of the park after John Hammond's death created it all over again to make the human race be humble or something like that, and feel better about their existence when they encounter creatures 75 million years old. And this kid...okay, there are two kids named Zach and Gray. Gray is a kid, excited to see dinosaurs, knows a lot about them, he is on cloud 9 at this place man, he digs this hardcore. Zach is the most stereotypical disinterested teenager it makes me want to puke. The son of a bitch sees a Mosasaurus devour a shark the size of Jaws in a single bite, and looks at pictures that his girlfriend sent to him. The whole movie Gray is running amok and enjoying the park, and Zach wants to put his dick in every girl he sees despite having a girlfriend which even he seems disinterested in. I don't know if the movie is trying to make some commentary on modern technology sort of disillusioning real life spectacle, or it causing a massive disconnect with real things. Like with Claire, she sees everything in the park as inanimate, walking through holograms of dinosaurs, thinking of the dinosaurs as attractions and not living creatures, constantly on her phone and not spending time with Zach and Gray. So it seems like that's the message of the movie but it gets lost amongst the nonsensical plot and characters. Like this guy who is hell bent using Raptors in the stead of soldiers. What?? This movie is on some kind of drugs, and it is not medicinal. It's a hot mess, that's all I can say about it. It's just a sloppy, ridiculous, hot mess. And that is not fun. I am simultaneously dreading and hopeful for Fallen Kingdom, it seems so new, full of stuff we have never seen before but I hope it hits well with me. Jurassic Park 3 killed this franchise for 15 years. Ever since Jurassic Park every sequel has hurt the series, Jurassic Park 3 almost killed it, and Jurassic World did not help the problem but it didn't have anywhere to go but up. Please don't let Fallen Kingdom suck! I can't do another horrible sequel guys, I just can't. All I ask of you is to hope for the best tomorrow.