Creedy 2nd

I've watched all the other Rocky movies, so of course I had to watch this.

The Creed v Drago comes back in this rematch as a sequel not only to the fourth movie but also the first Creed movie. Creed faces having to fight as he thinks he has to prove himself to his father as well as becoming a father himself. But it isn't even that simple as so Rocky needs to step in to help out.

This is a great character piece, as the Rocky movies generally are, that happens to include some moments of boxing. Indeed, the best moments are the ones around the boxing matches when we get to see the characters interacting and being human. We have great performances from Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and of course from Sylvester Stallone himself.

Say what you will about Syl, he does great in these movies, and it's always great to see him in them. Although he's now bowed out so we'll see if the Creed set of movies even continue. Sure, there are more they can do, as it is a series of boxing movies, but they become centered around Rocky, even when they are about Creed, so we'll see.

In the meantime, whether you've seen Rocky movies or not, this is a good movie (although I doubt it will make much sense if you haven't seen the other movies).

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Northwest by North

The Embassy is doing a Hitchcock set of screenings, so this seems like a good time to catch up when times align. First up, North by Northwest.

A complete coincidence has a group of bad guys thinking that Roger Thornhill is George Kaplan. And from such small beginnings... Roger Thornhill proves to be a very able not spy and is caught up in big events and manages to survive quite well, coming across dashing women (well, one) and thugs, while managing to avoid gadgets and slow moving death traps.

Bond references? Yes, but this is a far more down to earth adventure than anything that English chap does through. Thornhill is not an agent, but does get caught up in a similar sense of events, and aside from some movie reality suspence is quite believable as things play out. (It's amazing how well action men managed to go on with not much food, while being able to cross large distances, and, most importantly, find many women to instantly attract.)

That said Cary Grant is quite attractive, as in Eva Marie Saint, so what the heck, of course they will go for each other. And hey, James Mason! (Although I kept thinking of Eddie Izzard doing his James Mason impersonations.) And is that Martin Landau I spy? Yes it is! And Hitchcock's own cameo is quite amusing.

These classic movies are classic for a reason, and I'm willing to affirm this classic status.

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MiBBie

I watched the previous three. They were fine. There was some nice comedy bits sprinkled throughout, and we aren't talking a tough plot with lots of twists. I like that in a movie at times. So I went into this happy to be watching it.

A new agent joins the MIB, teams up with an agent from another branch, and when an alien is assassinated they have to find out what's going on. So far the first movie, right? But what if the MIB are involved somehow? Huh? Bet you never saw that twist before!!!

For all that I just made it sound generic it is... perfectly fine. It isn't amazing, it's just fine, a perfectly adequate entry into the franchise. We get some places that aren't New York (so yay!), but as I mentioned, they were never going to really roll the boat out on a complex plot.

Acting wise, people where waiting for Hemsworth and Thompson and... they're fine. They look like they are cruising on easy acting here. We also have was is barely more than cameos from Emma Thomson and Liam Neeson and they are... fine.

Really, the whole movie is just fine. If you find yourself watching it, you will be entertained, but this isn't the next big thing you must see.

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Doerk Phanix

This is the last X-Men movie to be made under Fox before the merger brings it back into Disney/MCU hands, and... ooh boy.

Things happened to Jean in her childhood that now come back to her as she suddenly gains in power and... heard this before. Yeah you have. It wasn't great then, and now...

I was bored. There were just so many scenes of Jean angsting and people saying 'don't angst'. Now, that is true to the comic, but that doesn't make it good then either. Angst != character development, no matter how much of the former you might have. And as I remembered other X-men movies, we didn't even get the relief of new angst either.

Now previously, this was the third movie, so we already spent two movies with these characters. Now, all we have is whatever parts of Apocalypse you can remember, and most people can't even do that. So while this is seen as one of the key storylines people think they know, jumping straight to it isn't that interesting. Even the Batman movies don't break Batman's back immediately, and Superman isn't just meeting his Doomsday (although that also does happen... A LOT).

This movie doesn't have anything to offer, and takes two hours to not offer it.

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King Gojira

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are definitely in the zone of the sequel with even more monsters, but well... dammit, it's great! Big monsters fighting! That's what we want. The movie is still attempting to pretend the humans are interesting and there is a plotline involving them, but I seriously didn't care. And the motives for all this are cartoon villain worthy.

And if you want references to Kong, there are plenty of those.

Now, I don't know the Godzilla monster pantheon, but I could at least name the main ones. The movie does feature a fair few, but keeps a tight focus that you aren't overwhelmed with too many CGI beasts... although there is a lot of grey variant CGI on screen. Yes, you can tell who is who, but don't expect lots of colour on screen here.

Frankly, I look forward to the upcoming movie in which Gamera comes to help...

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