Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The reputation of Marvel is living up to it's name. While Guardians 2 by no means is a bad film, it is definitely not the masterpiece it is being heralded as. The fun is still there bit some of the novelty has definitely worn off. The continued relationship beneath the surface between Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is a bright spot, as is Baby Groot (Vin Diesel). The main problem with the film and is Rocket Raccoon or more specifically Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon. In the first film he played only a supporting character at best, a bit of comic relief. Now he is thrust into the for front, being the catalyst for most of issues between the team. Gone is his funny quips, instead replaced with a greatest hits from the previous film. Yondu (Michael Rooker) is the surprising MVP of the film as Yondu, showing us the hard back story of Peter and himself, bringing some welcome dramatic chops. Nebula (Karen Gillan) comes in a close second, again bringing the drama solidifying herself as hard character and emphasizing the change that has occurred in Gamora. It does get difficult to stomach however when the they she tries to drag dramatic emotions out of Zoe Saldana who has gone most of her career either avoiding them or doing them terribly.  Kurt Russell plays the planet personified Ego, and the name is definitely indicative of his personality. While the film tries to again remain it's own entity within the MCU, it is evident there are overt pushes to connect it so that the Guardians can be brought into the fold for Infinity War. And there in lies the problem with new Marvel films, they can no longer just be food films, they have to constantly connect to each other. Guardians manages it well but at times annoys with it's attempts to be subtle in it's connections. All in all the film is well done, not as good as the first but what sequel is? 3 stars out of 5

Fate of the Furious

Good bye Rock, hello Dwayne Johnson. The man has finally arrived. No longer can it be said that the days of true movie stardom are behind us because Johnson has somehow tapped into the reservoirs of old and burst on the scene as the next big thing. While you might be asking, but he already is a movie star and he already was the highest paid actor in Hollywood for 2016, you would be right. My answer to you is less, he did all those things, but not until Fate of the Furious has he shown his true potential of elevating every scene he is in to good, borderline great movie making. And that is an increasingly more difficult task to do with the ridiculous excess of the Fast and the Furious franchise. The single sequence that is cringeworthy that has been discussed ad nauseam is the interaction between Johnson and Jason Statham discussing their pasts, threatening each other and then laughing and accepting one another. This is the dilemma that the Fast series keeps running into of terrible dialogue and over the top action sequences. If you remove Johnson from the film it is an absolute dumpster fire of trash but with him he elevates it to the third best in the series. The sheer ridiculousness of the film is getting more and more difficult to accept and based on the US box office take, it appears that people may finally be wising up to it. Since Furious 4 they simply have been trying to one up the last movie and they finally may have one upped to far for even the most diehard fans. Don't get me wrong, the film will make over a billion dollars and there will be a ninth, but maybe now the critics and fans are wising up to what they are actually watching. Cars and explosions. By the standard of movie definition, the critics should hate this franchise just like they hate everything that Michael Bay comes up, with which they should. Somehow Vin Diesel has been bullet proof when it comes to his precious car universe. Hopefully we are finally seeing some chinks in the armor.

Fate of the Furious has the Gang fighting against themselves when Cipher (Charlize Theron) randomly shows up at the beginning of the film and shows Dom (Vin Diesel) some information that will motivate him to completely betray his entire 'family' that they have spent the last 6 films (Tokyo Drift excluded) building towards you never turn your back on family. The main question I have at this point is what the heck kind of skills does this team of car racers have that no one else in the world have? They keep getting pulled into these amazing, world ending scenarios and all they can do is drive cars really fast. When did Tej Parker (Ludicrous) become this ultimate hacker able to defeat the world’s most dangerous hacker? The only member of the team that actually has their talents introduced and explained is Ramesy (Nathalie Emmanuel) and that’s only because she created the 'God's Eye' program and was introduced in the last film. Everyone else just picks up these amazing talents whenever the plot needs them to. And the plot needs them to pull things out of thin air a lot. Since when could thousands of cars be hacked and then driven and inserted with autopilots, creating a drone car army? Or be able to do anything with a nuclear football without all the codes from the different people that MOVIES THEMSELVES have taught us they need? Or anyone be able to hack into a NUCLEAR SUBMARINE and drive it remotely? Or completely remove the nuclear fallout from detonated nuclear missiles by simply removing an electronic chip? That uranium doesn't just go away. And all of this is made actually entertaining by the charm and charisma or Dwayne Johnson. Whenever he is not on screen or in the background, the film is laughable and boring. The main lesson here is that Johnson was right to beef with Diesel over screen time because he absolutely save this film from being a clunker. 2 ½ pipes out of 4.

Furious 7

I tried to go into this movie with low expectations and view it as just a bunch of fun but I couldn’t get through it without groaning. I truly do not know how the Fast and Furious franchise has managed to escape the horrific scrutiny that the Transformers franchise is inundated with, and they have 3 more movies! Physics is thrown out the window within 15 minutes of the opening credits. I lost count on how many times logic says a character would be dead but they somehow manage to beat death. The entire team must have adimantium skeletons for the amount of punishment and abuse they take without so much as a broken bone. Hobbs is the only one who actually ends up in a hospital after an event that should have killed him and that’s only to remove him from the plot and give Dom’s team another reason to fight other than the death of Han. The one bright spot in the beginning of the film is they call back to the third film Tokyo Drift that gives and explanation for its ending. The film goes on an almost two and a half hour run time giving us big explosions and fast cars but so little attractive women. They try to distract you having no plot by throwing in an unnecessary and unbelievable romance in turmoil story between Dom and Letti. This plot line can’t seem to make up its mind on how these to feel about each other flip flopping from love to indifference and back again. The one saving grace of the film is that the last five minutes are one of the greatest tributes to a fallen actor I have ever seen. When the decision was made to have Paul Walker’s character retire from the franchise I was skeptical on how they would do it. what turned up on screen was obviously done with immense care and admiration for a fellow brother and for the first time I actually believed what these Fast & Furious films were trying to shove down the audience’s throats that these people are family. The film is definitely worth the price of admission for the ending alone; it just simply takes too long to get there. 1 star out of 4.

Fast And Furious 6

2 ½ Pipes out of 4

Fast cars, beautiful women and hunky men, fun for the whole family. Fast and Furious returns, without a cool title I might add, I a big way with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson and the rest of the crew teaming with Dwayne Johnson and Gina Carano to take down a criminal mastermind. Diesel and company do not simply have an epiphany and join the police, no they have the ulterior motive that part of the mastermind’s crew is one of their own Leti (Michelle Rodriguez) who had been believed dead. With intertwining plot points from the previous movies, Fast and Furious 6 does a surprisingly good job of keeping the audience interested with more than explosions and car chases, of which there are many. There are a number plot choices that are questionable, for instance what to do with the woman that Diesel ended that last movie in love with. It also astounds me that the CIA cannot find a notorious criminal and in order to find them resort to hiring more criminals to find him. Vin Diesel also leaves his acting depth of the muscle man action hero when trying to show his emotion demonstrate his love for other characters. While this becomes quite awkward at times it was done with good intentions, continuing the Fast and Furious tradition of showing that through all the racing, explosions and death, values and family are what truly matter. 

Fast Five

½ pipe out of 4

Let it be known right now that I think the Fast and the Furious franchise is turning into the new Saw franchise, they just don’t know when to stop. And with the ending of Fast Five it is quite obvious that they will be making a 6^th. I did not go into Fast Five with my hopes high but even the low standards I was expecting were barely met. There were numerous problems with the plot and with the realism of the movie. The story begins with explaining how Ex FBI agent Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto break Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) out of prison which is unrealistic to begin with. It also shows again the bad decision making of O’Connor that has plagued him throughout the entire series and makes you wonder why anyone keeps following his decisions. After a heist goes wrong the group starts a war with the Crime boss of Rio and also move themselves to the top of the most wanted list which brings in Federal Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) to hunt down Toretto. In order to bring down the Crime boss, they have to bring in Tyrese Gybson , Ludacris and others from the previous Fast and Furious’, which again brings in Han Lue which again must make this a prequel to Tokyo Drift. Another fact for the case that Tokyo Drift should never have been made despite it being the best one of the series. the only way this movie was saved and not total hogwash was that it had The Rock in it and had some pretty cool car chases, albeit unrealistic car chases. The acting was mediocre at best and Diesel can’t decide if he wants to be the serious bad boy that he has been the entire series or try and become more of a nice family man which does not fit him at all.