The Accountant

The Accountant

With a boring name, The Accountant delivers on the action and intrigue. One of the better action flicks of the year, Ben Affleck rebounds after the dud of Batman V Superman to remind us he still has the skills. While the plot can be a stretch at its convenience at times, once one removes the stigma of the improbability of an autistic man becoming an accountant for the black-market kings of the world, it makes a lot of sense. The film follows Christian Wolfe (Ben Affleck) a heavily autistic accountant raised by a militaristic father who felt his autism was a crutch. Through brutal lessons and overexposure to triggers, Wolfe is turned into a high functioning autistic machine. Now a well-known in some circles as accountant for the underworld, cooking the books for mafia bosses, dictators and the like, he keeps a low profile as a small business tax consultant. Things go sideways when he is asked to uncool the books of a Private prosthetic company about to go public. Anna Kendrick plays the naive CBA who unintentionally found the error that brings Wolfe in to investigate and sets the whole drama in motion. There are plenty of things that are predictable in the film but they are all good natured and if you’re not paying attention they may seek up on you. You may just be too involved in the story to worry about what's coming next as I was. When Hollywood needed a solid action film to remain relevant, they have found it with the Accountant. Sometimes it’s best to go back to the basics and go with what you know. 3 pipes out of 4.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Let me start this off with if you remove this movie from the marvel universe and simply look at it as an action movie it is a fun adventure that is a little rushed but all around good fun. When you insert it in to the Marvel machine and examine what was promised and the thought that should have gone into it, the film is an incredible disappointment. To start the movie off the Avengers are storming a hydra base attacking human hydra members. Form this scene, and subsequent scenes involving battles with robots, it is incredibly clear that the humans are CGI. I mean it’s horrifically obvious. The avengers look like they are fighting with ragdolls with what these hydra members looked like. Having this introduce the movie to the audience seems to be a huge let down when they are trying to hype you up with a quick reunion battle. The audience is then rushed through the creation of the main villain of the film in a sequence where he goes from nonexistence to the most evil thing the avengers have faced in a matter of 10 minutes. It is difficult for me to take a villain seriously when he is rushed into the film at lightning speed, given little development and chooses a stupid premise to destroy humans. James Spader does his absolute best to bring out the baddie in Ultron and does a spectacular job when he is talking. But when it comes to action, Ultron is about as menacing as a wet towel. There is never a point in the film where I felt there was a chance that the Avengers would lose. Another poor decision by Marvel is the portrayal of certain members of the team. Black Widow and the Hulk are shoehorned into a romance that has little to no build up going from 0 to lets run away together in 10 seconds. Tony Stark makes a monumental judgment error and creates Ultron, only to decide to make the exact same mistake again later in the film hoping for different results. As was pointed out to me by an online critique, Captain America gets more ribbing and flack for telling Tony to watch his language than Tony gets for creating supposedly the deadliest Artificial Intelligence ever. There are a few scenes that start to build the tension between Tony and Captain for Marvels next film, Captain America: Civil War, but by the end of the film everyone is lovey dovey. Age of Ultron was billed as a very dark film with a prominent theme being death. As it turns out there is actually very little death and the few that happen have little to no emotional impact due to the build of the characters. This has mostly been a nitpicking of a decent action film; my disappointment comes from the expectations from marvel and what appears to simply be a placeholder Avengers film, keeping the fans appeased until The Infinity War. 2 ½ stars 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.

Selma

An unfortunately relevant movie for the current time we live. This movie shows that non violence can be a force for change and put on more political pressure than reactionary violence. Is it an absolute travesty that Selma received so few Oscar nominations, including snubs for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. The portrayal of Martin Luther King by David Oyelowo magnificently showed Martin Luther King as the magnificent hero we all know as well as the flawed hero that he was. Martin Luther King is currently held to an impossible standard of being the perfect non-violent leader following his convictions and never second guessing his actions. Selma brings Martin down off that high pedestal and makes him more of a tragic hero than ever. By showing that King had the same issues and self doubt as you and me, Selma shows that he was better than all of us by putting those things aside and fighting for his civil liberties. Through this humanization of MLK, director Ava DuVernay has made Martin more of a Christ like figure but not so that it is the focal point of the film. It is more of a side note, with the comparisons being so subtle that many may miss them. This comparison reminds us that he is human and also suffers from human sin. One of Martin Luther King's legacy’s biggest detractors is that he was unfaithful to his wife. The film faces it head on simply acknowledging that he is a man who makes mistakes and is not perfect. One of the most moving portions of the film is when Martin Luther King visits the grandfather of an African American young man who was murdered by police. The emotion he shows and the effect and the toll it takes on him, in this scene we can see that every African American death that he may have been the cause of he takes personally. It is only from comfort and support from his wife and supporters that he continues for his fight for black equality. This is a must see for the conscientious citizens. 4 out of 4 stars.

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

The long-awaited finale that no one was looking forward to has arrived. Peter Jackson Takes us back into the world of The Hobbit with another long exhausting adventure that was completely unnecessary. The only way that this film would be a good movie is if the entire thing were a battle of the five armies, which it was not. Jackson fills in details on the book that were not needed. He has completely forgotten what made the Lord of the Rings trilogy awesome.  He seems to believe the fans went to the theater to see fancy special effects when in reality they wanted detailed characters and good fight scenes. In this finale he goes over the top with all of his CGI characters that make no sense. He even goes so far as to CGI Orlando Bloom in order to make him appear younger which actually made him look older. Because Jackson failed miserably in the previous films to develop characters that people actually like, the first hour and a half of the film is boring character development that is come too little too late.  Then when the action begins it comes as a complete disappointment. There are no characters that you care enough about to draw you into the action. The only time there is drama or emotion is when the mounts of the characters are killed. Another aspect of the battle that is disappointing is that it is completely unrealistic. The amount of orcs and goblins far surpass the amount of humans, elves, and dwarfs combined. Had this battle actually taken place not in Hollywood, the villains would have won by sheer strength of force. Now you might say that all Lord Of the Rings battles are like this and this may be true, the difference is that in those films there is an explanation as to why the smaller force can defeat the larger one, be it reinforcements, better tactics or just blind luck. In Battle of the Five Armies, the eagles show up and we are supposed to assume that 10-15 eagles can take out an army 10,000 or more strong. While it could happen, we are never shown the finale, all we get is a dust over after the climactic disappointment of a battle between Azog and Thorin. Only those who enjoy bloated convoluted money grabs need spend their time seeing this movie in theaters.

½ star out of 4

Saving Mr. Banks

3 pipes out of 4

Who’d a thunk that Marry Poppins would still be relevant 50 years after its original release? With a star studded cast Disney gives the outside world a fresh look at the magical nanny and how she came to the big screen. The dynamic between the people person Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and the antisocial P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) is intriguing. A warning to the wise, make sure to watch this movie with a group of people, be it alone but with others in the theater or with a group of friends. I watched this movie twice, once completely alone and the second with a moderately filled theater and my, what a difference it made. Alone all I could think about was how mean and awful Travers was to everyone and I never saw her redeeming herself because of how terrible she was. On seeing it with others in the theater I was able to see more of the comedy of her animosity and the issues she was truly dealing with.  It also helped with having others around to add to the emotion of the movie making it much easier for Travers to be redeemed. As the story goes it is quite fascinating how Travers agreed to the script and how actual parts of the movie, in particular songs, where based on the interactions of Travers and the screenwriters. The one downside is that there is little in depth analysis of Walt Disney and he comes across as almost a faultless character. The film saves face by demonstrating a few faults but based on what was known about him, it is a little hard to believe that he was always cheerful and respectful to his employees. While it is a strong and emotional film and may get a little buzz around the Oscars, the only real chance of an award comes from Emma Thompson’s portrayal of a conflicted and emotionally damaged Travers. Strongly recommended for those interested in a film based on history and in need of some nostalgia. 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

1 pipe out of 4

What a disappointment. Two and a half hours of dwarfs and a hobbit running around only to not complete any type of the journey. I have had feelings about this for a long time now but this film finally proves it, that Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit series is simply a money grab. He adds random characters that have no business being there, ads aspects that virtually nullifies the first half of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and takes forever to do it. What seemed like an amazing idea of having Bennedict Cumberbatch be the voice of Smaug turned out to be wasted by the horrible interaction he has with Bilbo. The Hobbit also rehashes the issue of trust between Thorin and Bilbo that was supposed to be solved at the end of the first Hobbit. There were a number of cool but completely unnecessary action and chase scenes. The white orc is also relegated to the background after dominating most of An Unexpected Journey which is aggravating because it is an obvious attempt to drag out the storyline till the final film. Jackson also creates tension in the group of Dwarfs and even breaks them up when none of that happens in the book, simply to create unneeded tension and provide an opening for his addition of a female elf and Legolas. The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey had changes from the book but that was to be expected and they were not incredibly drastic. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug goes in the opposite direction, basically defecating on the source material and changing the whole essence of the book. This film is only recommended to be watched at home so that you can multitask because sitting in a theater for a two and a half hour movie was trying.