How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World

RATING: B

DreamWorks Animation has really fallen to the wayside in recent years. Yeah, they've generally not been as good as Pixar; but for a long time, they were their greatest competitor for better or for worse. And they had a few great franchises of their own; namely How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda. But the problem is: they haven't made an original movie that even approached good since 2013's The Croods. Since then, we've been given a couple good sequels, like HtTYD 2. But we've also been subjected to drivel like The Boss Baby and Trolls. 

Drivel like those movies has also been what's kept us waiting way longer than we should have for the third movie in this trilogy. It's been five years now since the last movie. And now in this movie, we have Toothless meeting a female Night Fury; or rather, a Light Fury, as Astrid deems it (since it's entirely light-colored instead of dark). Elsewhere, Berk and its people and dragons come under fire from a new threat named Grimmel, who wants to put an end to dragons in general. As a result of all this, Hiccup and Toothless find themselves looking for a mythical "hidden world" that Hiccup's father told him of, where they and their dragons will be safe. 

Let's get the main thing out of the way: this movie is not as good as its predecessors.While the second movie progressed near-perfectly in terms of both world-building and character development, this film doesn't make much progress aside from the "hidden world" and introduction of the Light Fury. In fact, in terms of character development, it bizarrely seems to take a step backwards. 

Hiccup, who is now chief of Berk, is having issues again with doubting himself; to the point where a few people seem to question if he's fit to be chief. Hiccup had self-doubt problems in the last movie too, but it made sense then as he wasn't sure he should be chief. But by the end he seemed ready to take the challenge on. But Hiccup just does not seem as strong of a character here; besides the fact that he seems a little weaker here (until the end--again), it also starts to not feel like his story anymore. 

But another problem is Grimmel, the antagonist. The first movie didn't have a human antagonist, but the second one did in Drago Bludvist, who was quite good and turned out to have a decent backstory too. Grimmel wants to kill dragons... because he can, basically. And he's just not as entertaining. He's not given much characterization, making him sort of a by-the-numbers villain--not what you want in your third and final movie. The acid-fire-breathing dragons he carries with him are better antagonists than he is. And that's not good. 

What does work best is, for starters, the "hidden world." The animation in this movie is already quite great, but the hidden world is an astounding work of visual art. What's unfortunate is that we don't spend enough time here--another big mistake by this film was not having its final act take place there, especially since this place is supposedly so important. Elsewhere, the relationship between Toothless and the Light Fury is also a high point due to the humor it often brings. And though the action scenes seem a bit tamed down from what the last movie gave us, they're still pretty fun. And the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless which has helped carry this series is still pretty nice. 

Then there's the matter of the final act. The climax is another misstep for the film, because there's scarcely ever a sense of danger; it just feels too easy for Hiccup and company. It does feature a pretty awesome gambit by Hiccup at the end, so that helps make up for it. But then we get an ending which really should have had a lot more impact, but it's so obvious that it's going to happen long before we get there, and then the very final scene only serves to confuse me in terms of just how much finality there is here (even though it's still a pretty good final scene). 

The Hidden World is not a bad movie by any means, and it's quite an acceptable finish to the trilogy. But it's still more inherently flawed than its predecessors, and given how much natural progression the second one showed, it's odd that this one shows quite a bit less. Nonetheless, it's still a film well worth watching if you liked the previous two (like most people did), and concludes DreamWorks Animation's probably best trilogy/franchise of all. Just keep in mind that--aside from maybe how amazing the hidden world looks--there won't be anything as good/breathtaking here as Toothless's and Hiccup's flight (with his flying suit) near the beginning of the second movie. 

Goosebumps 2

RATING: C-

The first Goosebumps movie probably was good at least partially by accident. On one hand, getting Jack Black to play a fictionalized version of R.L. Stine (the author of the books) was an interesting move that worked out pretty well. But though the movie itself turned into a surprisingly delightful blend of Gremlins and Jumanji, it could have just as easily felt tired and derivative. And in principle, was a Goosebumps movie really something we needed? Maybe it could appeal to some weird "horror-for-kids" niche, but it would've been hard to get scarcely anyone else interested. But it worked. 

Although a sequel really wasn't needed, we got one anyway. In a few respects, there's almost a "soft reboot" aspect to this one. Aside from Jack Black (more on that later), the entire original cast and characters are ditched. That's not necessarily a huge loss, but the problem is the new characters (and the vast majority of the cast playing them) really aren't any good. 

Actually, even though this movie is relatively watchable for the most part, the first 20 minutes are surprisingly terrible. We get hit with boring characters, stunningly terrible writing and dialogue, and just a whole lot of nothing in general happening. At least the "protagonist with divorced parents who moves into new neighborhood" thing from the first movie was mildly interesting, even if super cliched. 

Things change a bit when two of the new main characters (Sonny and Sam) discover an unfinished Goosebumps book in an abandoned house. And out of this one comes... Slappy? Yup, the same crazy puppet dummy from the first one. And if you're wondering how he ended up in that book, forget it. It's actually not impossible this is a different Slappy entirely--only once is it hinted that he remembers the events of the first movie. Anyways, this time Slappy is concerned mostly with just causing general chaos; though this time he wants a "family" to do it with. (If you think they're making him sympathetic, think again.) Eventually he uses some weird magic to bring a whole host of Halloween decorations/costumes to life and into monsters (a family of monsters. Get it?). However, some of them just bizarrely turn into the same monsters from the last movie. If it wasn't clear, this film does a bit of rehashing. 

Slappy is actually arguably the best thing about this movie. The first half of the movie (once he shows up, anyway) is essentially just him trolling everyone, and it's pretty amusing at times. Somehow, a scene where he's playing Rocket League with Sonny and Sam and says "I'm crushing you guys and I'm not even using my powers!" is one of the most memorable parts of the movie (probably by accident). 

However, this movie does still ultimately fall well short of the mark of the first one. This is in part because particularly in the second half, it's a little too similar to the first one--and despite Slappy's over-the-top antics which amuse, it just doesn't hit the mark as well as before. Hence why the first one may have been good by accident. There's also those pretty bad first 20 minutes, which are a slog to sit through--and a pretty ridiculous sequence where our characters get attacked by Gummy Bears. I wish I was kidding. (We do get a "You'll never take me alive!" moment at the very end of it which I chuckled at--but it's not enough to redeem the scene.) 

Probably the biggest problem of all, however, is that Jack Black is basically relegated to cameo status in this one. Even though his performance was one of the best things about the first, he doesn't show up until halfway through and even then only probably has about five minutes screen time. It seems pretty clear they were working with a lower budget this time--Black doesn't even voice Slappy like he did in the first one (though Mick Wingert does surprisingly well in his stead). 

Goosebumps 2 isn't as awful as the first 20 minutes will probably make you think it is. But it's hardly anything that good either. At times, it seems like it doesn't totally know what it is--whether it wants to be a rehash of the first one, or "Slappy: The Puppet That Trolled Everyone." Furthermore, the film can't decide if it wants to be more kid-oriented or take a more grotesque approach at times than the first one did. If you liked the first one, you probably won't hate yourself for watching this one. It helps that it's quite short at only 90 minutes. At least we probably won't get a third movie. 

Venom

RATING: D

This is a film that I didn't really believe would actually happen. It was a rather silly concept, and it was stuck in development for so long. A movie centering around a Spider-Man villain? Really? What could they possibly do with that? Oddly enough, apparently there is some interest among comic book fans for seeing movies centered around more villainous types. I can't see the appeal in that, in general. The biggest reason for this is that it generally becomes difficult to root for or like these type of--ahem--protagonists. Now, being an antihero can work if it's done correctly. But it was hard to see how it could be done here, especially for a guy who hadn't read the comics and whose only exposure to Venom was Spider-Man 3.

But the point is, I didn't believe the film would ever happen. I figured it would just be stuck in what they call "development hell" for all eternity; kind of like the X-Men Gambit film in the same genre. But now Venom has finally happened. (And Gambit might happen? Maybe? Who knows?) And it's... not as bad as it could have been. But that's probably one of the best compliments I have for it.

In this version of Venom, in a world where Spider-Man is nowhere to be seen, Eddie Brock is once again a reporter. And not a very good one; Tom Hardy's version of Brock is quite impulsive and it gets him fired. And he loses his fiancee. So he's down on his luck until, through a series of crazy events, gets bonded with the symbiote Venom. And he and the rest of his symbiote buddies (there are a few other ones on Earth) want to destroy Earth and eat its inhabitants. Nice, right?

Now, here Brock and Venom are two distinct personalities. Venom is actually a voice inside Brock's head; and one time he briefly detaches himself to speak to Brock face-to-face in some ghost-like form. This is actually executed pretty well; there's some pretty nice levity resulting from some of the dialogue between these two.

The problem here is that the movie takes a surprisingly long time to get going. It takes 35 minutes for Brock to get bonded with the symbiote. And it takes about 20-25 *more* minutes before Venom actually makes himself known via the "look" that we're used to from him. And about 30 minutes later... it's over.

Now Venom himself actually is pretty cool. But the problem is everything you have to sit through before the cool stuff finally starts happening. Basically all the characters in this movie are idiots. Brock himself isn't that enjoyable of a character, even if he isn't the weaselly jerk that Topher Grace's version of the character was. What makes it worse is that they seem to have no idea what kind of character Brock is. Is he an idiot? Is he smart? Is he down on his luck or does he have enough money to give handouts to random people? The movie has no idea. Also, I have no idea what kind of accent Hardy is trying to do for the character of Brock; it really doesn't work.

Furthermore, the plot is pretty stupid. The bad guy (the human bad guy, anyway) wants to merge humans with symbiotes and send them all into space because the planet is about to die. And then he's all too willing to give up the planet to the symbiote Riot when he shows up.

Now, some of the action scenes are pretty fun. The fight between Venom and Riot is pretty cool, even if it devolves into some silly CGI by the end. Venom dispatching some human minions by way of various methods like throwing them into each other is also fun. The car/motorcycle chase of the movie does not fare as well. It brings to mind Mission: Impossible 2 at one point, of all things.

Venom actually does partially succeed at making Brock and Venom people we don't feel too bad rooting for in this movie. That's probably one of the tougher tasks in a movie like this. Unfortunately, aside from some of the action scenes and visual effects, the movie gets just about everything else wrong. The script is laughable. You can kind of tell at times that this movie stinks of troubled production.

Even though they were able to succeed at making Venom an antihero (in a way), this still feels like an unnecessary movie. Maybe I'm in the minority of comic-book-movie fans, but a Venom movie would never have been on the shortlist of movies I'd ask for. As previously said, it's certainly not as bad as it could have been. And hardcore fans of the genre/character could probably do worse with their time. But the casual viewer can safely skip out on this. 

Bumblebee

RATING: B

I don't think hardly anyone ever expected the Transformers movies to be classics or anything. But whatever one may think of the movies, most people can probably agree that they definitely could've been better than they have been--if they hadn't been directed by Michael Bay for five movies. A visual effect and sound design wizard, but one of the worst action movie directors Hollywood has seen in recent years. People go to Transformers to see robots fight each other, not for the juvenile/crude humor or for poorly written and unappealing *human* characters. 

But after the main Transformers movies hit their lowest point yet last year with The Last Knight, the series essentially got shelved. Transformers 6 was taken off the release schedule and never returned. The only problem? The prequel spin-off about Bumblebee was already too far long along in production to stop it, I guess. Regardless, it should've been a sad last gasp for a dead franchise. But it turned out surprisingly good. And not only that, it managed to be better than all of its predecessors (not that doing so was an incredibly difficult feat). 

The first good thing about this is that Michael Bay doesn't direct. Instead, he's just the executive producer and he seems pretty limited to just doing the visual/sound effects when needed. In other words--what he should have been limited to doing all along. Instead, Travis Knight directs this film. Unless you watched Kubo and the Two Strings, you've probably never heard of him. But the directorial switch yields an immediate positive effect. 

The first 10-15 minutes of this film alone are some of the best in the entire series. Most of it revolves around a battle at Cybertron, which feels more well done than the version we saw at the beginning of Dark of the Moon. We also get to see (temporarily) more Transformers, who have been redesigned to look closer to their original 1980's counterparts--something that will certainly please fans who have watched any Transformers lore beyond the movies. Then there's a battle between Bumblebee and a lone Decepticon on Earth, and it's pretty awesome. 

But the general plot set-up of this movie has more in common with E.T. or The Iron Giant. (It also takes place in the 80's--so get ready for a lot of 80's music, including Tears for Fears and a brief Rick Astley moment.) Bumblebee is stuck on Earth, and he gets found by a teenage girl named Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) who befriends him. Unfortunately, government/army forces (led by John Cena--yup, seriously) are aware of his presence on Earth and intend to find him. And yes, that does sound a bit like the plot of E.T., doesn't it? 

This may make it sound like there's still more focus on the humans than is necessary. This is kind of true. The difference here is that (in general) it's actually more well written, and there's more heart to it. The humor is actually humorous this time (mostly). Hailee Steinfeld's character is easily more likable than any human protagonist we've had in this series thus far. There are still a few moments here and there that are just annoying and that we probably could've done without, but the fact that they even got us to really like a human protagonist in a Transformers movie is kind of unprecedented. Shia LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky was at least tolerable, but we still were infinitely more interested in the robots than him. (Probably. If you weren't interested in the robots, then heaven knows why you were watching those movies anyways...) 

Regardless, there's still a decent amount of action to go around. Most of it comes at either the beginning or the end, but much of it is still quite fun. The robot fights are a little more fluid than before this time, even relying on martial arts moves. It's also worth noting that there's actually only a few Transformers here with much screen time, which will be easier for casual viewers to keep up with. 

Despite all of the improvements, this film still has its issues. It can move a little slowly at times for those wanting more of the robot action, even if the bond between Bumblebee and Charlie actually mostly works. There are some moments that made me roll my eyes--but most of them were just cliched material rather than straight up insulting-the-viewer dialogue (like Bay's installments often had). And the story they're telling has been done before, even if it's an improvement over what we got previously in this franchise. There's also still some moments where you think "Yeah, that definitely should have killed him/her"--usually in the wake of one of the explosions (which are also toned down compared to other installments) or, in one case, a vicious robot punch. 

Bumblebee's not a classic or even necessarily great, but it is definitely a huge step in the right direction for this franchise. It gets a lot right of what the main installments in the series got wrong, and it proves it's actually possible to make a good Transformers movie (and not just one that's a guilty pleasure). There's still room for improvement, and who knows where the series will go after this (or if it goes anywhere, depending upon how much money this thing makes). But if they keep Travis Knight or any other properly competent director on board, then I'm all for more. 

Skyscraper

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RATING: D-

I remember when I first saw a trailer for this movie. It was during the Super Bowl. This was odd, because it wasn't a movie that I (or probably anyone, for that matter) had heard of prior to that. It wasn't exactly a big/highly anticipated movie--which is normally what you expect to see when it comes to Super Bowl trailers. And that trailer... well, it made an impression, though I'm not entirely sure it was a good one. On one hand, it had Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock in it, who's about as charismatic an action movie star as they come even if he's not in very many actually good movies. On the other hand, it also included jumping at least 50 feet from a crane into a giant skyscraper. Not exactly grounded in reality, right? Well, we didn't know it at the time (if memory serves, anyway), but it gets better: he's making that run and leap with a prosthetic leg. 

Somehow I think even the Fast and Furious movies would be raising their eyebrows at such an impossible stunt. But I will give that trailer credit for one thing: it left no doubt in the viewer's mind about what kind of movie it was, for better or for worse. It was a dumb action movie. And based on that preview, the only kind of positive expectations that could be placed on this movie would be that The Rock would make it at least watchable. As previously mentioned, he's a pretty doggone fun action star. 

So what exactly is this movie about, besides being about Dwayne Johnson making an impossible jump from a crane to a skyscraper with a prosthetic leg? Well, the focus is this skyscraper, which The Rock's character--Will Sawyer, a former FBI hostage squad guy--is hired to do a security check for. And this skyscraper, located in Hong Kong, is the tallest ever--taller than even the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. And just on that very day that Sawyer and his family are visiting for the security check and the building is almost ready to be opened to the public--guess what happens? Terrorists attack. Set the building ablaze. With Sawyer's family still in it. While Sawyer is outside of said building. Cue dumb action movie. (And yeah, the plot has been compared to Die Hard.) 

Sadly, there's hardly anything good about this movie. There's a couple of decent fistfights, but most of the action revolves around The Rock doing impossible stunts or people shooting at each other (and being terrible aims). And there are so many tired cliches that are used in this thing--namely, kidnapping good guy's family and threatening the hero--that the storyline just gets annoying. And as previously mentioned, most of the action just isn't that great. Probably the most interesting part is a scene in a hall of mirrors/projections (similar to John Wick: Chapter 2), but even that isn't all that well executed. 

As for the infamous skyscraper jump scene? The good news is, the long jump was *not* Sawyer's original plan. But it still becomes the plan out of necessity. The bad news is... that jump is not even the most unbelievable thing that Sawyer does in this movie. There's a part later where he has to scale down part of the on-fire building and get through some turbines (don't ask why, I already forgot) and get back up. It may not sound that different from Tom Cruise's scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible 4, but the difference is he had more proper equipment, and the building wasn't on fire and structurally unsound. Sawyer does not have the proper equipment, and the building is on fire and structurally unsound. The result is probably one of the least plausible action scenes you'll see all year. 

Skyscraper is about as good as you were probably expecting--which is to say, not good at all. Unfortunately, even The Rock can't save this. It doesn't help that there is no one else of note on the cast list. Again, though, if you saw the trailers, you probably knew this wouldn't be any good regardless. If you're wanting to see an action film this year staring The Rock, you should stick with Rampage instead. 

Announcement

So, I'm making a big change with how I'm doing reviews. Few will probably even see this in the short-term, but I still find it important to explain what I'll be doing on here for the foreseeable future. I don't want to build up the reveal for a long time, so I'll just cut to the chase and *then* explain:

I will no longer being doing weekly reviews. I will also no longer being do movies older than one year; I will focus strictly on new releases in theaters or movies that have been released recently on Blu-Ray and DVD.

The main reason for this is basically that my viewership stats have been declining over an extended period of time lately. It hadn't bothered me much, but now it's gotten to a point where scarcely anyone is reading a new post. And anyone who's ever done any sort of content creation--whether it be blogging, video content or whatever--you probably know that it's frustrating to put time and effort into something and then have hardly anyone see it. I blame this partially on Facebook's algorithms--I post my reviews on a Page for the website there, and in the last year FB has set their algorithms so that Pages in general don't show up as much in a person's News Feed anymore (at least by default, anyway).

With all of that said, I can't really stop altogether. Overall, I enjoy it too much. Movies and writing are two passions of mine, and I find that I kind of need to combine the two--even if not on a timed basis like weekly, at least on occasion. So quitting altogether isn't really something I want to do.

But it still kind of feels like a waste of time at this point to be investing time and energy into writing up reviews for older movies that a lot of people have probably already seen and then have basically no one read those reviews anyway. This is also compounded with the fact that my life is a lot busier now than it was when I first started this site.

So the question is: how often will reviews be now? Well, it's not really a question of how often anymore; it's really just a matter of when I get around to watching certain new movies on my list. I do try to get to movies that I want to see in theaters on the opening weekend. I can also say with reasonable certainty that there should be at least one or two new reviews every month--and on a good month, hopefully a lot more than that. But some months may be quieter than others, and vice versa.

Also in the future: while I won't be doing any more reviews for movies older than one year, I may still drop a rating without a link in the Review Index for movies that I never reviewed that are part of franchises. For example: Ralph Breaks the Internet is about to hit theaters. I never reviewed the original Wreck-It Ralph. I'm not planning on watching/reviewing the new one until it's released on home media, but before then I may put a rating for the original in the Review Index--without linking a review. I may do this for other franchises as well that have new movies coming out but also have missing reviews--simply for completeness and reference's sake.

So, that's the gist of things. I don't plan on seeing any more movies in theaters in 2018, but there should still be a few reviews coming down the pipeline over the next couple of months. Until the next review...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

RATING: A

It took eleven years and eight movies, but the Harry Potter series finally came to a conclusion. (Well, until the Fantastic Beasts prequels, that is.) It's kind of an impressive achievement to pull off to be able to make that many movies without ever really losing momentum--especially when some other book-to-movie adaptation series don't get the chance to finish, even with less movies. But perhaps that just drives home just how big of a phenomenon Harry Potter was/is. 

Anyone who was disappointed with Deathly Hallows Part 1 due to its slower pace won't be disappointed here. The film picks up right where the last one left off (literally doing a short replay of that film's final scene), and pretty much throws us right into the action. Here, Harry Potter and company are continuing their search to destroy the remaining Horcruxes and defeat Lord Voldemort once and for all. Unlike Part 1, though, there's less searching here and a lot more battling. 

Admittedly, even the first action set piece--a heist scene of sorts--may still feel like just killing time. However, a new destination immediately emerges afterwards for the next Horcrux--Hogwarts itself. And right when they go to find it, Voldemort's forces descend upon Hogwarts to eliminate Harry once and for all--and anyone who stands in their way. 

As such, it doesn't take very long for the big battle to begin. And when it does, even though we don't actually see all of the main war taking place, the film never lets up from there. We don't get a nearly-hour-long battle like in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (and that wasn't even the final act!), but everything that happens from here out is either action or setting up for action, and the only real breaks are for plot twists and needed exposition moments. 

While the first third of the film or so is just fine as far as Harry Potter films go, what follows from there (particularly the final 45 minutes) is so good that it puts almost the entire rest of the film series to shame. Whether it's all the awesome magical battle/dueling scenes, or one of the greatest plot twists ever pulled off late in the game, or also one of the better "apparition(s)-from-the-dead" scenes ever, there's hardly anything to not like here. Yes, we could grump a bit about one of the plot points that allows Voldemort to be defeated--but in all fairness, it was kind of shaky in the book too (regarding that blasted Elder Wand). But what we're given is still so good that one can overlook a couple of the more shaky plot points. Sometimes a film's or book's conclusion can still be great or spectacular--even if it's not quite perfect. 

Probably my greatest gripe of all with this film is how they handled Dumbledore's past. For all of the good that was done by splitting the movie into two parts and not having to cut out important stuff, they still didn't really do this part well. We meet Aberforth, Albus's brother, who attempts to cast doubt in Harry's mind of Albus. And their sister, Ariana, is briefly referenced (book fans will know the importance of all this). But the situation never really comes up again. The idea that Dumbledore isn't quite the man everyone thought he was is, in my opinion, so important in the book--but they touch on it so little in both Deathly Hallows movies. 

But beyond that, there's very little negativity that can be said. This is just a stellar conclusion to a great series. Some film series have a hard time ending things on a strong note--and seldom does a final chapter actually get to be the best one of the series. But perhaps it's easier when the final book of the source material was as good as it is.