Focus is a fairly good movie, but what makes it entertaining ends up reducing its “re-watchability” down to zero. Will Smith plays a high rolling con man, who uses everyone around him to meet his goals of conning thousands (and millions) out of targets. So the big surprises when the cons go down are certainly entertaining, but only the first time. In fact, it happens a few too many times in the movie, so that by the end, you are on your guard and waiting for the big reveal. This lowers the excitement that should be there at the end of the film, but it is still a good ride.
Kingsman was a much more entertaining film than I thought it was going to be. I couldn’t tell from the previews if this movie was supposed to be a serious spy movie, or more of a comedy spoof. Well it’s not a spoof, but it does have some out-of-left-field weirdness, which thankfully doesn’t detract from an otherwise good, action film. It follows the Kingsmen, a super secret spy organization in the UK, where members are given Arthurian code names (Lancelot, Gallihad, etc.). Mostly, it follows young Exie, a young man whose father was a member and who is now recruited to join the group too, by the affable Colin Firth. The ultra villain is played by Samuel L Jackson, who despite ambitions against the world, he hates and cowers from violence and bloodshed. This movie has all the secrets and double-crosses of a good Bond film, and is fun (with laughs thrown in) from the get-go.
Slow West is a pretty good “old style” western, with the feel of the oldies and goodies. The two leads are the great Michael Fassbender and the equally compelling up-and-comer Kodi Smit-McPhee. Smit-McPhee plays Jay, a young Scottish boy who has come to the western USA to find his love, who is on the run for murder, which Jay insists was not her fault. He is aided in his search by the hard-living Silas, played by Fassbender. On the way, they are hounded by a group of bounty hunters, who would love to get to the girl first, for her reward “dead or alive”, or “dead or dead” as Silas points out. Produced by A24 Films (in my opinion one of the great independent studios that keeps putting out hits), it is a fairly quiet, slow-paced movie with moments of stark, quick action. A very gripping film, it catches you early on and keeps you hanging on every moment until the surprising ending.
It is really too bad Jupiter Ascending is a sub-par movie. Made by the folks behind the Matrix movies, it features Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis in an intergalactic cat-and-mouse family conflict. Mila plays Jupiter, a girl who finds out not only are there alien species out there, but she is royalty among them. The film is visually stunning, which is saying something these days when just about every sci-fi film packs the CGI in to a ridiculous level. This movie is eye-popping in its realism and brilliance, but the story, and especially the dialogue, is sometimes downright terrible, even cringe-worthy. For true science fiction buffs, it is worth seeing for the visual spectacles alone, but you might as well watch it the volume down. You might even enjoy it more that way.
To put it bluntly, Woman in Gold is a dull film. It stars Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann, and is based on the true story of her fight to retreive her family’s artwork from a museum in Austria, which was stolen by the nazi’s when she was a girl. She is aided by lawyer Randy (Ryan Reynolds). The two are believable on camera, but if it sounds boring, that’s because it is. I’ve said before I’m a history buff, and I generally like these kinds of movies, but as much as I like to see past injustices righted, there’s not much to get excited about this film. I like a good dialogue drama as much as anyone, but I just sort of crawled to the end on this one. Maybe I learned a thing or two though.
Jons Movie Takes 