Ed's Review Dot Com

Warner Bros., Electric City Entertainment, RatPac-Dune Entertainment,

Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson

Christian Wolff (Ben Afleck) is a genius in math, in fact he really has super powers in that area. He is “The Accountant” and is hired out by companies wanting to know what is happening with the finances in their corporation. He is able to see numbers in patterns that no one else can see and is a master at financial forensics. He also happens to be a master shooter, and is unbelievably good as a hired assassin. But as he works to solve the latest client’s problems along with the assistant provided to him, Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), the body count starts to rise as the police try to pin him as the culprit, and the client wants him to stop investigating. But being who he is, Christian has to solve the problem and determine what is really behind this audacious crime. J.K. Simmons, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow also appear to further confuse the pot.

This is a very unusual role for Ben Affleck, but he was actually really good in this film. He plays a very quirky person in an excellent portrayal. Kendrick, on the other hand, is in a much more minor role, although she is important to the story. Her role is more wide eyed innocence, as she admires Christian, but is really in awe with what he can do. And neither of them realize the danger that they have to face. This is a suspenseful, action film, with lots of plot twists, although we’re in on what is going on long before the rest of the cast knows. It’s a bit difficult to follow, so you have to pay close attention to what is going on. It’s actually a good story, and I enjoyed the mystery of determining why the characters in this film do the things they do. I enjoyed this story and I can recommend this film for a pleasant evening trying to solve a great mystery.

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Columbia Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, LStar Capital, Mid Atlantic Films

Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Ben Foster, Sidse Babett Knudsen

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is back for the third installment of the Dan Brown novel in the “Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” series. This time he wakes up in a hospital in Italy with virtually no memory of what happened to him. His nurse, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) tries to help him with his recovery and with his memory, but someone is out to get him, and so the end up chasing all over Europe trying to solve the mystery of a evil plot to release the plague virus on the world. This time it’s based on a picture of the levels of hell in Dante’s “Inferno” and trying to decode the message and save the world is a very challenging task in this high energy spy like thriller.

What is it they call Robert? It’s like symbologist or something like that, if that’s a word. Is there such a thing? Anyway, this film is directed by Ron Howard, so it’s a high tech action thriller and all that. I wasn’t completely sold on the whole thing. There wasn’t anything wrong with Tom Hanks or Felicity Jones’ performance that put me off, and there was lots of explosions, tension, chases, suspense, and all that, but I find these stories a little bit confusing and hard to follow. Yes, eventually they figure it all out and they get it, but the focus on how he decodes these ancient messages from common works of art is sometimes just more than I care to know. Ian Fleming’s 007 has been saving the world from evil madmen for years and years, and it never gets old because the villain always takes to time to tell his plot to take over the world and manages to keep it simple stupid. (KISS). In these series of films the effort is in trying to make me understand how he uses symbols, solves clues, and gets secret decoder ring messages in a way that totally loses my interest and goes over my head. This is a prime reason why I have not really liked any of these three films. It’s just a bit off putting for me, and though Hanks and Jones and their friends and enemies put in a really good effort with wonderful acting and though it is exciting and looks great, one cylinder was missing and I was just bombarded by the hidden meaning of rearranging Dante’s levels of hell that I found, let’s face it, basically tedious and boring. That’s why I think a lot of these types of films are better done than the Da Vinci Code series, and why I’ve never had a desire to read the books, either. I wouldn’t say that it’s not worth it to watch it, especially on DVD or streaming, but just don’t expect to be blown away with the wonderful plot. Goldfinger’s plan to set off a nuclear bomb in Fort Knox to turn all the gold toxic was a lot easier for me to follow. 🙂 Ron Howard did a good job and it looks great, but the novel was a bit hard to turn into a movie that popped.

Hannibal Pictures, USS Indianapolis Production,

Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, Cody Walker, Matt Lanter, Weronika Rosati, Brian Presley, Emily Tennant, Callard Harris, Mandela Van Peebles

It was in the midst of WWII in the pacific and Captain McVay (Nicholas Cage) is captain of a Navy ship, and he and his men are given orders to deliver two packages with unknown contents to the Mariana Islands in the Philippine Sea. It is a top secret mission and so their ship must sail across the Pacific alone without other ships accompanying them. This puts them at great risk of Japan submarine attack because the ship is a dead duck if a sub attacks them. The crew has no idea what’s in the boxes, but set out on their way. The custom was for large ships like this to follow a zig-zag path, but Captain McVay decides the best move is to sail as straight and quickly as possible. The Japanese were now using manned torpedo subs, and zig-zagging was of no value if there were attacked by one of these because the suicide pilot would follow and hit you for sure, so the only choice was to get there as soon as possible and keep a low profile and hope. They delivered their packages, but were sunk by a Japanese sub on the return trip. The survivors were thrown into the sea with very basic rafts, hardly any supplies, and in water full of sharks. Because of the secret of their mission, the Navy was not searching for them and they had no contact. The sailors suffered terribly from hunger, thirst, exposure, and shark attacks.

This is based on the true story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, a cruiser that was sunk by a Japanese sub. Historically it may be correct. There is a lot more to the story than what I have given you above, and this story didn’t end when the survivors were recovered. The feel of the torment on the sea was very well done, and I feel Nick Cage did a wonderful job in portraying this character. A lot of people have complained about this film, but I think some people complain about anything Nick does. I felt he was very well suited for this role, and he did a very good job. I like how the movie at the end, in the credits gave us a look at the actors and the real sailors side by side, and there are lots of special features and interviews with some of the survivors on the DVD, even the rental version. I have briefly heard of this story, but did not really know the facts, and I was impressed with the whole story. If you can remember, Quint (Robert Shaw) from the original Jaws movie talks about the USS Indianapolis with Richard Dreyfus while aboard the ship. I was glad to learn much more about these brave men, and the terrible way they were treated by the Navy to provide the coverup of their mission. In my opinion this was a darn good movie based on real WWII history and had some very touching and thought provoking experiences. CGI is good, and I think the acting was good, and the look and feel of the story was really authentic. I recommend this move for mature teens and adults, especially those interested in military history.

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Atlas Entertainment, DC Comics, DC Entertainment,

Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Jay Hernandez, Karen Fukuhara

Our government is once again petrified that the next Superman that comes along may be a really bad guy who might be ready to wipe out humanity, so they figure they got to do something proactively to prepare in case a bad space alien shows up. So the plan is to put together a team of really bad folks with superpowers and keep them safely locked up and protected, but to hold something over their heads so that in case something bad happens, the will have a desire to do what is asked of them for their own greedy purposes. But when the super villains figure out that maybe they’re being used, many decide to go out on their own wreaking havoc and destruction everywhere as the rest try to contain them. What follows is an epic battle of evil vs more evil.

Each time I watch and review a movie featuring comic book characters, I mention the fact that I have never been a huge comic book/ comic book movie fan. But there have been some that have really impressed me and make me really glad I watched it. This one, however, isn’t one of those. I found this one really tedious, I’m sorry to say. But as I read other users and their comments, I figured out pretty quick that my feelings were felt by many other people as well which sort of validated my indecisiveness about this film. I was afraid it was my fault as a non-comics guy, but it’s more than that. I was bothered by Will Smith as DeadShot. He is a bit too recognizable to take on a role like that, and it bothered me all the way through that it was Will playing the part. There were a LOT of characters that are not really very recognizable, and it took a lot of effort to try to figure out all those characters and what their back story and motivation was so we could know where they were coming from. The battle scenes weren’t bad, but the feeling that I got was that it was all being done just to have something to do to fill up the time. The story did not catch me, and I was very apathetic as to whether they succeeded or not. The whole movie was just a bit chaotic for my taste and I sure got distracted all the way through. When it was over, I said, “That’s it?”, but then realized that I wasn’t playing that much attention to it. Not a great experience for me, so unless you’re a big Comic Book fan, there are many better choices that this one. Guardian of the Galaxy (which this movie obviously tried to cash in on) was a much better movie, for sure.

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Captivate Entertainment, Double Negative, The Kennedy/Marshall Company,

Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is still out there, and still on the run from the CIA and Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones). He’s got a friend in Agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who downloaded all the secret files in order to expose the secret stuff that is going on. The files include the Treadstone Project of which Jason is a part. Turns out he has other connections to the project that he was certainly not aware of, so as the CIA sets off a worldwide manhunt to bring in Nicky, they hope to bring in Bourne at the same time. But he’s not likely to give up easily.

With James Bond regularity we get Bourne after Bourne after Bourne. I would love to say I hate these movies, but the truth is that I don’t. But there is a great difference between Jason Bourne and all the James Bond movies. Each of the Bond movies has a villain, often a new one with a new set of plans and plots. The main things stay the same with the agency, but they are always a fresh new story. Every Jason Bourne story has the same thing. It’s Matt Damon hiding out from the CIA and trying to keep one step ahead while they chase him and try to shut him down. The one trick pony is that he doesn’t know who he really is, or how he came to be. Each film builds a little on this premise, but they are all essentially the same story. This is my problem with them. Dang it, they action is good, and the special effects and chases are well done, and Matt Damon play the spy guy good enough, as well as Tommy Lee Jones playing the corrupt CIA chief, but essentially you could sit down and watch any one of this whole series, and to tell the truth, I don’t even remember how many of them there have been, and I don’t want to take the time to look it up. So unfortunately I can’t get too excited about this, and I start to wonder when they’re just going to stop it, or come up with a new plot. When a new Bond film comes out, I’m there first weekend to see the next series, but when another Bourne movie is released, I always decide to skip it and wait for the DVD. i end up watching it, and I end up enjoying the action, but it seems it’s just been dragging out a bit too much. There must be Bourne fans out there who are dying for the next one, and if you’re one of those, please comment and let me know why it’s so exciting to watch the same plot over and over again. It’s like watching Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. They’re fun, but they always are the same. Restaurant in trouble because owners don’t want to change. Ramsey eats their food which they think is great and it totally sucks which pisses them off entirely. They start out making changes, but the service runs terrible and the thing blows up and somebody wants to quit. Then they have a heart to heart, Ramsey changes their mind, and they come back and have a great service after Ramsey remodels the place. Every episode has been the same exact formula. Here, you’re going to see Bourne on the outside running for his life trying to stay one step ahead of the agency who are trying to kill him to shut him up. It’s a close call but he escapes and finds out a couple more bits of info on who he was. Then wait for the next one and repeat the same thing. For that reason, unless you really love the series, I don’t recommend wasting any more time on the same movie all over again.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog