Ed's Review Dot Com

Blinding Edge Pictures, Blumhouse Productions,

James McAvoy, Anya Taylor Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, Haley Lu Richardson, Sterling K. Brown, Kim Director, Lyne Renee, Brad William Henke, Sebastian Arcelus, Neal Huff

Kevin (James McAvoy) is suffering from a Split Identity Disorder. His doctor, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley) is treating him with a little success, but is only aware of 23 of different personalities. Unfortunately there is a 24th that she is not aware of. When one of Kevin’s personalities kidnaps three girls, he takes them to a basement that is securely locked, soundproof and not easy to escape from where he holds them and prey’s on their minds until #24 shows up to do horrible things to the girls. This M. Night Shyamalan psychological thriller hit theaters this week and is certainly very suspenseful and quite shocking.

I have had a love/hate relationship with Mr Shyamalan. Some of his work I really liked, and some I just did not get. Surprisingly my list of the ones I didn’t like are on many people’s favorites list, and likewise, those I really liked, many people despised. This one I got a real jolt out of. The best thing about M. Night Shyamalan is that you must know as little as possible about the film going in, and try to see it right away before the ending gets spoiled. A couple times he has truly broken my mind. Sixth Sense is something I NEVER saw coming until the “Oh Crap” moment at the end. The Village was also one of my favorites as well because I never could see what was coming when the poor girl got out of the forest. What a shock that was to me. This one is not quite as shocking, but it was very, very suspenseful and I enjoyed every second of this film. Jame McAvoy had a blast playing all these different characters, and he slipped between them so perfectly that we really got to learn the personality of each of them as if they were separate people. Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) really nailed this movie. I have seen here is several very suspenseful movies, particularly in The Witch and in Morgan which I really thought was a gem. She is a wonderful little actress, and I will do my best to watch out for her in the future. I thought this film was very suspenseful and quite entertaining, and I didn’t see the reason for all the hate. The public seems to like it though, as it has won the first two weeks, although granted there isn’t a lot of stiff competition at this time of year. This is rated PG-13, but it would be pretty darn scary for kids under 13, so I would take that into account. There was a small child in the theater when we watched it, not a toddler, but definitely elementary aged, and it seemed a bit intense for someone that small. It is actually a though provoking suspense film, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. It was a pleasant evening.

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Blinding Edge Pictures, Blumhouse Productions,

Kathryn Hahn, Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Peter McRobbie, Deanna Dunagan

Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are two young people who live with their single Mom. Mom had a big blowup with her parents when she set out to marry the kids Dad against their wishes. The marriage failed and now she a single Mom but has not spoken to her parents in 15 years. The kids have expressed a desire to meet their Grandparents and the Grandparents have asked to see them as well, so since Mom is about to go on a cruise with her new beau, she agrees to let the kids take a week long visit with Nana and Papa. Becca decides to film everything with the ulterior motive of getting her Mom and her Grandparents back together. But the kids soon find out that there’s definitely some seriously amiss at their Grandparent’s home in rural Pennsylvania. Let the terror begin.

M. Night Shayamalan is warped. There’s no doubt about that. This is another warped film that I found extremely scary and thrilling and it was an enjoyable couple hours in the dark getting our scares on. But Night has his haters, and there are many folks that want to pile on this film because of him. I agree that he’s done a few clinkers lately, but I do like his style. That isn’t to say there isn’t anything wrong with this film though. I did like it, but I do have a few gripes. First, enough with the damn hand held “found footage” films. I do not get motion sickness, but this is another one of those movies that have the camera jumping around way too much. Meanwhile, he tries to have it both ways, as much of the time, we’re watching the kids holding the camera, and if this is supposed to be a found footage film, who’s holding that camera? But it’s not as shaky as a lot of this genre, so I can forgive that much. Secondly there are some really big plot holes in this film, but to tell you what they are would give away too much of the twist, so I’ll let it go as well. Otherwise, this is a movie with essentially 4 characters, and the four of them do and awesome job. They are all unknown to me, but Night gets the emotion out of them pretty well. It is quite scary, and that’s a good thing. Granted the concept is a bit far fetched, but it could happen, and so it is best to sit back and enjoy the film and forget trying to analyze it too much. It’s a nice horror film for Halloween and a decent job from Night, but he is warped. That’s the truth. This film had a great opening weekend when all the Night fans showed up, but has dropped off quite a bit. That’s too bad, as it’s not all that bad. If you like scary movies, then go on and give it a try.

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Columbia Pictures, Overbrook Entertainment, Blinding Edge Pictures,

Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Isabelle Fuhrman, Kristofer Hivju, Gabriel Caste, Zoë Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, David Denman, Sacha Dhawan, Lincoln Lewis

Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is the supreme fighter of the universe as we learn in this futuristic vision of space after the humans have destroyed Earth. Earth turned really bad, and everything evolved towards killing humans, so they all moved off the Earth to a distant location. But the aliens are looking to seek out the humans and destroy them, and they have a really evil creation in the blind, but keen smelling Ursa who can find humans by the smell of the pheromones that we give off when we’re afraid. Cypher has a son Kitai, who is estranged from his Dad because his Dad has been off saving the universe and leaving him alone. He feels a lot of guilt for an event that happened, and hasn’t learned how to defeat his fear. He is trying to be a soldier like his father, but so far has failed to pass the final test. On a space journey Cypher and Kitai are marooned on an evil planet, Cypher is unable to walk, and Kitai must go out for help. If he fails, they both will die. But great test await him on the multi-day journey which will test his manhood.

Well, what a predicament. I have to admit, with the bad reviews for this film, and the sudden demise from the big screen, I did not have an opportunity to view this in the theater. Now it’s available on DVD, and I just had to watch it, but I was prepared for the worst. This movie has a lot going for it, and yet, it has some huge problems that it can’t seem to overcome. I’ve always been a Night Shaymalan fan, and Will’s got the clout to get him as the director of this thing. So the camera placement, frightening scenes, and sudden surprise twists are really good. Night is a genius director. The story is excellent. According to the credits, Will wrote the story, and it’s awesome. It’s one of the best Science Fiction stories I’ve seen in a long time. But….though Will has carried some great films with his humor and his acting ability, he has nothing much to do in this movie. He sits in a chair, grunts, passes out most of the time, and yells Kitai endlessly over some futuristic communication device. Will developed this story for no other purpose than for Jaden who can’t act worth a damn. Just because you’re descended from a couple decent actors, doesn’t mean you’ll get the talent automatically, and he didn’t. I think he is even worse in this movie than he was in the “Kung Fu Kid” he made some years ago. That’s because he has no one else in this film to work with, and it’s a soliloquy, basically a one man show. And he’s not the man to carry that off, although to be fair, that’s a tall order for any kid. But the beginning of the movie is going to lose you when Jaden does his “narrator” piece to tell you all the background of the story. He can barely read, and it is truly awful. And his acting doesn’t get any better when they get to the action parts. What a waste of an excellent story.

So I feel the reason this film flopped is directly on Will’s back, as this is his pony show for his kids. Will needs a variety show or something so he can pull his kids out and show them off once in a while, but this narcissistic thing of writing whole movies for kids is going to destroy any of the credibility that Will ever built up. So if you’re an M. Night fan, and if you love sci-fi, and if you want to see a beautifully filmed space adventure, this is ok to put in your queue to watch. But if you have to pay $3.50 to go out and rent it, it’s not worth $3.50 in my opinion. If Will can write like this, then perhaps he needs to write for someone else than his own kids. Sorry Will, but you wasted a great opportunity here.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Nickelodeon Films, Paramount Studios, Blinding Edge Pictures

Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub

The Last Airbender, long awaited as M. Night Shyamalan’s latest blockbuster? Well we’ll see.   Meanwhile, I must say up front that I had never heard of the Nickelodeon Series, Avatar, The Last Airbender as my youngest child is now 18 and way past the Nickelodeon stage (unless you want to count “Degrassi” which is her last hold on her childhood).  So I was not familiar with the story, and was dragged to the theater by a wife who heard how great it was.

It’s Night Shyamalan, so I never have an idea what to expect when I walk into a Shyamalan picture.  I have a habit of catching his movies opening weekend so that I don’t have any pre-conceived notions of the story, and let him surprise the heck out of me.

Sixth Sense,  Ok, I had no idea of the twist in the end, and felt like a fool that I missed it completely.  What fun!  The Village, That one blew me away, too.  I was convinced of a bunch of 17^th century pilgrims dealing with imaginary monsters (those things couldn’t be real!) but what if they were?  When Ron Howard’s kid walked out of the compound and into the future my jaw dropped.  What a surprise!

But this time, it’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.  This time it’s more like an anime, or kung fu movie or whatever.  That being said, the actors did a pretty good job.  I feel for Aang, “The Last Airbender” though, as he sounded like they were giving him lines just before he had to say them. I thought he was not a great actor, but he handled the emotions and physical activity just fine.   No big stars is a plus for this story.  Of course one movie covers one year of the series, so we’re obviously in for more of these if this one makes a few bucks.

I must admit that I did watch the series (which is out as instant view on Netflix), and I must admin I really enjoyed the movie more.  The 20 episodes (10 hours) of cartoons had a lot more depth, but the movie covered all the highlights and the cinematograpy and special effects were spectacular.

Ok, so this is no Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter or Twilight, but again, it’s not that bad.  It was a really nice evening at the movies with some popcorn and nachos, and was a great escape.  The scenery is breathtaking and the effects are awesome.  3D was a nice effect, but didn’t add a great deal to the movie, and after a few minutes you get into the story and forget it’s even 3D.  Nice escape, but not an epic picture, but when the sequel comes out, I’ll be buying a ticket.  🙂