Ed's Review Dot Com

Summit Entertainment, Participant Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures,

Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien, Kate Hudson

Deepwater Horizon is a fact based docudrama covering the 2010 explosion and oil spill on the floating rig Deepwater Horizon leased by BP. The crew from Transocean dug the initial well, and stabilize it with cement then cap it off and leave before the drilling crew from BP come aboard and finish the well. As they were over a month late, and over budget, BP was pressuring them to finish up and get on with it. Due to some likely shortcuts and unwise savings, the well suddenly erupted starting a huge fire which killed 11 men, and caused the rig to sink to the bottom of the ocean starting the largest oil spill in US history. This film is the story of the events leading up to and to the evacuation and rescue of the survivors after the fire. Led by Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) and his technical right hand man Mike Williams (Mark Walberg), and their interactions with BP executive Vidrine (John Malkovich) this exciting tale feels like a simple action movie but is based on the real events of 2010.

Produced by Wahlberg and Directed by Peter Berg, this is an excellent film. The excitement and action is first rate, special effects are mind boggling, and the movie still develops the characters and their motivations, and the human interest side of the story is developed very well too. Kurt Russell is amazing, as always, and Mark Wahlberg did a fantastic job as well. It is nice to Kurt and his daughter Kate Hudson who played Mark Wahlberg’s wife together as well. The beginning of the story was a bit slow, as it takes a great deal of time to give us all the background information of who the characters are, and why they are doing what they are doing. If this were fiction, that could have been shortened a little bit, but because to the need to be truthful to the facts, it is important to give us all this information about how it could happen. As soon as I got out of the theater, I looked it up in Wikipedia to see how accurate it was, and after having seen the film, I was surprised to learn how much I knew about the facts of what happened just based on those first 40 minutes or so while the story was introduced. But one trouble starts, thing get really moving real fast. It was an awful disaster, and I feel like I was there. One point though, although 11 men died in the explosion and fire, a great deal of damage happened long after the event (and is still happening). Though the film gives us the welcome pictures of the real people portrayed, and the words on screen telling us who quit the oil business after, and what essentially happened to the people, it does not spend any time talking about the consequences of the aftermath. For that reason, I would highly recommend that after you see this exciting film, that you do a tiny bit of research on your own to try to get the full picture of the whole story. This is a very good movie, and I highly recommend it for you.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

DreamWorks Animation, Pacific Data Images (PDI),

Benedict Cumberbatch, John Malkovich, Peter Stormare, Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights

The penguins from the Madagascar series of films are back in their own adventure. Rescuing a baby penguin and being chased by seals, the penguins run into an evil genius named Dr. Octavius Brine but who is really old friend octopus Dave who is out to destroy the world as we know it, starting by capturing all the penguins in all the zoos of the world to turn them into monsters. The penguins have to team up with an elite fighting force, The North Wind, to try to fight the evil genius.

I have not been wildly amazed at Dreamworks films lately. I was not a huge fan of the whole Madagascar series. So when this film came out, I did not expect too much. I didn’t take my Grandkids (all 10 of them) to see this in the theater as I didn’t expect much. Now, I’m sorely disappointed that I did not. Just released this week, the Penguins of Madagascar really impressed me very much. The humor was great. Though it’s a very Despicable Me type film (and many, many others with the evil genius setting out for revenge), it was really well done. The characters were very well developed which is difficult when you must take a couple lovable sidekick characters and turn them into leads, and these kind of spin offs usually don’t turn out well. But I feel like this one really did. The smooth and efficient North Wind were hysterical and a great addition to the film. My grandkids would have loved seeing this on the big screen. The characters are fun, the humor is real, and the adventure is exciting. Several chases are outstanding and very exciting. All in all this animated adventure knocks it out of the park. If you have kids, watch it with them. If you love animation, make sure you see this movie. And don’t forget the Cheezy Dibbles.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures, DC Entertainment,

Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-hun Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren

Frank (Bruce Willis) is retired CIA, and happily married to Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and no longer interested in CIA matters. He’s been classified though as “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”. One day he’s met by Marvin (John Malkovich), his former partner in crime, in a supermarket. Marvin informs him of top secret data released by Wikileaks implementing them in the loss of a top secret portable nuclear device that was hidden in Russia. All the different spy agencies are after them to find out where the various parts of the device are hidden, and Frank is sucked back into the business as he and Marvin put the team back together and try to locate the device before someone else does.

The first “Red” movie was really hysterical. I was blown away by it when I watched it. This one was a letdown. It is nowhere near as good as the first. That being said, it does have some really funny moments. It’s also a relatively decent adventure spy story. Malkovich is really good as an effective agent, but is so inappropriate sometimes, it’s hysterical. He says anything he thinks. Half of Frank’s job is to keep Marvin out of trouble for his big mouth. These guys breaking into the Kremlin is a good adventure, but when you put it up beside the first film, it pales in comparison. If you’re in the mood for a decent action adventure spy story, then go ahead and watch this. It’s certainly very watchable. Just don’t expect it to be as hilarious as the first one was.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Paramount Pictures, Hasbro, Di Bonaventura Pictures

Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Hugo Weaving

Director Michael Bay takes us back to 1969 and the first landing on man on the moon in the 3rd installment of the Transformers series. An event prompted NASA to investigate but shortly later the curiosity waned and the space program closed down. Flash forward to the present and we find out that the trouble between the autobots who promote piece and the decepticons who want to dominate the world, is not over. The good guys are tricked into bringing the end of world to pass. Meanwhile Sam Witwicki (no not the one eyed green guy from Monster’s Inc) has been sidelined, gone back to school after losing his hot girlfriend only to be befriended by a new English hot girlfriend. He’s not very happy being sidelined and not able to find work after college after being a hero. But he’ll be called into action again when things get really tough.

This is a much better film than the first two in my humble opinion. This one has a plot and a storyline that makes more sense, and it’s somewhat easier for a weak guy like me to follow. In the previous movies I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. This time I could tell who was fighting who, and for some reason it was easier for me to tell the decipticons from the autobots. Besides, Leonard Nimoy has a pretty hefty part as the autobot leader before Optimus Prime, known as Sentinel Prime. He even gets to quote some of his lines from Star Trek to the delight of the audience who I have a feeling is a lot of the same people. Yes, this film has great action and great adventure. The CGI is awesome, and the battles and creatures are awesome. It’s nearly the perfect film, but I can’t rate it perfect due to one fatal problem. Shia LeBeouf’s love interest Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is absolutely dreadful. In the words of my daughter who saw the 12:01 AM premier showing, “Who would have ever thought the actress they hired would make us actually miss Megan Fox!”. She’s absolutely right. This new gal is terrible. She’s a bit of a looker, although seeing those HUGE lips on a big screen is downright scary. (Why do actresses pump up their lips in some kind of Angelina Jolie envy? It’s horrible looking). Her part is crucial all through the film, and she just didn’t carry it. Granted, Megan Fox was about the worst part of the first two as well, but at least she had the decency to try to stand off to the side and look delightful. This girl tries to be a warrior and just doesn’t pull it off. Poor Sam has bad luck in the girlfriend department and needs to try a little harder in Transformers 4.

Otherwise, the action is fantastic, sound is fantastic, and special effects are fantastic, so it’s a must see for the summer. Along with the last Harry Potter and the latest Pirates of the Caribbean, this is definitely one of the 3 or 4 must see films of this summer! Enjoy!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Mad Chance

Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, John Gallagher, Jr., Tom Wopat, Michael Shannon, Wes Bently, Julia Jones

Jonah Hex (Brolin) is a scarred bounty hunter with warrants on his own head.  He’s on the run, when the US makes him an offer of freedom from the charges in return for stopping a terrorist who is about to attempt to wreak havoc in the nation.   Turnbull (John Malkovich) is the one who murdered Jonah’s family while Jonah was made to watch.  This is what disfigured Jonah in the first place.  Turnbull faked his own death, but joined with a bunch of Conferederate supporters to try to attack and punish the union.  Hex has to stop them before July 4th.

I really did not enjoy this movie in the least.  It is based on a comic book, and I must say that I’m not typically a comic book movie fan, but this one was particularly BAD in my opinion.  There was hardly any story and everything was really ho-hum.  Megan Fox was especially awful.  Her performance was like a high school play.  I think Josh Brolin tried hard, but his speaking due to the disfigurement of his face made him really hard to understand like someone talking with lockjaw.  The worst part is though that I could just not keep my attention on the story.  It was so dull that I found myself think of other stuff almost constantly.   I was really disappointed in this film.  Some users are talking about the worst movie of the year.  Well, it certainly, to me, was the worst with the caliber of stars that were in this film.   I just can’t figure out how it got released like this. The movie can never really decide what kind of movie it was. Disjointed at best, and just not very good. I’d say skip this one unless you’re a fan of the comic book version, although I’m not sure how well they did in capturing the comics either.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog