Ed's Review Dot Com

Paramount Pictures, Raimi Productions,

Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson, Jose Palma, George Somner, Anson Boon, Ami Metcalf, Tina Pribicevic, Srna Vasiljevic, Cso-Cso, Colin McFarlane, Annamaria Serda, Savannah Steyn

Haley (Kaya Scodelario) is a self driven swimmer trying to make a name for herself in the sport. Her sister has married and headed off to the Northwest. The family is broken since Mom and Dad split up, and they don’t speak often. But a Category 5 hurricane is heading straight towards the little Florida seaside town where Haley grew up, and the sisters have not been able to reach their father to verify if he was somewhere safe. Haley recklessly heads to his condo, only to find he is not there and his truck is gone So Haley heads out to their old home next to the shore where he must be, only to hit the storm head on. Once at the house, with the water rising very fast, Haley finds that the town is abandoned and the town is quickly going under the storm surge and is filled with angry and hungry alligators that would love to have Haley for lunch. There’s no way out.

This is a bit of and unlikely story for many reasons, but it is a passable horror film if you gloss over the details and just enjoy the ride. The suspense and the action are top notch, and the scares are many. Like Jaws did for sharks, this film will fill your nightmares with snapping alligators. In fact, neither sharks nor alligators enjoy hunting humans for prey, but they make very horrific bad guys in this film. It is very fast paced and filled with extreme tension and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Often, in horror films like this, the story is rather far fetched, but if the action and suspense are intense as they are in this film, I don’t really mind. I enjoyed this movie and had a nice time watching it on the big screen, and I do recommend this movie to folks that love to be scared to death and really get into highly charged suspenseful material like this. Well done, and I liked it.

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Alphaville Films, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Paramount Pictures,

Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jeté Laurence, Hugo Lavoie, Lucas Lavoie, Obssa Ahmed, Alyssa Brooke Levine, Maria Herrera, Frank Schorpion, Linda E. Smith, Sonia Maria Chirila

Dr Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his wife, Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and the two children Ellie and Gage, relocate to a secluded house in Maine to get away from the rat race in Boston. Louis is the doctor at the local hospital and their new home is in the woods with a large lot away from everybody except their neighbor Jud (John Lithgow) who lives across the road. There is a plot of ground used as a pet cemetery by the local kids, but beyond is a long abandoned ancient place where rumor is that anything that is buried there could come back to life. As the Creed family tries to adjust to their new life, things get very creepy in a hurry, and they find that living next to the Pet Sematary is not necessarily a good choice. Bad things seem to happen on a regular basis. This remake of the horror novel by Stephen King is a remake of the 1989 version of the same story.

So it’s time to do a remake of Pet Sematary, hunh? Well, I’m not sure if this is one that needed to be remade, but being a lover of horror, I had to go see it. I must admit that this is a really creepy story, and the suspense, even though we know the story, is really intense. There are a couple changes to the story, and one big twist that is a surprise, and at first it ticked me off, but I did look up to see how Stephen King felt about it. Turn out the ran it by him and he totally agreed with their decision and though it was a good change to the story. The original scenes really had a huge impact on me 30 years ago! But I can understand the reasons for the change and I can see that it makes sense. Otherwise, there are emphasis on different parts of the story than from the original, but mostly it’s the same story, so it’s familiar. However, there a lots of folks out there who have never seen the original movie 30 years ago, so as a brand new story for them, I think it would have as strong of an impact as it did on me back then. The new very is very graphic and with much better special effects now than back then, it is powerful, but after all, a strong story is a strong story no matter what the format. I understand there were 3 different endings, and the test audiences picked the darkest one of the three. It was a good choice, as the ending of the original movie is not all that memorable. If you enjoy horror, this is a pretty good film.

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Paramount Pictures, Flynn Picture Company, Fremantle Productions,

Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass, Ilfenesh Hadera, Hannibal Buress, Rob Huebel, Pamela Anderson, Belinda, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jack Kesy, Amin Joseph, Charlotte McKinney

Mitch Buchannan (Dwayne Johnson) is the leader of the Baywatch team of lifeguards on the Bay. It’s Spring and time to tryout a bunch of new folks for the Summer, but screw-up double Gold Medal Olympic swimmer Matt Brody has been assigned to perform his public service as a lifeguard on the beach. Immediately he and Mitch are at odds with each other. But the main thing on Mitch’s mind is to solve the crime syndicate that has moved in and is taking over the entire bay. Fighting the local police and the corrupt city officials, Mitch and the team can’t help but trying to figure it all out despite all the messes they make.

Hollywood has had a very hard time trying to turn amazingly popular TV series into a feature film. This is another one that is going to have a tremendous uphill battle trying to gain any traction in the theater, and may end up being mostly a rental flick at that. But that’s because it has really hard competition to fight to gain a shot at some attendance. Let it be said that on Saturday Night here in the Los Angeles area, the theater was full except for a couple seats on the very front row. But Baywatch may be more popular here in it’s original stomping grounds. Nationally it seems to have struggled, but it might pick up as word goes out that it’s not nearly as bad as all of us thought it would be. I admit I assumed this was going to be awful, but surprisingly (at least to me) it wasn’t that bad. It’s childish humor, with it’s raunchy jokes and such, but it had a half way decent story line, good supporting cast, and some really funny situations. It was simply fun to watch. The challenges to win a place on the squad were reminiscent of classic summer movies like Meatballs, and other summer camp movies like that. The mystery was rather bland and easy to predict, but the chase scene was very well done, and a lot of fun. I really had a good time watching this, and for once came out of the theater wish a smile and a clear mind, all problems put away for a little bit. For the sheer entertainment, I would recommend this as a change of pace for all the superhero movies of the summer.

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Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, Huahua Media,

Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Austin Hébert, Patrick Heusinger, Aldis Hodge, Holt McCallany, Robert Knepper, Robert Catrini

“Jack Reacher” (Tom Cruise) in 2012 present Tom Cruise as an ex military police, lone vigilante type real badasss. [Click Here for Ed’s Review] Jack is back, this time under suspicion for murder, and watching people near him getting taken out at a speedy pace in this sequel to the 2012 film. Turner (Cobie Smulders) is in the office and is his primary contact, but when he arrives to see her in person he finds that she has been arrested for espionage, and those who are out to get him are after her too. It turns out it could be a huge conspiracy involving high up military personnel as well as a primary private contractor involved in a massive corrupt scheme. But Jack isn’t ready for another surprise as he finds out that he’s also wanted as a deadbeat Dad, since a woman filed a claim against him for a daughter he never knew anything about. She’s 15 now, and a true street rat named Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who is suddenly mixed up with Reacher and Turner as all three of them are on the run and trying to stay alive in this ultimately violent and extremely intense action film.

So it’s not surprising to anyone when I say that I’ve not been a Tom Cruise fan for many years, especially after the Mission Impossible disasters which I absolutely loathed. But I have to admit that he does a really good job with his Reacher character. It’s been a long time since we’ve had someone as rough and tough as this guy. He reminds me a lot of Charles Bronson in his heyday, and there is a feel a lot like the Death Wish films from the 70’s. The prime difference here is that Bronson was a private citizen who is wronged and heads out to exact revenge. But Reacher is an inside guy with his military background who has become discouraged with the corruption and heads out on his own against the system, but still with a strong feeling of right and wrong. Much like the Bourne films too, but Reacher is maybe not as smart as Bourne, but he’s certainly tougher than anyone I’ve seen in a long time. I actually really liked the original Jack Reacher, and I liked this one just as much. It’s every bit as exciting, and the addition of Cobie Smulders and Danika Yarosh really help, as both of them are really good here as well. I think Cobie was pretty good in this tough guy role, but Yarosh really blew me away with her acting skills. She really did an excellent job. All in all this is a very action filled crash fest with lots of fist fights, gun fights, and car chases, with some of the best cat and mouse scenes I’ve seen in a long time. If you like action, this is a really good film. I recommend this one for fans of the action genre. It’s a great sequel to a good original film.

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Paramount Pictures, Alibaba Pictures Group, Bad Robot,

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba

In the beginning of the 5 year mission to go where no man has gone before, Kirk (Chris Pine) takes the crew into an uncharted nebula on a rescue mission that goes very bad and strands the Enterprise and the crew out of communications range from the Federation on a planet with a really bad guy Krall (Idris Elba) who has plans to put an end of the Federation due to an old grudge. Kirk and the crew plus a few new found friends have to find a way to defeat Krall and find a way back home.

This is epic Star Trek. It is hard to believe that it has been 50 years since Star Trek first lit up our TV screens. This is a nod back to the original, perhaps as a nod to the 50th anniversary. The cast who play the younger version of the original crew do an excellent job, and this is a really good story with lots of excitement and action, along with the close relationship of the crew and a splash of real humor thrown in for good measure. I really enjoy this cast, and the addition of a brand new character, Jaylah, played by Sofia Boutella is a great addition to the cast. I saw this film in IMAX 3D and really enjoyed being in the middle of the action. This is not a perfect movie. There’s a new director this time out, and some of the choices are not perfect, but the affection for the characters, and the excellent script makes up for it. Are there some plot holes? Certainly. When has Star Trek NOT had plot holes? The style is an allegory tale, almost a science-fiction fairy tale, that does require some suspension of reality once in a while. That’s not a problem for me. I appreciate that mankind in the future will still be based in morals and values and trying to do right by one another. All in all, I really enjoyed another venture into the Star Trek universe, and found the experience very delightful. Great film!

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