JUST MERCY (2019) – My rating 9.5/10

Just Mercy is a legal drama directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. The film is based on the memoir of the same name and is written by Bryan Stevenson. Just Mercy is the true story of Walter McMillian, who, with the help of young defense attorney Bryan Stevenson, appeals his murder conviction. The film shows the prejudices in the state of Alabama, which suppresses the rights and voices of Black innocent citizens.

In 1989, an idealistic young Harvard law graduate, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) makes the decision to defend poor Blacks in Alabama hoping to give relief and help to those who cannot afford proper legal representation. He meets with Eva Ansley (Brie Larson) and together they create the Equal Justice Initiative. At the nearby prison, Bryan meets death row inmates, including Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian (Jamie Foxx), an African-American man convicted of murdering a White woman named Ronda Morrison. Bryan looks over the evidence in the case and discovers it hinges entirely on the testimony of convicted felon, Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson), who provided a highly self-contradictory testimony in exchange for a lighter sentence in his own pending trial. Bryan’s first move is to consult with prosecutor Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall) for assistance but Chapman dismisses him without even looking at his notes. AND SO THE PREJUDICES BEGINS!

Just Mercy can cause you to get pretty angry just listening to the lies and watching the smug looks of satisfaction on the faces of bigots when they are executing power and victory over their victims. Because Just Mercy is a true story, it made it harder to digest the horrific injustices throughout the movie. Overall, the film was well done and well-acted. The sad part is these kinds of injustices are continuing to plague poor communities of color. Racism is such a waste of time as well shown in Just Mercy. You will be adversely moved and saddened but also feel a sense of exoneration because of the outcome. I recommend Just Mercy to everyone, it shows the other side of evil. The film received positive reviews from critics, as well as a nomination for Jamie Foxx for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role at the 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards. Additionally, Just Mercy grossed $35,191,640 domestically and $44,841,640 worldwide. The review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, reported that 84% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 211 reviews, with an average rating of 6.99/10. The site’s critics consensus reads: “Just Mercy dramatizes a real-life injustice with solid performances, a steady directorial hand, and enough urgency to overcome a certain degree of earnest advocacy.” Check It Out!

AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) – My rating: 7.8/10

Avengers: Endgame is a superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team,The Avengers. The film is produced by Marvell Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Avengers: Endgame is the sequel to 2012’s “The Avengers”, 2015’s” Avengers: Age of Ultron” and 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” , it is also the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Avengers: Endgame is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Endgame picks up with the surviving members of the Avengers team, along with their allies working to reverse the damage caused by Thanos during the Infinity War. I for one, anticipated Endgame with bated breath. While I thought this was a decent sequel, I was somewhat disappointed.

Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Stones to disintegrate half of all life across the universe, leaving us devastated by the deaths of our beloved super heroes. The world has waited in anticipation for the reversal of Thanos’ actions. Avengers: Endgame, part two of Avengers: Infinity, begins three weeks after the completion of Thanos’ dastardly deed, with Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) returning to Earth from deep space, carrying a spaceship containing Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) inside. Now the remaining Avengers, which include; Bruce Banner / The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Rocket (Bradley Cooper’s voice), Thor (Christopher Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and James “Rhodey” Rhodes / War Machine (Don Cheadle), must find a way to go back in time to fix what Thanos has done. Using Nebula’s knowledge, they find an injured Thanos on an unguarded planet. Their plan is to retake the Stones and reverse his actions but find he has already destroyed them to prevent further use. An enraged Thor beheads Thanos, who is now an ordinary person without the powers of the stones.

**** SPOILERS ****

Five years later, Scott Lang / Ant Man (Paul Rudd) escapes the quantum realm and meets Natsha Romanoff / Black Widow and Steve Rogers / Captain America at the Avengers’ compound. Scott explains that he experienced only five hours while trapped, which to him theorizes that the quantum realm allows time travel. The three heroes travel to ask Stark, because of his genius, to help them retrieve the Stones from the past so they can reverse Thanos’ actions in the present. Stark not believing this could be done refuses, mostly out of fear he’d lose his daughter, Morgan (Lexi Rabe). After having a short chat with his wife, Virginia “Pepper” Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Stark relents says good-bye to his family, then leaves to work with Banner, who has merged his consciousness with the Hulk’s body, hoping to stabilize travel in the quantum realm. Banner and Rocket go to the Asgardian refugees’ new home in Norway, to recruit a beer drinking, drunken, overweight Thor and Romanoff heads to Tokyo to recruit Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), who has turned into a ruthless vigilante following the disintegration of his family.

I think this is a good place to stop. It is difficult to critique this film because the entire story is a mystery for you to solve or not, so you don’t want to know how it ends or if they accomplish the mission. I was a little disappointed in this sequel. First, I felt Tony Shark deserved much more. I can’t elaborate on this since it would spoil the movie for you. Suffice to say, Iron Man should have a movie all to himself, which would give him the opportunity to explain his actions, past, present and future. I also feel Black Widow should be in that Iron Man movie to boost their fan’s moral, concerning what happened in the Endgame. I must inform you that this three hour and one minute movie is action packed with special effects beyond your greatest expectations. There were so many super heroes, from the present as well as the past, that you will find it hard to keep up. The beginning of Endgame tested our faith in the writers to pull off a Thanos’ reversal, as hopelessness was the only feelings we could muster up. After a long battle of defeats for the Avengers and company, we finally got some hope but it didn’t last long. I personally thought the Endgame could have been better written, as there were too many disappointments. Also, the quantum theory story was a bit hard to swallow. Terms like “your past is now your present” really took a lot of intellect to fully understand. BTW, that quantum statement is longer with deeper meaning; I just can’t spoil this for you by saying anymore. You have to see Avengers: Endgame for yourself. It is definitely worth seeing. The film received positive reviews for its direction, acting, entertainment value, musical score, visual effects and emotional weight, with critics lauding its culmination of the 22-film story. With an estimated budget of $356 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. It also broke numerous box office records and has grossed over $1.7 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2019, as well as the fifth highest-grossing film of all time. Check It Out!

 

CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) – My rating: 8.7/10

Captain Marvel is a superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Carol Danvers. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the twenty-first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet also contributing to the screenplay. I was dying to see Captain Marvel but wasn’t sure I’d like Brie Larson in the lead role.  Good thing I saw the movie, she’s fantastic.

In 1995, on the Kree Empire’s capital planet of Hala, Starforce member Vers/Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) suffers from recurring nightmares involving an older woman, The Supreme Intelligence /Mar-Vell / Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Bening). Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), her mentor and commander, trains her to control her abilities while The Supreme Intelligence, an artificial intelligence and the ruler of the Kree, urges her to keep her emotions in check.

****  SPOILERS BELOW  ****

During a mission to rescue an undercover operative who is infiltrating a group of Skrulls, (alien shapeshifters with whom the Kree are at war) Vers is captured by Skrull commander Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) then taken aboard their Earth-bound vessel and subjected to a memory probe. Vers manages to escape in one of the Skrull mini vessels but crash lands in Los Angeles. Her odd attire attracts S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), whose interrogation is interrupted by a Skrull attack. In the ensuing chase, Vers recovers a crystal containing her extracted memories, while Fury kills a Skrull who is impersonating Agent Coulson, who is fairly new to S.H.I.E.L.D.  Talos, disguised as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Keller, orders Fury to work with Vers on the condition he does it alone in the event of other Skrull imposters.  Fury takes Vers to a US Air Force base and discovers she was a pilot presumed to have died in 1989 while testing an experimental engine designed by a Dr. Wendy Lawson, whom Vers recognizes as the woman from her nightmares. A S.H.I.E.L.D. team led by Talos tries to capture Vers and Agent Fury but they manage to escape in a cargo jet, with Lawson’s cat Goose.  Based on Vers’ recovered memories, they fly to Louisiana to meet Vers’ best friend and former pilot, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), the last person to see Vers and Lawson alive.  Talos arrives at Maria Rambeau’s house just as Vers discovers her real name is Carol Danvers. He reveals the Skrulls are refugees searching for a new home and Dr. Lawson was a renegade Kree scientist helping them. He then plays the recovered black box from Dr. Lawson’s crashed plane, prompting Carol Danvers to remember the 1989 plane crash.  Carol also remembers that Dr. Lawson died at the hands of Yon-Rogg before she could destroy the engine’s energy-core, forcing Danvers to do so at the cost of absorbing the energy from the ensuing explosion and losing her memories.

This is a good point to stop because I wouldn’t want to give away everything.  Captain Marvel goes into deeper accounts of how Carol Danvers becomes Captain Marvel.  I found the movie exciting, fun and quite interesting.  Considering the above information, one will have to determine if Talos is telling the truth or setting up the entire team.  I learned that Brie Larson worked out for nine months preparing for this movie. She took Judo, boxing, wrestling and sharpened her knowledge by visiting Nellis AFB and meeting with active airmen before taking on the role of Captain Marvel. This is a remake of the character as Captain Marvel was introduced in 1940 by Fawcett Comics.  His (Captain Marvel was originally a male) reign lasted through 1953 until a 1951 copyright infringement suit appeared from DC Comics and Fawcett’s trademark ostensibly lapsed. Marvel debuted its new Captain Marvel character in 1967 but it didn’t take off as expected. After many tries and undergoing many changes, it looks like a female Captain Marvel is here to stay. The movie has already taken in $215.9M. Captain Marvel is being cleverly reintroduced before the next sequel of “Avengers: Endgame” which is scheduled to be released on April 26, 2019. We now know the call that went out for help on Fury’s beacon in “Avengers: Infinity War” was to Captain Marvel. If you go to see Captain Marvel, stay beyond the credits. As I always say, Check It Out!

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) – My rating: 9/10

Kong: Skull Island trailers didn’t do the film justice. I actually wasn’t that motivated about seeing the movie. I couldn’t imagine the what they could possibly throw together to make another Kong movie worth making or paying good money to see. I was surprised by the plot and the relevancy of Kong, not to mention the passion I felt. I dare say, there are some brilliant writers around who really know how to tug at ones heart, get a message to the audience all while entertaining the crap out of you.

Skull Island takes place in 1944 with two WWII fighter pilots engaged in serious combat (one American and one Japanese).  The fight was really intense and just when one of the pilots seemed like he was about to win the fight, an enormous hand raises up out of the earth, causing both soldiers to pause in shock.  Fast forward to 1973, where a former British Special Air Service Captain named James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) is being hired as a hunter-tracker by a US government agent, Bill Randa (John Goodman) to guide an expedition to map out an uncharted island known as “Skull Island”.  A Vietnam veteran helicopter squadron called The Sky Devils, led by Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), is also recruited to accompany the Skull Island crew on their expedition along with  Major Jack Chapman (Toby Kebbell) and Captain Earl Cole (Shea Whigham), who are both high ranking “right hand” members of the Sky Devils, and are responsible for escorting the entire team to Scull Island. Photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), joins the team as a photographer but is planning to expose whatever is found, believing it’s a secret military operation with dark purposes. So the team consist of a military escort, an expedition team that believes there’s something good to be found on Scull Island and a team of locals to track, record and help set up.

Skull Island proved difficult because of a storm they had to fly through to get there.  Once they arrived, to determine if the ground is hollow, Packard’s men begin dropping explosives developed by Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins), a young geologist and graduate of Yale University, recruited for the expedition by Monarch (a secret government organization) for his groundbreaking theories on seismology.  Conrad strongly objects.  The helicopters are suddenly attacked by a 100 foot-tall bipedal ape known as “Kong”, and many are destroyed. The survivors are split into two groups, their only hope for rescue is a resupply team that will meet them at the island’s northern end in three days time. In the meanwhile, Randa reveals his affiliation to the secret government organization Monarch to Packard and the expedition’s real purpose: to acquire proof of the existence of forgotten monsters, fearing that they may soon return to take back the world from humanity.

On the way they encounter a giant spider that kills one man before Packard kills it. One team learns there are local Iwi natives on the island and meets Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), an eccentric but wise and virtuous Chicagoan lieutenant of the 45th Pursuit Squadron who spent 28 years stranded on Skull Island since World War II. He knows the creatures of the island, and is a friend of the Iwi natives.  Marlow reveals crucial information about Kong.  The teams encounter many more creatures such as a large octopus, a giant stick insect, a giant buffalo, pterosaur like creatures, Skullcrawlers and a place called the Forbidden Zone.

If you think this is another King Kong movie, you’re sadly mistaken, it’s not — the plot, the acting, the special effects, the twist and turns, the suspense, the emotions, the anger and the overall message is worth every second you spend watching this movie.  Don’t judge Kong: Scull Island by the trailer, it is truly a work of art and every reason we go to the movies!

 

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