Sean’s movie thoughts

 Michael Jai White stars and directs this low budget action movie.  It is good. Maybe Diablo is better but I really liked Diablo.  He plays a private eye (Jaxen) who is looking for a singer. The record executive (Orlando Jones) who hired him might not be telling everything. Method Man co-stars. He was fun.  I think I have seen him in other movies and TV shows. At the same time as the investigation, Jaxon is reconnecting with an old flame Gina. (Or maybe he wishes Gina was an old flame.) Gina is played by Michael Jai White's real life wife Gillian, which is a nice touch. It was nice to see Orlando Jones again. I thought the fight scenes were good. It did not have too much humor and I liked Method Man's character.  I might like to see White and Method Man re-team. I might watch it again.

 Okay, this was good. It seems like it should not be but it is.  It was nice to have Gerard Bulter play Stoic in live action. I think that choice worked out well. It was nice to see him play a father. Maybe the original cartoon is better.  If you have not seen the cartoon, maybe you would like this version more. As live action remakes of animated movies go, this one is above average. The plot is pretty much the same as the animated movie. I wish Craig Ferguson had been in the movie to play Gobber.  That would have been nice. Nick Frost is fine as Gobber. Composer John Powell returned and that was a good choice. The music is really good.  The original star Jay Baruchel would have been too old to play Hiccup. It was probably wise not to have him cameo, that could been distracting. The actor playing Hiccup is fine but maybe not as good as Baruchel was in the original.

Apparently other people wanted to see Jurassic World Rebirth. It opened well. I still don’t want to see it. Oh well. Superman opened well. I have heard mostly good things about it. Some people don't want the movie to do well, so Zack Snyder will be brought back. Zack Snyder is not going to be brought back.  That ship has sailed. I am not talking about the bad faith talking points around the movie. I am not interested. Karate Kid Legends was good, maybe a bit awkward. I think I will watch it again. I don't think Ralph Macchio and his character needed to be in the movie but it was still nice to see him. Ben Wang was likeable as the newest Karate Kid.  Ballerina from the World of John Wick was fine. It is more than fine, and probably worth a re-watch. A young woman becomes an assassin and tries to get revenge for her father’s murder.Hopefully Ana de Armas’ next movie will let her have more fun. Maybe I was influenced by reviews I saw but Keanu Reeves seemed a bit off in this film...

There is a new Jurassic World movie coming out in July. I feel no interest in it, at least not now. I know Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are not in it. Scarlett Johansson and Marshala Ali are the new leads. It is okay for franchises to end. This will be the 7th film in the franchise overall and fourth of the Jurassic World set.  I barely remember the last Jurassic World, at this time. To be fair it came out in 2022 and I watch a lot of movies, football games, and listen to a lot of audio books. So a movie from 2022 that I might have seen once is something that could slip my mind. I remember feeling the last movie could have been or should have been more interesting. Oh well, maybe if reviews are good I will become interested. Maybe I won’t. There are other movies coming out that interest me more like the Fantastic Four movie. 

 Diablo is not connected to the video game series. It is not a John Wick spinoff either (even if two of the actors were in John Wick chapter 4). Scott Adkins stars as Cris who kidnaps a teenage girl, Eliza, who he claims is his daughter. He says her mother visited him in prison and asked him to save her from Vicente, the man Eliza believes is her father. Vicente is a criminal. Eliza's mother is dead. Vicente offers a reward for Eliza's return.  One of Vincente's henchmen calls in a psycho (Marko Zaror) to get her but he seems creepy and might have his own motives.  The movie is set in Columbia. This is the third time Adkins and Zaror have fought on screen.  I don't think their characters in John Wick chapter 4 fought. (Maybe they fight a lot off screen, heh.) It is nice to see them on screen together.  This is good. It might be better than I expected. Director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza also directed Fist of the Condor staring Zaror. 

This movie is based on a novel of the same name. A young woman (Katie Douglas) and her father move to a small town after a family tragedy. Their relationship is an important part of the film. There is something odd about the town and some of the adults.  I liked it. It is not groundbreaking. It has some nice moments but it doesn't try too hard to be funny. Horror comedies can be hit or miss for me. There are differences between the novel and the movie. One makes a fair amount of sense on a thematic level. It is hard to explain without going into much detail.I wonder if the movie would have played better if one plot twist happened later. This is not a change from the novel. Maybe these things are not interesting to people who have not read the novel or listened to the audiobook of the novel. Is this movie as good as some of the Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street movies? It is probably not as good as most Nightmare on Elm Street films but it is better than some Halloween movies. (T...