Sean’s movie thoughts

Dwayne Johnson is reported to come back in another Fast and Furious Spin-off. (11 films of this series and four without Paul Walker aren't enough apparently.) Apparently this movie will take place between Fast X and Fast X part II (possibly the dumbest sequel name ever). That cannot be the title. Okay, good for Johnson, I guess. I have nothing against him but sometimes I wonder why he has made so many movies but so many of them are average or below average. (I am not calling him a no talent hack.) I thought the series had moved on from Dwayne Johnson in F9. I guess that big feud Johnson had with Vin Disel did not amount to much. (That made Johnson seem small.) Oh well, I will see what happens.  I did kind of like Hobbs and Shaw, Johnson's team up with Jason Statham.

This movie feels like it should be better. This stars Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds. Maybe Johnson is making so many films that a new film by him does not seem like an event. (He has had seven or eight films come out since 2017.) I still think Dave Bautista might be better in some roles but I have liked most of the films I’ve seen with Johnson. Reynolds seems to be playing a variation of Deadpool with each film. Maybe he is in a rut or he needs a slightly different role. Free Guy was a nice change of pace. Gal Galdot is okay I guess but I don’t think she has been really good outside of her role as Wonder Woman. Or else she needs Chris Pine as a co-star.  This is not terrible. I have seen worse. Gadot is working against Johnson and Reynolds. Johnson wants to clear his name after being framed for the theft of one of Cleopatra’s golden eggs. He and Reynolds team up. I just don’t think there is anything special about this film.

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt's movie Ball and Chain is going straight to Netflix. This is a superhero comedy about a couple that was on the verge of divorce that gets superpowers but they need to work together or they lose their powers. I am a little surprised that is going to Netflix. I don't know if it means his star power is on the decline or anything. Maybe with movie theaters still facing an uncertain future, the producers decided to take a deal. Craig Fairbass stars as an ex-con named Eddie in the Villain. His brother owes money to bad people in London and Eddie tries to solve the problem. Violence ensures. The trailer made this look a bit more action packed than it is (some trailers are dishonest)but Fairbass was good. I might re-watch it later this year. Fairbsass was in Avengement. The Mask of Zorro holds up. I got a new Blu-ray of it and I have not seen it for at least four years. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones were very good. The musical score was go...

The music in this film is bad. There is not a lot of it but it is bad. I don’t want to know who did that cover of Time in a Bottle. They should be in movie jail or music jail. I might have heard a worse cover of a song but I cannot think of one at this time. Also the music seemed really loud. This is good but a bit long. I don’t know why this film needed to be 2 hours and twenty something minutes. I lost some interest in the film. Not every movie needs mid credit scenes or post credit scenes. Dwayne Johnson stars as Luke Hobbs, the US. government agent, and Jason Statham Stars as ex-British agent Deckard Shaw. They come over from the Fast and Furious franchise. Vanessa Kirby stars as Shaw’s sister Hattie, a current British agent. Idris Elba stars as the villain who wants a virus that could kill millions or billions to force humanity to evolve. He frames Hattie for stealing it and specialists Hobbs and Shaw are brought in to find her. Yeah, that is the plot.  Statham and Joh...

I don’t have Franchise Fatigue or Superhero movie fatigue. At least I don’t think I do. However there are some signs that I could be developing X-men fatigue and maybe Dwayne Johnson fatigue. I am surprised about the X-men fatigue. I don’t feel excited about the new X-men movie. I might go see Dark Phoniex but I might not. Maybe I be more excited if it was a different storyline, the Dark Phoniex storyline was part of X-men 3. I am curious about the New Mutants movie but not very curious. I don’t think I have re-watched X-men Apocalypse. I might be okay with the franchise taking a few years off after this year. I like Dwayne Johnson but he makes a lot of movies. I did not like Baywatch at all. (I gave that movie at least 2 chances and have written about it.) I don’t feel excited by Hobbs and Shaw (his team up movie with Jason Statham). I am kind of glad his Doc Savage movie is not happening, I am not sure he was the right choice for Doc Savage.

Someone once told me a bad comedy is worse than a bad action movie or a bad horror movie. I have thought about that from time to time. I was not sure if that was right but I have seen some pretty bad comedies in the last four years or so. It would be unfair to review Baywatch because I never finished it and might have watched less than half of it. So, this is a not a review.  It might be the worst movie I have seen in the last two years. I think This Is Forty was possibly the worst film I have seen in the last six years. The movie is smug or mean spirited or both. Johnson comes off as unlikeable at times,which is odd. (The only other movie where he comes across as this unlikeable is Faster but that was intentional.) Zac Efron comes across better than Johnson. Alexandria Daddario is likeable but she got sidelined a lot. This movie is worse than the Will Ferrell/Amy Poehler movie the House, which itself is pretty freaking bad. However I was able to watch most of the House, so B...

As film critic Witney Seibold once said, Rainbow Connection is a cheap shot. This has nothing to do with the Scorpion King but I just heard the song and it is cheating to use that song. The Scorpion King was Dwayne Johnson’s first starring role. It is not a bad movie but Johnson does not show his charm or at least not as much as he’d show in later movies. In this one, Johnson plays a warrior out to kill an evil warlord. The action bits are well staged. Roger Ebert liked it but he was a little harsh towards Kelly Hu. Maybe her performance seemed a little less natural than others in the cast but she was playing a sorceress. Perhaps she was going for otherworldly or mysterious but it did not work out. (Also to be fair, I have no idea what the director wanted her to do.) She later became a voice actress for some animated TV shows, so maybe she got better at acting. Johnson got better too. There are four more of these movies that went straight to video.

Skyscraper is better than Baywatch. Baywatch might be Dwayne Johnson’s worst movie since 2014. He makes a lot of movies, so that ‘worst since 2014’ does mean something. Johnson stars as a security consultant and he is in China to inspect a new building. He is missing part of a leg because an explosion during his career as a FBI agent. However thieves/terrorists want something that the owner has and set fire to the building. (The villains are using some chemicals that resist the buidling’s fire control system.) Johnson’s family is in the building and he has to save them. Neve Campbell co-stars as Johnson’s wife and she has a few nice moments. Also she is age appropriate to be Johnson’s wife. I would say that it is always good to see her but I don’t think I have seen her in anything lately.  The villains aren’t special. Diehard had better villains. I just saw this movie and the only villain I remember is Johnson’s former co-worker. This is not as good as Mission Impossible Fa...

The Equalizer 2 opens this week and I realize that I had not even thought of rewatching the original film in about 2 years. I heard mixed things about the sequel but reports are that Denzil Washington’s performance was good. Maybe I will see it later. Mission Impossible Fallout comes out next week. Previews have been good. Early reviews have been good. I plan to see this one. Maybe I will watch either Mission Impossible Rogue Nation or Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol next weekend. Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper will need to make a lot of money internationally to avoid being a bomb. I did not see the film, maybe it is better than it looks. Is he in too many movies? Even if you don’t count Moana, Johnson has been in 8 movies since 2015.    

Rampage has problems. Three animals are exposed to strange chemicals and become monsters and go on a rampage. The chemicals were designed to make animals bigger and more aggressive. They make  their way to Chicago because of a odd noise that attracts them and makes them even more aggressive. I liked parts of it and I am glad that Jeffery Dean Morgan was on hand for this movie. He seemed to be having fun. If he is doing the same thing he’s doing in the Walking Dead, I don’t care because I don’t watch the walking dead. Dwayne Johnson is supposed to be playing a miserable or hateful person or at least bitter person in this film. (Maybe bitter is the right term.) His character relates more to animals than to people. His performance just did not work for me. It is not terrible but I have seen a lot of cities wrecked on films in the last few years and maybe this is just an average movie. Some movies are good, some are bad, and some are average. Maybe if I re-watch it in six months ...