For a film revolving around a game that most of us have not played since we were ten years old, Tag is enjoyable and funny.  Walking into this film I expected another lame comedy, but Tag surprised me.  The film is not for the easily offended or squeamish, considering many of it's jokes are over-the-top and sexual.  In fact, a family walked out of my theater within the first thirty minutes, but they should have expected the humor given the film's R-rating.

Director Jeff Tomsic (I'm Having a Difficult Time Killing My Parents) uses a cast that is well-trained in the comedy genre to portray this story based on true events.  Ed Helms (The Hangover), Jon Hamm (The Town, Baby Driver), Jake Johnson (Jurassic World, Safety Not Guaranteed), Hannibal Buress (Neighbors, Spider-Man: Homecoming), Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), and Jeremy Renner (The Town, The Avengers, Wind River) bring some ironically shallow characters to the big screen.  The story does not require much flash and pomp from the cast, but all of the actors are great at bringing their average lives out.  Supporting actors also make for exciting circumstances throughout the movie.  From the childhood crush portrayed by Rashida Jones (The Social Network) to the one-track minded gym employee portrayed by Thomas Middleditch (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Kings of Summer​), the smaller roles help to progress the storyline.

Unlike during many new comedies, I found myself chuckling throughout Tag.  The fact that Tomsic was able to make an interesting film based on the simple premise is surprising, but certainly shows storytelling talent.  I certainly don't think that there is any further progression for this story, so hopefully there won't be any sequels for this one.  One of the reasons why this film was so enjoyable was the fact that it brings out the inner child in the viewer.  As the characters constantly discuss, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing" (George Bernard Shaw).  This is a great message to back up the comedy.

The Bottom Line:  Viewers can happily return to their childhood as they watch old friends reunite for their annual tag competition.

Score: 7/10

Over a decade later, Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Iron Giant​) picks up the story of the Parr family right where he left it in 2004.  Once again, the Parr's are back in action as they balance their family life with fighting crime.  Incredibles 2 spends more time on the family life than the original film, bringing out a relatable experience for moviegoers.  Sarah Vowell (A.C.O.D) and Huck Milner create the voices of Violet Parr and Dashiell Parr as they both go through the struggles of growing up.  These characters are sassy, but also clever.  At times they act smarter than their elders, which is reflective of real life families in many cases.  The youthfulness of this film shines the brightest with the "innocent" baby, Jack-Jack.  Jack-Jack is a fun character to watch and he makes us question whether or not superpowers are dangerous or not. 

The relationship between Bob Parr and Helen Parr has a lot of interesting development in this sequel as well.  Their roles from the first film are nearly flipped around entirely.  Bob acts as the stay-at-home dad while Helen fights crime to protect her family.  Craig T. Nelson (The Family Stone) and Holly Hunter (The Big Sick) return to voice these characters respectively.  Once again, they are well-spoken and perfect fits for the characters.  As the story unfolds, Bob and Helen make the audience question stereotypical family roles.  Certainly, there can be enriched discussion after the film about these roles and their place in modern society.

For the most part, I really loved this sequel.  However, the original story still stands taller than this new installment.  The villain in Incredibles 2 is not nearly as strong of a character as Buddy from The Incredibles.  The effects are improved, but storyline is more important to me than visuals.  If this installment had stayed more focused on the Parr's family dynamic throughout the whole film, then it might have held more weight than the addition of Screenslaver.  Screenslaver is a decent villain, but does not introduce anything new to the superhero filmography.  Updated effects make for smooth animated action sequences, although Screenslaver is nothing special.  

The Bottom Line: Incredibles 2 is a fantastic watch because of the Parr family, but falls short with the crime-fighting subject.

Score: 8/10

While Blockers is certainly a comedy, the dramatic performances truly stand out to make the film meaningful.  The film was marketed as a stupid comedy full of chuckles here and there, but after viewing the film it is clear that there are deeper messages portrayed through the plot.  Parents often think that they know what is best for their children, but Blockers displays the fact that sometimes teenagers should be able to choose how to live themselves.  Leslie Mann (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), John Cena (Trainwreck), and Ike Barinholtz (Suicide Squad, Neighbors) act as "mature" adults who are trying to prevent their daughters from making rash decisions on prom night.  The immaturity of these three points out the flaws in trying to control the destiny of a younger person.

The real standout performances come from the three teenage girls portrayed by Kathryn Newton (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird), Geraldine Viswanathan (EMO the Musical), and Gideon Adlon (American Crime).  These actresses rebel against their parents to make a point.  The character development leads each of them down a different path even after they originally decide to follow the same path.  While the first half of the film slowly unravels, the story quickly picks up to lead the characters into certain directions.  Each of the storylines are relatable and seem like plausible occurrences.  These teenagers create realistic characters even when the parents are exasperatingly over-protective.  

The Bottom Line: Blockers may not be as funny as audiences were hoping for, but the message hits the nail on the head.

Score: 6.5/10

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After 18 films, Pixar still continues to release it's greatest content yet!  When I first heard about Coco, I admittedly had extremely low expectations for the film.  None of Pixar's recent films had felt fresh, original, or great since Inside Out.  However with Lee Unkrich at the film's helm, Coco transcends the recent films to become a masterpiece from the studio that started it's animation dominance with Toy Story.  

Coco is beautiful and full of detailed animation that is hard to fully admire through the constantly progressing storyline.  Taking place during Dia de los Muertos, the animators are burdened with creating intricate costumes for many of the characters.  With all of the pressure, the animators do a great job of creating smooth transitions and glorious settings.  One of the highlights of the artwork was the spirit animals.  These neon and often glowing animals are vivid and full of imagination.  Aside from that, the movements of the characters are fluid and there never appears to be a slip up in the film that probably took many years to produce.

Similarly to Inside Out, the storyline for Coco is full of heart and empathy.  The film centers around a young boy struggling to find himself between his passions and his family's values.  Of course, there are multiple twists and turns along the way.  We meet sensitive characters and awesome creatures that help guide Miguel towards the correct path.  While the film is formulaic, it still feels fresh because of the revelations that occur.  A nice addition to this Latin film is the soundtrack which includes mariachi tracks and orchestral Latin compositions.  For a film that centers around music, the original and compilation soundtracks mesh together well.

The Bottom Line: Coco is the greatest Pixar film to be released since Inside Out, revolving around a young boy's journey in finding himself.

Score: 9.5/10

This film is truly special and unique to Martin McDonagh's (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) well-crafted genre.  McDonagh's films are hard to compare with others because they come with a full serving of drama and a good amount of comedic sides.  While it might be hard to digest everything going on upon a single screening of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, there is plenty left for our cinematic tastebuds to indulge in this film many more times.

It takes really smart writing to create such deeply dumb and interesting characters.  The trio of McDormand (Fargo, Almost Famous), Harrelson (No Country for Old Men, Zombieland), and Rockwell (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Green Mile) brings acting perfection with some of the most underrated actors of our time.  After Fargo, it seems as though McDormand had been forgotten for a while.  Yet, her portrayal of Mildred is spot-on with the dark tone of McDonagh's direction.  After the death of her daughter, Mildred has a hardened heart and is looking for her own definition of justice.  One of her targets is the police chief of the town, played by Woody Harrelson.  Harrelson brings the only respectable character to life with twists and turns that will surprise first-time McDonagh-ers.

While Harrelson and McDormand are great in their roles, my favorite part of the movie would have to be Officer Dixon (played by Sam Rockwell).  Rockwell is fantastic in his role as the dumb and conflicted officer.  His character is relevant to modern news stories, and is a portrait of many issues with America's police force.  Without going into too much detail, I will say that there are a lot of interesting aspects on this character's journey.

Of course, it wouldn't be a McDonagh movie without a thin balance between darkness and comedy.  While the script-writing is not quite as solid as In Bruges, it is damn-near close.  One-liners often dominate the film, creating an uncomfortable awkwardness in the theater.  Personally, I love when directors drag audiences into an uncomfortable tone.  Good filmmaking does not have to be happy and joyous, as long as the audience is able to ponder what they are watching and the message being sent through the medium.  

The Bottom Line:  So far, this is my favorite film of 2017 because of the solid screenwriting and intriguing tone portrayed by every single character.

Score: 9.8/10

Image credit: ​By Dixiekin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49330101

Tom Cruise (Top Gun) breaks away from his Mission Impossible franchise to bring us a film that probably didn't require the dangerous stunts that his fans are used to.  Even without him hanging off of the side of a plane, fans can enjoy this brisk-paced action/drama flick.  From the very get-go, this film flies by without any stop in the action.  The opening credits prepare us for the winding journey that we are about to take with Barry Seal.  I was completely unfamiliar with this story going in and found every twist and turn to be surprising and, for the most part, unpredictable.

Something even more unpredictable about this flick is Doug Liman's (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) superb directing.  Liman's past filmography is wishy-washy, and mostly includes shallow action films.  Liman's creativity behind the camera helps to progress this story, with varying shots and photography.  The film goes from extreme close-ups to landscape shots in an instant, never ceasing to bring a spectacular image to the viewer.  Found footage brings unfamiliar viewers (such as myself) into the past time period.  So far, this is my favorite of Liman's films because the direction clearly leads the storyline.  While we are constantly thrown forward in years, it's hard to get lost or confused about the plot.

In terms of acting, Tom Cruise and Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina, The Revenant, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) give bring the energy to their respective roles.  Cruise may be typecast as this point, but I'll be damned if he doesn't play the action hero part well.  Even without huge stunt productions, it's hard to avert your eyes from Cruise piloting a plane.  I will admit that it is still hard for me to take Domhnall Gleeson completely seriously because of that one big franchise he was in as a child, but he is definitely maturing into more serious roles.  I foresee more big roles being thrown Gleeson's way after his success this year.

The Bottom Line: Liman brings on the action at a fast pace and a time period that many moviegoers weren't alive to witness.

Score: 9.3/10

Before I say anything else, I will admit that the Kingsman franchise has found a unique form of action that is fluid, fun, and cheesy.  These are good qualities for the spy spoof, even if the second installment falls flat at times.  After Kingsman: The Secret Service came out, I was fully onboard for a sequel.  Taron Egerton (Eddie the Eagle) as Eggsy and Colin Firth (The King's Speech) as Harry Hart were fun to watch as spy protagonists going head-to-head with an oddly hilarious Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, The Hateful Eight, Django Unchained, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) villain.  Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, The Imitation Game) was also the perfect sidekick to throw into the mix.  Unfortunately, something went wrong in the second installment and the script was not as clever.  Neither was the storyline.

In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Eggsy has matured a bit.  He seems to know what is at stake with the new villain, and yet has a seemingly more immature sense of humor.  A lot of the jokes are sexualized, causing viewers to question if the movie as a whole is more immature than it is clever.  Some new characters pop up to join the mix ranging from Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) to Julianne Moore (The Big Lebowski, Children of Men).  Moore's portrayal of Poppy is very enthusiastic, which came off as a bit too overblown for my taste.  Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, True Grit, Iron Man, TRON: Legacy), Halle Berry (X-Men: The Last Stand, Cloud Atlas), and Pedro Pascal (The Great Wall) act as American counterparts to the Kingsman with a decent southern attitude.  The Statesman are fun to watch, and we might see more of them if the franchise stays alive after this film.

As with the original, the technical aspects of the film are still fresh and near-perfect.  Some audiences have complained about the use of CGI, but that was the fun part of the original.  There are new weapons and action sequences that start from the very beginning of the film.  The score is once again a mix of original and compilation soundtrack, creating a constantly moving blockbuster.  While the action sequences are enjoyable, the film is about 20 or 30 minutes too long.  If some of the scenes were cut shorter, the attention span wouldn't have dwindled towards the end.  While this film was nowhere near as good as the original, I still hope for a third installment!

The Bottom Line:  Don't go in expecting to see the same solid story and performances as the original film, but enjoy the style that the franchise has developed.

Score: 6.5/10

Image credit: ​By Kubrick 574 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49224480

Before I went into this movie, I had a basic idea of the tone that Brett Haley would be going for.  The audience around me was older, which is seemingly Haley's target audience.  Based on my previous viewing of I'll See You In My Dreams at SIFF 2015, I expected something similar.  Just as I'll See You In My Dreams nearly invoked me into a trance, The Hero is an equally draggy and inactive film.  This film would play better in a nursing home than it would on the big screen.

The film has a star-studded cast, but never takes off.  The only exciting part of this film is the pleasure of listening to Sam Elliott's (Hulk, Up in the Air) voice for an hour and a half.  The cast is not bad, but the writing is just so-so.  There are a few chuckles here and there, but nothing too clever pops up.  The subject matter is deep and clearly relatable for older actors, but I never felt the connection to Elliott's character that I should have.  There is only one or two emotional scenes in the film, which had the potential of being a tearjerker.  Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad), Laura Prepon (The Girl on the Train, Orange is the New Black), and Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, The Founder​) do a decent job in their respective roles, but feel interchangeable.  Any actors in similar age groups could have portrayed these characters.

Another problem that I had with the film was the dull color palette.  Haley basically replicates the palette from his previous work, sacrificing creativity for reality.  If the color palette were a bit more exciting, my eyelids wouldn't have felt so heavy.  At times, flashbacks try to bring the audience into the perspective of Elliott's character.  Yet, these deeply symbolic flashbacks are vague and uninteresting.  The symbolism is easy to figure out, mostly involving aging and death.  It feels as if this film has been made too many times before.

The Bottom Line:  The film subject and slow story drags down the acting abilities that Sam Elliott fans have become accustomed to.

Score: 6/10 

Every so often, you need to sit back and watch a classic comedy from the past.  Modern times are filled with bad news, indecent conflicts, and too much seriousness.  Mel Brooks (The Producers) reminds us of simpler times, when we could relax and not worry about who we offended.  This is a blessing and a curse for the acclaimed director.  I like the idea of his films, but a lot of the time they are too simple in their punchlines.  Throughout Blazing Saddles, Brooks relies on racial stereotypes and sexual content to make jokes.  ​Blazing Saddles is unique because of Brooks's direction, but grows stale after the same jokes continue to appear.

For me, it was hard to settle into the genre that Brooks has molded over time.  The first half hour of the film creates the western setting for the film.  We see a chain-gang working on a railroad in the middle of nowhere.  We see vast landscapes, saloons, and small-towns in the western setting of the properly-titled film.  However, the script shows us right away that this is not a typical western genre.  Offensive racial terms are dropped here and there, without any sign of remorse.  It's as if the offensive words were never outlawed by society.  After the first half hour, we finally get to see the redeeming trait of the film, the bromance between Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and Cleavon Little (Vanishing Point​).  Both of these actors carry the film forward, progressing a storyline that constantly changes.

The storyline remains interesting for the full runtime, because of how unpredictable it is.  Nothing really makes sense, but the plot is still linear.  It's as if Brooks had no idea of where he wanted to take the film.  From the very start, we are introduced to oddball characters that are not worth remembering because they only show up once or twice.  Rather than being a clear narrative, Blazing Saddles is an hour-and-a-half of improv filmmaking.  While it may not be for me, I do acknowledge that Brooks has defined his own genre throughout his career.

The Bottom Line: It is hard to relate with a comedy as obscure as this one, but the cast helps progress the story with likable and unlikable characters meshed together.

​Score: 5/10

Image credit: ​By Towpilot - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1140646

For a three hour runtime, this is one of the quickest paced movies I have ever watched.  Scorsese (The Departed) directs this biopic about Jordan Belfort, one of the many salespeople who took advantage of others for their own gains on Wall Street.  I have not yet read Belfort's book, but I imagine that it is just as crazy as the film adaptation.  Drugs, sex, and all sorts of raunchiness progress the film forwards at a relentless pace.  Just when I wondered what could happen next, surprising events unfold as Belfort and his gang constantly get high and make millions of dollars.

A trio of acting dominates the storyline with Leonardo DiCaprio (Inception, The Departed, Titanic) at the helm.  Leo's portrayal of Belfort balances on a tightrope of lovability and immorality.  Even with his wishy-washy character, Leo leads the film in what is his best performance to date.  Don't get me wrong, The Revenant is another great film in his filmography, but nothing beats the authenticity of this role.  The other two screen-dominating roles are Jonah Hill (21 Jump Street, Superbad) as Donny Azoff and Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar, Dallas Buyers Club​) as Mark Hanna.  At a time when Jonah Hill was starting to take off, he plays the perfect henchman for Belfort to work with.  Azoff is an oddball character that is shrouded in mystery.  No actor could have been a better fit for this role.  Alongside Hill and DiCaprio, McConaughey shines bright as a mentor for Belfort.  Even though his role is short-lived, he is iconic and exciting to watch.

It still amazes me that this film is directed by Scorsese.  The Wolf of Wall Street is not for all ages, but geared toward a specific audience.  Anyone who is interested in economics might take offense with the film and its display of Wall Street crookedness.  However, at a time when everyone dreamed of being rich, the film played well to young adults.  Honestly, who doesn't dream of a life with the comfort of Jordan Belfort's.  Of course there were clear flaws with living this sort of life, but you have to admit that being able to buy a yacht and go wherever you want in the world has an appeal.  Scorsese's character study is able to appeal to wannabe millionaires even with a story as immoral as Belfort's.

The Bottom Line:  Fine acting and a quick pace push this drug-filled film forwards, creating a piece of art that will be remembered by anyone who dreams of being rich.

Score: 9/10