Terrible Plan! Movie Reviews

What I liked: This movie filled a hole I didn't know I had. Sort of a Jonah, how to train your dragon, Mobey Dick crossover sized hole. I want to live in a giant seashell house. I don't think the characters really thought through how great that future could have been because otherwise the movie world have ended there. I liked the crew of the inevitable. Just the right mix of swash buckling with eccentric pirate injuries. We had monster hunters, and monster vs monster fights, a sea witch, ship wrecks, giant storms and an evil conspiracy. What more could you hope for. The water animation was absolutely amazing and I really liked the forest? flock? float? of fluorescent jellyfish.  What I didn't: We need to discuss the security and the accountability of the orphanage. We spent a great deal of time on the kingdom's approach to endangered species, but of equally great, or possibly greater, importance is the lack of any form of childcare standards. I am concerned about the de...

What I liked: The opening scene was great. If you have ever wondered what watching a movie is like in my head, this is pretty much it. Where did the snakes come from? Are they your snakes? Who feeds them? I liked Harry Potter as the bad guy, the overly enthusiastic, billionaire, charcuterie loving bad guy. I liked the very intentional absurdity from the trainer, to the model's travel accessories, to the sequin jumpsuit, to the very excellent chair chase scene. This is the best chase scene where one of the characters does not leave their chair that you will see, unless Jackie Chan did one. Then that one is almost certainly better. I liked the surprising things that they did, they surprised me which I found impressive, especially in a movie like this that could have been extremely formulaic. I liked that they manage to stay just normal people (well a best selling romance author and her cover model) who are very very out of their depth for most of the movie and don't magically tra...

What I liked: For too long dinosaurs have been restricted to only a very specific subgenre of films. Jurassic World: Dominion seeks to rectify the situation by introducing dinosaurs into all types of film at once. Spy thriller? We have assassin dinosaurs and excessive, unnecessary globe hopping. Family drama? I give you the quaint ranch complete with dinos dozing in the logging encampment and neighbor dinosaurs. Heist? We have dino smuggling, dinosaur black market, and breaking into secret dinosaur labs. Monster Movie" We've got giant dinosaurs squaring off to battle. Natural disaster? It's a long story but we've got dinosaurs being pelted with flaming duck sized grasshoppers and world famine, again related to the duck sized grasshoppers. No, I know that doesn't sound like a natural disaster but trust me. Romance? There are kisses. Nature documentary? Beautiful shots of dinosaurs living peacefully with non-dinosaur animals. It's like the creative team sat down ...

What I liked: I want whatever phone plan they have. This ranks in my wish list just below the centrifuge that CSI has. Their phones are awesome. They work internationally without problem. They work several stories under the city. They work without interruption on isolated desert islands. They work after being submerged for minutes at a time. And with the number of intense falls the characters take, they seem to be impervious to all kinds of impact damage. This is the phone I need. I also learned that I am a huge fan of 1500's shipbuilding and engineering. The structural integrity of those ships was spectacular and that all of the mechanics of the treasure hunt stood up surprisingly well to modernization (plumbing, electricity, subways, regrouting) throughout the city. I liked the chase scenes running across roof tops or weaving a helicopter carrying a 16th century ship through rock formations are cool, but what is the best way to top the stereotypical chase on top of a train? Why h...

What I liked: I did like the ridiculous museum heist at the beginning and while the sneaking, prying, and stealing were impressive, what I was most astounded by was the extremely fast costume change. Also, if you were afraid that the puns you knew and loved from the original ride would be lost, do not despair! There are puns. Lots of puns. The jaguar fight was pretty cool, I mean who hasn't wanted to watch the Rock wrestle a jaguar? I liked the canoe elevator, impractical and surrounded by very poorly conceived attempts at redemption (I mean who came up with that and thought "yeah this is definitely a good idea"?). But the elevator was cool. I liked that the Rock gave off very Han Soloy vibes for most of the film. I like his tourist cruise and his hustles.  What I didn't: This is the story of a trip on a river, but I think that the people who told the story do not know how rivers, or maybe water in general, work. For example the dilapidated boat is going upstream towa...

What I liked: The explosions are fun. The gadgets are cooky. All of the spies are surprisingly ept, breaking the rule of N=n+1 for spy movies. I thought Venice was very well represented, though I remember there being about twice as many pigeons there.  What I didn't: However, for being surprisingly good at their jobs they also are surprisingly bad, like not knowing that the target has a sports car, airplane, and submarine and not knowing the parking location for said vehicles. Also, I believe that by the end of the film IRB would mandate far far harsher penalties for our little inventor's approach to testing his gadgets. Let's just say robust testing and informed consent were a bit subpar. I did not find the bird sidekicks particularly funny. I wasn't in a theater so couldn't tell if this was me being the wrong audience or if the birds were just not funny. Finally, as far as strategies go, putting all of your high value assets in a single location is bad. Especially...

What I liked: As with the other two installments, I loved the sheep. They have much less screen time than maybe they should but this time they have little dragon costumes so that they blend in on an island that is now completely overrun with dragons. I also liked that all of the too many dragons living on the island live in enormous colorful birdhouses. It gave the island a very Caribbean/Norse fusion feeling. I like the discussion of dreams. Mostly just the statement "This is your dream maybe. Mine is less crowded and more sanitary." I feel like that is a great dream for anyone and am especially impressed that it was the dream of a perhaps less than hygienic viking. I liked the hoards of purple toad dragons and the flock of tiny glowing dragons. Dragons under black lights look really cool which it think could spark two great spin off series. One with a dragon DJ working raves and one with a dragon dance troupe. I would absolutely go see a dragon dance group perform. I liked ...

What I liked: I liked that geometry could be a superpower. I liked that the correct response to driving directly at an army of giant carnivorous ostriches is to shout "Merge! Merge!" And really that every single animal in the entire world is able to eat you. I liked the old guy who talks really slow and appreciated everyone's frustration with him talking really slow. He was really funny. The cat burglar did the best job of channeling the other grandpa. I liked the horse's glamour shot coming out of the water. I liked that bluffing actually worked spectacularly well. What I didn't: I feel like maybe if you have a good life and responsibilities like kids and stuff, you should think long and hard about deliberately entering a broken, potentially fatal video game. I was expecting more from the glowing green water, it could really have been a source of many more jokes. I really feel like with the versatility of things that they had in the backpack they really could ...

What I liked: I liked the light saber battles. No surprise here but I particularly appreciated the coolness of whatever the force projection was. Now the characters weren't limited by being in the same place, they could have light saber fights across the galaxy and bring back souvenirs. This is particularly important in a situation where you have a hard deadline and several hundred years worth of lightspeed travel to get to all the places you need to visit. Not to mention it looked really cool. I liked the cavalry charge. At first I thought that maybe horses need breathable air, gravity, and to not be on something likely moving at hundreds of miles an hour; but then I remembered these are space horses and it was alright. I liked that they caught a sand worm from Dune. Rey continues to learn the force stuff remarkably fast, with no real teacher. So, I am left to wonder, why did we bother training Jedi in the past? Maybe they would have been more effective just figuring things out ...

What I liked: The in memoria opening. It was not quite as amazing as the selfie video that opened the previous Spiderman movie but it was fairly phenomenal. The candle shot was particularly nice. I liked that they finally addressed some of the troubling logistics that resulted from Endgame and the basketball game was entertaining. The spidey senses or "Peter tingle" battle was very cool. Nick Fury was far less competent than one might expect. Ah how the mighty have fallen, Nick.  The customs lady didn't even blink, I'm glad she was there to protect Italy from dangerous bananas. The bus driver. I think he used to live in Atlantis and is Aquaman's short relative. He didn't do much but what he did was effective. MJ is pretty much awesome. She is very weird and very awkward and it is great. What I didn't: I agree with Spiderman, there are lots more people who could be called on to save the world before you get to Spiderman. Remember how we had about 800 he...

What I liked: Alright, for a movie about a talking Pokemon who becomes a detective to solve a murder/missing person case/massive evil conspiracy, this was a surprisingly enjoyable movie. Not surprising as in "wow that is such an interesting elaborate conspiracy, I never saw it coming." More of a "wow, this absurd plot oddly works and I laughed at some of their jokes." For those of you who have forgotten since the days of elementary school, some Pokemon are pretty cute. Most are just kind of weird looking, but some of them are cute. Psyduck, for being a neurotic duck with explosive headaches, was surprisingly acceptable. Pikachu was pretty funny. The reporter girl was incredibly dramatic. I think both the main kid and the reporter girl should probably have been in high school instead of whatever productive member of society ruse they were pulling. I liked how they worked in the old Pokemon theme song. What I didn't: Given that the number of acceptable Pokemon...

What I liked: I am glad that we get to see grown up magic, which is in fact much better than high school kid magic. I liked the the blue flame dragons, what was possibly the earth splitting open, and maybe the gold dust CSI reconstruction. I liked the magical roomba. It looked more like a steam punk roomba than a magical roomba, but it was still fun. I liked the Chinese dragon and the freaky cats. I'm not sure why you need giant mechanical library stacks when you can just magically summon objects to you, but they did make a pretty cool maze. It was fun to see Nicholas Flamel. I think he was disproportionately older than his colleague Dumbledore and it would have been cool if he busted out more alchemy powers instead of resorting to wands like everyone else, but I have to admit for being 600 years old he was doing pretty good.  I like Newt. I like that he doesn't like hugs and that he is a different kind of hero who notices things and solves problems differently. I like his base...

What I liked: So, the overall premise is the standard Dad prioritizes work over family and needs to learn to have fun again and lay off working so much. Usually, this is clunky and not well executed, but Christopher Robin pulls it off well. I liked the chapters (illustrated like the chapters in Winnie the Pooh) that gave us a montage of Christopher’s life and the events that led him to become so serious, like that he fought in a world war. We also get a compelling reason why Christopher has to work late so much, he’s trying to keep the company from going under and the staff being laid off. You get the sense that his priority is his family but that life is just hard in recovering post-war England. I liked that we got the Winnie the Pooh music, usually as themes in larger songs. I liked the balloon, i t was like the balloon itself "I know I don't need it but it did make me very happy." I was impressed with the stuffed animals, I’m not sure how much was puppe...

What I liked: There was a lot to like about this movie, mostly owing to the fact that it starred a lot of dinosaurs. I mean we got dinosaurs and a volcano, what else could you want in life? I liked the variety of dinosaurs that we got to see. There was the dinosaur with a nose the perfect size to fit in a fire escape. There was the dinosaur that seemed to be living in a sealed tunnel. There was the dinosaur that plays possum and the dinosaur that is brand new and some dinosaurs from Australia. I really liked the scene with the dinosaurs running from the volcano. I kind of wish this was the whole movie. The lava was fast, the dinosaurs were fast, and shockingly the people were just as fast. I was particularly impressed that while running from lava, the dinosaurs took the time to try to eat the people and each other. It was also fortunate that the clouds of ash did not instantly Pompeii the dinosaurs. The dinosaur evacuation was a very impressive feat. I really want to know how they got ...

What I liked: I really liked the opening play and the drummers. I liked that the greatest ambition of the evil conspiracy was to eliminate all dogs from Japan and that the main force uncovering the conspiracy was a middle school newspaper. I liked the approaches to science and medicine especially the analysis equipment. And that when dogs take medicine they turn transparent so we can directly observe systemic delivery. I found the sushi making entertaining. The whole film is full of clever and entertaining word play. I liked the military issue teeth, the giant trash compactor, and the evil robot dogs. I also liked that the dog pack was a majority rules democracy. What I didn't: Why was the henchman a hulking zombie? I'm not sure how I feel about the the kid's headset and pretty sure how I feel about his head injury. I don't love the foreign exchange student. In contrast to the dog pack, I have concerns about the city's political system. Who should watch this? ...

What I liked: The architecture of a heist movie has 4 stages: stage 1 explain how hard the job is, stage 2 come up with a ridiculously elaborate plan to accomplish the job and acquire hard to find equipment, stage 3 execute the plan but something goes terribly wrong, stage 4 sneaky twist and huge pay off. The Solo movie takes the bold move of streamlining the first two and a half steps, picking up with stage 3.5 "Something goes terribly wrong". This saves everyone the slow wind up to the actual action. This saved time translates into a movie with not one but all the heists. We have grand theft, customs evasion, train robbery, vault robbery, the classic hustle, and of course smuggling. I guess they may have tried to crowd too a little much in because they also almost always skip stage 4. This stage skipping also means that we don't know if the things they are doing are actually hard or they are just incompetent. I'm surprised more heist movies don't explore this ...

What I liked: This was a lot of fun to watch. The stunts were good the booby traps and puzzles were elaborate. I was having enough fun to not get too concerned about falling 300 feet into a raging river, or the creative parachuting, or the excessive effect of 6 sticks of dynamite, or how everyone was doing pretty well for being shot in the chest, stabbed, breaking all their bones, etc. The plot is pretty similar to Last Crusade with fewer Germans and less Sean Connery. I liked the sidekick he was not useless and seemed reasonably invested in the "let's sail into the most dangerous ocean in the world to find and release the mythical queen of death" plan. What I didn't: There is a long tradition of people bringing the wrong kind of weaponry to gun fights but an ice axe? really? Why do you even have an ice axe in the tropics? And there are guns lying around and double guns is kind of your trademark. Every time I build a prison tomb to contain the evil queen of death ...

What I liked: I liked Charles Wallace, that kid was funny. I liked that the ladies in crazy dresses were warriors and that the kids were warriors too. You know me I'm all about a good action movie with awesome fighting, but I liked that at least in this universe the defining characteristics of warriors were compassion, kindness, and love. Similarly, I liked that the bad guys weren't launching a massive military conquest of the universe, I mean everyone is doing that these days. Surprisingly, I liked the Mrs's dresses. They were crazy and over the top but it was fun that they changed with every teleportation and that they were completely absurd. The outfits were rather like the Mrs's wearing them, over the top and fantastical. Knowing all of them from other shows I may have had some unfulfilled expectations. At no point did anyone say "You get a wrinkle, and you get a wrinkle, Everyone gets a wrinkle!" which I must admit was a little disappointing. I also think...

What I liked: Most of the Mavel CU takes place in boring places like New York or fake Russia. Real Russia was already copyrighted. Unlike these settings that are essentially genericified giant cities, Black Panther clearly draws from exisiting inspiration but succeeds in creating a vibrant, imaginative world. Wakanda is beautiful, the buildings are cool, the costumes are beautiful and functional, the technology is elegant. This is the kind of setting that most comic book stories need. I also really liked how the women were presented. I think Wonder Woman would have been at home in Wakanda: the general and royal guards are really awesome women warriors. The queen mother and leaders of several of the tribes are clearly respected leaders. Black Panther's Q is his sister, who is spunky and a brilliant engineer who solves every problem from neurosurgery to questionable stablization of probably not unstable metals. The main spy we encounter is Black Panther's ex-girlfriend. I appre...

What I liked: There's a leek in the boat! Fishing pickles. The dad's mustache. The little strawberry is really cute. Really most of the food was quite cute. I liked when they collect all their old friends to launch the mission to stop the evil food. They all had absurd jobs and ridiculous ways of quitting. What I didn't: Why does the bad guy have no joints? He is like one giant noodle, all floppy floppy, and he isn't even anthropomorphic food. Clearly the bad guy's evil plan was terribly conceived but with a plot centered around a machine that converts water into giant food, you can't really hope for too much. The evil plan that was much better developed and received much less attention in the movie struck a little close to home. The evil inventing company preys on young optimistic inventors luring them to work terrible hours for no credit on the hopes of one day joining the elite group of "real" inventors. It gives you the shivers. Who should watc...