Terrible Plan! Movie Reviews

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: This adaption tells the stories of the March sisters non-linearly. This approach does a good job of capturing the emotions of the moments and the sisters' characters. I really liked seeing Jo and Laurie's friendship develop and Meg's relationship with the tutor grow. I particularly liked dancing past windows at the big party. There were also some additions from Louisa May Alcott's life that I thought fit in nicely with the rest of the story. What I didn't: More than any other adaptation, this one convinced me that Beth is super boring and kind of useless. This really detracted from the famous line that "she really was the best of us." Yes, we love her because she is the sister, but that's about it. She was by far the least developed character. Similarly, I left unconvinced that Jo should end up with the Professor. I liked him, especially his exchange with Jo about her manuscript, but they didn't have a relationship. I kept forgettin...

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 house. Someone comments that the guy practically lives in a clue board, which appears to be true. There are an absurd number of rooms, all of which can conveniently eavesdrop on each other, and every piece of decor reminds you that this is the location of an absurd, over the top murder mystery. My personal favorite was the multitude of crystal skulls tucked into the background (eat your heart out Indian Jones), the ridiculous knife circle thing, and the creepy pictures. Nana. We don't know how old she is. We don't know how with it she is. But we do know she is amazing. The car chase. If you have read my other reviews you know that I am a sucker for a good car chase. I like them all from Fast and Furious parachuting out of a plane to the Italian Job mini coopers in the subway. This one had great elements and unexpected elements and I thought it was great, not least of all because I was decidedly unimpressed with James Bond's driving. That the main charact...

What I liked: The animation was incredible. It still didn't look quite like the real thing but it was close. Like a really cool video game. I liked the baby animals, the baby rhino, the baby ostriches, the baby hippo, the little warthogs were surprisingly cute. I liked that the instrumental sections of some of the Broadway songs ended up in the sound track. I liked the paint by insect technique that Rafiki used, but I don't think I'd hang that kind of art on my wall. Being in the theater for the stampede scene was pretty cool because the thunderous hoof falls made the seats shake What I didn't: So, this is essentially a shot by shot recreation of the original. I'm not really sure why they did this it is exactly the same for 95% and the 5% changes actually make it worse. They could have included the incredible songs from the Broadway production, that music is great. Instead they kept the old songs dropped some and changed some lyrics. They tried to highlight some...