Hobbs & Shaw Hits the Accelerator When It Comes to Absurd Mayhem

Right now, I'm reading Film History: An Introduction (Third Edition) by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell for the first time and it's a fantastic read, it's been so much fun to discover new terminology related to the oldest eras of cinema and learn factoids related to the earliest days of the major movie studios. Plus, the writing style of Thompson and Bordwell is extremely adept at explaining new concepts or ideas (like dadaism, for example) to readers who might be unfamiliar with them. My only real grievance with the book is that it doesn't contain any chapters dedicated to Hobbs & Shaw, a Fast & Furious spin-off movie that might just represent the peak of cinema as an artform. The Lumiere Brothers would have wept succulent tears of joy if they could have lived to see this David Leitch directorial effort.

The Meg Is A Shark Tale With Too Many Boring Humans And Not Enough Shark Carnage

There's a big o'l shark in the water in The Meg and not just any shark, oh no. This is a megalodon, a gigantic type of shark with a powerful bite that was thought to be extinct for millions of years. Now a surviving megalodon has been discovered at previously uncharted depths of the ocean by a Chinese research facility and it's attacking a stranded vessel containing three still alive scientists. Who could possibly go so deep into the ocean and save them from this massive shark? Jason Statham of course! Statham plays Jonas Taylor, a diver who has spent years in hiding in Thailand after a mission went sideways thanks to this very same megalodon. He's got a score to settle and rescuing this trio of scientists might just be the way to do that.

Snatch Me If You Can

Before he was making big blockbusters like the Sherlock Holmes movies and that new King Arthur film that just opened this weekend (the latter feature is why I'm covering the subject of this review today), Guy Ritchie was a bloke from England looking to make crime movies with a distinct air to them. He's carried over his unique editing and directing sensibilities over to some of his blockbuster work, but if you want pure unfiltered Guy Ritchie, you can most certainly find it in his 2000 crime movie Snatch, which is packed to the gills with energy as well as characters in its gargantuan ensemble cast.

The Fate Of The Furious Takes The Car-Filled Franchise To So-So Territory

Out of the seven Fast & Furious movies that have come before The Fate Of The Furious, I've seen all but two of them, the sole exceptions being 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Otherwise though, I've been able to see the other five entries in this saga and now I've also been privy to The Fate Of The Furious, the eighth installment in the greatest car racing spy heist action franchise in history behind The Apu Trilogy. After three gloriously unhinged action movies in a row, it pains me to say that The Fate Of The Furious goes to more routine and repetitive areas that harken back to the middling first and fourth movies in the series.

Spy Review

Spies Like Us

Susan Cooper is the main character of Spy, and let me just start this review off by saying how delightful she is as a character. Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a warm, friendly personality whose unintentionally awkward and constantly being belittled by a number of her co-workers, including Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Paul Feigs script for Spy manages to create a delightful personality for Susan thriving on conviviality, while also giving her goals pertaining to the fact that everybody at the CIA (where she works) underestimates her.

Furious 7 Review

The Good, The Fast And The Furious

The climax of Furious 7 is pretty much the epitome of this entire franchise with its chaos dialed up to a million, cars zoom by and untold amounts of destruction occur. In the midst of it all though, the characters audiences have come to know and love over the years are never forgotten. All these enormous violence fueled set pieces revolve around their choices and relationships, not the other way around.

The Wheels On The Franchise Go Round And Round; Fast & Furious 7 Gets A Trailer

Similar to the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most recent entries in the Fast & Furious saga derive much of their success from engaging characters. While I'd easily few, if any, of these protagonists have had an arc comparable to the likes of Tony Stark (I couldn't tell you what the names of characters played by Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson off the top of my head), but like those superheroes, the cast have an excellent chemistry that makes adventures seen in Fast Five and Furious Six super enjoyable.

The Expendables 3 Review

What can Sylvester Stallone do now? I'm not asking this as some mean or snarky remark, I'm honestly wondering, what can this guy do now? I'm sure he could so some excellent drama if he so desired, but he seems to content to just riff on his legacy in films like Grudge Match and Escape Plan. Both of those were terrible, and while The Expendables 3 is better than those, it's still a forgettable excursion that needed more of entertaining characters to keep its pitiful screenplay afloat.

A New Trailer For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arrives....And It's Actually Good???

I've thought the overwhelmingly negative reception to this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie has been extremely over the top for a while now. I have my concerns over the movie too (could they get someone besides the director of Battle: Los Angeles to handle this thing?), but so far, the film has looked like a perfectly fine summer film. Even the turtles redesigns haven't bothered me that much (the versions of these CGI creatures without noses that fans on the internet made look much creepier to me). Now, this new trailer has increased up my excitement even more, and you find out why by watching it below!