(trailer review) - Project Hail Mary

 

A few months ago, I saw the trailer for this, and it looked ok, just ok. It looked like there may have been more to it, but I was not initially sold on the movie at all. Since that trailer, I keep hearing about how great the book is, and this film is going to be really good, and Ryan Gosling is this and that, and having now seen this trailer, this trailer sold the film for me more than the first trailer did. This trailer is funny, it has heart, and I understand more of what the trailer is telling me, storywise, and we get to properly see the alien. A couple of moments that made me smile or laugh were two moments: the moment he says, "Rocky", puts on a puppet show for his tiny brain to understand and the moment where he asks about being expendable and she turns around to the group to discuss, two great moments.

So the trailer starts off with Grace knocking on a window to communicate with the alien, and the alien knocks back and shows him a model of an astronaut. We are told Grace has a doctorate in molecular biology, and he is needed to save the world due to the sun dying. "Rocky" the alien, is a genius engineer whose planet is also dying, so they work together to, I assume, help to save each other's planet or "Grace Rocky Save Stars". The trailer shows both Grace and Rocky working together with a few flashing sequences of Grace running, people cheering for him, a drawing of "saved the world" by children (children he likely teaches). This trailer exudes warmth, a dire situation, an adventure, charm and heart. Unless there is a twist at the end where the alien has notorious plans, this looks like it may end up being a really entertaining film, kind of like how the film The Martian was when that was released.

(trailer review) - The Fall Guy

 

Is this essentially an action rom-com? This trailer is giving me vibes of Rom-Com masquerading as an action movie and, I think I love it. At present, Ryan Gosling cannot do anything wrong. His role as Ken in the Barbie movie was great. To be fair, the film was simply great, but he was also really good in it. He has previously been in a lot of good to great movies and I believe I first saw him in 'Gangster Squad'. He had already done 'Drive' by this point, a film which was loved, but the film I loved and really enjoyed him in was 'The Nice Guys' with Russell Crowe directed by Shane Black. It gave me Kiss Kiss Bang Bang feels. But it was his role in Drive and La La Land that garnered him praise as an actor, in my opinion. People cannot stop mentioning his name. I cannot say I've seen many of his films but I do recognise his talent. With that said, I have loved Emily Blunt since I first recognised her in Looper. She's a great actress. When she starred alongside Tom Cruise in 'Edge of Tomorrow', I knew I wanted to see more of her and her projects. This trailer looks like we have two people having fun and rifting off one another and this looks really good! Plus it is always great to see Winston Duke from Black Panther and US.

From what I can tell, the star of a movie goes missing, so they send the stuntman to go and find him, but he stumbles across bad guys (who possibly killed the actor, unless he is in hiding), finds a dead body, stumbles across drugs and the stuntman has to get himself out of the many situations he finds himself in whilst trying to stay alive, solve the mystery and not get himself killed, so I guess it helps that he is a stuntman.......oh, and he has a crush on the director of a movie he is working in whom he had previously been on a date with and is also trying to find love in the middle of it all. This is barmy, but it looks like it is definitely worth a watch and a fun time at the movies.

(film review) - Gangster Squad

So, late last year I was watching an IGN reviw about something, I can't remember right now and it was mentioning films to look out for. I believe it was someone talking about Peter Jackson 'The Hobbit', then went on to say, Ironman 3 and a few others I simply didn't care for or remember, but Gangster Squad stood out.
I remember seeing the trailer and thinking, "Damn, this looks interesting" So, I set out to watch it and boy did I find this film, a very good watch.

It stars then child Goonies actor, Josh Brolin (I had to say that as I think that is amazing and he has come a long way) as Sgt. John O'Mara who is personally selected by chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) to take down Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), a rising to power gangster in post WWII Los Angeles. In order to do this, John must get together the finiest men and form the Gangster Squad in order to help him take down L.A's most powerful figure against his reluctant wife Connie's (Mireille Enos) wishes. To take down Cohen and his merry men, John bands together men of different skills and uses: - Detective Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), Wire-Tapper Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) & Gangster Killer Max Kennard (Robert Patrick).That is basically it. John heads out to first cripple Mickey's Buiness, then eventually cripple him and put him behind bars.

Now this film is nothing we haven't seen before as I'm sure you know there are hundreds of Gangsta movies based on this era. You know the outcome (unless there is a spin thrown onto it) and frankly, you'd watch it just to see how this Gangster film delivers. And boy does this film deliver. Action, action and action from the moment the opening credits stop rolling. Actually, I don't even think the opening credits were rolling before you saw something happen to this guy. I won't say what. Then Something else happen to another guy. It was all going on, just to show you who was the man about town. Tyranny I believe the word is. And John's assemblement was so well chosen, thinking about it now, it was like watching The Avengers, without the superhero flashy colours and powers and replaced with tommy guns, pistols and sticks of dynamite. Granted the film may not make as much as Avengers did and may not appeal to everyone, but for me, this film was just as good. Serious bits. Sad bits. Sexy bits and ACTION. Through a few parts of the film, i was cheering or making excitement noises like 'Ooooooh' when Athony Mackie did anything. The film was very well scripted, acted out and the direction and flow of the film was steady. No boring or dull moments and a few laugh out loud moments, you know LOL!

If you like gangster films there isn't a reason you shouldn't like this.