Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thoroughly enjoyed the original Jumanji movie and while I sometimes find another movie in a franchise can be disappointing, when I saw the trailer for this movie, I was very excited about seeing this film.

I really enjoyed this movie. I felt the actors who played the original versions of the characters did a really good job of showing their personalities and I especially liked Jack Black playing a teenage girl; I thought he did a fantastic job of playing a teenage girl. Karen Gillan was good, too…but I couldn’t really connect Kevin’s portrayal with Fridge as shown at the beginning. And it was hard to imagine Dwayne Johnson as really being a teenaged boy. I just connect him too much to being the confident action hero and I felt that persona came across more.

The aspects of the computer game were quite cool and a bit more unique, with the three lives and the NPCs. There were some aspects that didn’t really get expanded upon, though, such as the game telling them to keep their health up.

It was really good to see the relationships form between the characters, especially in regards to the interactions between Bethany and Alex. It was good to see that, even though they could access the skills they had in the game, they still had the doubts and weaknesses of their true personalities.

While there was a lot of good humour in this movie, I also felt there was a good balance of serious moments along with that. And by the end of the movie, it was really good to see the way all of the characters had their parts to play.

I did like the fact that this movie had a few nods to the original, even though no one knew the origins of the game. And it was good to see the usage of technology…and also how the events of the movie changed the characters by the end.

I definitely enjoyed watching this movie and it was one I would like to watch again in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

This was another movie I had some quite mixed feelings about. While it was good to see there was some acknowledgement of the repeated plot devices, such as the riff-off, it was disappointing to see none of the male characters from the previous movie put in an appearance.

While a film with so many characters couldn’t really show details about all of them, it was good to see a bit more focus on the characters like Aubrey and Fat Amy. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Jessica and Ashley, both of whom seemed to be characters only used as filler; a fact that might have been acknowledged by the movie, but was still disappointing to see.

I liked being able to get glimpses of the lives of the former Bellas, but Gail and John were even more annoying in this movie, if that’s possible. I can’t really say I knew any more about them in this movie than I did in the previous one.

I thought the idea of the movie, with the groups singing for the troops, was a really good one and I felt the movie would have stood strong without the need for the competition on top of everything else. Unlike the previous two movies, I couldn’t really have cared less about the competitions; and the other groups lacked any real conflict.

I really liked the songs, whether they were being performed with or without instruments. And I liked seeing Lilly have a bit more of a role in this movie outside of just being the weird girl.

I thought Fat Amy was awesome in the previous two movies, but I found her more unkind and less humorous in this, which was a shame, as I felt she was a strong character previously. And there was a lot shown about her past and what she could do that had zero foreshadowing.

I was a bit disappointed in this movie and I won’t rush to watch it again any time soon, even though I do intend to listen to the soundtrack again in the near future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

After watching this movie, I have some very mixed feelings. I did enjoy it for what it was, but I can’t deny there were certain parts that did disappoint me.

I think perhaps the strongest part of this movie was the humour. There were times I found myself laughing out loud. However, I did find the scene with Poe and Hux talking (or not, rather) at the beginning was very awkward humour, as it referenced things that don’t actually exist in the Star Wars universe.

I felt this movie tried too hard to be like The Empire Strikes Back. I have to admit, I liked Rey a bit less than I did in episode seven. I felt she didn’t have quite the same personality I’d seen in The Force Awakens.

While it was good to see some of the conflict in Kylo Ren, I didn’t really feel like he was as interesting a villai as he could be. While it was good to see some of the background between him and his uncle, there wasn’t really a lot shown about him and his parents…even though Han wasn’t in the present day.

While I did like seeing the film focus more on Finn and Rose as well as just Rey training with Luke, I was questioning the wisdom in the actions they took. Poe didn’t seem quite as responsible as he was in the first movie and I felt the other storyline could have been worked in a lot better. And I have to say, DJ was quite a disappointing character. I had the feeling he was supposed to be a rogue like Han Solo, but he just wasn’t that interesting.

I did think there were some areas where it was hard to suspend my disbelief and although I do want to watch the third movie in this trilogy, I’m not too fussed about seeing this movie again. I’m hoping the final film will pull this trilogy back to the level of at least The Force Awakens.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did watch the first of the Bad Moms movies and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I nearly didn’t see this movie, but then wound up seeing it with one of my friends at the cinema.

I felt the movie started off really well in showing the aftermath of what had happened and setting the scene. It was good to see that each of the main characters’ mothers had their own personality and was completely different to her daughter. However, I was disappointed that there was almost no focus on the kids and their personalities. It seemed they only appeared when it was convenient to the plot; and I couldn’t have named any of them off the top of my head.

It was good to get something of an idea of Ruth’s upbringing, even though I felt the moments of her actually caring about her daughter were few and far between. While it was clear she cared about her grandchildren, I really couldn’t see it when it came to Amy, who I felt demonstrated far more patience than I would have done in the same situation.

To be honest, I spent most of the movie thinking all three of the mothers had major faults. With the exception of Ruth, none of them interacted with their grandchildren – and apart from one brief scene, Ruth’s only interactions with hers was to give them expensive gifts that sounded like she was trying to one-up Amy.

It bears repeating, I think, that for a film about Moms, the children had very small roles to play. Rather than seeing Carla truly caring about her son – which Iris seemed to see, despite a lack of scenes with the three of them together – all I saw was a woman who didn’t care enough to even consider a Christmas present for him and did the laziest thing possible. Even by the end, there was nothing good or heartwarming shown between them.

To be honest, perhaps the strongest part of this movie was the adult humour, even though it was very cringeworthy at times. Probably the part I actually found myself laughing at was when Amy, Kiki and Carla stole a Christmas tree from the mall.

I would say that this film was fun to watch, but it wasn’t a feel-good movie in the same way a lot of Christmas films are. And in my opinion, the first movie was much better, with more of a focus on the characters being moms, rather than just bad.

I have to say, I don’t intend to buy this movie on DVD when it comes out; and I don’t have a burning desire to watch it again in the near future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I was actually pretty excited about going to see Justice League at the cinema. While some of the movies in the DC Cinematic Universe have been a bit hit and miss, I’ve still been enjoying seeing the journey they’re taking.

It was nice to see the backgrounds of the Flash and Aquaman, though I felt that a lot more depth could have been shown when it came to Aquaman. There were hints of a lot of conflict between him and his people, but those hints were kind of lost in everything else that was going on.

While I am kind of biased towards the actor for the Flash in the television series, I did actually really like him in the movie. There were some very good elements of humour involving him and while I wouldn’t have said this film was quite as engaging as the Marvel Universe team-ups, I was very focused on the movie and it did draw me in.

It was kind of necessary to watch Batman Vs. Superman, as the film is almost a direct sequel to that. Ben Afleck was quite good as Batman; better than he was in Batman Vs. Superman, I felt. And it was nice to see the personal lives of Barry and Victor. I really liked Victor and it was nice to see his relationship with his father. I couldn’t help but feel some empathy for what he was going through, but it was good to see that he was still trying to work with the others.

It was also good to get to see the Amazons, but I felt there was an element of the soldiers being thrown away and it was nearly impossible to care about them, as they just seemed to keep on coming and the ones who died seemed to be expendable.

There was a lot of good action in this movie and I enjoyed seeing the main characters relating to each other. In the future, I would be interested in re-watching this movie. And I plan to buy it on DVD.

If you watch this movie, make sure you stay till the end, as there is an extra scene.

(This review may contain spoilers).

This movie was a lot more intense to watch than I was expecting. I really liked the relationship shown between Max and Jake. Even though there was clearly a lot of complications, it was really good to see how they interacted with each other.

There was a lot of action in this movie and it was really good to see that action take place on two different fronts. I did think that those in a position of power handled things badly, though.

It was strange to see Robert Sheehan in this, as I couldn’t help seeing him as Nathan from Misfits. It was a bit disappointing not to get more depth with him and some of the other characters on the space station.

I thought the concept of the satellites controlling the weather and stopping the extremes was a really good one and it was also good to see something that might well be possible in reality, if countries could work together.

There was a lot going on in this movie, but it was good that the main characters at least had relationships with other people and other things they cared about. I liked seeing Max with Sarah and Jake with his daughter.

I did think there were a few clichés in this movie and some of the science kind of went over my head. There were some quite clever aspects of this movie and I felt very engaged with the storyline and the characters.

All in all, I found this movie to be really entertaining to watch, with characters and a plot I truly cared about. I plan to watch this movie again in the future and probably buy it when it comes out on DVD – and it would be good to see a sequel, perhaps set in the future when Jake’s daughter is all grown up.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I actually found this movie quite hard to watch – not because it wasn’t good, but because I grew so used to seeing David Suchet as Poirot. Even by the end, I couldn’t get used to Kenneth Branagh.

At the same time, this movie was quite entertaining to watch. It was good to see Poirot putting together clues and making connections with his ‘little grey cells’, even if I didn’t always follow his reasoning. For instance, there’d been little to no foreshadowing of Ratchett’s real identity before the murder occurred.

I did get somewhat confused with the sheer amount of characters that were on the train and I felt that the closed quarters could have been utilised a whole lot more than they were to generate a sense of claustrophobia in both the characters and the viewer. The camera angles shot from above just made it confusing and difficult to see any real details.

I did think it was good that Poirot had different ways of questioning people based on their personalities, but that could also have been utilised better – shown instead of referenced once by a character and then not brought up again.

I thought the actors did a good job of playing off each other. I did, however, keep forgetting what time period the movie was placed in. Apart from some throwaway racist lines, there wasn’t really all that much.

It was good to have revelations about the characters come out as Poirot interacted with them, but as everyone was hiding something, it just became a long game of waiting.

While everything did come together, I didn’t really feel satisfied by the end of the movie. I wouldn’t have said it really added anything to the franchise and just seemed to be about retelling the original movie. I don’t have any plans to watch this movie again.