Sorry to Bother You

First Hit: What I liked about this film is that it is funny, unique, and unlike any other film I’ve seen.

This film is an alternate universe to present day Oakland, CA. Here we have Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) looking for work, living in a garage, and dating artist Detroit (Tessa Thompson). One of the early funny scenes is when he and Detroit start messing around in bed and a garage door opens which exposes his room as a garage and his neighbors say "get a room". Very funny scene and sets a tone for the film.

Enjoyed Cassius’s interview for a telemarketing job because of what we discover about his creativeness to make himself look like he has a great past working record.

Getting the job, he’s coached by Langston (Danny Glover) to use his “white voice.” This was hilarious, and the voice Danny uses, and the voice Cassius uses are perfectly nerdy white. I loved it. His managers tell him if he does well he’ll be elevated to the position of Power Caller. As a Power Caller he’ll make a lot of money and get to ride in the private elevator. Watch for the entering of the elevator code - hilarious.

The film uses funny ways to see how he doesn’t connect, and then connects with people he tele-markets. All of a sudden, he drops from his desk into the home of the person he’s calling and directly discusses his pitch and deal.

The movie also has a story about workers rights. Leading this effort is Squeeze (Steven Yuen)  and working with Cassius’s close friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler) start a protest with all of the other telemarketers. Cassius and Detroit are for the cause however, Cassius has now moved up to the Power Caller floor, he holds back from wholeheartedly supporting the protest movement.

As a Power Caller he starts selling for a company called WorryFree run by Steve Lift (Armie Hammer) that offers people the option of working for no money, but they get a place to live, food to eat and entertainment. But others think this is just slave labor. Steve is so impressed with Cassius’s ability to market that he wants him to manage his newest endeavor, making Equisapiens. Equisapiens are people who take a specific drug giving them the strength of horses and also change their physical appearance to look like a person and a horse. Because of their strength, Lift claims can do more work better.

There is more to this film and it is even more bizarre including a reality show called “I Got the S#*@ Kicked Out of Me”.

As I watched this story unfold, all of a sudden someone I know in real life appears on the screen as a newscaster. Ken Baggott is the newscaster that gives us a play by play during the film. That was a great surprise.

Stanfield was excellent as the creative goal achieving telemarketer who had to decide whether he continues to pursue a career where he excels or support his girlfriend and friends and do the right thing. Thompson was outstanding as Cassius’s girlfriend. She’s very fluid in this role and made it very natural. Yuen was strong as the instigator for workers rights. Glover was excellent as the long-time telemarketer. Fowler was very strong as Cassius’s friend who supported his friend. Baggott was perfect as the newscaster. His voice and reporting of the events were spot on. Boots Riley wrote and directed this very creative and inventive film.

Overall: What made this work was the acting in an inventive creative film.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

First Hit: I liked it and thought it did a great job of bringing Han Solo into the overall Star Wars story.

Sometimes prequels to an established story fail. Other times they add and bring to life characters that we’ve already been introduced to. This film is one of the latter. Just like the 2009 film Star Trek did for the Star Trek movie and TV series.

Here, Han (Alden Ehrenreich) has a big job to do. He must give us cocky irreverence alongside being a strong capable person and carry a believability of his intention to be a strong dependable character of the resistance in the future.

The first part I really loved was his flying his low-level cruiser into a very tight area and getting stuck. It is the attitude that he can make it yet accepting he didn’t and then moves on. You also sense that he learns from each mistake.

He gets separated from the love of his young life Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) and vows to her he will come back for her.

I loved that his last name “Solo” is given to him by an Empire recruiting officer. He has no last name and no family, so when the officer says, "your name" he says "Han" and the officer says "Han what?" and Hans says he doesn't have a last name, so the officer says “Han (waits a moment or two) Solo” because he's alone and a renegade – perfect.

After joining the Empire, he gets expelled from flight school, and finds himself fighting for the Empire by slogging it out in the mud which he detests because he sees himself as a fighter pilot. He becomes slightly enamored with Captain Beckett (Woody Harrelson) who he soon finds out is only parading as a Captain to get over on the Empire and make some money because he owes Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany).

Failing this Beckett, his wife Val (Thandie Newton) and Rio Durant (voice by Jon Favreau) decide to steal some hyper-fuel Coaxium as a way to repay Vos. Their problem is that Solo, hoping to join them by blackmailing Beckett, tries to turn them in but the tables are turned, and Solo gets thrown into jail to battle the beast.

The beast happens to be a Wookie named Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and because Solo speaks a little Shyriiwook (Chewbacca’s language) they plot to get out of jail together. They do, join Beckett and make an attempt to steal the Coaxium.

Failing this, Solo runs into Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) who owns the Millennium Falcon, and together they try to find and steal more Coaxium because Solo thinks Qi’ri is being enslaved by Vos, he wants to buy her back.

This is the set up and what the viewer gets is the introduction of Solo, Chewy, and Lando for the future films. It also sets the tone for the resistance whom Solo helps.

The downside of the film is that it is a little long. However, it is engaging. The film does not depend on computer generated graphics and stuff to make it work, it depends on characters that you learn about and begin to care about or dislike. They bring in just enough of the upcoming story, the Star Wars series of films, by building a strong base for these characters. Did Solo really win the Millennium Falcon in a card game?

Ehrenreich was excellent. Although I didn’t think anyone could bring the swagger of a young Harrison Ford Solo, Ehrenreich did a credible job. Clarke was very strong as Qi’ra. She hid her changed alliances very well and kept the audience and Solo guessing. Newton was great in a smaller role as Beckett’s wife. Harrelson was outstanding as Beckett who was a swindler extraordinaire always looking out for himself and his wife. Suotamo was excellent as Chewbacca. I thoroughly enjoyed how he and Solo because partners. Glover as Lando was very strong. He carried the basis of the future and older Lando perfectly. Bettany was outstanding as Vos. His growing evilness as he got angrier was perfect for the role. Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan wrote and excellent script. It carried the deep Star Wars theme through the entire picture. Ron Howard, as director, showed why he’s one of the best and an excellent choice to make this prequel.

Overall: Extremely entertaining and worthy of the Star Wars franchise name.

Avengers: Infinity War

First Hit: Poorly conceived film because someone thought that putting every conceivable character under the sun into a single film was a good idea for a story.

Action for action’s sake is a waste of time because after a few minutes there’s no story to engage with and all the audience is doing is watching visual tricks on a screen. And, although I enjoyed the quips shared and pointed towards particular characters, in the end, it isn’t enough to make me want to recommend anything about this film.

I couldn't get into the plot of this film because there were so many small subplots and sidebars that I the real story became distractingly meaningless. However, my guess at the plot is: Thanos (Josh Brolin) was seeing his world fall apart because there were too many people, therefore by killing half the population in the universe, things will be peaceful and life would be able to support itself. The Avengers don't want this to happen.

To have the power to make this desire come true, Thanos needs six stones that are being held somewhere in the universe, a few of them are in possession of superheroes. So he goes about finding the stones and doing anything to get them.

To stop his quest, all the Avenger superheroes loosely come together to fight the good fight to defeat Thanos. Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine/James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Tom Holland), Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) just to name some.

You can see from the above listing, along with another ten superheros, having this many characters makes for a confusing mess because each has to have their day in the story. This is exactly what we get - confusion.

Most all of the actors do their superhero thing and do it well enough. However, with everyone one splitting screen time and with minimal roles, it was difficult for anyone except Chris Pratt (As Star-Lord/Peter Quill), Downey, Hemsworth, and Cumberbatch to standout.  Ruffalo was also funny trying to turn into the Hulk. The rest was more like having them do cameos of their characters to show that everyone was onboard to fight Thanos. Brolin as Thanos was strong but it is hard to show the depth of character he was attempting give the audience through the heavy makeup. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeeely wrote an over ambitious screenplay that melted under the number of characters they had to bring in. Anthony and Joe Russo co-directed this mess and it showed. The use of effects was good, but effects to no make a film, characters do and shortchanging so many of them was its downfall.

Overall: I only went to this film because of the strong audience attendance and I cannot believe that the millions walked away satisfied.

A Wrinkle in Time

First Hit:  I love the concepts in the film but the execution was generally very poor.

I wanted to like this film more than I did.  Almost from the beginning, there was something not quite right about this film. When Mr. Murry (Chris Pine) is teaching his daughter Meg (Storm Reid) about how vibrations can affect sand on a flat plate, there was a clunky sense to their interaction.

There was little sense or buildup as to why her peers were giving her a hard time. We slowly find out that she misses her dad, who disappeared some 4 years earlier. He just disappeared and the kids made fun of her because of this? Didn’t make sense and didn’t stick with me, given Meg’s attitude and personality on the screen.

Her adopted brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) is a genius and pushes the envelope at their mutual school. He calls people out on their stupidity and Meg has to break up the fight.

Regardless, Charles Wallace believes that their father slipped through a wrinkle in time and traveled to another galaxy (I interpreted this as a different dimension). He finally convinces Meg that something like this happened and introduces her to Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) who is a quirky and a renegade spiritual human presence and form of light.

Meg and Charles Wallace are join by a classmate Calvin (Levi Miller), who says he got “a call” to join them. He struggles at home because his father beats him even though he’s a great student. This part of the film is poorly done and doesn’t work well.

The three kids meet up in Meg’s backyard and Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) take them through a wrinkle in time and end up on a new planet (new dimension).

The place is made of light as are the three Mrs. However, when they fly on Mrs. Whatsit’s back and encounter The It (the dark forces), the light bearers say that the kids might not find Mr. Murry.

The concepts of light and dark are great to express in written form and in film, but here the direction and substance of this story fails to make this journey compelling.

Pine was good as the scientist first guy, setting aside his family for the sake of science. Gugu Mbatha-Raw was good as Mrs. Murry, there was a sweet genuineness to her. Reid was very strong as Meg. Her passion and intelligence came through. McCabe was excellent as young Charles Wallace. He did a great job of being a smart kid and one that was taken over by the dark side (The It). Witherspoon was funny as Mrs. Whatsit. She brought humor but her character was also inconsistent. How can you be new as a light being and run out of energy so quickly. Kaling was OK as a seer, but I just didn’t buy the role. Winfrey was Winfrey. The extra-large size physical presence might have been more about inflating that it was Oprah than the role. It made little sense and adding the stiff gown she was fit into made her performance stiff. Miller was OK, but I struggled as to why he was part of the journey, the case wasn’t well made. Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell wrote a mediocre script when it could have been great. Ava DuVernay’s direction was poor. But some of this is based on the poorly created script. However, I think she could have made better choices about the story’s direction and how it was constructed.

Overall:  This film falls flat when it comes to telling a strong story, but it does have a strong point to make if the audience sees through the uneven film.

Annihilation

First Hit: This film wasn’t suspenseful, interesting, or had characters the audience could care about.

It was hard for me to believe that a film with Natalie Portman (as Lena), Jennifer Jason Leigh (as Dr. Ventress), Oscar Isaac (Kane), and Gina Rodriguez (Anya) could not be full of drama and interest. However,  not being able to care about the characters, I was hoping to care about their predicament.

Lena is a teaching physician in biology medicine after having a seven-year career in the military. It was in the military where she met her husband Kane who is a special ops person in the military.

Kane gets assigned to be sent into “The Shimmer” which is overtaking a place on the east coast of the United States. He's suppose to help the government understand what this thing is. The Shimmer came as a result of a meteorite hitting a lighthouse. Every group that goes into The Shimmer never comes back and The Shimmer is expanding.

However, after a year Kane does return and is in a sealed room being watched by the government and scientists. To find out what caused her husband to be in this comatose state Lena goes in to The Shimmer with Anya, Dr. Ventress and two others.

Only Lena gets to the goal, the lighthouse where the meteor struck.

The Shimmer wasn’t very interesting to look at. The story line and what Lena finds at the lighthouse isn’t interesting. The worst thing is that the characters aren’t interesting at all.

Portman probably did as she was told by the director and read the lines, but there wasn’t any depth to her character and I’m not sure where to put this problem because Portman is a great actress and usually delivers a strong character. Leigh was intense and gritty but, as with Portman’s character, I didn’t care and didn’t want to know anything more about her. Rodriguez was the most volatile character but there wasn’t anything around her character to have me care either. Isaac was no better than the rest of the characters, non-interesting. Alex Garland wrote and directed this mess.

Overall: This film is not worth seeing even though the names associated with the film are held in high regard.