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lexs-movie-review-and-views · 3 years

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Movies I watched in January 2021.

(only includes movies I watched for the first time)

A stranger outside (directed by Jake Helgren) – 2018 (12) 2½ stars.

This film is a who is it/who did it movie about a girl named Daphne (played by Brittney Underwood) who is babysitting a young boy called Toby (played by Jet Jurgensmeyer) whose parents are out of town.

I gave it a low rating since I found it very dumb and the acting is not good, a hard movie to take seriously, the characters are also very stupid, and it is an overall very predictable movie.

But saying that, I would still recommend if you want to watch a movie you can make fun of and like seeing family bonds being made (between the babysitter and the boy). It is also a good movie if you want to get into horrors/thrillers or get someone else into them.

*spoilers*

The main reasons I found this a dumb movie is how obvious it was that the maid was the killer, like, what maid only cleans the kitchen and does it in less than 5 minutes? She was also an overall bad killer and felt like a very lazy try.

Also, the girls reaction to everything, I don’t understand why they didn’t lock all the doors and how Daphne walked through the door that she put the windchime, a very dumb move. Also, Daphne’s friends when being killed, I could not wait for the scene to be over, she wasn’t doing a particularly good job at trying to escape.

*spoilers done*

Uncle frank (directed by Alan Ball)– 2020 (15) 5 stars.

This film is about an 18-year-old named Beth (played by Sofia Lillis) who travels back from Manhattan to her hometown Creek Ville, South Carolina, with her uncle Frank (played by Paul Bettany) for a funeral and end up being joined by his boyfriend (Played by Peter Macdissi).

I gave this film such a high rating because of how real this movie feels and how the acting feels so pure and you can tell that they put effort into this. I also just really love family connections in movies. It is just such a beautiful movie, made me cry so much. This film also really highlights how much Frank is terrified of his parents fining out he is gay.

I just highly recommend this movie. Anything I say will not do this film justice.

*spoilers*

The main scenes that really stuck out to me where: 1) The flash back scenes between young Frank and past lover Sam. Mainly the scene where his dad (played by Stephen Root) catches them together one night. And he didn’t the relationship his son had with the other boy, which sends Frank into a panic. This scene also shows the type of man his dad was and how that impacted Frank.

2) The will reading where Frank is outed. This scene really pinpoints how much hatred Franks dad had towards him. In this scene you can also see the sheer panic he has and doesn’t want to stick around and find out what is family will say.

*spoilers done*

Deadly detention (directed by Blair Hayes) – 2017 (15) 1 star.

This film is about 5 high school students; the ‘hot girl’ Lexi (played by Alex Frnka), ‘hot boy’ Barrett (played by Henry Zaga), the ‘sporty female jock’ Jessica (played by Sarah Davenport), ‘the skateboarder’ Taylor (played by Jenifer Robyn Jacobs) and the ‘presumed gay, Christian’ with his bejewelled bible named Kevin (played by Coy Stewart), who all have Saturday detention. Their detention takes place in a now closed prison with someone trying to kill them.

I gave the film such a low rating since its just bad. The script is awful, the characters are written so poorly, I can’t believe this movie was able to be realised, it is also very predictable, you are able to tell who the killer is within the first 10 minutes.

This movie gave me the vibe of a poorly rewrite of ‘the breakfast club’ if it was a horror in prison. But if you want something you can watch to laugh at and not take seriously then you could watch this.

*spoilers*

The main things that really annoyed me with this film are not that the killer was obviously the cop but that:

1) Barrett never stops smiling! Someone is trying to kill him, and he doesn’t even care.

2) Taylor and her skateboard, she can’t even ride properly, she should have left it, it’s not important.

3) Keven and his light up shoes, and how he had to make sure they were on the same colour, he should leave them alone and hide.

4) And just the fact that Barrett and Lexi care more about hooking up than trying to escape a killer, especially when Berrett is already dating Jessica.

*spoilers done*

Deadpool (directed by Tim Miller) – 2016 (15) 4 stars.

This film is about a man named Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds), who wants to get revenge on a man named ajax/Francis (played by Ed Skrein) for experimenting on him to cure Wades cancer and to give him healing abilities, but it ends up leaving him disfigured.

I gave this movie a high rating because of how it managed to include multiple genres at once; for example, this film included, action, a little gore, comedy, raunchy and romance. Also, the uses of breaking the fourth wall, I think was done particularly well.

Other things I like about this film is that he does not call himself a hero, because he does not want to be and at the end of the day, he isn’t one, but he’s also not a villain.

*spoilers*

An example of this is right near the end when Colossus is giving that classic ‘you can be a hero’ hero speech, Deadpool shoots Ajax. Because killing him was what the main plot of the film was.

*spoilers done*

Soul (directed by Pete Doctor) – 2020 (PG) 3½ stars.

This film is about the journey of jazz piano player/middle school teacher, Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who experiences a near death experience that gets him trapped in the afterlife, trying to reunite his soul and body, who is landed the responsibility to be the mentor to the soul, 22 (voiced by Tina Fey), who needs to find her spark to be sent to earth.

I gave this movie a middle rating because I like what it portrays – where your dreams come from, where your interests come from, also that for some, it can take a lot longer than others to figure out what they are. However, I feel like this film feel flat the longer it went on, it also feels like the people working on this got bored at the end and did not care anymore. Could as well be due to do with the fact that there were a couple things I thought would happen and make more sense but did not happen.

But its still, at the end of the day a cute, funny, family movie and great for kids to learn that they should do what they love and its okay if they take longer than others to figure out what they love to do.

*spoilers*

Examples of what I thought would happen/hoped would happen that would have made sense to be in the film are:

1) I was expecting that Joe was going to realise that he liked being a teacher. The flash backs really set up that was going to happen but then I just did not.

2) I was hoping that we would get a time skip to a few years later and joe and the person that 22 went into would meet. I was expecting that the happen from the beginning.

*spoilers done*

Adventures in babysitting/A night in the town (directed by Chris Columbus) – 1987 (12 or pg. if you watch the Disney + cut) 4 stars.

This film is about 17-year-old Chris Parker (played by Elisabeth Shue) who is babysitting 8-year-old Sara Anderson (played by Maia Brewton) and her 15-year-old brother, Brad (Played by Keith Coogan), but ends up in a night full of adventures, along with Brad’s friend, Daryl (played by Anthony Rapp), due to Chris needing to pick up her friend, Brenda (played by Penelope Ann Miller).

I gave this movie a high rating because I think it’s a nice funny, sweet movie. I has great family like bonds between them all, which I love to see, and it makes you feel good watching it.

What I liked in this film was that it felt like it wasn’t trying to be realistic and because of that anything so unrealistic that happens feels normal.

I do highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes comedic adventurous films.

*spoilers*

One thing I liked that I found funny was how the gang was trying to capture the kids and Chris all because of the Playboy.

I also really love the scene when we find out Chris’s boyfriend, mike (played by Bradley Whitford), was cheating and after Brads speech about Chris then says he isn’t going to hurt mike because he is a bigger person, Daryl kicks mike. I think the main reason I loved this scene was because it really shows how different each character is from each other, but they still have a great friendship.

One thing that did annoy me about this film was Chris and Dan together at the end. It would have been okay for me, but she broke up with her boyfriend that night. Also, we don’t know how old Dan is, all we know is he is in collage and Chris is 17 in high school.

*spoilers done*

Z-O-M-B-I-E-S (directed by Paul Hoen) – 2018 (pg.) 4½ stars.

This film is about a zombie named Zed (played by Milo Manheim) and a human cheerleader named Addison (played by Meg Donnelly) who become close very quickly and need to hide that due to the fact that humans still believe that zombies are evil monsters.

I gave this film a high rating due to the how this movie made me feel, it quickly became a comfort movie for me, if you watch it you will understand where I’m coming from.

I also want to point out that yes, this is a very cheesy movie but its Disney channel, what else do you expect?

And despite it being the classic Disney channel cheese it is, I would like to pinpoint that it covers issues I think kids should learn about, for example; discrimination, not to pay attention to stereotypes and rumours also not to bully someone and just because they may be ‘different’

Highly recommend to all kids and anyone older if they love cheesy films.

*spoilers*

I have seen that some people don’t like the fact that Addison compared her hair would get her treated the same way Zed gets does, and I can see where they come from but to me, I interpret Addison’s hair and wig as real things people can hide about themselves, so they don’t get treated badly and zombies as something that people can’t hide about themselves.

*spoilers done*

Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2 (directed by Paul Hoen) – 2020 (pg.) 2 ½ stars

This film is about werewolves coming to Seabrook/Zombietown due to their charms running out of their powers, needing to find the moon stone with help from a whitehaired teenager.

I gave this movie a low rating mainly due to how much it disappointed me. I expected much more, especially because of how the first one was amazing. This film felt very fast paced and felt like they didn’t put as much effort into it.

But saying that I do recommend watching, it’s still a fun time watching.

*spoilers*

Examples of what annoyed me in this movie was;

1. How the zombies as well as the humans automatically assumed the werewolves where evil. You would have thought that the zombies would be more understanding since humans thought that about them before and that humans wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion as they were wrong about zombies.

2. The ban on all monsters when the zombies didn’t do anything wrong.

3. How bucky went back to hating zombies. I don’t understand why because at the end of the first movie he realised zombies aren’t bad.

4. Eliza should have ran for school resident! Mainly due to her having such strong views I feel like she would have taken it very seriously.

*spoilers done*

Official secrets (directed by Gavin Hood) – 2019 (15) 3¾ stars

This film is about the true events of Katherine Gun (played by Kira Knightly), who is a British intelligence specialist and leaked secret information about an illegal NSA spy operation made to urge the UN security council to give approval for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to the press hoping to avoid this from happening.

I gave this movie this rating due to how it keeps you engaged in what is happening, despite it being a sort of slow burn. Also, from what I heard it stayed true the real events (I’m 17 so I wasn’t old enough to remember it myself) and I like how it used the actual news footage.

This movie is also easy to follow and to know what’s happening.

I highly recommend this film if you love learning about true events/find them interesting.

The green mile (directed by Frank Darabont) – 1999 (18) 5 stars

This film is about Paul Edgecomb (played by Tom Hanks and Dabbs Greer), the commanding officer of the death row cellblock at Cold Mountain Penitentiary in Louisiana, who meets inmate, John Coffey (played by Michael Clarke Duncan), who has been accused of murdering two young girls. Paul’s life isn’t the same when he discovers John’s special gifts.

I gave this movie such a high rating because it’s just such a masterpiece of a movie. The actors did an amazing job at portraying their characters and made sure you like the characters your meant to like, despite what they did in the past and dislike the characters your meant to dislike.

This movie also gave me so many emotions, for example, one moment I’m really happy and the movie is making me feel good then the next I can’t stop crying.

Despite the rating being an 18+, I would recommend to anyone 15+.

*spoilers*

I would like to state that the mouse, Mr. Jingles is my favourite character so, if you have seen it, you can guess that when Percy (played by Doug Hutchinson) stepped on the poor thing busted into tears and then when John healed him, I started crying even more because I was so happy.

I also thought the ending to the film was very poetic in the way the Paul is still alive and that being his curse, and having to see everyone he cares about die, due to John being executed despite, in the end, being innocent.

*spoilers done*

Those are all the movies I watched this month. Please know that these are my opinions, and its perfectly okay of you have different ones.

This is the first time I have ever done something like this so please let me know how I can improve. And let me know your thoughts.