The Weekly Movie Watch Volume 90

This week I watched The Peanuts Movie, Trainwreck, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part I & II, Project Almanac, Mojave, Coraline.

I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.

The Peanuts Movie - A cute movie that captures classic Peanuts.

The Peanuts Movie (2015)
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Written by: Bryan Schulz & Craig Schulz & Cornelius Uliano (Written by), Charles M. Schulz (Comic strip)
Directed by: Steve Martino
Starring:  Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez, Hadley Belle Miller, Kristin Chenoweth
Rated: G

Plot:
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the gang return in this new animated adventure. Charlie Brown has a crush on the red haired girl and Snoopy is after the infamous Red Baron.

Verdict:
Despite the updated animation it maintains the feel of classic Peanuts. It's a cute story stretched to feature length, padded by Snoopy's plight against the Red Baron. It's got more than a few humorous gags, and it is definitely fun for the whole family.
Watch it.

Review:
Snoopy is trying to rescue a girl and Charlie Brown is trying to talk to a girl.  All of the characters return, and everyone is in the same class, which is illogical but makes sense as a way to keep all the characters on screen simultaneously. Charlie Brown kept the little red haired girl's pencil the entire school year, which she didn't find odd when he returned it at the end of school.
In simple terms, Charlie Brown is a perpetual loser, but it's easy to relate to a kid lacking confidence who knows what he should do but is unable to muster the courage.  Even his triumphs are intertwined with defeat.
Snoopy's story is padding, but it's not as engaging as it could or should be. Since it's just the depiction of the story he's writing, it didn't have the effectiveness of a Snoopy Woodstock adventure. Then again, Charlie Brown was never feature length.

Trainwreck -A good concept with a trainwreck of an execution.

Trainwreck (2015)
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Written by: Amy Schumer
Directed by: Judd Apatow
Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Lebron James
Rated: R

Plot:
Amy (Amy Schumer) has managed to avoid serious and meaningful relationships until now. She doesn't know how to react when she realizes she likes Aaron (Bill Hader), and he likes her.

Verdict:
The concept is great and the outline is good. This movie flips traditional gender roles in a romantic comedy. The woman is the commitment-phobe serial dater and the man wants to settle down and fall in love. The weak link is Schumer. Her acting, and in turn her jokes never quite land. If you like Schumer, you might be able to sit through this. Lebron James is the breakout star, playing himself as Aaron's (Bill Hader) best friend. He's definitely a reason to check this out.
It depends.

Review:
I was surprised that Lebron was so funny, managagin to overshadow everyone else with more than height. Lebron playing Hader's best friend was a genius decision. His scenes were some of the best.
Schumer just didn't fit. I felt like  I was watching her stand up routine more than watching her act in a movie. The first scene quickly moves from introducing the concept to Schumer just making quips that aren't good enough.
Schumer plays the traditional male part in a rom-com and the men in her life play traditional female. John Cena plays her boyfriend who is sexually confused and ultimately dumps Amy because she's a jerk.
It has a lot of potential and manages to capitalize on some of it, but it runs a little long. The gender flipped concept can't be the only tent pole supporting this movie. Hader's intervention scene led by Lebron is proof that Schumer can write comedy. The problem is that she can't carry a scene herself.

The conclusion is typical rom-com fare with Schumer including a big look at me moment. I wonder if she wrote the main role for herself? I wonder if it would have been better if she wrote the main role for someone else.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - One of if not the best Batman movie.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part I & II (2012)
Watch Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Written by: Bob Kane (character created by: Batman), Frank Miller &Klaus Janson (comic book), Bob Goodman (written by)
Directed by: Jay Oliva
Starring:  Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, David Selby 
Rated: PG-13

Plot:
Now retired, Batman hasn't been seen for a decade, but when when the violence in Gotham peaks, Bruce Wayne dons the suit once again. Batman must battle street gangs, his old age, and even Superman.

Verdict:
This animated story is incredibly well written, deftly capturing the essence of Batman in just a few minutes. It's brutal and smart with a unique point of view.  This isn't just a good cartoon, it's a good movie. The conclusion including the Batman and Superman fight and the aftermath is very good.
Watch it.

Review:
This cartoon is adapted from the 1986 Frank Miller comic. Batman is gone and Bruce Wayne is an older man, racing cars for the adrenaline fix. Batman is brooding and regretful, reminded of the horrors of being a super hero and why he sought vigilante justice.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - Batman v Superman

The story and pacing capture a great mood and tone. Telling the story of an older Batman is unique and dynamic. He has to rely on intelligence rather than brawn. He takes the street gang head on, rolling into their camp in a tank firing rubber bullets. He fights the ring leader mano a mano just to prove to himself he still has what it takes.

Part 2 introduces Superman and the Joker. Rehabilitation isn't possible, and this is ruthless. Batman is ready to end the Joker. If this was live action it would be rated R. It has a lot of layers with an old Batman wondering if he's still got it and the Russian-American conflict over an island which echoes the prime of the Cold War Reagan era. Raux Reagan tells Superman to dispose of Batman by whatever means necessary. It's a great story with an amazing conclusion.

Project Almanac - Teenage wish fulfillment that sends the world into chaos.

Project Almanac (2015)
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Written by: Jason Pagan, Andrew Deutschman
Directed by: Dean Israelite
Starring:  Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D'Elia, Sam Lerner, Virginia Gardner, Allen Evangelista
Rated: PG-13

Plot:
A group of teen discover plans for and build a time machine. Of course the power to change the world spirals out of control.

Verdict:
It you can abandon logic and realism, it's a fun movie with adequate special effects. You can see where it's going from a mile away, but that's the typical pitfall of a wish fulfillment movie. Their escapades escalate from going back to ace a test, attend the awesome party, and then to win the lottery. Granted, I have a propensity for time travel movies, but the science is fast and loose and the ending is too cliche. I was hoping they were building to something bigger, but they weren't. It's a fun ride that goes nowhere.

It depends.

Review:
If it's a time travel movie, I'm going to watch it. The time travel logic is all over the place for the sake of making the story more entertaining, but the end is painfully cliche and typical.

Look at the time travel movie, Primer (2004). It's a bit slow and incredibly confusing, but the science is solid and that's what made it a cult classic. Primer is the hard science time travel story, Project Almanac is the made for teens fantasy. This movie could have been much better.

I don't understand why movies go for the found footage style cinematography at the detriment to the story. That style will never be as revolutionary as it initially was in The Blair Witch Project (1999). It's been done, don't imitate it.
The style doesn't put me in the middle of the action, it just annoys me. Chronicle (2012) handled this better, deftly shifting from jerky to smooth movement with one of the characters levitating the camera via telepathy through most of the movie. Similar to Chronicle, this movie has a group of teenagers discovering a great power, with the result being chaos. I'd recommend Chronicle over this.

David's dad was a mad scientist with a caged lab in the basement. Despite his dad dying ten years ago, the kids have never once ventured into the lab... until now.

David is a typical science nerd that's applying to MIT. He has two science sidekicks, and his sister who wants to film everything. His hot girl crush gets roped into the adventure too.

It seemed like the movie might propose that time is a closed loop, but they don't maintain that for very long. To digress, time is a closed loop. Potentially, if you could go into the past and change the future, that would create an alternate timeline and a parallel world, but ultimately you can't change your future. If you change the past, you can only fulfill the future. If you are poor and go into the past to make yourself rich, you only fulfill the fact you're poor. I could get into Novikov's principle, but take my word for it that I've read a lot about time travel on wikipedia. All of time already exists. It's like a video cassette, you can't change the future of the tape because the film has already been developed.

Meeting your past self in this world is bad. We don't know why, but the reason presumably is that the plot needs more danger and intrigue. I groaned as it became obvious this move adheres to the idea that time is not a closed loop. David gets greedy, breaking the groups' cardinal rule of never going back alone. He tweaks a Lollapalooza encounter with the hot girl so that instead of accidentally dismissing her advances, they start going out. This kicks off a chain reaction of chaos and destruction. He travels alone again and again to try to fix the loop. He got the girl, but ruined the world. His Lollapalooza jump created a ripple. He doesn't want to undo that because it undoes having a girlfriend. Love is as good of a reason as any to not want to fix the timeline, but the story unravels, lacking a clear direction. The ending is uninspiring and bland. I'm sure you can guess how it ends if you've ever seen a time travel movie. It's a Pandora's box type ending.

There are numerous errors, like a starter relay causing a running car to stall out, and Quinn's phone displaying information three months ahead of their current time position. For a science movie, these errors become more noticeable.

Mojave - I felt stranded by this movie.

Mojave (2015)
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Written by: William Monahan
Directed by: William Monahan
Starring:   Oscar Isaac, Garrett Hedlund, Louise Bourgoin, Walton Goggins
Rated: R

Plot:
Morose movie actor (or producer) Tom (Garrett Hedlund) wanders into the desert to clear his head and meets Jack the drifter (Oscar Isaac), who follows him.

Verdict:
What's the point of this movie? The plot is thin, and it comes across as more of an allegory about the demons and evil inside each person. Though, that's being generous. Oscar Isaac delivers a great performance in a movie that's sure to disappoint.
Skip it.

Review:
This movie is written and directed by William Monahan, who scripted excellent films like The Departed (2006) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005), but he also wrote The Gambler (2014) which I didn't like at all.
With Oscar Isaac in this, I expected at least a  good performance.

Tom is a tortured artist in the film industry. He is or was an actor, but is looking at producing. The film is vague on that front. Tom goes into the desert because otherwise the plot would halt in a dead stop. He has everything, but he isn't happy because life is hard when you're rich.
He flips his Jeep in such a cheap editing movie. He's driving and then it jump cuts to the Jeep on it's side. If you can't afford to have stunt drivers flip the Jeep, just have Tom hit a rock. It's noticeably low fidelity and easily could have been avoided. It looks like a glaring mistake.

Tom camps out, yelling at wolves and brandishing a knife. I guess since he's Hollywood we're supposed to accept his erratic behavior. Jack stumbles onto the camp, a rifle slung over his shoulder.

Tom is scared despite Jack relinquishing the rifle as Jack talks about death and life in the desert. Oscar Isaac does a great job in a role that's partially wasted in this film. He's genuinely creepy, but comes across as an evil Slingblade.
He's a mustache twirling villain with zero motivation because otherwise there would be no movie.

Tom beats Jack unconscious, takes the rifle, and runs, with Jack in pursuit. Jack is actually a serial killer who wants to kill Tom because apparently he kills everyone he meets in the desert. Sometimes he kills people that aren't in the desert too.

Reading this film as an allegory makes it slightly better. Tom revealed or unleashed his inner evil in the desert, in the form of Jack. That or Jack is the manifestations of his demons and unrest. Jack is relentless and threatens to harm everyone in Tom's life. Tom has to tame his inner demons. Jack seems to know a lot about Tom and how he thinks, which kind of supports the allegory. The conclusion is lack luster.

It's a strange movie with little reason as to why characters do anything. Walton Goggins was underused, and Mark Wahlberg is in this too.

Read my Coraline review