Bonafide summer movies!

Well, MAY movies and we didn't get any in May last year. 

WRATH OF MAN

Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie team up for this badass action flick. Ritchie is on a real roll lately (I even liked his Aladdin way more than I expected to). Statham can do this in his sleep, but even almost 20 years into his action career he never feels like he is checked out. The plot is maybe a bit too overly complicated (I still have no idea what the Andy Garcia character was about), but the action is good and legitimately brutal. 

SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW

Not a Saw franchise fan. Only even sort of liked the very first one. But I was very intrigued by the involvement of Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. I figured their presence meant a fresher entry. Eh, I guess. This thing really doesn't offer anything new. We get gross traps (the first one was especially nasty). We get a big twist that's not surprising. Rock CAN act, but here his approach to serious acting is to just squint a lot. Jackson is really not in it that much. The ending is laughably staged.

HERE TODAY

Good to see Billy Crystal back doing something. This is his 1st starring role in a movie in nearly a decade. He plays a legendary comedy writer dealing with the early stages of dementia. Through circumstance he befriends Tiffany Haddish. The best thing in this movie is just watching the two of them play off each other. Haddish in particular has a real easy charm that few movies have tapped into yet. The last third of the movie gets almost unbearably sentimental.

THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD

I was on board the Angelina Jolie hype train in the early days. Then she spent basically 2 decades doing crap movies and being unlikable. So for me at least this movie is a major comeback, a tough guy action flick that just happens to star Jolie instead. It has all those Taylor Sheridan trademarks, although this isn't on the level of a Hell Or High Water or Wind River. Really strong supporting cast, with Nicholas Hoult and Aiden Gillen as a couple of seriously evil assassins, Jon Berenthal as s rough guy sheriff, and the kid Jolie looks after is good. One thing though. Can movie fx companies PLEASE stop it with this overly fake looking CGI fire? Just make it darker. Real fire isn't bright orange. 

FINAL ACCOUNT

Interesting documentary featuring a bunch of interviews with surviving members of the Hitler youth (all now at least in their 90s). 

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