Hitman: Agent 47

I've played various iterations of this game and seen the previous movie.  So will this movie have anything to do with the game? 

 There were some homages to game play, once the character changes disguises, there was another scene where 47 drags a body.  

One thought I had while watching was that I fail miserably at times playing the game, so it would have been funny to see the character do a little failing, maybe some out takes during the credits.  This was an entertaining action flick based on a video game.  I did not expect much going in.  

Ciaran Hinds' accent was terrible.  I just do not like Zachary Quinto, I think it has to do with his performance in the Star Trek movies.  Rupert Friend did a great job as 47.  And the sister character by Hannah Ware was good too.  

Straight outta Compton

I am not the biggest fan of gangster rap.  Having had a sawed off shotgun pointed at me during a robbery, and being called a punk mark, and having my work place (a store in Sacramento) shot at by gangsters, all makes me less inclined to find this type of music as entertaining.  

But this was a movie about the origins of West Coast gangster rap, a movie about people chasing and reaching a goal.  

It was interesting to see how quickly NWA fell apart as a group, certainly not surprising.  The actors were pretty much all newcomers, except for Paul Giamatti.  O'shea Jackson was great as Ice Cube.  I did not know that Ice Cube wrote the movie Friday, so that gave me more respect for him as a creator. But it makes sense because he wrote many of the raps for NWA.  

This certainly is a timely movie, with all of the focus on police brutality lately.  There is a scene where all the artists are standing outside of the music studio and the police come up and harass them.  Fuck the Police resulted from these types of interactions, so it put that whole thing, that at the time I only read about in the newspapers, into a different context.  

I would have to say that by the end of the movie I had more respect for NWA and what they accomplished.  

Man from UNCLE

This is a fun movie.  Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger) was very good as a Soviet thug.   Henry Cavill  (Superman) played the always in control spy very well.  Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) did a great job too, her character was fun and complicated.  Also the editing was excellent.  

As a kid I enjoyed those over the top spy movies, and Mike Myers' Austin Powers movies.  This movie adds to that cannon of funny spy films.  I never really watched the Man from UNCLE TV series, because I was too young.  Maybe not even alive when it was on the idiot box.

I always think it is absurd in movies and other media how spies, police, etc. are portrayed as flawlessly skilled in all activities.  These spy spoofs are kind of a relief from the Mission Impossble/007 movies where the main character can do anything at anytime.  

Fantastic Four

How many times are they going to reboot this Fantastic Four?  Four times perhaps?  I guess Fox owns this Marvel franchise, so that is probably part of the problem.  This reinvention of the concept was just ok.  They put the beginning in modern day, instead of using the original ideas.  Kind of a bad idea because the die hard fans will not like a complete overhall of the origin of their powers.  But in this day and age where people do not know the history of WW2 let alone the history of a comic book franchise, Fox is safe.

Still it was an interesting idea, if you are coming at the film not really caring about the original.   In this version the 4 people get their super powers from traveling to a separate dimension, a dimension that the Miles Teller (Whiplash) stumbles on as a wunderkind attempting to move object from A to B in a Star Trek/teleporter style.  

Stretching, flying around on fire, being invisible, being made of rock, all pale, to me, compared to the power to figure out how to travel to a different dimension.  So, to me the whole franchise is a bit flawed from the beginning.  But it was still interesting to watch if you like comic book based action movies with lots of explosions and other special effects.  

Vacation

I have seen the previous Vacation movies starring Chevy Chase and Beverly DeAngelo.  They were funny parts here and there.  This rebooting of this franchise was decent.  I would say that I probably laughed more at this new one, than at the older versions.

Ed Helms is very funny as Clark Griswald's grown son.  Chevy Chase's cameo was fun.  Charlie Day (Always Sunny) needs to be in more movies.  He is just a great comedic actor.  Steele Steebins did a great job as Kevin Griswald.  His character was very funny.  Skyler Gisondo was good too.  I think they did a better job than the original with the child characters.

I think that too much of this film was revealed in the trailers, but I still got some quality laughs from it.  Specifically, Chris Hemsworth's work was funny, the scenes with the strange car were very funny, especially when the driver's seat turned around.