"Alien Covenant"
Slipshod sequel to Prometheus is also a kind of reboot of Alien and retcons some of Promethues Another colony ship crash lands on a planet with Aliens but this time the android David from Prometheus is doing like Dr. Moreau and acting crazy, and none of the contact team bothers even wearing helmets on a hostile planet. It's sure to end badly, and it kind of does. Not nearly as poor as the previous, but reminds you more of a slasher film than an alien movie, or a scifi version of Heart of Darkness.
"Wonder Woman"
The 2017 addition to the DC universe is a WW1 era set Wonder Woman film with the lady from Batman V Superman as she appeared a century ago. Casting several upcoming stars from HBO shows, and other bigger stars, seems to elevate the otherwise standard three act superhero flick beyond a mere Marvel clone. The director and script are tight and work well. The slightly lacking third act though brings it down a peg from being a complete master work. It's like a very good movie is almost there, but not quite. Hammy villain lady and strange villain man do not help.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"
Way too long a title, a first act that goes on too long, and a strange combination of zombie irates out for vengeance and Jack getting his mojo back make for a sequel by the numbers. It seems like we've already seen this before a few times. Using some of the previous cast, putting the now grown boy from part 3 in it, and having the coming of age seems kind of fishy could have worked, but it flounders in places. It's like a family reunion where the relatives are kind of ickly and you're annoyed by them.
"The Mummy"
The 2017 entry in Universal's Dark Universe series kicks off with this odd freaky Egyptian Mummy lady flick with Tom Cruise chewing scenery for over 2 hours. It makes you want to watch the Brandon Frasier ones again, even the spin off. This reboot sets it in modern day, makes the villainous Mummy lady look like Enchantress from Suicide Squad, and gives her a similar plan to attack a city, shoot stuff everywhere, and capture the hero. Well, her motivation though is to make him an undead survivor, ala the X Men series film villain Apocalypse, but here her plan is kind of silly. It's probably worth a rental on Halloween.
"Rough Night"
Saturday Night Live gals return to go on a night of Hangover and Weekend at Bernie's high jinx in this sometimes funny buddy girl comedy. It is a dark comedy though, taking from gross out elements, mobster and male stripper death, lots of pratfalls, silly and violent gun play, and jet ski play, and some kink. It does have some fun with 'girl power' and all that, and is not a bad film, just not old school and not laugh out loud funny. Most of the laughs come from shocks. Spy was funnier. This is on a par with the first Hangover.
"Transformers The Last Knight"
Ditching the premise of it being time travel to ancient England early on, the Knights of Cybertron are shown but quickly abandoned to jump to the present day of an alternate 2017 where Cade Yeager must find Optimus Prime and save him, and to get there the Autobots must enlist an accentric lady, another even more bizarre British old man, and have lots of one liners and robot pratfalls and explosions! It's not as bad as part 2, although it's not really any better than most fan films. (That said, my fan films are better than this script, even ones that aren't about Transformers). If they were going to 'A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court' then commit! That was one of the more interesting classic episodes. They did not, instead choosing to pick from Transformers Prime (which they also helped write) and the comics, and some of the fan films, as though they had fifty ideas and none of them were connected. At least they sort of got Megatron right. It will be in my collection on BluRay, but it's not one of their best outings. It wasn't dull, but didn't make much sense.
"Baby Driver"
Now we can discuss the film from a preview of at Comic Con 2017, and also because it came out in theaters. The flick is a road movie action thriller called Baby Driver, about a race driver, GTA5 style, who works for this mob group out to rob high profile places, like banks, but things go wrong, so it goes back to an arms deal gone south, and a post office. The kid who drives the car has a girl, and she's in danger too. The kid has a tick in his ear, so he listens to music and it's like giving him super powers. Okay, tinnitus does not do that! Still, it makes for a fun ride, even though the ending threw me a little. Worth a rental, or to own on bargain.
"Spider Man Homecoming"
Marvel has another hit with the web crawler, in cooperation with Sony, to bring yet another reboot to the screen. This time it's connected to Captain America Civil War and to othewr Marvel movies, and Tony Stark, the Iron Man, is involved, but a new enemy called the Vulture is threatening the city using alien tech stolen from the Avengers battles. New actors are better than the past incarnations, even if some are confusing, like MJ, but the Vulture's lines are awesome, and his connection to the homecoming dance is awesome, so no spoilers. Own it to add to your Marvel collection.
"War of the Planet of the Apes"
The third installment in the Apes reboot is at times long, and heavy on words, and is the opposite of the action spectacle it looks from the trailers. The actual war is more psychological than combat, and the awesome combat is there, but most of that is in the trailers. It really worked if you dig the reading subtitles and the road trip parts. It also worked if you like the two battle set pieces, which are amazing, and the prison escape, similar to that of old war movies. Chewing scenery is also great in the flick, including the awesome villain, and the heroic ape leader, Caesar.
"Valerian"
This amazing looking follow up to The Fifth Element is jaw dropping pretty and zany, and should be every bit as bizarre and fun, but something is severely lacking, the chemistry. The shopping mall virtual planet was cute, and the weird nightclub was fun, but most of the talking is boring! The two leads are clearly not enjoying each other. The cameo by a pop star seems forced and unnecessary, except she helps the hero escape. The heroes are assigned to a mission by some stuffy actor politician military types chewing scenery, while they have no on screen mojo, and they lose each other, and must be found again, in a city space ship the size of a planet. It's not a thousand planets. Anywaty, all of these aliens are colorful and some are deadly. Then there is this weird race of tall greys that have some kind of nuclear pearl pooping pets that this base thing is keeping on ice. It could be amazing if it weren't for a pair of disinterested leads, or at least the most so, the male lead, who clearly phones it in. It so could have been awesome. That said, it is far better than Jupiter Ascending.
"Dunkirk"
An ex pop star and a dapper old guy on a boat save a film about WW2 and the rescue of Dunkirk from obscurity in Chris Nolan's epic bid for Oscar. Too bad it came out in July. Really it is a fine movie, if one avoided the timeline oddities, a very long over 2 hour movie, an hour long final push, and interspersed through that, a 15 minute dogfight. It is not supposed to be a documentary, and it doesn't really try to be. Characters are often left with no intro, but thrust into the combat with little or no reason, and then have to survive with little chance of hope, but some of them get out. It does play with the gritty reality of war. Some people are killed immediately after you think they will be a main person. Others stay over long and you don't care for them at all. It really is a fine film and worthy of the year's best reviews so far. The flaws are not so consequential. Own it.
"The Dark Tower"
Based on the longest running Stephen King book series ever, the film adaptation of The Dark Tower really cannot be worked out. The film is plodding and takes weird liberties with events, cramming the New York scenes of a later book with the tower scenes of the last two, and the second book villain. It is a mess. If they had just stuck to the first book, it would have made sense. Maybe if they made a TV series out of it instead, it would be better. They planned on it, but now reviews indicate it might not be made. The movie just seemed like a dozen other similar fantasy films, from those ones where they run out of money and have to use a city in modern times, or the ones where not much is happening, so they film a lot of pretty backdrops. Also there are the odd hacker mind power elements of children being forced into shooting their cosmic shine energy to destroy a tower. That is not in the book like that! Also, those wormhole doorway machines aren't in the book. They're just doors into the other world.
"Atomic Blonde"
Butt kicking spy lady in 1989 Berlin fights a series of enemy bosses to get a list of names back from a guy they're supposed to protect, and get the list back, but all hell breaks loose. Now she must call in and report the incidents and give it to the British or to the US intelligence. The movie is filmed wrap around like flashbacks to the episodes leading up to the various agents, bad guys, strongmen, and a French spy lady she beds, to get to the list, or to a man who has copied the list into his memory. She doesn't actually explode. Not a spoiler. With a name like that, you would think she would explode, somewhere. Oh well. It;s a fun film and is similar to Le Femme Nikita and to James Bond and the Bourne films.
