Review: Air

“Follows the history of shoe salesman Sonny Vaccaro, and how he led Nike in its pursuit of the greatest athlete in the history of basketball, Michael Jordan.”

The single best thing about Air, is that its one of few stories around Michael Jordan left, that hasn’t been widely told, so there’s so much excitement and intrigue to it still even thought we know so much about this man and his legend. The second best thing is the directing, Ben Affleck is fully at his best here and it makes this movie great to watch. He uses some really interesting camera angles and camera moves that really make you feel like you’re a part of the conversation and that makes some of more dialogue heavy parts of this movie super engaging. There’s also a lovely nostalgia that they are able to bring back up from the early 80’s that comes across super authentic. Everyone here is also excellent, like truly there isn’t a lacking performance anywhere in this movie. Matt Damon is obviously the lead, but every role here feels weighty and important, and you get a real sense for the actual team work that went into landing Jordan. It also makes sense that there isn’t actually MJ in this movie, because as much as its basically about him, he himself would just be distracting as people would be just dissecting his performance and not the wider story around him. All in all, Air is a wonderfully made movie, that tells a super engaging story that we all might sort of know, but didn’t really know.

Review Score: 9 out of 10

Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

“The story of The Super Mario Bros. on their journey through the Mushroom Kingdom.”

I think the first thing that has to be said about this movie, is that it is very much a “kids” movie in its construction, but there is also something else here for the older folks who grew up with the titular plumber of legend. Mario is a gorgeous movie with some truly lovely animation that’s full of subtle detail but also feels very authentic to the aesthetic of the games. What you want out of this movie is ultimately going to determine what you get out of it. This movie is first and foremost directed to as wide an audience as possible, and as such it isn’t really a deep movie, but it is definitely a lot of fun and there should be enough for the older fans also to enjoy. Mario strikes me as the type of franchise that will and can mature with future iterations, now that it’s seemingly gained a large platform for itself performance wise. The box office returns thus far have been great so I’m sure more is already in the works. A lot I think was made of the voice cast and voice acting here, but I do think this movie not only addresses those concerns, but also provides good in universe logic for the deviations it does take. All in all The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a great time for the whole family, and it should entertain fans of the series even if it doesn’t wow them with its story, the visuals alone as very special.

Review Score: 7 out of 10

Review: Dungeons and Dragons – Honor among thieves

“A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.”

So let me get it out of the way one time, this is a great movie, however the first thing I want to talk about is “is this actually a DnD movie, and does it matter either way?”. I feel like the greatness of this movie doesn’t actually rely on this movie being based on the popular game, but I’m also starting to really wonder if that’s somewhat on purpose here. DnD is a real deep cut kind of franchise and I think this movie plays to such a broad audience that it knew it had to roll back some of that depth, in other to actually find a large audience. And that really does make me wonder, if this movie didn’t have the DnD name attached to it, I think it would be just as good (assuming they could get the same budget) so I wonder if it needed the DnD name, or if the game needs this movie? I think a good comparison is the recent Uncharted film. That movie I felt like would have benefitted from not having the weigh of the game title on it. This movie I don’t think is being held back the DnD title, but I’m also not sure if it helps because I don’t know if this movie is deep enough into that lore for the real fans. The great thing is, it may not matter at all because this movie is really good. This movie not only looks great from an effects point of view, but its shot really well, and it has some genuinely very very well done action scenes that are worth the price of admission alone. The script here is also surprisingly sharp as the dialogue is sharp, witty, and genuinely funny. All my questions about whether or not this movie needs to be or should be a DnD movie aside, this is really just a good old fashion super fun time in the cinema. Action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, its all here and its all pretty damn good.

Review Score: 8.5 out of 10