Reviews

I love everything about it. Well, maybe not exactly the way the C.I.A just goes around wiping out anyone they feel like, with no explanation. I really like Karl Urban though. He's wonderful. And he won't be stereotyped as Dr. McCoy from STAR TREK. He can do anything. Put him with Bruce Willis and the rest of the stellar cast and you're set. Malkovich is amazing as always. Mary Louise Parker adds a little youth, to even things out. Her best line? "He, (Willis) is going to eat you for lunch." said to Urban's C.I.A. agent ordered to kill the 'retired analyst,' labeled RED. Retired Extremely Dangerous. Sarah, (Parker) finally decides to join the group of RED agents, Mirren, Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Brian Cox, a Russian this time, and they take care of business. I won't reveal more. But even though these guys aren't THAT old, my age pretty much, my 80 something mother, was dragged to this movie with a friend, the first movie she had seen in a theatre in decades, her 😳 take on it? AWESOME!!! It's 10 years old. See it anyway.

Of course it's not perfect. None of these movies are. But it was worth watching just to see Colin Mochrie of Drew Carey's 'Who's Line Is it Anyway?" fame, try to play a bad guy. Well, of course by the end of the movie, you find out why he has that nasty old chip on his shoulder and it's all a happy ending for everyone. The rest of the cast is pretty or cute or whatever they need to be. If for no other reason, watch it for Colin!

I was so distracted by the Tom Cruise and Kathryn Heigl look-a-likes, played by the two main characters, that I had to force myself to try to figure out what was going on. What will trigger the little girl to talk? What will trigger the romance? Where can I get that AWESOME fairy treehouse thing? My grown up daughters would love it! And then there's a lovable basset hound. Gorgeous setting. Toy store! Coffee and donut shop. It's all there. I'm sure I saw the Tom Cruise guy in one of the newer films but he just looks too much like the big star to survive. The hair, the smile. The 'Interview With the Vampire' sometimes scary grin. If you can get past all of that, enjoy. But I didn't like it enough to watch it again.

For his last film, Cary Grant did not want to be the central romantic character. That went to Jim Hutton, on who I always had a huge mad crush. I was heartbroken with both of their deaths. I even saw this movie in the theater. Samantha Eggar was wonderful as Hutton's love interest and it was fun watching Cary Grant play matchmaker for the two of them, with the summer Olympics in Japan for a back drop. I love these old-fashioned love stories. No violence. No obnoxious sexual innuendo or inappropriate garbage. No computer generated scenes where most of the actors play out their scences against a green screen. Just one of my favorite movies EVER!

Well maybe I don't know what I'm talking about because this is the first time I've watched this series. But I say that Mahershala Ali, teamed up with Stephen Dorff as his partner, OWN this series. And the makeup artists definitely have to be given their due. The story starts in 1980. Two children from a messed up home, to say the least, disappear into thin air on Halloween. The story goes from 1980, to 1990, to 2015. They find the young boy almost immediately, sadly dead. But the mystery of where the little girl is just will not let the two detectives rest until they finally find out what happened to her. The whole brilliance of this series is the way the scenes change from 1980 to 1990 to 2015, so seamlessly, back and forth and back and forth, that as you watch, you adapt to the time jumps pretty quickly. And the makeup used to age the characters is absolutely incredible. When at one point, in 2015, they talk about 'something they did" during the investigation, you know it's something horrible. And it is. I would have rather had a few less f-bombs scattered through out the story but the scenes and dialogue are so painful and so explosive, that there just doesn't seem to be another word out there yet to emphasize the horrific nature of the situations that come up. As the decades go on, the black detective and the white detective become closer than brothers. They also fight like brothers. But there is so much for everyone to take away from this story. Just make sure you are ready to pay attention.

I tried to watch this. But this brings up the question, why did Hollywood, or whoever, drop Bendan Fraiser like a hot potato and give all the parts to Rock 'the Dwayne' Johnson? Not fair. Maybe people would have realized that it was a sequel. BUT going down to the mysterious island in the eye of a hurricane and surviving? That's too much to start with. So maybe it is a good kids movie. But there is no chemistry between the characters because Johnson is not a sweet chemistry guy. He just makes the movie obnoxious. Waste of money. Sorry.

.....than this, despite the three f-bombs that are dropped in the last half hour of the film. And the emotional situation that was taking place, makes it understandable. THIS is what we need for a President. Especially when Louis, an AWESOME performance by Michael J Fox, tells the president off. Why? Because, as a citizen, this is HIS President! The president in this country works for us. And guess what the problems are? Crime and the environment. And this movie was made in 1995!!! almost 30 years ago. Annette Bening is Sydney, the President's girlfriend, who is a powerful lobbyist. She is very passionate about her job. But then their jobs clash. In the end the President's last words to Sydney are, "Well, it turns out, I've got a rose garden." Michael Douglas, if only we were all still 30 younger. Anyway, you get the picture, he does the right thing in the end. If you haven't seen this film, see it. Oh and a shout out to Martin Sheen, as the Cheif of staff. Please! See it. It's sort of a Cinderella story, and yes, it's fiction. But still......dot dot dot!!!!😔😔😔

I have always been so proud of Ron Howard. We grew up together, in a way. We are the same age. So as kids we had the same kind of life. We probably had the same types of experiences and the same values. He was on TV. I was watching him grow up as I was growing up. But how did he do this? How did he put together this emotionally charged dangerously painful film and make us need to see it? 'The Animal,' says Ronald, as he refers to the fire as a living thing, and gives us the epitome of the mind and psyche of the arsonist, played to perfection, by Donald Sutherland, who's almost as frightening as Hannibal Lector. And this film is actually my favorite DeNiro film. Instead of being a bad ass, he's a smart bad ass, a fire Marshall who takes Brian, played by the underrated Billy Baldwin, brother to Kurt Russell's big brother Steven McCaffrey, under his wing to investigate the mysterious fires killing the bad guy politicians, to make a point. These backdraft fires are being set by one of their own. Because who knows the mind of fire better than a fireman? No movie has ever made me cry like this film. It was also on the sad list of movies that we just couldn't watch after 9-11. It was just too much. Too real. I know it's been almost 3 decades since this film was made. But it is still relevant. But then so is SPLASH! Sadly, and horrifically, SPLASH has changed to "The Shape of Water." Don't watch that film. It is really really awful. I❤Ron Howard. If I could have lunch or spend some quality friend time, with a famous person, I would spend it with him. Precious and nothing but appropriate time. Like a dear friend or even a brother.

I was and I suppose, still am, loyal to the older Albert Finney version. Especially the music! The classic score seemed to make it even more amazing and glamorous. But as I have watched this newer redo several times, I have concentrated more on the characters, the dialogue, and the scenery. I love the scenes of the train going through the mountain areas with the thunder and lightening before the avalanche. Just that made me wish that I had taken a chance and gone to the movie theatre to see it. That was AWESOME! A really nice touch. And when Poirot sticks his head out of the door of his berth and asks, "Did we die?," it's hysterical. But the beginning of the film was puzzling. I have read the book. Where did this strange small crime that Poirot needs to solve before he gets on the train come from? And the even stranger issue of his breakfast eggs not being perfectly matched, "I blame the chicken," Poirot says, as he runs off to other business, was just plain weird. But I digress. Johnny Depp actually makes the character of Ratchet even more sinister than Richard Widmark did. And when 'Ratchet' tries to pretty much buy Poirot to be his bodyguard, so to speak, Poirot declines by telling this person who looks like a criminal, "I do not like your face," Ratchet's fate is pretty much sealed. No one would be able to keep this terrible person safe. Those of us who know the story, are clued in (pun intended) to how it ends. They all did it. But the bottom line is this. Give this film a chance. It's very entertaining. And since our NEW Poirot is now heading to Egypt, us Poirot fans know why. And I will see the next one in the theatre. Tickets to see a movie with all the cool sound effects on a really huge screen, are not that expensive.