Day: July 10, 2015

Self/Less (2015)

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I was a little dubious of this movie. I love Ryan Reynolds (he used to be my #1 of all time, I have watched almost every single one of his movies) and sci-fi movies in general, so when I got the chance to see Self/Less early, I was on board.

I won’t offer any spoilers in this review. It was a pretty interesting movie, with the premise being that the dying Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) opts to have his consciousness transferred to an empty vessel of a body that was genetically engineered in a lab for prime performance (that perfect specimen being Ryan Reynolds, of course). As the trailer indicates, he soon finds out that this body does not come with no strings attached and that, in fact, this body had a life and a family. Chaos ensues.

Lemme just say Ryan Reynolds kills it with this movie. He’s been doing a lot of really great work both as a dramatic actor and as an action star. (Also, he looks amazing throughout this entire film, okay? There I said it, the man is a beautiful human specimen.) He plays off the other characters really well and just, I don’t know, he carried the entire film on his shoulders with ease.

Gotta nitpick on Ben Kingsley really quickly: why the awful New York accent, Sir Kingsley? You’re better than this. The accent sounded horrendous, like some terrible mix of his natural British accent and a “New York accent”. It was very sad to hear. He gets top billing in the movie, but he is only in the film for the first 10-15 minutes and then we don’t see anymore of him.

Matthew William Goode plays a much larger role in the movie. He seems to be getting typecast as the brilliant but subtle jack*ss, i.e. in The Imitation Game, and he does a pretty good job of doing it. His character is composed for the entirety of the film in that eerie way that some villains are.

Mmmm I don’t know, I can’t say I loved this movie. The story was not that creative given a pretty cool premise and I didn’t feel much for characters that weren’t played by Ryan Reynolds or Victor Garber. (Always love Victor Garber.) I hear Advantageous, now on Netflix, does the premise better so maybe I’ll check that out.

Self/Less is in theaters today, July 10.

Trainwreck (2015)

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Back. With. A. New. Review! Oh, I’ve missed attending early screenings so much. (Thanks Fandango for hooking us up, even though it’s super shady to be offering free concessions vouchers and then not honoring that offer when moviegoers show up to the theater. I know concessions is how theaters make most of their money but there is no need for DECEIT, Fandango. For shame.)

I was invited to see Amy Schumer’s new feature film, Trainwreck, by my regular movie crew. The trailers made it seem pretty funny and Amy Schumer is kind of on fire right now. She’s an incredible comedy writer and actor. If you haven’t seen any of her sketches from her show, you need to go over to Youtube or Comedy Central and do that now, you’ll be glad you did. Here’s some recommendations.

This movie had more heart than I expected. With movies like this, I expect more somber moments to be interrupted with farts or inappropriate jokes, but I think this movie just felt very real with the highs and with the lows.

Also, if Lebron James was to go into acting after retiring from the NBA, or if he was to do the Space Jam remake as has been rumored, I’d be okay with that. He was really funny in this movie, held his own quite well.

I don’t know, there’s not a whole lot for me to say about the movie, actually? It was a pretty predictable story but I laughed so hard. Amy Schumer really delivered with this one.

ALSO Tilda Swinton is in this playing the editor of the men’s magazine Amy Schumer works at and it’s really hilarious because it’s so unlike any of her past roles. In fact, it’s kind of fun spotting stars in the movie, like Mike Birbiglia, Randall Park, Ezra Miller, John Cena, Lebron James, Amare Stoudemire, Tony Romo, etc. (For all you sports fans out there.)

Mmmm sorry for the short review, I just don’t have too much to say. Trainwreck was funny. Go see it if you enjoy laughter. 

Trainwreck comes out July 17.