MOVIE: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Year: 2023 Rating: PG-13 Length: 154 minutes / 2.57 hours If you want proof that Hollywood won’t let a good franchise die, look no further than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). The original 1980s trilogy stands pretty well by itself, but the first reboot, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) was so odd that it took almost another 20 years for the franchise to try anything else. Dial of Destiny merely exacerbates the problem of trying to resurrect this franchise by not transitioning off Harrison Ford (like it tried to do in Crystal Skull) but instead doubling down on de-aging technology and nostalgia. There’s a huge section in the first part of this movie that was so CGI heavy, I could have sworn I was watching a video game cut scene for 30 minutes. De-aging Harrison Ford still has the same issues that all other de-aging techniques seem to have (mainly,...
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MOVIE: Interceptor (2022)

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InterceptorYear: 2022Rating: RLength: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours I heard about this movie from some co-workers and I decided to turn my mind off for a night and watch it. I'm glad that it was on Netflix because I would not have paid money to see this generic action thriller. It felt to me like someone was perusing the internet, trying to find interesting military resources to integrate into an action film. Then they found SBX. While this floating military asset is an interesting place to set an action film, there's nothing special in the plot to really demand it. A few things I couldn't get past in this movie were the motivations of the villains and the accent of the main character, Captain Joanna Collins (Elsa Pataky). I had trouble believing a Captain with such a strong eastern-European accent would be as successful in the United States military as she was. Then there are these random scenes with Chris Hemsworth working...
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MOVIE: Mr. Right (2015)

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Mr. Right Year: 2015 Rating: R Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours When Mr. Right (2015) came out, it looked like a fun little action rom-com film. I was interested in seeing it because I had found Sam Rockwell's performances in Iron Man 2 (2010) and Seven Psychopaths (2012) to be quite engaging. Plus, Anna Kendrick is cute in a "doesn't really smile" kind of way. For whatever reason, I never got around to seeing Mr. Right when it was released six years ago. After finally sitting down and watching it on Netflix, I'm kind of glad I saved the money. It was clear to me almost from the start that Rockwell was phoning it in on this movie. Sure, he was charismatic as an assassin who kills the people who hire him to kill other people. The fact that he doesn't lie about his lifestyle to Martha (Anna Kendrick) made him amusing if only for the fact that after the third or fourth time,...
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MOVIE: Capone (2020)

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Capone Year: 2020 Rating: R Length: 103 minutes / 1.72 hours To give you a sense of the quality of this movie, I received a copy to own Capone (2020) for free from Redbox. The fact that Redbox was the distributor for this movie should have been the first indication of how bad it was going to be. At first, I figured, "Oh, a movie about Al Capone. That should be interesting, right? And Tom Hardy is in it? He's done some great stuff." How wrong I was. Now it's my job to warn you about it. Perhaps the director, Josh Trank, was to blame for this mess of a movie. Sure, his first film, Chronicle (2012), was pretty good, but Fantastic Four (2015) showed this to be a fluke, and Capone put the last nail in the coffin for his career. I mean, how can you take such an interesting historical figure like Al Capone (Tom Hardy) and focus on all the wrong parts...
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MOVIE: Fantastic Four (2015)

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Fantastic Four Year: 2015 Rating: PG-13 Length: 100 minutes / 1.67 hours For a movie with "fantastic" in its title, it's anything but. It's difficult to make a movie that's worse than the original that was released a decade earlier, but here we are. I understand the need to reboot a franchise so the owners of the rights can continue to hold onto those rights, but this is just a sad excuse for a movie. I only hope—now that Disney owns this franchise—that the next reboot of the Fantastic Four doesn't spend any time on its origin story (which we've seen twice now). While the casting for the main characters was technically proficient, if not a little young, I was stunned to see such wooden and emotionless acting from absolutely every actor on the screen. If I didn't know any better, they replaced these actors with CGI robots who state their lines instead of, you know, acting. Additionally, there didn't seem to be any stakes...
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MOVIE: Rampage (2018)

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Rampage Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours I didn’t go into this movie expecting much, and it still disappointed me. Seems like every time some Hollywood studio gets their hands on a video game franchise and decides to turn it into a movie, this is the kind of thing we get. I wouldn’t be so mad about it except that nothing in this film seems anywhere close to original at all. In fact, it seems to be cobbled together from summer movie blockbuster clichés and tropes, almost like a CGI-heavy Frankenstein. What’s probably worse is that it could have been somewhat passable if it held to the source material. There’s a weird kind of disconnect when a movie like Rampage (2018) has an actual arcade cabinet of the game it’s based on in the background of the corporate penthouse suite. Like, did they do this genetic-engineering research and name it “Rampage,” fully knowing that they’d create the exact creatures from the game? In any case,...
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BOOK: The Depths (2014)

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The Depths Year: 2014 Author: Nick Thacker Length: 384 pages The Depths will be the last book I read from this author. While The Enigma Strain was passable, The Atlantis Stone revealed quite a few weaknesses in his writing style. I had hoped The Depths would redeem this author, but unfortunately, that was not the case. There’s too much left unpolished in these books that I cannot recommend people spend their time reading them. In The Depths, the main issues lie more with the scientific accuracy and leaps of logic that don’t make sense. There’s still the problem of too many flat and unimportant characters that were present in The Atlantis Stone, but it’s just slightly better than before. While I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, I felt the writing seemed to be more “stream of consciousness” than something figured out in advance. There are a few main characters, and a basic idea that eventually becomes the central conflict of...
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BOOK: The Atlantis Stone (2013)

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The Atlantis Stone Year: 2013 Author: Nick Thacker Length: 480 pages Albert Einstein is often attributed to the quote, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” In that case, The Atlantis Stone, is not creative, as all its sources are plainly on display, jumping from imitations of Dan Brown to imitations of National Treasure, and everything in-between. I wouldn’t mind the obvious homage to better stories if the plot was any good. The Atlantis Stone is not a good story, though. The main reason for this seems to be the characters themselves, but there’s plenty of plot holes to blame as well. Let’s start with the characters: there are too many of them, and many are entirely unnecessary. The token female in the entire group seems tagged on for the mere ability to provide a few moments of exposition, as well as give the lecherous males something to long for. Her uncle is completely unnecessary, as his research doesn’t require him to actually be at these...
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BOOK: Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation (2017)

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Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation Year: 2017 Author: Mark Lages Length: 312 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Can we please stop using fiction as an avenue to whine and complain about the state of current affairs? Books like Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation and Nobel Peace Prize do nothing other than highlight how broken society is, all the while never providing any actual solutions to these problems. The only way these authors think they can get away with it is by packaging it as “fiction.” Let’s face it, just title the book, Things are terrible and here’s why everyone else is to blame and put it in the non-fiction section. Regarding Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation, I couldn’t figure out who the target audience was. It’s written in a clipped, repetitive, redundant, and childish prose that makes me think it’s targeted toward children. However, with sexual situations (including a story about rape), violent and unnecessary subplots, and a sprinkling of profanity, I would never give this book to a child to read....
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BOOK: A Natural (2017)

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A Natural Year: 2017 Author: Ross Raisin Length: 386 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** This book was, without a doubt, the gayest book I’ve ever read. Usually, I don’t read books with LGBTQ+ themes, but the cover and title led me to believe it was about soccer (or, in this case, football). I am not against books with these themes, per se, as long as the characters are likable and relatable. It’s just I would hope that Random House isn’t merely publishing books with these themes to get “automatic” sales from people who want to support the LGBTQ+ movement. Unfortunately, based on the weakness of the story in A Natural, I suspect this was the only reason a large publisher released it. For a book I thought was about football, actual instances of the sport being played collectively comprises perhaps 1% of the entire book. That’s roughly 3.86 pages of football in a book about football players. If you’re looking for tension and...
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BOOK: Plane (2017)

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Plane Year: 2017 Author: William Hrdina Length: 148 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Two things help to create a good story: little to no suspension of disbelief, and realistic characters. The more a writer has to justify what they’re doing in the world they’ve written, either through scientific or historical inaccuracies, the harder it is for the reader to accept the story they’ve been given. Similarly, if the characters are only flat stereotypes or caricatures that act in pre-defined ways based on these broad brushstrokes, the reader can’t take the story seriously. Unfortunately, Plane fails on both of these elements. If anything, its short, novella length is its redemption since the reader doesn’t have to invest much into reading it. Let’s start with the suspension of disbelief. First off, I doubt a college student would be allowed to fill in for a professor at an international conference, let alone one where the student would be speaking on behalf of the professor. That...
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BOOK: The Death Cure (2011)

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The Death Cure Year: 2011 Author: James Dashner Length: 535 minutes / 8.91 hours If ever there was proof that not every book should have a trilogy, it’s The Death Cure. Sure, The Maze Runner was an interesting concept, but it brought up a lot of questions. None of these questions were answered by the end of the series since most of the focus was on random action sequences rarely driven by the main characters’ actions. If action wasn’t the focus, then the loose and unbelievable “love triangle” certainly was. In the end, I had no connection to the characters, which was why I was mostly unaffected by some of their deaths. The real problem with The Death Cure (as well as its predecessor, The Scorch Trials), is how much “fluff” is in the story. The Maze Runner worked because there was a concrete objective: escape the maze. In the two books that followed, what was the goal? Was it to defeat WICKED? If it...
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BOOK: Julia Dream (2017)

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Julia Dream Year: 2017 Author: Fabia Scali-Warner Length: 280 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE AUTHOR*** When I received a request to review Julia Dream, the author told me I might like it because I enjoyed Ender’s Game. This book is no Ender’s Game. While the eponymous character of Julia Dream is a teenager conscripted into military service, much like the titular Ender from Ender’s Game, that’s essentially where the similarities end. Ender endured persecution and harsh realities and learned to work them into a strategic advantage over an alien species. Julia seemed to be picked at random to defend an empire, then promoted with no other reason than she survived easily survivable situations. Part of why I genuinely loved Ender’s Game was because the immersive narrative built upon itself, adding interesting characters who added to a well-rounded cast of compatriots. This is part of why I did not enjoy Julia Dream. As I read, I didn't engage with the main character, who was robotic and...
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BOOK: How Then Shall We Live? (2015)

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How Then Shall We Live? Year: 2015 Author: Stephanie Rodda Length: 146 pages The book with a question that’s practically answered from page one is as close as one could ever come to an “apocalyptic utopia” story. As a Christian, I understand the power of what God can do, but I also understand that some things come with His timing. In this book, each time a challenge arises, God seems to step in immediately and solve it, which really detracts from any thematic tension that could be present. Nothing really ever gets to the point where there’s an unbearable hardship because then it would seem like God isn’t instantly answering the characters’ prayers. Then there’s the characters. While I understand from reading the “study questions” at the end that these are based somewhat on real people, I found the characters in this book to be flat, cookie-cutter versions of ideal Christians. They didn’t feel human to me at all. I’d expect people in their situation...
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