20s Movie Review - Love Wedding Repeat

Director: Dean Craig
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Runtime: 100 minutes
Year: 2020
Starring: Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Freida Pinto, Joel Fry, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jack Farthing, Tim Key, Allan Mustafa, Aisling Bea

Description: While trying to make his sister’s (Eleanor Tomlinson) wedding day go smoothly, Jack (Sam Claflin) finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend (Freida Pinto), an uninvited guest (Jack Farthing) with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl who got away (Olivia Munn) in alternate versions of the same day.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2023 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 10: A BRITISH COMEDY
 
Review: Chance can be an asshole. That’s what the voice-over states. In “Love Wedding Repeat”, everything revolves around chance and the capricious twist of fate. Table arrangements at a wedding turn out to be vital. Only one arrangement has a positive outcome for all the guest, but which one? Fortunately, after a big mistake, the characters just get to try again.

The concept sounds like a lot of fun, but “Love Wedding Repeat” makes almost no use of the concept of cyclical time. Director Dean Craig stupidly chops his romcom about parallel universes into two parts: in the first part of the film, the wedding goes disastrously, in the second part, everything goes completely according to plan.  

Unfortunately, there is a very big drawback to this setup. Jack, the main character, is completely unaware that alternate realities exist. And because he lacks this knowledge, he will therefore not try to influence the course of his own future (or that of others). A missed opportunity, because the self-repeating caus-and-effect gam is precisely what makes a “time loop” movie, like for example “Groundhog Day” or “Edge of Tomorrow”, so entertaining.

A whole battalion of idiotic characters are assembled for the wedding ceremony. Jealous exes, a cocaine head, a sleepy maid of honor, and a chatty man in a kilt who is very itchy. They are meant to make you laugh, but they don’t manage. “Love Wedding Repeat” is rarely truly funny, yet many of the situations are very uncomfortable to watch.

They could have done so many great things with this premise, yet they totally missed the mark. Shame, because with talented performers like Sam Claflin and Freida Pinto, it could have been a lot better.

Rating: 2/ 5

10s Movie Review - Iron Man 2

Director: Jon Favreau
Genre: Action/ Science Fiction/ Adventure
Runtime: 124 minutes
Year: 2010
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Mickey Rourke, Leslie bibb, Olivia Munn, Don Cheadle, Kate Mara, Paul Bettany, John Slattery, Clark Gregg, Garry Shandling

Description: With the world now aware of his identity as Iron man, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) must contend with both his declining health and a vengeful mad man with ties to his father’s legacy.

Review: Two years before the sequel was released, “Iron Man” was an unsuspected hit. It was a straight-forward comic book tale that made it special due to its great lead.
Although the first film wasn’t very surprising, the last scene where Tony reveals to the public that he is Iron Man, was. This created the path for a sequel. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is nothing like the other superheroes out there. Heroes like Spider-Man or Batman see their task as a burden and try to keep their identity hidden. But Tony is someone living the good life and not being ashamed of it, but simply has an eccentric hobby that he uses to fight bad guys. This is no different in “Iron Man 2”.
Tony makes it seem easy to live as a superhero with his identity out in the open and you wonder why some of them want to keep their identity hidden. Well, the government pressures him to hand over his inventions. And his character reveal draws the attention of a Russian criminal that has some unfinished business with the Stark family. This Ivan Vanko gets, after his first confrontation with Iron Man, help from a guy named Justin Hammer. He is a weapons manufacturer who is always one step behind Tony. An alliance with Vanko could work for both Hammer as Vanko.
Ivan Vanko is played by Mickey Rourke, who got his Hollywood comeback due to “The Wrestler”. But in “Iron Man 2” there is not a lot for him to do. Babbling in a Russian accent, but mainly silent, he is mostly physically present in the action scenes. Another newcomer to the film is Scarlett Johansson, who is Tony’s new assistant. First it seems like a thankless role, until it’s uncovered who she really is. But the best newcomer is Don Cheadle, who takes over the role of James Rhodes from Terrence Howard, who played this role in the first film. A character being played by a different actor than the previous film is a tough job, but Cheadle nails it and we’ve already forgotten about Howard.
The intention of a series is that you see a clear development in characters, in this cast Tony Stark. But at the end of “Iron Man 2” he is just the same guy as the first film. In doesn’t dig deep enough to give Tony the development he needs.
“Iron Man 2” is a fun and very entertainment sequel, that is mainly good because of an excellent performance by Robert Downey Jr.

Rating: 3/ 5

10s Movie Review - The Predator

Director: Shane Black
Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Thriller
Runtime: 107 minutes
Year: 2018
Starring: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Jake Busey, Yvonne Strahovski

Description: When a young boy (Jacob Tremblay) accidentally triggers the universe's most lethal hunters' return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled scientist can prevent the end of the human race.

Review: With “The Predator”, director Shane Black tries to bring the nostalgia back to life, from the 1987 original (Fun fact: Black was actually in that film). The film is iconic, especially because of its one-liners coming from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And they use these one-liners, but change them. Auch…. Not very clever. Then only clever choice is to copy the level of ‘macho’ from the original.
The film never gets scary or exciting. It’s a very messy film with no memorable characters, besides the Predator himself off course.
This movie wasn’t really necessary, I’ll stick with the Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

Rating: 2 / 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 120: Office Christmas Party

Director: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
Genre: Comedy
Runtime: 105 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T.J. Miller, Kate McKinnon, Jennifer Aniston, Jillian Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Rob Corddry, Vanessa Bayer

Description: When his uptight CEO sister (Jennifer Aniston) threatens to shut down his branch, the branch manager (T.J. Miller) throws an epic Christmas party in order to land a big client and save the day, but the party gets way out of hand...

Review: Who doesn’t enjoy the Christmas festivities at work? The party they have planned in “Office Christmas Party” is a little wilder than you might want.
We’ve seen it before, party movies like this. Everything revolves around this party and it’s up to the makers to create as many political incorrect situations as possible. But in this movie, that epic Christmas movie is not as epic as you might expect. People copying their privates on a Xerox machine, swinging from Christmas lights, lots of co-workers making out, some booze and drugs. It’s all been done before.
Because of the many subplots, it’s hard to create a solid unity. It’s silly Christmas movie entertainment. Funny at times, mostly thanks to Aniston and McKinnon. But it’s not a very memorable movie.

Rating: 2,5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 105: X-Men: Apocalypse

Director: Bryan Singer
Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Fantasy/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 143 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Olivia Munn

Description: After the re-emergence of the world's first mutant, world-destroyer Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.

Review: With “X-Men: Apocalypse”, director Bryan Singer concludes the second X-Men trilogy. It’s Singer’s fourth X-Men film, but the first final film in a series. And Singer delivered a great superhero film.
This time the world’s first mutant comes back and wants to destroy mankind. The X-Men have to join forces again to try to defeat him.
Eventhough “X-Men: Apocalypse” is the final film in the trilogy, started by Matthew Vaughn, the story takes some time to introduce new characters. Well, not really new, because we already knew Jean Grey, Scott Summers and Nightcrawler. We meet their younger versions and how it started for them. This way it doesn’t only feel like a great finale, it’s also a fresh start.
James McAvoy is really good as Charles Xavier and Jennifer Lawrence can exploit her character more in this film. Oscar Isaac is villain Apocalypse and is doing a solid job. Bt none of the actors ever reach Michael Fassbender’s level, who plays Magneto.
“X-Men: Apocalypse” is an entertaining and action packed conlusion in a good trilogy. The movie is over two hours long, but the time passes really quickly. That’s a good sign. I really enjoyed “X-Men Apocalypse”.

Rating: 4,5/ 5