Robbie Shorter

Reviews and other content aren't verified by Google

The first two acts of this movie are interesting enough with some decent acting and an intriguing concept of lowkey rooting for a deranged serial killer to escape a practically inescapable arena. The last act of this movie goes full stupid and doesn’t bother trying to make any logical sense especially when M Nights daughter Saleka goes from being just a performer to the main protagonist. It honestly does feel like her scenes are just there for the sake of keeping her relevant to the movie. It’s a pretty uninspired way of launching your own adult kids acting career and personally I don’t think it worked. It’ll take much more than a movie filled with plot holes and gaps in logic to launch Saleka’s career to Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift level heights.

If you’re expecting a proper follow up to the previous film, you’ll be sorely disappointed. While this certainly isn’t a terrible film, it gets a low rating from me because of just how much it undoes the excellence of the first film. The movie wants to be a court room drama, a psychological thriller, a twisted love story and a musical all in one and frankly if it had stuck with the first three and completely dropped the musical stuff this probably would have been even better than the first film. Every time the film seems to hit it’s stride and start to pull me in… it quickly interrupts itself with another damn musical number that pulled me back out of it. Seriously, it’s my least favorite part of the movie. When done well a musical number can add to the experience but this was honestly just done showcase Lady Gaga as Harley. The final act of the film was basically a slap in the face to the previous film and the film ends where it started with a very disappointing ending. The acting and visuals are excellent but everything else is a shell of its predecessor. I don’t recommend watching this until you can stream it.

In a world where so many films featuring gay or lesbian characters exist just for the sake of showcasing gay and lesbian characters- this film is anything but that. It starts off as a steamy, erotic relationship between two women but very quickly turns into a suspenseful crime drama. The acting is great. The story is engaging. And I was actually invested in the main characters and how their story would unfold. The focus of the film isn't that Lou and Jackie are lesbian. It’s how Lou and Jackie can maintain their relationship as their world starts to fall apart around them. Lou just wants to clock in, make her money, smoke cigarettes and go home. She wants to live as boring and uneventful a life as possible as far away as she can from her sadistic, criminal father. Jackie is a bit of a nomad. She has no home, no money, no job. All she’s got is a ripped body and dream of making a name for herself in the world of bodybuilding. And when these two women’s worlds collide it makes for a suspenseful story. The only reason I don’t give it a perfect score is because there’s a scene during the final confrontation that caught me off guard and took me out of the moment for a second. It’s outrageous but kinda makes sense given what Jackie has become. Overall this is a great film well worth your time. If you enjoy a solid crime drama this movie will not disappoint you.

Interesting concept. Dreadfully boring execution. It felt as if the movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be an enchanting fantasy about black people with magical abilities, a social awareness drama about bias against black people, or a wholesome love story. It fails on all three. While I understood the underlying message that black people should not have to modify their demeanor and personality to be more palatable to white people so they can feel comfortable and hip- I find that having most of the movie focused on an entire secret magical agency dedicated to doing just that counterintuitive to say the least. By the time our main character finally has his grand epiphany and stands up for himself the movie is basically over and he gets punished for doing so. Overall just a boring, uninspiring film that had the potential to be something much more captivating. Just go watch The Color Purple instead.

I personally have no idea as to why folks are giving this movie a perfect or near perfect scores. As someone who has played every Uncharted game in the series- from Drake’s Fortune to The Last Legacy at least a hundred times over- this film adaption of such a beloved video game franchise is nothing more than cash grab poorly mimicking the charm of the game it’s based on and riding Tom Hollands coattails after his success with Spider-Man No Way Home. Let’s just be honest about that. I did not like the films depiction of any of the characters or the inclusion of random new characters that don’t even exist in the video games. I get that certain aspects of the original source material have to be tweaked for the big screen but this doesn’t work for me one bit. I didn’t like any of the characters because all the actors portraying them felt miscast. Including Tom Holland as Drake. But I did like Antonio Banderas. I didn’t like the story and plot because rather than stick with one storyline at a time from each of the video games… they just took bits and pieces of story and settings from every game in the series and smushed them all together into this nonsense. I was going to give this film two stars… one for Banderas and the other for the voice actor of the video game version of Nathan Drake making a cameo. But then they killed off Banderas’ characters and that further annoyed me so 1/5 stars it is. If you love Holland… just watch his other films. If you love Uncharted, just stick with the video games. I see no reason for this movie to exist beyond Hollywood running out of ideas and wanting to cash in on Hollands fame.

I’m not as familiar with the comic book series or older animated TV shows so this movie was really my first introduction to Dr. Micheal Morbius. And it was overall… meh. I thought the acting was decent and I like the concept of the living vampire and having bat like powers. But overall the movie did feel pretty generic. And the fighting between Milo and Morbius in their vampire forms was a mess. The camera is just shaking violently and you can’t actually see anything except for just bricks and walls being smashed. Not cool during what’s supposed to be an epic fight scene. I give it an average score if only because I didn’t think it was a terrible experience. Just generic and not particularly memorable. Which is the LAST thing you want a Marvel movie to be.

I went into this movie expecting the same kind of feeling of dread, creepiness, and anxiousness I got from watching Peel’s previous two films Get Out and Us. I left this movie feeling like I deserved a refund and not needing to take my sleeping medication because I was so incredibly tired and mentally checked out by the time this movie was over. The actors themselves did well but Keke Palmer pretty much carried the movie with her humor and energy. Which was contrary to Daniel Kaluuyas performance as a very stiff, stoic, and mumbly older brother. There were a select few particularly interesting moments in the film that caught my attention (eventually) but overall the movie was frankly just BORING. It kept getting in its own way by having an not very well connected secondary story that was actually more interesting to me than the primary story of the ranch versus the UFO. I did appreciate the twist about the UFO and I thought that was very clever. But the movie never actually does anything meaningful with it. Every time Nope had a moment of intrigue it immediately pulled me out of it and went back to being very slow. Very talkative. For me, a movie has about 15 to 20 minutes to establish its characters, the environment, the situation, and the plan of action then it needs to hit the ground running and start letting the story unfold. Nope feels like watching 2 hours of exposition with a little bit of actual movie peppered in at certain parts of the film. By the time the movie reached it’s final act- which felt like after 3 millennia- I was so checked out and unimpressed I didn’t care about their final battle against the damn UFO nor did I care about final big reveal at the end. It honestly just annoyed me more than anything. Felt like Peel was trolling us. Get Out was excellent. Us was great. I would definitely rewatch those movies. Would I watch this film again? NOPE! It gets a 4/10 and 2/5 stars from me if only because the acting was good, KeKe Palmer was great, and the side story about the monkey and TV sitcom was genuinely interesting. Everything else this movie had to offer… nope. Try again Jordan.

As refreshing as it was to see Keanu’s long hair now in the Matrix Universe, that’s about where the intrigue of this movie ends for me. The attempts the movie made to pay homage to its predecessors only made me want to watch the original Matrix more. Visually it is impressive but as far as the acting, action, and overall plot… mediocre. I found myself getting bored with the movie less than an hour into it. Not even Neil Patrick Harris could keep me invested. And I love that guy. The cold hard truth is that this movie ultimately turned out to be yet another mediocre sequel film created to cash in on the nostalgia of the previous films us suckers have for it. Only the most die-hard Matrix fans will feel like it’s a good investment to go see in theaters. As for the rest of us… just watch John Wick. I’ll give this film two stars. One for Keanu’s hair and one for Neil Patrick Harris.