Chris L

This movie must be seen by everyone. It delivers a very powerful message from the Amighty (be it God or any other Head figures of your religion) as revealed by people with NDE (Near Death Experience). Multiple accounts of NDEs are grazed over in this film, and all carries with it the same conclusion with similar wisdom gained. Love is your key to entering Heaven while causing sadness and despair to other people especially your loved ones opens up the tunnel to hell in the afterlife. A very moving masterpiece indeed! Great direction, wonderfully sequenced and accompanied by ethereally moving music! This movie seeing experience is very touching. Be sure to have tissues nearby, because you will cry. This is a phenomenal movie experience - So much so that I am now a participant of their Pay It Forward campaign to ensure that at least five people will be able to watch this film without having to pay for it themselves.

This is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a very long time. The plot is pointless and the execution of the story is just plain bad and leaves me questioning what is the purpose of it all? I knew this was bad in the beginning scene when Idris’ character, Dr. Nate Samuels, and his two daughters landed in Africa to meet up with his friend, Martin Battles. One of the daughters complained about the place being hot and wished she had one of those electric fans that squirts out water….Yet…get this, all three were wearing layers of clothing underneath a jacket, a coat, and a thick hoodie. None bother to take off any of their clothes; they all looked like they were dressed for winter. But as you know, this is Hollywood so they gotta look good for the camera. There are so many other silly scenes that crop up from time to time, and many of those scenes have one thing in common - the characters are in the presence of a lion out for vengeance, or within vicinity of a lion pride in some cases, and yet no one seems to care about their lives. They all stood outside their car on several occasions (even when they knew that the vengeful lion was hunting them) and the younger daughter even had her back turned to the lion pride as if they were cute stuff animals. We probably have seen videos or at least heard of true stories of accidents that happened at safari park with lions and other big cats. They love to sneak up behind you and pounce, or rip off a limb or two to quench their appetite. But in this movie, the lions are all pretty tame, even the vengeful lion seems to only act aggressively for show, because once he gets near the characters, he doesn’t do anything other than walk around the human like setting him up as bait, or just pretend to fight with them without actually mauling anyone (to be fair, the script did imply that an entire village of people were mauled to death allegedly by a lion but this is tough to believe because the same lion that you see on screen can’t even manage to kill any of the main characters). Nate’s older daughter named Meredith is annoying and disobeys her dad multiple times. She is the one character who you will likely root for to get mauled first because, like her dad, she can’t stop making one dumb move after another just to show how brave and heroic she can be. Lions are known for their excellent eye sight (especially at night) and sense of smell, yet even when Nate was dangling on a tree not too far above the lion or when he hid under a bush in the water less than a feet under its nose, the lion was unable to sniff him out. If these events happened in real life, all of the characters would surely die or become the lion’s meal before they could even think to make their next stupid move. I wonder why the studio would greenlight such a dumb script. This production crew need to watch more Discovery channel shows like “I Was Prey” or “Fatal Attractions” to see how brutal and unforgiving wild animals are when they attack. They don’t rest when they start attacking and they’re quick to maul/rip you to shreds. I’m now questioning how did this movie get a rotten tomato score of 69%. I think 50% are automatically given because of how “woke” this movie is for casting black actors in most of the main character roles and for [spoiler alert!] ……..killing off their only white main character in the end (I’m actually not certain if he died at the end since I walked out of the theater before the movie ended - right after Nate’s final fight with the lion that left him- unscathed!!). This was just a terrible movie.

Despite many mediocre to bad reviews by critics (plus a Rotten Tomato score of 29%), I found The Invitation to be more enjoyable than initially led to believe by the critics. It also helps that I’m a fan of the gothic horror classic, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, which heavily inspires this film’s narrative. But from watching the trailer, you wouldn’t know that this is based on Bram Stoker’s masterpiece. The story follows Evelyn who recently lost her mother and was able to connect with a long lost wealthy cousin, Oliver, who found her after she did a DNA test. Oliver unites her with the rest of her relatives who she never knew existed in London. Strangely enough, this bloodline, the Alexander, produces only white males and even stranger yet is that they are all too happy to meet Evelyn and quick to accept her into the family (which seems odd at first, but makes sense later). There in London, she is taken to the new Carfax Abbey (an estate that is very recognizable for any true Dracula fans) where she meets the young and very charming Aristocrat named Walter. Romance immediately starts brewing as Evie spends more time with Walter, who quickly sweeps her off her feet without much effort. It turns out that when something appears too good to be true, it usually is, and in Evie’s case, everyone she meets in London has hidden agendas. The two main leads are perfectly casted. Nathalie Emmanuel is a good actress, with a few scenes reminding me of the young Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. Her performance is very natural, never seemed forced, and she plays Evie effortlessly with ease. Thomas Doherty is also brilliant as the aristocratic Lord of the Carfax Abbey manor. Their onscreen chemistry looks authentic and believable and there are moments in the film where you as the audience may get fooled into rooting for this relationship to work out between their characters. It doesn’t take long though before the plot becomes predictable, especially when the two bridesmaids enter the scene. There are so many references to the Dracula story that you didn’t need to wait long to figure out that this is a story about vampires, and not just any vampires but the Lord of bloodsuckers himself. “The Invitation” is beautifully filmed, with sets that are pleasing to the eyes. I would have given this film all 5 stars if it had spent more time on the ending. The final battle between good and evil is quick and abrupt, in a blink and you’ll miss it kind of way, which doesn’t bode well especially after all that time the film’s spent showing us the budding romance between the two protagonists. If you are a horror fan, this film may not deliver the jump scares and scary elements that you’d expect from films in this genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film nonetheless because I’m a big fan of Dracula.

This is China’s attempt to set up a film universe like what Disney’s done with Marvel. Last year we were introduced to Nezha, a popular character inspired by the 16th century Chinese classic novel “Feng Shen Yan Yi” (loosely translated as Investiture of the Gods). This year a quasi sequel to Nezha is brought to us in the form of another important character from the Investiture of the Gods universe - Jiang Ziya. Based on a real historical figure who helped overthrow the mad emperor of the Shang dynasty (King Zhou), Jiang Ziya is fictionalized here, yet true to the novel, as a deity-in-the-making who’s already gifted with supernatural abilities and magical skills to help him rid the world of demonic beings. Jiang Ziya is an intelligent take on the fictional tale from the Feng Shen fantastical universe. The movie remains somewhat loyal to the Feng Shen story in that it sets Jiang Ziya up as a divine celestial god from Heaven who was sent down to the mortal realm here on Earth to capture an evil fox spirit, Nine Tail, who possessed a young innocent but allegedly extremely beautiful maiden named Su Daji on the day she was heading off to become King Zhou’s consort. Nine Tail and Daji shared an unbreakable bond (bound together by an ankle bracelet) since that fateful day as this pair of fox and human spirits became intertwined and destined to be together for eternity. This film follows Jiang Ziya’s journey to capture Nine Tail all the while attempting to release Daji from her unfortunate fate. Along the way, viewers are treated to beautiful rendering of colorful depictions of ancient China and cutesy character designs with top notch animations featuring fast paced kung fu fighting. The storyline features elements and plots from the novel with added bonuses like the adorably cute heavenly fawn that acts like a puppy called Four Alike (whose Chinese name, “Si Bu Xiang”, actually means the exact opposite - “Four Not Alike”). As in the novel, after the fall of the Shang dynasty, here too King Zhou is deified as a deity who manages the marriage affairs of mortals. And like the novel, the promise of deification to the nine tailed fox spirit for successfully completing her mission to seduce and overthrow King Zhou was not fulfilled as promised, thereby causing Nine Tail a lot of resentments and a desire for vengeance on the perpetrator. I really enjoyed this film and that’s maybe because I’m a big fan of “Investiture of the Gods”. I find this much more enjoyable than last year’s Nezha. I can’t wait for it to release in 4k so that I can watch it again and certainly looking forward to next year’s entry in this glorified Fengshen Cinematic Universe, “ErLang Shen” (God with Three Eyes). Until then, we still have the the live action version of this epic tale to look forward to (Director Wuershan’s “Fengshen Trilogy”)