What's on at the movies 15 June 2017?
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Despicable Me 3 ✪✪✪½ Opened June 15
Okay, I was gonna love this film no matter what because I'm a huge Minions and Steve Carrell fan. This is really the fourth film in the franchise, as we had Minions in 2015.
Kudos to the screenwriters for coming up with a bit of a twist with Gru discovering he has a twin brother, who is attempting to carry on with the family business but needs a little help.
Add an absolutely brilliant soundtrack filled with disco tunes, since the villain is a former 80's child star and you have a winning formula. That's my only complaint in that it is a formula, and now at film three or four we've pretty much seen it all before. This reminds me of the Ice Age franchise, which did well to maintain some freshness and smarts but became long in the tooth (if you'll excuse my mammoth pun).
Still the kids will love it and I'm sure and parents won't be bored. Three and a half bananas from me.
Film Blurb
Illumination, who brought audiences Despicable Me and the biggest animated hits of 2013 and 2015, Despicable Me 2 and Minions, continues the adventures of Gru, Lucy, their adorable daughters-Margo, Edith and Agnes-and the Minions in Despicable Me 3.
Joining Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig in Despicable Me 3 is Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award winner Trey Parker, co-creator of Comedy Central's global phenomenon South Park and the Broadway smash The Book of Mormon. Parker voices the role of villain Balthazar Bratt, a former child star who's grown up to become obsessedwith the character he played in the '80s, and proves to be Gru's most formidable nemesis to date..
Rough Night ✪✪½ Opened June 15
Most of the stars I've given this film are for Scarlett Johansson and Kate McKinnon. They put up a good fight in trying to do their best with poor material.
Kate McKinnon plays an Australia best buddy in this, and I enjoyed listening to her American pretends to be an Aussie view on America. My friend just found her accent annoying and lame.
I have to credit the summing up of this film to my friend when she said that it feels like a bunch of comedy ideas thrown on a table and nobody thought about them hard enough to make them work.
There are story lines that just dumb with Johansson's on-screen husband wearing a diaper so he can drive overnight to Miami to win back his fiancé. Every scene of that fell flat and was kinda embarrassing actually.
There's a couple of funny bits but really this is another low-brow film with an A list actress and Saturday night live stars and script writers. Certainly not the worst film I saw this week but I think I should have spent the night in. A chic flick unless you want to torture your boyfriend/husband.
Film Blurb
In Rough Night, an edgy R-rated comedy, five best friends from college (played by Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz) reunite 10 years later for a wild bachelorette weekend in Miami. Their hard partying takes a hilariously dark turn when they accidentally kill a male stripper. Amidst the craziness of trying to cover it up, they're ultimately brought closer together when it matters most.
The Promise ✪✪ Opened June 17
If you caught this on TV in the eighties or the nineties as a mini-series you would have thought, 'Oh well, there's not much else on TV and I might learn some interesting history.' In 2017, paying to see this longish, boorish, jammed with far too much in its 2 hrs and 13 minutes film is not an entertaining experience.
Slightly enlightening if you manage to stay awake. Before seeing this I had no idea of the plight of the Armenians in WW1 and the genocide of this people by the Turkish Government before the Jewish Holocaust.
This film is jam packed with star power but they trudge through their scenes with overly dramatic portrayals. Yes, it is a drama but there's normal behavior and then there's this affected quagmire of emotions. The only one who doesn't overplay is Christian Bale as the American journalist who runs around in war time wearing a white suit when all foreigners are looked upon with suspicion. He's just dull and duller in his role.
This film holds much promise but doesn't deliver. I bet a fair few reviewers will use the same play on words.
Film Blurb
Empires fall, love survives. When Michael (Oscar Isaac), a brilliant medical student, meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between Michael and Ana's boyfriend Chris (Christian Bale), a famous American photojournalist dedicated to exposing political truth. As the Ottoman Empire crumbles into war-torn chaos, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to get their people to safety and survive themselves. The Promise is directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Terry George, director of Hotel Rwanda.
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