A Spoiler Heavy Review of Star Wars the Last Jedi

The Disney Exchange is Lisa, Dave, and me, Nick

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This episode, as the title suggests, this episode contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Lisa, Dave, and I share our opinions of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

We'd love to hear your opinions, so let us know what you think.

Guardians of the Galaxy Mostly Spoiler Free Review

By Nick

I love Marvel movies. I've seen them all, and own most of them, but for some reason, I've never written a review for one on this blog. I am compelled to now. Why? Because Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite Marvel movie to date.

Ever since we saw the first trailer introducing the team, my wife and I were super excited to see this film, even though I was not at all familiar with the characters or team, despite being a comic book collector from the age of 12 to my mid 30s. It looked hilarious. It certainly helped that one of our favorite actors, John C. Reilly, the voice of Wreck-It Ralph, featured prominently in the preview.
Then the following previews showcased the action and special effects, which looked great.

I stayed away from spoilers, but did pick up the Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude paperback, which gave a back story to some the characters.

So, I was prepared to laugh and to see great effects, but what I wasn't prepared for was how emotionally attached I would become to this new group of heroes.

As the movie started we were immediately emotionally invested in the team leader Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord.

The movie then kicks into high gear, and the action and fun almost never let up. Sprinkled throughout are classic songs from the 70s and plenty of cultural 80s references. The writing is clever and the jokes are rapid fire, and I'm sure I missed a couple of lines because we, along with the rest of the audience were laughing so hard. There are also more emotional moments, yes, even tear jerking moments, which never become overly sentimental, because a lighter moment follows close behind.
There is not a dull moment or scene that goes on too long.

And if you are worried you won't be able to make a connection to a CGI  wise cracking, gun wielding raccoon and a walking tree, don't worry, their scenes pack some of the biggest emotional punches and biggest laughs.

As Barbie says, there are previews that promise a lot, but don't deliver. All of the best material are shown in those brief clips. This is certainly not the case with Guardians.

Stick around after the credits, it will reward true comic book history fans, as well as cheesy 80's movie lovers.

At the end, we were left wanting more. And the movie promises more, in fact, it tells us the Guardians will be back!

We can't wait!

Disney's Planes - Movie Review

 
On Sunday afternoon, Nick and I decided to go see “Planes,” the newest Disney Pictures film produced by DisneyToon Studios.

Nick had been telling me that many reviewers and even our Disney friends had been panning the movie, and not to expect much. I went into the theater expecting the worst and left the theater wondering why people were bad-mouthing a movie that we enjoyed so much!

As much as we liked the movie, it was predictably formulaic, but I didn’t really care. I was there for the lovely graphics, music and endearing characters. The graphics were not as polished and detailed as a Pixar production, but the flying scenes were still very well done, and I am sure this movie was done at a fraction of the budget of a Pixar film.

There have been many comparisons of Planes to Cars. Well, yeah, there were cars and cute little fork lifts, and tractors in fields, and a race...but Cars was about an egotistical protagonist who learns humility with the help of newly made friends and a curmudgeonly elder mentor character, while Planes is about a humble protagonist who remains true to himself and his friends throughout the movie, and gathers new friendships along the way. He does get help from a curmudgeonly elder character as well. It’s the story of a true underdog who has to fight his way to the top, and he keeps his heart while doing it.
 
We really enjoyed this movie, and hope you do too!

The Lone Ranger : Movie Review

This review of Disney's The Lone Ranger may seem as disjointed and contradictory as the The Lone Ranger sometimes feels.  I'm also going to be as spoiler free as possible, which may actually add to the convolution.

It's very entertaining, but overly long and predictable.
I knew the direction the movie was going in after 10 minutes, yet was still captivated.
I was engrossed by the train wrecks, and felt that the movie itself was a bit of a train wreck.

I love the way the movie is laid out, being told in a very inventive way, jumping back and forth through time,  leaving you anticipating what is to come. But, as I said, I was able to anticipate the outcome very early on.

The film is a lot of fun, but very dark, and at times, sinister.
In fact, besides it's predictability, how dark and violent it turns at times is the biggest problem I had with the movie. It's being marketed to families, with a rating of PG13, but I wouldn't bring a child younger than 15.

Probably the saving grace for me was the chemistry of Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger. They are the Odd Couple of the Wild West, and their scenes together made some of the more aggressive elements of the film more palatable. Yet, at the same time, I felt a lot of the lighthearted moments between the two actors were shoe-horned in to diffuse the more aggressive aspects of the film.

My wife's opinion of the film is a lot more succinct : "If I was at home, I'd have changed the channel at a few points, but overall, it was okay."
A friend who saw it with us: "That was awful, but I didn't mind spending the money to see it."

So, is it worth seeing? Yes. Like it or not, it's a spectacle, like a train wreck, hard to look away.

Monsters University-A Review with Spoilers, So Watch Out!

We went to see Monsters University on opening night with friends and our five year old Godson. Our theater was packed with families. That probably made this movie a better experience for me, you see, the animated short that started the movie off "The Blue Umbrella" was, as usual, amazing, and in fact, more touching than the actual movie itself! Our audience clapped after the short, they were really into it!

Monsters University started off strong and seemed to fade off quickly. I was waiting for some of the scenes to show up from the previews that were playing on TV, and none of them were in the movie. What a letdown! Maybe the movie would have been better if they had included the scene where Sully makes Mike into a disco ball? I don't know. Even though there were some laughs, I found myself wondering when the movie was going to end! What's wrong with me?

My expectations are high. That's the problem. Monsters Inc. has such heart, you really can't get the story out of your head. Remember Kitty? Who doesn't! There is nothing like that in this movie.

There is a multitude of characters, many of them laugh-out-loud funny. Some of them memorable. Some scenes are very cute. And at certain scary points of the movie, we could hear a kid saying, "I want to go home now!"

Our audience roared, screamed and growled, hmm, they must have gone to Scare School, like we did! I'm sure most of the audience really enjoyed the movie, and there were some great parts, but it's not a movie that you'd put in your DVD or Blu-ray collection.