Adrift (2018)

"Adrift" is a yet another lost in the ocean movie. But it's neither "Life of Pi", nor "All Is Lost"... it's probably somewhere in between, as story, philosophy, feeling, etc. As a movie, well... probably quite far from the first, and probably also below the second. Still, not something to ignore completely...

We have a story (based on a real case) that starts somewhere in the Pacific, after a class 5 hurricane that almost breaks apart a medium sized yacht. Almost... = the boat is left without masts, with lots of water aboard, with even more (food, equipment, etc) lost overboard, with some cracks, but still floating. Out of the pair who was aboard, Richard and Tami, only she seems initially to have survived. However, after exploring the surroundings she finds her fiance more dead than alive, with an open broken leg and some shattered ribs, floating closely hanging on the lifeboat. From this point, the narration splits in two, with flashbacks since the two have met up to the moment of the hurricane, and from the moment of the hurricane onward. It's almost like having two movies interwoven into one: a romance that gets a bit corny sometimes, and a survival movie.

It's quite tough to get enough material for an entire movie out of such subject. What's there to fill 90 minutes (or more)? Here, the background story does the job. Besides the fact that helps defining the characters, however, this piece is nothing more than a pretty bland love story: girl meets guy, they fall in love, they go sailing. Maybe I'm a bit subjective, but the interesting part is by far the other "film". Not that we have something extraordinary original here, but at least it tries... Now well, we have a real case on which is based, but the movie moves a bit forward. There's an attempt for a mega-twist at some point, which you don't really see coming, and to be honest is a bit too forced. Nevertheless, the idea can be appreciated. Since I started with "Life of Pi", was the tiger real? :) No more spoilers...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

"Hunt for the Wilderpeople" is an NZ production. Not a random choice. The subject in brief: an orphan child (and with a background of a bunch of minor felonies) is given to a new foster family - auntie Bella & uncle Hec, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand. So nowhere that the attempt to run away from home is not feasible anymore. And like that, slowly, the boy starts attaching to his new family, especially to his adoptive aunt. The uncle, not the most friendly guy, remains a bit more reluctant to accepting the new family member, but overall things go well. Up to some day when auntie Bella drops dead. Consequently the child care services decide that the boy has to be moved to another family. Which is not really on his liking, resulting in a new attempt of running away "into the wild" (not before trying to fake his own suicide and burning the barn in the process). The boy is followed by uncle Hec, who, however, manages to injure his own foot before bringing the kid home => long camping in the woods. And like that we're getting to a situation where the two are added to a list of "wanted fugitives", apparently sufficient to convince them both that it's probably better to stick to the forest for a while.

If you ever felt "a need to escape" from your everyday life/work/whatever, but not as some vacation, the acute state when you feel you cannot go forward, then that's probably not the good movie for you. Because it might depress you further. On the other hand, it is the movie for you. Because it will show you that it can be done, at least temporarily. And during that time you might find a way for a better return. That's the optimistic view - the realistic view is that "might find a way" is not "will find a way" and besides turning the back to everybody, you might need also to break a leg sometimes... Too much philosophy. It's a fun movie. And as I said it's not a random choice = you can feel the chill, laid back attitude that's present in NZ, which makes the "escape" idea even more real and the movie more enjoyable ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Lately I pretty much skipped Marvel movies. Too many and not much of a new subject + I also didn't have much time and wasn't really in the mood to go to cinema. That's why I have to admit that I was at least partially subjective when I chose "Ant-Man and the Wasp" = I like both Evangeline Lilly & Hannah John-Kamen ... which did matter enough apparently to convince me.

I don't remember much of the first "Ant-Man", besides being rather shallow. The one we have here continues that, adding a bunch of references also to the intermediary piece in the last Avengers that I didn't see. But in which all the people involved in developing/using the ant costume got on the "wanted" list of the police. Getting over that, in brief, the idea here would be to reach somehow in the sub-quantic universe to the missing wife of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas = the brain behind the suit), who apparently somehow survived for 30 years there, after which she finally managed sending messages to our world. And like that, we're getting to the part where we need "a missing piece" to help completing the mechanism for getting to the other dimension. Which "missing piece" (+ extra) is also wanted by a black market dealer. Pretty much after the same thing is also "the villain" - Ghost - a girl trapped in an explosion long ago, who was left since then in a continuous phasing besides the "invisible women" power, which allows her to pass through objects... only problem: not really good for health.

Leaving subjectivity regarding the female cast aside, what I've watched here was really an enjoyable experience compared to other Marvel movies. We don't really have a masterpiece, but it's clearly better than the first "Ant-Man". The movie feels somewhere between "Thor Ragnarok" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" = light and without attempting to be too serious. I actually believe it's the perfect example for the theory saying that the necessary ingredient for a super-hero movie is to lack the super-hero :) ... ( what we have here in the end is more like a super-suit, lots of tech and a bunch of people trying to make stuff work :) ).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Short one: "Sicario 2" doesn't have much left of "Sicario 1". It shows that Denis Villeneuve is not directing anymore, so pretty much all specific camera work, sound and generally speaking the feeling in the first part is gone. What's not gone is the maybe too convoluted subject, especially in the first part of the movie. You don't really get what's going on, except that the CIA/army/whatever wants to create a conflict between the rival drug cartels in Mexico, and to do that the daughter of a clan boss is kidnapped. The assassin in the first movie returning to complete his revenge (which I thought it was complete...), trying to bring back the girl but being stopped by the Mexican police who you don't really know for who's working anymore, the US state department wishing two people taken out when everybody's anyway on their tail and they probably also don't know what's really going on to tell further, there's just too much to understand especially if you're very tired when you watch this. To be fair, maybe on a second view with enough hours slept ahead I'd see this in a better light. In any case, the movie saves itself with one of the most "what the ..." moments I've seen lately, which is really hard to believe (especially if you've seen the first "Sicario" and you're convinced who's the main character in all this, even though might not be that clear). I won't give more spoilers, but the impact was enough to change significantly my impression on this. What's happening towards the end it's probably even less believable, but in a strange way cuts off the previous shock. So in the end it works ;) even though it's a bit unfinished...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Storks (2016)

Flight movie... no pun intended... "Storks" is what I managed to watch that's more notable, during 2x23 hours of flight travel last week, after looking through the on-board media system for something to put me to sleep. This one didn't succeed. Surprisingly, it's a pretty funny animation despite a subject that didn't look that promising: storks restart delivering babies. That's after moving to standard parcel post services due to logistic economics. Well, actually this subject comes more as a conclusion of the story, which follows the delivery of a baby order received after a long time since the last transport of such kind. The mission is accomplished by a stork that's looking to become the boss stork, and tries hard to keep all the "not so legit" operation under the hood to keep its promotion chances. The bird is helped by Tulip Orphan, a girl left in storks care after a failed delivery 18 years behind. Moving back to the current delivery, obviously this doesn't go easy bringing with it a bunch of lighthearted humor that reminded me of early Dreamworks. Probably the closest example would be "Madagascar". Most of this feeling is brought through lots & tiny bits & pieces: diverse side characters + situations glued on the main story, so I can't give too much without spoilers = good reason to stop here ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5