A slow start with not many appealing movies opening, but a strong end with three really good ones in the final week, but which is my movie of the month? The contenders are:
Terminator Genisys: Part remake, part reboot , part parody of the classic The Terminator. Some of it works, lots of it doesn’t. Try not to think about the plot, as it really doesn’t hold up. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best movie this month.
Love & Mercy: Bio-pic of Beach Boys’ singer/songwriter Brian Wilson at two key stages in his life, in the 60’s and 80’s. A well told and intriguing story that treats mental illness in a grown up way that we wouldn’t have seen a few years ago. John Cusack and Paul Dano are both excellent.
Ant-Man: The smallest and funniest Marvel film to date and the first one to come up with an original ending. A lot of the plot feels like a rehash of the first Iron Man but this is soon forgotten. Paul Rudd makes a likeable leading man, Michael Peña provides great comic relief.
Self/Less: Thriller about a dying man who has his body transferred into a younger body. It doesn’t know if it wants to be an action adventure or a thoughtful movie on the morels of the situation. It suffers for its lack of focus.
Southpaw: Family drama about the fall and redemption of a boxer. Jake Gyllenhaal grunts and mumbles his way to a great performance at polar opposites to Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler. Predictable but enjoyable none the less, the boxing scenes are also well executed.
Inside Out: Pixar’s latest and possibly greatest achievement to date. Set inside the head of an eleven year old girl in crisis, the characters are embodiments of her emotions. A fun adventure film the very young, and more sophisticated story for the rest of us.
Maggie: Family drama about a young girls last few weeks before she is consumed by a zombie virus. A low key film set in world that looks somewhere between the early scenes of Interstellar and The Walking Dead. It looks fantastic with dull muted colours. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin and Joely Richardson are all great.
I really like this blog, it is very complete!!! 🙂
Agree! Inside Out was excellent! My movie of the summer so far. I liked it better than Mad Max
A good choice, but for me it’s Southpaw. Gyllenhaal is arguably now the most unmissable actor we have, excepting Daniel Day-Lewis. Also a fan of Antoine Fuqua’s work. But I really like your blog and I will be sure to keep checking it out. Cheers, Sam.