I meant to do this the other day but time got away from me.
Anywho, April was definitely the strongest month so far in terms of movies, though at the same time it was the month I saw the fewest new releases on account of getting settled into my new job, a big surprise blizzard that knocked out power for a while, etc. Still, I was able to catch 15 new releases in the month of April and May is already looking like I’ll be getting my numbers up more.
I got most of the big boys this month so at least there’s that. Today I’m catching
The Fall Guy and an early screener for
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes so I figured now would be a good time to get April done with and move on. As always, these opinions are subject to change and may not be the same come my end of the year list.
#16- Spy x Family Code: White
[Watched in theaters]
Anyone who knows me knows I’m not an anime guy. I love most of Miyazaki’s work and I grew up enjoying Pokèmon on Cartoon Network, but beyond that I just am not a fan of the medium. I never would’ve chosen to see this movie on my own free will, but it was one of the Mystery Movies at Regal last month and I decided to tough it out despite my complete disinterest.
This movie was bad, like really bad. The kid was ridiculously annoying, the story made very little sense, the characters were unlikeable, and there was literally a whole 5-minute plus sequence poop joke. I’ve seen fans of the show love this and think it worked, but I’ll never be watching the show nor the movie ever again.
#15- Rebel Moon- Part Two: The Scargiver
[Watched on Netflix]
Part one of this two-parter was in my top 10 worst of last year, but I held out hope the second part would at least make the story make sense and watchable. Unfortunately, it was not. This was insanely boring and full of characters whose names I don’t know and whose motivations I know less. Thank God that Disney and Lucasfilm rejected Snyder’s pitch to make this a Star Wars movie, because this is significantly worse than anything even they’ve put out recently. Zack Snyder is a hack whose never made a good movie and I’ll die on that hill.
#14- Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths- Part Two
[Watched on VOD]
Another part two I decided to watch against my better judgement. Part one came out earlier this year and it wasn’t particularly good, but when part two came out, I decided to give it a shot because I know Crisis on Infinite Earths is a very popular comic and I was hoping it would end up at least entertaining. While it wasn’t as bad as the first two on this list, I just can’t bring myself to enjoy the Tomorrowverse and if it weren’t for Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy being in part three, I’d absolutely be ignoring it whenever it comes out.
#13- The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem
[Watched on Netflix]
This one hit a little close to home as I grew up in the epoch of the alt-right pipeline through things like Reddit, 4Chan and iFunny and I lost a lot of friends to it. Unfortunately, this documentary is more interested in showing how cool the people behind Anonymous are (trust me, they’ll tell you how cool they are) rather than discuss the actual interesting topic at hand. I wish it was better because the topic is serious and interesting all at once.
#12- The Long Game
[Watched in theaters]
This was a really generic sports drama. Like if you’ve ever seen The Mighty Ducks or Next Goal Wins or any of those other inspirational underdog sports movies, you’ve seen this one. It’s fine for what it is, but it’s really nothing special and I’ll probably never think about it again. It was another Regal Mystery Movie that I probably wouldn’t have checked out if it weren’t for that experience.
#11- Sting
[Watched in theaters]
The final Regal Mystery Movie I caught this past month (technically I saw it in March), I left pretty disappointed, but upon a rewatch I had some fun with it. It’s very inspired by movies like Alien and mimics it to an enjoyable degree. The spider puppet is also fun and kind of scary, the characters are forgettable cannon fodder, but it works. Definitely not the best horror movie of the year, but I did have more fun with this one than I expected to.
#10- Civil War
[Watched in theaters]
{oops, forgot to put this one in}
I love a lot of Alex Garland’s other works, especially Ex Machina so going into this one, I was really excited and looking forward to it. I love a good political commentary and when I realized this wasn’t one, I was sort of disappointed as I wanted to see that take, but for what it was, I enjoyed it enough. I have soured on it a little bit and it’s fallen a bit, plus I forgot to put it in the list, so that has to speak for something lol. It’s absolutely gorgeous to look at though.
#9- The Greatest Hits
[Watched on Hulu]
I love a good romantic drama sci-fi thing. The setup here was really interesting with some absolutely phenomenal needle drops. The movie is really predictable and you know where it’s going immediately upon starting it, but I enjoy this type of movie and I enjoyed this one.
#8- DisneyNature’s Tiger
[Watched on Disney+]
I have a love-hate relationship with DisneyNature. On one hand, the documentaries always feature some absolutely amazing footage but on the other, it’s just too anthropomorphic and personified that a lot of the information given feels less like actual information about the animals and more like a concocted story. It just feels a bit too “Disney.”
Still, the footage here was amazing and Priyanka Chopra’s narration was among the best celebrity narration I’ve seen in one of these in a while. Plus, as bad as Disney can be as a corporation, the Conservation Fund does some really great work and funds some great research and projects so I’m happy to support DisneyNature films when they release.
#7- The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
[Watched in theaters]
I like Guy Ritchie and I like dumb action movies, so I ended up really enjoying this movie, at least while I watched it. The action is great and Henry Cavill is charismatic as hell, plus the rest of the cast is fun too. The movie is full of violence against Nazis which I can always enjoy, and the Nazis get absolutely brutalized here so that’s a plus. Unfortunately, over time I have soured on this movie, just because it was overly long and stylized, but it was still a fun watch initially and I’m sure I’d enjoy it in the moment on a rewatch. It’s made to be fun, not amazing and I respect that.