Average Joe's Movie Reviews

American Made follows the story of Barry Seal ( Tom Cruise ) a pilot who lands work for the CIA doing reconnaissance missions and simultaneously begins work as a drug runner in the 1980's. I knew pretty much nothing about American Made other than it was directed by Doug Liman ( The Bourne Identity, The Wall, Jumper and Edge of Tomorrow)   so I was pretty excited as I have liked a lot of his work in the past, especially The Wal l and Edge of Tomorrow . To be honest though, Bio-Pics are not my favorite style of movie. I often find them to be too long and have awkward pacing, so when I did find out this was a Bio-Pic I had my doubts. Fortunately, Doug Liman proved me wrong with what I thought to be a great movie. American Made truly surprised and entertained me a lot more than I originally thought it was going to. Let's take a look at what worked. 1. Acting- I am always pretty confident in Tom Cruise, he is an actor that works extremely hard and gives 100% al...

Friend Request was directed by Simon Verhoeven and stars Alycia Debnam-Carey as a college student  who accepts a social outcast's online friend request, but soon finds herself fighting a demonic presence that wants to make her lonely by killing her closest friends. Now, I knew absolutely nothing about his film going into it. I didn't see any trailers for it and I saw it show up under showtimes on the theaters website. I had no expectations and in a way that really paid off because I didn't seem to hold it to a standard set from the trailers. Leaving Friend Request , I can honestly say this was not a great movie, but better than most cheap horror films out there. I routinely found myself feeling a little uneasy as the scares were being set up. With that being said, this movie has some major problems to it. At one point I did laugh out loud, only because of how ridiculous this movie got. That's the main thing I noticed with Friend Request , it was just over the to...

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was directed by Matthew Vaughn and stars Taron Edgerton reprising his role as Kingsman agent Eggsy. Now, I was a huge fan of the first Kingsman. It was easily one of my favorite films of 2014 and Matthew Vaughn is my favorite working director to date. So, it's safe to say I had really high expectations for The Golden Circle . In a way, a lot of them were met. However, this movie was not the sequel I was expecting. That does not make it bad though. Kingsman: The Golden Circle was a pretty fun and enjoyable movie and one that I really had a great time with. Kingsman: The Golden Circle was not as good as the first one and it did have some problems. I had to take off my Matthew Vaughn "fan-boy" hat and really take a look at this movie critically. So let's jump in and see what worked. 1. Action - Matthew Vaughn did it again with a truly fun and exciting movie. The action sequences in this film were just a blast to watch...

Mother! was directed by Darren Aronofsky, which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem and is a story surrounding a couples relationship as they are tested by the constant arrival of uninvited guests. Now, going into this movie I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I didn't watch any trailers for it and I stayed away from all reviews. I immediately knew this was going to be an intriguing film from the opening scene. It starts off in such a confusing way, and only gets weirder from there. This is going to be one of those movies I think a lot of people will talk about, whether you enjoyed the movie or not. To be honest, I was not the biggest fan of mother! . It was a movie that I just never really got invested in, and it was just not my style. I didn't enjoy mother! but I do have to give it credit for what it did well. 1. Cinematography- Matthew Libatique and Darren Aronofsky worked wonderfully together to create a movie that just looked g...

American Assassin was directed by Michael Cuesta, and stars Dylan O'Brien as a counter terrorism agent, Mitch Rapp, attempting to bring down terrorist cells after the sudden and gruesome murder of his fiance. After leaving this movie, to be honest I felt like there wasn't that much to it. I mean, it had it's enjoyable moments but it had some pretty obvious flaws. Earlier this year, I described Cars 3 as the most average movie I had seen this year. American Assassin has landed itself in that spot. I never had a big moment while watching American Assassin and at times I felt kind of confused as to who the true target audience for this movie was. Leaving the theater I asked my fiance her opinion of the film, to which she replied "I mean.. I don't know, it was entertaining." I believe that is how most people will feel with this film. Let's take a look at some of the things that worked in this film. 1. Michael Keaton- This shouldn't com...

It was directed by Andy Muschietti and is the second adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name. It stars  Bill Skarsgård as the demonic entity that primarily takes form of a clown known as Pennywise, while he haunts and torments a young group of teens known as "The Losers Club" made up of Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Grazer and Wyatt Oleff. I was pretty excited to see It , I had heard good things, I enjoyed the novel and I was a fan of the first part of the 1990's mini series. I can remember sneaking downstairs with my friends one night to watch Tim Curry as Pennywise in the original rendition of It , I thought it was pretty creepy and it definitely left a mark on my childhood. So I had pretty high expectations when it came to this remake. In a way Muschietti did a pretty good job at meeting those expectations, I found It to be a pretty enjoyable movie that I had a lot of fun seeing. The enti...

Death Note was directed by Adam Wingard and is the American adaptation of the famous anime Death Note . This adaptation stars Nat Wolff as Light Turner, a teenage boy who is gifted the Death Note, a mysterious journal that has the power to kill anyone Light wishes by picturing their face and writing their name. Light decides to use the notebook to rid the world of criminals, and begins to kill most wanted criminals under the alias "Kira." Death Note has not received overly positive reviews since it's premiere and to be honest.. I can see why! While I didn't think it was as horrible as some are saying, I can definitely see where they are coming from. I thought Death Note had a lot going for it, especially with Willem Dafoe as the death God, Ryuk. Unfortunately, this movie fell pretty flat for me, leading to what I think is an extremely disappointing adaptation. But first let's see what worked: 1. Willem Dafoe- By far the best moments in ...