Average Joe's Movie Reviews

The Midnight Matinee was written and directed by Justin Doescher and is a collection of short films much like the movie VHS . I hadn't seen anything of Justin's before and honestly didn't really know what to expect. I can say I enjoyed The Midnight Matinee as it was a quick and fun collection of short films, some definitely being better than others. Namely the opening film "Open Sea" and the ending film "Night Night." While these films each had a different story enough of Justin vision remained in each one, that had I not known before I would've been able to notice Doescher directed each short film. Let's dive into the positives of this movie: 1. Writing- I was impressed with the stories. I thought each one was fresh and original. David Sandberg (Director of Annabelle:Creation ) said his inspiration for film came from just walking around his house with his wife and asking the question "what would scare me?" I thought tha...

Jigsaw was directed by Michael and Peter Spierig and is the 8th Saw movie in the franchise that takes place 10 years after the death of the notorious Jigsaw Killer John Kramer. I remember watching the first Saw movie in my friends garage and having a pretty positive experience overall. I really liked the small and contained thriller aspect of the first Saw . It was made for next to nothing, so James Wan got creative with how he filmed the movie. Because of their budget restrictions, I think it really made the first saw extremely enjoyable. It was a movie that left a lot up to viewers imagination and utilized the "less is more" concept really well. I still have some imagery from that movie stuck in my head. Each Saw movie after the first fell for what I call "sequelitis" where it attempts to outdo the previous movie. The best sequels don't outdo the first but adds to the first. Every movie after Saw II just turned into torture-porn. So going into Jig...

The Foreigner was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan. The Foreigner follows the story of Quan Ngoc Minh (Jackie Chan) a small business owner who loses his daughter in a tragic bombing and starts a cat and mouse game with Liam Henessy (Pierce Brosnan) a government official who he believes has insight to the murder of his daughter. From the beginning of the movie I didn't really know what to think. As time went on I was still confused as to what I thought about this movie. It was an okay film that had my interest for the most part, but something consistently felt missing throughout the movie. In my honest opinion, I was actually pretty disappointed by The Foreigner , not because of anyone's performances or the action. Simply because I felt mislead by the movie. I was sold on a Jackie Chan action movie and it wasn't necessarily what was delivered. We'll take a look at that a little later. Let's take a look at what w...

Happy Death Day was directed by Christopher Landon and stars Jessica Rother as Tree Glebman, a young college student who relives the day of her murder over, until she can discover her killers identity. I was actually pretty excited for this movie. I really enjoy the horror comedy genre of film making. I absolutely adore movies like The Evil Dead , Cooties, Tucker and Dale vs Evil or Shaun of the Dead . So my expectations of Happy Death Day were already a little higher. While it wasn't a great movie, it was one that I really did enjoy and I recommend you see. While Happy Death Day is very reminiscent of so many different films, especially the original Scream (a movie I love) it had enough original content to keep it fresh. Let's take a look at some of the things that I enjoyed. 1. Direction - This movie really worked because of the direction by Christopher Landon. His direction of this movie was so precise and stylized. His scenes felt fluid and not ju...

Blade Runner 2049 was directed by Denis Villeneuve and stars Ryan Gosling as detective 'K', a young blade runner who discovers a secret that leads him to track down former blade runner Rick Deckard played by Harrison Ford. I saw the first Blade Runner a few years ago and to be honest it was hard for me to see this movie as the visionary everyone said it was. I think that was largely due to not having it seen before most of the movies that it was said to have influenced. It took me a while to get to a point where I enjoyed Blade Runner . This isn't any fault to the original Blade Runner , it is a very well made movie. It is all just timing. I think if you don't watch Blade Runner before all the films it influenced, it gets hard to understand why it is the masterpiece people say it is. So going into Blade Runner 2049 I was very excited to see a Blade Runner movie when it originally came out. This movie looked like it was going to push the boundaries of fi...