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This movie was awful.

Perhaps Marvel has spoiled us into thinking that all superhero movies are good. With AQUAMAN, DC has shown us that they're desperate to be Marvel.

Yes, of course Jason Momoa is a handsome man. But the first half of the movie felt rushed — they tried to pack too much into it. I thought the last third of the movie was what it should have been all along, in terms of pace and direction.

Pros:

• Jason Momoa: handsome, funny.

Cons:

• Nicole Kidman in a Predator outfit
• Willem DeFoe digitally regressed to 20 years old
• I can go on.

The good news is that by the end of the movie, Aquaman is the badass they made him out to be in Justice League.

From my initial post, after seeing the movie in mid-March: "A friend asked me what I thought about Red Sparrow, the new spy thriller featuring Jeremy Irons and Jennifer Lawrence. My response: 'It was an action movie trifecta of violence, suspense, and nudity.'"

I bought a copy of the movie today. What sold me, apart from the aforementioned "trifecta," was the price: $9.99. To me, a layperson, that seems the price of an underperforming movie — particularly when rental is only $3 cheaper. (I think iTunes reported its Rotten Tomatoes rating at 47%.)

Doesn't matter. I expected to pay more for it, so I'm delighted to download it on the cheap.

I loved Solo: A Star Wars Story. Directed by the legendary Ron Howard (who put his brother Clint in it, as always), it masterfully created for us the characters of Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian and the relationship Solo shared with each.

I particularly enjoyed Donald Glover as Lando. He was Lando, effortlessly reproducing Billy Dee Williams' verbal swagger as if Billy Dee borrowed it from him.

I don't know why Solo hasn't done better in the box office. Perhaps it's because Alden Ehrenreich does not resemble Harrison Ford. It's kind of the elephant in the room. I liked Ehrenreich as Han, but it just seemed to me there was something missing... his handsome face just didn't plausibly resemble a young Ford.

Still, that shouldn't stop you from seeing and enjoying this movie, because there is much to love about it. Ron Howard takes us through a few chapters in Solo's early life and matures him, with great detail, into the character we've known for forty years. He does this in overt and in subtle ways. The astute audience member is constantly surrounded by the overt ways, with lots and lots of lines in that movie that you've heard before. Perhaps the best example of a subtle way was his standoff with Beckett near the end of the film. No spoilers here, but there's a message in that scene that plays to some furor created in a re-release of Episode IV. (Hint: I'm talking about the Cantina scene.)

There's also a huge surprise that reaches back to the time of Episode I that seems to intimate there's more to Solo: A Star Wars Story.

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A friend asked me what I thought about Red Sparrow, the new spy thriller featuring Jeremy Irons and Jennifer Lawrence. My response: "It was an action movie trifecta of violence, suspense, and nudity."

And I stand by that. Red Sparrow was unnerving, erotic, and uncomfortable; it was sickening (I'll be avoiding thinly-sliced cheese and bacon for a while), bloodthirsty, and didn't reveal itself until the very end.

And, as you could expect with the description I've given, don't let your tweenagers see it. I am continually surprised at the content my daughter has seen — or at least knows about. We told her we went to see it and she was instantly all over us asking how it was. The right answer: "Not appropriate for you, my dear."

By the way — I couldn't help but notice the likeness between the character Vanya Egorov (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) and Vladimir Putin.

No spoilers here. Go see it.

The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is certainly a good story, with lots of action and excitement, infused with more humor and notably more racially diverse than were the previous stories.

I left the film feeling a little confused. Oh, of course it was a good show — but there were a couple of things in the film that left were a little awkward.

The first has to do with General Leia following an attack on her command ship. The first part of this scene was actually captured in one of the trailers. In retrospect, what followed seemed a bit uncomfortable, bordering on absurd, although Luke seems to support the notion with a key sentence or two of his dialog.

The second happens at the very end — a scene that seemed appended to the script, really, to appease Disney. I thought it was completely cheap, played directly to young kids, and seemed intended to support Disney merchandising.

A note on cinematography: When the Star Wars franchise first dipped their toe into 3-D, they did it with Episode I and did so in a very understated way, using shading to emphasize spatial relationships instead of adding some really in-your-face effects. I believe The Last Jedi was done in much the same way. I can't recall the urge to dodge anything that seemed to be flying right at me. My point here is simply that I feel you won't really miss out on anything with the 2-D show.

JJ Abrams, credited with the revival of the Star Trek franchise, certainly left his thumbprint on the Star Wars saga. He seems to have a penchant for taking dialog from previous movies and playing with it in the context of the current scene. He did it with Kirk and Spock in Star Trek: Into Darkness and he does it again here.

Once again, a very worthy addition to the Star Wars saga.

UPDATE:

I just saw the movie for a second time. There was a bit of humor in the movie that, when I first saw it, I failed to recognize as homage to Hardware Wars, an early parody of Episode IV.

No spoilers here. Go see it.

The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is certainly a good story, with lots of action and excitement, infused with more humor and notably more racially diverse than were the previous stories.

I left the film feeling a little confused. Oh, of course it was a good show — but there were a couple of things in the film that left were a little awkward.

The first has to do with General Leia following an attack on her command ship. The first part of this scene was actually captured in one of the trailers. In retrospect, what followed seemed a bit uncomfortable, bordering on absurd, although Luke seems to support the notion with a key sentence or two of his dialog.

The second happens at the very end — a scene that seemed appended to the script, really, to appease Disney. I thought it was completely cheap, played directly to young kids, and seemed intended to support Disney merchandising.

A note on cinematography: When the Star Wars franchise first dipped their toe into 3-D, they did it with Episode I and did so in a very understated way, using shading to emphasize spatial relationships instead of adding some really in-your-face effects. I believe The Last Jedi was done in much the same way. I can't recall the urge to dodge anything that seemed to be flying right at me. My point here is simply that I feel you won't really miss out on anything with the 2-D show.

JJ Abrams, credited with the revival of the Star Trek franchise, certainly left his thumbprint on the Star Wars saga. He seems to have a penchant for taking dialog from previous movies and playing with it in the context of the current scene. He did it with Kirk and Spock in Star Trek: Into Darkness and he does it again here.

Once again, a very worthy addition to the Star Wars saga.

UPDATE:

I just saw the movie for a second time. Add an Item 3 to the list of things that don't quite add up: There is no gravity in space. On its face, it doesn't seem like a World War II-style bombing raid on a space cruiser would work.

Co-written by Simon Pegg (the actor who plays Montgomery Scott in the rebooted movie series), STAR TREK: BEYOND is a worthy installment in the series, with all of the classic elements: homage to the campy classic series, tons of action, dire circumstances, a tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy, an artistic touch you've come to expect of the new series, and a subtle message or two. The 3D version was unexaggerated and lovely — I forgot I was wearing the glasses until the closing credits.

Made by the same folks who brought us Minions — you could tell by the complete saturation of advertising in nearly all manner of media in the month leading up to the release — I was getting so sick of the ads that my interest in the actual movie was beginning to wane. Happily, the release didn't disappoint — the movie was hilarious!

I was excited by the preview for this movie. It brought back the memory of the great story. Sadly, Resurgence seemed to me to rely too much on the original; the story telling seemed disjointed (how was it Europe was getting dropped on top of Asia?), rushed, and more the responsibility of the special effects than anything else — which, apart from a few explosions in the air combat scenes, looked pretty sharp, as you'd expect.

So I guess it comes down to what you're looking for from Resurgence. If you're not all that interested in the movie as a sequel to the story of Independence Day or are just into sci-fi/alien pew-pew-pew flicks, go see it. If you are interested in holding Resurgence to the standard Independence Day set, well, maybe you won't have as much trouble with it as did I.

Can you really sell a movie in which the action hero is Colin Firth?

Oh yes you can.

Want proof? The scene at the hate church — a very thinly veiled reference to the cancerous Westboro Baptist Church, I'm almost certain — was filmed in a single take. That scene, by the way, is amazingly graphic. We're Hell and gone from Pride and Prejudice.

Also, pay attention to Samuel L. Jackson as the heavy: He feigns a speech impediment as a nod to classic Bond villians.

Go see this movie. It is rated R for good reason. It's also classified as an "Action/Adventure/Comedy" for good reason too.

BRAVO to Marvel for a space opera with a LOT of humor and action and heart.

(Oh, and art references. Because the line with Jackson Pollack was among the best in the movie.)

Because, come on, why would I want to see an action movie with a CG raccoon?

I don't think I've cried that hard for that long since my dog died.

On Saturday night, Laurel and I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in HFR 3D. I liked it much better than I did its prequel (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ). As my wife put it, it was "40% less walking, 100% more dragon."

Particularly noteworthy, IMHO, is the much-discussed high frame rate (HFR) 3D. Historically, movies are shot at a rate of 24 frames per second; HFR doubles that frame rate. As Business Insider put it, "audiences' brains will be processing double the amount of images in the same amount of time." I've read reports that some audience members felt motion sickness after seeing An Unexpected Journey in HFR. After watching The Desolation of Smaug in HFR 3D, I can understand why. HFR can offer some very intense, hyperrealistic visual imagery. There are scenes in which there is SO much going on that I felt I needed to look away for a moment. We were seated near the back of the theatre; had we sat close to the front, I think I might have worded this differently. Having said that, it's fair to mention that I didn't perceive the entire film to be so intense — just parts that had a lot of action (It's fair to note that comedians have criticized An Unexpected Journey for being boring).

Actually, The Desolation of Smaug has some outstanding effects in it — though one in particular stood out for me: say you have a character at location A. The filmmaker wants the audience to know about events occuring some distance away, at location B. So the audience is shown a sort of "bird's eye" shot of the character at location A; the view then zooms outward and seems to speed toward location B, with the viewer seeing the terrain between the two points. Certainly a useful device, to be sure, but I wonder if it wasn't overused. A small point, to be sure.

Of course, it wouldn't have been necessary if there wasn't so much going on — and that's a compliment to Peter Jackson. The Desolation of Smaug is packed with adventure and action, and it tells its part of the story well. I found I really enjoyed Martin Freeman's depiction of a less timid, intellectually curious, yet cautious Bilbo Baggins; his judicious use of the ring makes him a bolder, greater contributor to the group. The ring also serves as a fantastic lens through which the audience comes to understand Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug (among other creatures). And Cumberbatch is fantastic here, by the way.

Of course, if you've seen the other installments in the LOTR series, you already know you're going to go see it. So go. Seriously, go. See it in HFR 3D if you can. It's worth it.

Links:
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"(IMDb)
Some Audiences Are Reportedly Leaving 'The Hobbit' Feeling Sick" (Kristen Acuna, BusinessInsider.com)

"Ender's Game", based on the book of the same name by Orson Scott Card, was an interesting movie. I was entertained; I liked it. I found their depiction of a military boot camp-like atmosphere pretty close to mine. As a side note, I couldn't stop thinking about our daughter throughout the movie, because the actor playing the lead character resembled her.

The real judge of the film, though, is Laurel — she absolutely loved the book as a kid. I got the sense she was satisfied with Gavin Hood's vision.

I suppose I was somewhat disappointed that it wasn't available in 3D; there are many scenes that would have seemed to have lent themselves to the enhanced medium rather well.... but I don't share my opinion from any standpoint resembling expertise.

Laurel and I sat together at lunch today watching a History Channel show about the rise of the Third Reich, and it got me thinking about movies like Inglorious Basterds and Valkrie. I own copies of both of these movies and I haven't seen them in a very long time — well, I haven't seen them since I moved here, to be precise.

At some point (when Kiddo is away) I need to sit and watch those again. Perhaps I've suffered from too much Food Network television.

• The Hulk (2003) did 245.5MM in box office sales on an estimated $137MM budget
• Captain America (2011) did far better with $368.6MM on an estimated $140MM budget
• Thor (2011) pulled in just under $450MM on a $150MM budget
• Iron Man (2008) grossed $585MM on its $140MM budget, and
• Iron Man 2 (2010) grossed nearly $624MM on its $200MM budget