Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017): Movie Review.

It has been six years since the last, fourth, Pirates. Even though, this new film is in great demand, interest in those movies has not faded in six years that much. This time, Captain Jack Sparrow must again find the ancient artifact, the Trident of Poseidon, to save his own skin, again. All it looks like one story over and over again. And it doesn't necessarily have fresh take on it, all that magical abracadabra with Poseidon, and screenwriters trying to explain everything with science, even making one of the main heroins a scientist of a great mind, which actually reminds of a dump way of "celebrating" sexism, condemning it of cause, but reminding of a terrible treatment of women too often for it to bother on the fifth time them saying "witch" in the movie.

So what happened with Pirates new installment? Despite the prayers for a better film, the fifth one didn't become any better, but worse as a motion picture. And I am a little disappointed not only with that, but with the lack of that stylish Pirates tone that was in first two movies. Of cause Captain Jack is yet again funny and entertaining, but even though in first two he was a cherry on the top of a cake, not the cake itself. Now he is the main reason these movies are being made. And it is the first major problem with Dead Men Tell no Tales - it is imitating what was very best about "The Curse of the Black Pearl" and transfers it into the much worse script with no special Captain Jack Sparrow "plan", because he is morally done in the film and gives up on everything. Which leads to the second thing I didn't like. It is the characters treatment. Giving the fans all they want is not the way to make a good story, especially when screenwriters try to make us care about some of the characters we haven't seen for ten years like Will Turner. His curse of being Dutchman's Captain is one of the main reasons driving the story in the film, and there is no much connection, emotional at least with the two last Pirates movies. The story picks up forgetting to set up that emotional connection, pretending that we already must care, because "why all other four flicks were made for?". And the third and last is that this movie completely lacked any respect to at least first three films in the franchise. Many details about characters and events, that took place before in Pirates universe, that I know, were changed to serve the story better, which destroys the lore. The last nail in the coffin of redeeming the franchise.

The new movie completely stopped the franchise from being what it was, there are no way, that it can step on the right trail again and follow greatness of first two movies. Johnny Depp is now older and older to play Captain Jack Sparrow, and those movies will be made only if he is back to play his famous role.

There are good things too to be mentioned about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The movie has its flaws but it is more or less enjoyable, for other people, rather then me. I criticize it too much, because I know the difference between the good "Pirates" movie and the bad. It is not necessarily must be a huge-scale action movie with unexplainable magic stuff. Instead, it can be something more practical, with no wasted money on needless CGI effects. I never asked for a new bad movie just for the sake of seeing more from those characters I love. A good film would have changed a lot in this franchise.

Anyway, the story is quite solid, despite the fact, that the screenplay didn't create needed emotional connection. The story threats already known characters poorly, but it sets up all the reasons, why the action is happening, well. I can say the reasons, why this script is bad, but there are good jokes and character development on the surface. There have been only three of all the characters, who were in all five films. They are, of cause Captain Jack Sparrow, Joshua Gibbs, Jack's loyal first-made and Captain Barbossa, played by Jeffrey Rush. His character was always a hidden jewel of this franchise. Of cause he was just for a couple of seconds in the second film, but he did appear in all movies in the franchise. I write it, because he has been given a lot more depth then ever. He was always just a bad person, a pirate, and now, suddenly we learn about his past. And in the perspective of the whole franchise, it seemed a little out of place for this character, he was absolutely great without any depth, except his great love for the "Pearl". And yet again, it is the way, where the story in the fifth movie goes, and how it treats already known characters. It worked exactly 50/50 in this film, sometimes violating the essence of the characters, but giving them some development instead.

The new main leads played by Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario are a recreation of whom Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann were for the first movies. But it looks more like a wrong decision, because they didn't have even near that depth and character build as previous generation. And the story and the screenplay for the first movie was way better then in "Dead Men Tell No Tales". And as for the villain. Javier Bardem was really good. But what else you would have expected from an Oscar-winning actor. Overall, the image of this movie is even more blur than even the previous film had. It overreacted about fanservice and totally took a wrong direction to lead the whole franchise into darkness. There are already ways for another movie, but if it's going to be as this one then there is a problem of not seeing the situation clearly, that the health of the franchise depends on good quality of the movie at first. 

Alien: Covenant (2017): Movie Review

In 2017 there are so many different movies, from horror to comedies, even horror comedies. But, Ridley Scott brings a classical Alien on screen again, and it is special. We haven't seen a traditional Alien movie for a very long time. Since the Resurrection, Alien didn't appear in any standalones, and it was 20 years for now. There were crossovers with the Predator, but this is the very first standalone Alien film with actual alien in it since 1997.  

Prometheus, which came out in 2015, was the first prequel to the Alien (1979). In that movie Ridley Scott explained the origin of life and Xenomorphs' existence. Alien: Covenant is the second prequel, which actually called "Alien" this time. And as trailers and every poster says, it has an Alien in it. Watching little prolog videos which are a part of the marketing campaign for this movie is really helpful, they explain some parts of the movie and help to get into the story as quick as possible without spoiling anything. 

The story of a crew members on a spaceship Covenant, which takes a huge colony on a decent for life and colonisation planet. But the ship crashed and crew members woke up from the cryosleep. During the repairs, one of the pilots intercepted a message sent by a human. The planet from which this message was sent seemed even more pleasant for colonisation and the captain decided to check it out and find the source of the signal. 

The movie very much discovers the origin of Xenomorphs. Ridley Scott really thought up a great explanation and the story is quite interesting. This movie doesn't lack the connection with the events which happened in the Prometheus. Without spoiling, I might say that the Xenomorph is not the only alien in this movie. Traditional Alien is some sort of an ancestor to another monstrous creature. That is why this film is not exactly an Alien movie.  It has one in it, but it wasn't a cliche from 1979, some parts remind of that movie, but in Alien: Covenant Xenomorph is not the one and only threat, so it mostly looks like a fight between the whole spaceship crew and different alien creatures, and the Xenomorph appears only at the end. 

This film is worth watching. Horror element is very strong, but it wasn't that much scary. The plot is exciting, there are no huge negatives with the story. There are no big issues with the decisions of the characters, it all seemed organic and natural. Michael Fassbender has done it again and crushed it with his roles in the movie, as well as Danny McBride and Katherine Waterston. 

One of Ridley Scott's most notable mistakes, again (just like in Prometheus), is the absence of the same atmosphere as in the original film, when prior to the meeting with Xenomorph, none of the members died, and there was more time to speculate and build up the mystery of the alien. And all that brings up the biggest issue with the movie - its pacing. The movie is slow at the beginning, quite moving during action scenes, but very slow and even boring between them. I have to say, that everything would have been better at a pace, if the film had been one hour longer. If you show all the details, don't cut out the big parts of the movie to get to the boiling point, in which people start dying. It seemed more like the script was originally meant to be at least twice as long, especially in the ending. To put it mildly, Alien: Covenant may not be such a good film, not to mention a good film about Alien. 

But it's still worth watching. It's visually stunning, and the origin of the Xenomorph is finally very well explained. The story itself is good, there are some great plot twists, which I personally saw a mile ago, but still, you might not. And the predictability didn't ruin any pleasure from suspense and the reveal. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Movie Review.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The sequel to the great and already classic first Guardians of the Galaxy which became absolutely one of the best in its genre. James Gunn also written and directed the second movie, as he did with the first one. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Karen Gillan reprising their roles along side with Kurt Russell (Ego), Sylvester Stallone (Stakar Ogord), Pom Klementieff (Mantis) and Elizabeth Debicki (Ayesha). 

This film is a continuation of the first Guardians of the Galaxy story line, in which guardians are mercenaries, who work for money or something else of value. The came back to what they all know how to do, but now they have a name and their services are special. 

The Sovereign had their home planet attacked by an Abilisk that was wreaking havoc on the world and trying to eat the planet's power source. Believing it to be beneath them to fight it themselves, their leader Ayesha hired the Guardians of the Galaxy to kill the beast in exchange for Nebula, who was captured by the Sovereign attempting to steal Anulax Batteries. 

The action in this movie moves the story very well, as after the job well done Rocket steals those batteries and all the Sovereign fleet is on their tail. Then they go to an asteroid field, so far it is more looks like an Empire Strikes Back narration, but even some posters are very much Star Warsish so to have at least a couple similarities in the movie. Indeed, this movie has similarities with Star Wars in pace and a little in its storytelling. Great that all that fleet of autopilot Sovereign ships are destroyed by one mysterious man who appeared from nowhere just after Quill's ship was about to be destroyed. 

Many great dialogs, a great premise of funniness and smart talk from Drax, or Rocket, interacting with Baby Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel, the humor is entertaining and hooking, it is built up by many good dialogs after which all the jokes make sense. From the start the atmosphere is the same just as in the first movie, but the scenes are showed with more advanced technology in cinematography which made the beginning a little new, more looking like higher budget film already. More attention is focused on Baby Groot, his new personality, what he is right now and how cute he might be. There are a lot of CGI and visual effects in this film, sometimes more than it was required. And one of the biggest differences from the first movie is that everything seems so expensive in the second one. To the end it felt like required for that terrain and circumstances CGI was overused. Vol. 2 lost in atmosphere to be more relying on fun and entertainment. But after all the movie still feels like the original Guardians. 

Exploring Quill's parentage appeared to very fun, his father is a very complicated dude, there is a lot to be explored about him and the whole history of his origin in the movie. Peter and Gamora are still unsure about their relationship with each other, it is also explored in the film. One of the biggest parts of the movie is the ravagers, their code, which Yondu broke by kidnapping children. There are many clans of ravagers, it is a one big family led by Sylvester Stallone's Stakar Ogord. His role is more like a cameo, looking on what little screen time he had, he still made it fun and had a couple cool lines. This how James Gunn explores the Marvel Cosmic Universe, it became more big and wide-ranged, many more things are to be explored next. Some characters had such a wonderful development. Yondu is such an interesting character. He raised little Peter for good. Nebula is a great character as well. How it is to be raised by Thanos, more terrible details about that and her relationship with Gamora. A lot of emotional feelings to all those stories we have seen or heard about in those two movies, as James Gunn makes it all connected and actually also brings his great storytelling with his hidden philosophy just as he did in the first one, where he had drama, action, comedy and space-opera in one movie with many issues that he addresses to massive audience. 

The second film does it all, but the pacing was a little bit more rough, some advantages of the first movie were sacrificed to bring more jokes and crazy good moments. The villain is not disappointing, but pretty much like Ronan The Accuser, very serious, but also to be made fun of sometimes. And really ,Guardians always make fun of their villains, but this one will be too powerful to be actually funny, while destroying the Galaxy. Ronan was funny, with his too over-the-top serious lines, maybe because he was too serious he was beaten, but this villain, in GOTG Vol. 2 is not. Not to spoil anything, but there are more, than was shown in the trailers, much more, so can't talk about villains a lot in this movie. But this one is horrifying in its convictions. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 of cause has a beautiful soundtrack. Peter Quill is that motor that aggregates common jokes, referencing to some older TV shows or singers from Earth. Overall, this whole thing is about saving the Galaxy again, but also about family and friendship, brotherhood. The second instalment isn't as good as the original, but still has the same greatness in its core.