Incredibles 2

Legendary animation studio Pixar is back along with Brad Bird to bring us the much-awaited sequel to the beloved Incredibles. Back in 2004, The Incredibles was a great movie about a superhero family and the struggle to live in a world where being a superhero is illegal. This sequel picks up instantly after the first and picks continues the story of the conflict between the government and heroes. The world still finds heroes to be dangerous and destructive to society, but one man wants to change all that and bring heroes out of hiding. Winston Deavor is a super-rich businessman who along with his tech-savvy sister want to elect the help of Elastigirl to change the way the world views heroes. This leaves Mr. Incredible to stay at home and watch the kids, something he was never used to. 

For me, Pixar sequels seem to be hit or miss and rarely better than the original. Honestly, the only ones that HAVE been better than the original are the Toy Story movies. Incredibles 2 was one of the only Pixar sequels that I was actually looking forward to because it was the one that made the most sense to continue. There was more potential for stories, growing characters, new heroes and villains, and conflicts. 

The biggest improvement here is, of course, the animation since it's been over a decade. You're getting that Pixar quality animation here with great movement, effects, environments, textures, details and so much more. The one thing you can always bet when you watch a new Pixar movie is that the visuals are going to be the best for computer animation, and this is no different. The movie also features a great musical score, much like the first, that elevates every scene. I'm always impressed by how much detail is put into every Pixar movie, but that's what makes them the best animation studio in my opinion. Really, Pixar almost never fails in the visuals and music department and it's usually in the story and writing that it can sometimes fail. 

So how is the story? Well, I thought it was almost as good as the first one. It's hard not to compare it to the original, but I think that's okay to do since this is a sequel... one that's more than a decade after it's predecessor. As I said before the story takes place immediately after the first one and does a good job of adding new stakes and building the characters a little more. The amazing voice cast returns with some new additions that all work very well and feel like they haven't lost a beat. The story itself is very predictable and I think most people will know exactly what's going to happen pretty early on in the movie. Of course, this is a movie that's aimed at kids, so they probably won't be able to predict it like older audiences will. Still, even being predictable, it's still a really fun movie to watch full of great action scenes and good family comedy. The villain in the movie is nowhere near as compelling as Syndrome from the first movie, but still has an understandable motive for doing evil things. The emotional moments also don't hit as hard in this movie, but there are still some moments that hit at least. 

Overall this was a worthy sequel to the great original movie. It didn't feel forced or out of place but instead felt like a welcome return. It was great to see the return of great characters and to see them in a new light thanks to all the advancements in animation technology over the last decade. It does a good job at playing off of the world created in the first movie and further building on it. While it falls short of the original, it's not by much and it's one of the best Pixar sequels made at this point. If you loved/liked the first then you'll definitely enjoy this one.

Overall Grade: B+

On a side note, they showed the new Wreck-it Ralph trailer before the movie. Am I wrong in thinking that it looks like it's going to be pretty bad? Hopefully, it's just a bad trailer...

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Hereditary

Hereditary is the lastest movie by A24 studios and newcomer director Ari Aster. A24 has quickly become a studio that I look out for every year for new great original movies. They've helped bring out great movies like Lady Bird, Ex Machina, Disaster Artist, Moonlight and so much more. Hereditary is a horror movie centered around the Graham family. When Annie's (Toni Collette) mother passes away she is left to deal with her mixed feelings about her mother. There was a lot about her mother that she didn't know and her passing begins a series of events that will make her question everything. Really that's all I can say without spoiling anything and if you are going to watch this movie it's probably better that you know little to nothing about the story.

Now I myself have never really been into horror, but since I'm been doing these reviews I thought it would be good to step into something new. What I got was a really well made horror movie that did what it was supposed to do: scare me. It does a great job at slowly building the tension and horror and it takes a little while to get started, but once it does it just keeps getting more intense every minute. The movie is really nice to look at and everything is presented very well. My favorite thing about it was that it didn't resort to jump scares in order to scare me or make me uncomfortable. Instead it uses the atmoshphere, acting and situations the characters are facing to make me really uncomfortable in a way that it's trying to do. The way things just keep building and building just work so well that by the end of the movie I kind of just wanted it to end so I can go back to feeling comfortable.

The acting was really awesome though and it really helped make every scene that much better when the cast is acting their butts off. Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Alex Wolff, Grabriel Byrne and Ann Dowd all do a great job at playing their characters and making the story work. Because of them you really believe what's happening is real and the way they react makes it that much scarier and meaningful. Really the only thing I wasn't a big fan of was the ending, but I can't really get into that without ruining the movie. There are still many scenes that I think I will remember for a while though, because of how effective they were (in a good way).

Despite the ending though, I thought this was a great horror movie that didn't feel cheap in it's scares. It earns every moment of uneasyness that I felt with good storytelling and acting and great visuals. I don't regret giving this movie a chance because I had a good time watching it...as good of a time one could have being tense and unsettled throughout a whole movie. If you are a fan of horror this is definitely something you should see for yourself. It definitely opened my mind to watching more horror movies in the future.

Overall Grade: B+

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Upgrade

Upgrade is the new movie from Blumhouse and director Leigh Whannell starring Logan Marshall-Green. The movie takes place in the near future where technology has advanced to new heights where AI is integrated into almost everything we do. Mashall Green plays a man named Grey Trace who is a more old-school man who doesn't really fully understand or appreciate technology like his wife does. While running an errand with his wife one night, they are both attacked by a mysterious group of men and Grey is left paralyzed for the rest of his life and his wife is murdered. This leads the creator of a tech company to offer Grey the ability to test his new project called STEM, which would give him the ability to walk move his arms again. What Grey doesn't know is that the STEM implant on his body will actually do more than just make his walk again, it will make him stronger than most humans. This leads Grey to seek revenge on the ones who attacked him and murdered his wife.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie, but the concept was very intriguing. I'm always up for a good sci-fi movie about futuristic technology and how it can affect our lives. This movie does a really good job of showing a world that is very plausible in our future while still seeming like it's somewhat far off from where we are currently at. Most of the tech in the movie is similar to things we are already toying and experimenting with like AI that can control a house and a car (Alexa and Siri) just way more advanced. It was presented in a believable way though, which was necessary to make the movie more impactful. It uses the tech to create a story that is kind of scary to think about the fact that it could happen one day. That was probably my favorite thing about this movie and it was really interesting.

Besides the interesting tech, there's a pretty gritty story here with lots of violence that was presented well. Some well-crafted action/fight scenes and some pretty creepy moments that worked with the character. I was reminded a lot of Robocop and the recent Dredd reboot from a few years ago, it has that sort of dark violence that was done really well in that movie. It's all presented well and the story moves along at a good pace, never really having a dull moment. I really liked Marshall-Green's performance in this movie, since he is the main focus of the movie it was good to have him as the main actor because he did a really good job. The rest of the side characters did well too for the time that they had on screen and kept the story interesting.

This is a lower budget film, but it really looks like they used every penny wisely to make a solid film worth watching. Behind all the violent action and crazy fights, there's an interesting story about technology and the potential it has in our world. It really makes you wonder how far we can go with it in our lives and how it will be used for good or for bad. This movie had me entertained the whole way through and if you're a fan of darker sci-fi movies like Dredd and RoboCop I think you'll definitely like this one. It's a good mix of that crazy violence with an interesting look at our current/future world.

Overall Grade: B+

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