Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo (Captain America 2-3)
	Actors: Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four 1-2), Scarlett Johansson (Match Point), ...
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 27.04.2018, 3D, Mathaeser Kino
Synopsis: The Mad Titan Thanos is on a quest to gather the six Infinity Stones that will allow him to wipe out half of the Universe. This leads him to Earth where the Avengers will old the last stand.
Review: I realize I have been waiting quite impatiently for this movie, and over the past month I have not only caught up with all the latest movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Spider-man: Homecoming, Black Panther), kept on following the series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with the vain hope of a cross-over with this movie (a short mention is made in this week's Season 5 Episode 19 Option Two!), but also re-watched many past Marvel movies. I think it is the movie to which led all the other movies, much more than the first two Avengers were. This really is the culmination of the three phases of the project, with the gathering of all the heroes you came to learn and love. With such a heavy cast, it was predicted that there would be deaths, and the movie doesn't waste one minute to start decimating populations as well as known characters you thought would never go. Tough start, but a necessary pace to pack all the movie has to display in 2.5 hours. In fact the movie could have easily been an hour longer, but I appreciate that some battles and events are seen only in short flashbacks or simply stated, it would have been otherwise too repetitive. I like the colorful poster which promised a continuation with Thor: Ragnarok which it is directly in fact, but in chronology not in tone. In a review I read after watching the movie was the pertinent comment that the only character that has enough screen time by himself to get a decent development is the bad guy Thanos. It was about time as we have been teased his existence in the past movies, and this opportunity was well used to detail his past and his motive, making him a very interesting character in fact, partially thanks to the performance (motion capture + voice) by Josh Brolin. Besides this character, the movie delivers the expected amount of battles taking place in a few different places, heroism, jokes (Stark to Banner: "You are embarrassing me in front of a Wizard"), characters from previous movies that meet (Stark & Strange, Thor & Quill), at a well-balanced pace but that doesn't offer the time for reflection as the two other Avengers movie did. I didn't have the choice but to see the movie in 3D which only brings a little in some scene, however the IMAX format means that you'd better watch on a big screen. The movie is not perfect (in the referential of super-hero movies, don't forget) but delivers what I was expecting, however in a direction I was not expecting: it is indeed (spoiler, highlight to read) a succession of defeats for our heroes, up to the very end which is quite bold. Well, not that bold if you know that the next Avengers movie (still untitled) is coming next year, and if you know a bit how Marvel handles its stories. Still, the cinema audience stayed baffled in the room and was not even comforted by a mid-credits scene. Only the patient ones could see the post-credits scene that only teases a little of the things to come, but doesn't take away the bitter taste. Just for this feeling, uncommon among popcorn super-hero blockbusters, the movie deserves a good rating.
Rating: 8 /10

Inception (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Interstellar)
	Actors:  Leonardo DiCaprio (The Beach, Titanic), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper), Ellen Page (Super), Cylian Murphy (28 Days Later, Sunshine, In Time), Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road), Marion Cotillard (La Mome)
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 17.04.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Cobb (DiCaprio) is specialized in the retrieval of secrets from people's minds. When asked to perform an inception (planting an idea), the chance to see his family again outweighs the risks and he starts to gather a team and formulate a plan.
Review: After several critical and public successes, director Christopher Nolan was at his best in 2010. And I have the feeling that with Inception, he brought us something quite fresh at the time, a screenplay apparently original and indeed refreshing, an entrancing music, good young actors around the star DiCaprio whose acting I liked, and nice Action and SF scenes in a movie that doesn't seem adequate for that in the first place: the building bending, the zero-G dance by Joseph Gordon-Levit... Surprising that I didn't watch that movie again since its release (or at least after 2012 as it was not yet reviewed on this blog). It is for me a tour-de-force that he managed to mix all of that seamlessly as he did. And it may have been the first movie since The Matrix that made me realize that nowadays ANYTHING is really possible in Cinema, and the director can show any possible Universe by including it in someone's Multiple Personality Syndrome (Identity) or imagination (Sucker Punch) or dream (this movie) or Virtual Reality (the recent Ready Player One), and still stay anchored in reality. Nolan properly spends the first half hour of the movie going through the rules of the dream-invasion game, which seems like a tedious process but necessary for the audience to accept everything it will see afterwards, and not question whether it makes sense or not. Meanwhile he clearly describes the stakes and the background of the main character (nice small role for Michael Caine by the way), not so much of the others (except for Ellen Page's Ariadne maybe). So that by the time the Inception starts, the audience is ripe. It is definitely worth watching on a big screen unlike I did, but just watching it again in any condition reminded me of the first impressions I got of it: it was and still is a damn good movie.
Rating: 8 /10

Rise of the Guardians (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Peter Ramsey
	Actors (voices): Chris Pine, Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher, Jude Law
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 18.04.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Five legendary characters unite to fight against an enemy that was thought long gone, including the outsider Jack Frost.
Review: I am always game for a good animated movie so I started easily to watch this Dreamworks production. Although it is obviously targeted for kids, it looked like it could be a bit darker, and in fact it is a little. I like the work done on the individual personality of the characters: the Easter Bunny is an Australian rabbit (a vermin there) that uses boomerangs, Santa (called North) is Russian, the Tooth Fairy and her minions are sort of hummingbirds (I loved when they find a mouse under a pillow and she identifies it as "European division"), and the Sandman is mute and made of ... sand. and their powers match the characters. Among them, Jack Frost is the American outsider kid to which the young audience will identify, easy. The bad guy reminded me of Thrax in the underrated Osmosis Jones with Bill Murray, and is the one bringing a little dark side to this otherwise fairy tale. The concept that Gods or legendary characters exist only as long as they are believed in is not new (I remember it from the Trolls de Troy comics). Too bad that in this typical American production, the fate of the Guardians is left to a single American kid among hundred of million on Earth. As often with Animated films, I was thus disappointed that it doesn't include a second layer of meaning for adults to appreciate.
Rating: 5 /10

Darkest Hour (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Joe Wright (Hanna, Black Mirror TV-series Episode S3E1 Nosedive)
	Actors: Gary Oldman (The Fifth Element, Lost in Space), Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral)
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 12.04.2018, in-flight entertainment system 10" screen.
Synopsis: When come the moment to decide whether negotiating with Hitler or preparing to fight, the unorthodox Winston Churchill becomes Great Britain's Prime Minister and will have to take all the tough decisions.
Review: It is interesting to notice that this movie was released the same year as Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, both focusing on a small piece of WWII. In fact the Dunkirk event is mentioned and quite important to the plot of Darkest Hour, but it is not at all the center of it and it is not shown at all in fact. When I think of it, Darkest Hour is a war movie that doesn't show a single war scene. Instead we spend every single moment following Churchill vividly portrayed by Gary Oldman in what is probably the role of his life. I agree that the praises and rewards he received for this role are well deserved; the movie wouldn't be much without his presence and depiction of a far-from-perfect man. In this, the movie may have exaggerated but it makes the character all the more human. What is great about this movie is that it shows the contrast between people who would be ready to follow the path of least resistance (and pretend the war is not at their doorsteps) and the others, like Churchill, who know the repercussions of the decision they are about to make. Add the characters of Churchill's wife and assistant is an otherwise very male world, a tense music, and you got yourself a WWII movie worth watching even if you are fed up with WWII movies and think that nothing more can be said after movies like The Longest Day, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and (in another style) Pearl Harbor (or Tora! Tora! Tora! for the purists).
Rating: 7 /10

Trump: An American Dream (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Barnaby Peel, Daniel Bogado, Natasha Zinni
	Actors: -
	Country: GB
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 13-14.04.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: From his twenties to the presidency, the story of businessman Donald Trump.
Review: As I don't watch TV, I love that Netflix proposes this kind of documentaries for me to learn more about such and such history period or character, as I would otherwise be too lazy to read a full book on the topic. Not being American nor interested into their rich people's lives, I know about Donald Trump only since a few month before he became president of the USA. For example I never noticed his cameo in Home Alone 2 and Zoolander! And now I know only about the controversies around him, his current life and politics. This Documentary was a good opportunity to catch up. It is British, thus proposes two-sided views, although in the end may have guided the user to conclude that the man is a moron. It is divided in the four following parts: E1 - Manhattan: about where he comes from, and how he followed his father's footsteps in real-estate but on a larger scale, by starting projects on the New York famous island. During this part I was surprised to learn how driven and ambitious he was from a very young age (in his twenties), taking on 100-million dollar projects. But I also learned how he would already then screw anybody for money and power. E2 - The Gambler: after some successes, he was getting bolder and buying casinos in Atlantic City which led him to a downward spiral, but was not worried by it. When your name is Trump there are always banks or Daddy to bail you out and small companies to screw over. There you learn about the cheating and lying aspects of the man, and he starts to use his catch-phrases like "fake news". E3 - Citizen Trump: a parallel is made between Trump and the main character in his favorite movie: Citizen Kane. What struck me is that both cases represent a pure American fascination, as hinted by the sub-title of this Documentary "An American Dream" and the original title foreseen for the movie "The American". The American people love those characters (to the point of electing them president) because they want to be them. In that episode I found that the Documentary didn't do its job properly, because it focuses too much on the big failures and says nothing about the rest of the man's business which must have been flourishing for him to stay afloat and popular after the times when he owed 3 billion dollars. E4 - Politics: after twice toying with the idea of being candidate in the 80's and 2000's, Trump is more and more involved in politics, in particular confronting Barrack Obama. I love the stinging public reply from Obama to Trump made in his presence, unfortunately this may have been the last straw that pushed him to the path we now know.
Rating: 6 /10

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Kenneth Branagh (Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit)
	Actors: Kenneth Branagh (Wild Wild West), Penélope Cruz (Blow), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, The Grand Budapest Hotel), Daisy Ridley (Star Wars 7-9), Johnny Depp (The Ninth Gate)
	Country: USA, M
	Genre: Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 11.04.2018, in-flight entertainment system 10" screen.
Synopsis: Renowned detective Hercules Poirot (Branagh) travels from Israel to France on board the Orient Express, where he encounters different characters. A mysterious murder will require all of his wits to be solved.
Review: In the world created by Agatha Christie in the early 20th century, French detective Hercules Poirot is the best and uses implacable logic and interrogation techniques to crack impossible cases, a bit like Sherlock Holmes for Arthur Conan Doyle at the end of the 19th but without the obsession for deduction. Holmes is often portrayed in Cinema and television (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the Japanese animated series, the recent British series, Mr. Holmes) while Poirot is less, but this movie is in fact the remake of a 1974 classic. The setting is pretty nice, between the oriental starting point and the ride on the famed train during a time period when it was glamour to travel like that. I found Poirot to be quite well depicted be the actor / director Branagh even though he is not French and his accent sounds obviously fake. His moustache is also amazing! He is surrounded by characters that we take the time to learn to know while they are one by one suspected, and those characters are well played by a bunch of famous faces. I was annoyed at some point that the characters were having unrealistic reactions, some events looked too staged and coincidences were piling up, but fortunately the resolution of the story gives sense to almost everything. Although not the best detective story ever, I would recommend the movie for the set and characters.
Rating: 6 /10

Ready Player One (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Steven Spielberg (E.T., Jaws, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park)
	Actors: Tye Sheridan (X-men: Apocalypse), Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the dying Girl), Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 08.04.2018, Cineplanet Costanera Xtreme
Synopsis: In a grey Future, the Oasis is the virtual world in which everybody lives. Wade (Tye) competes to win one of the hidden keys left by the creator to be found, and that will give the winner full control of the Oasis.
Review: Steven Spielberg was once renowned for his talent for delivering successively Genre (or in particular SF) blockbusters and (historical) dramas, both of the same quality and both Oscar-worthy.  But it seems to me he had lost touch with the Genre in the past years: The BFG was a fantastic children's tale, The Adventures of Tintin and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were more Adventure, War of the Worlds was unsuccessful and in fact the last SF movie to be remembered in his filmography was Minority Report in 2002. That's quite a while for the director that had blown my mind with Jurassic Park back in 1993. Needless to say that I had quite some expectations before viewing Ready Player One, especially after watching the energetic trailer. So I chose the cinema with the largest screen I could find, sat quite close to it for immersion and went at an unlikely time to avoid the popcorn-eating crowd. Good conditions to enjoy that great show. And what a show! The movie puts you in the mood with a car chase even more exhilarating than the ones in Speed Racer. But as any good Spielberg, it doesn't forget its characters and has the usual Romance, buddy-friendship, heroism saving the day, small guy against big corporation etc... Let me go back one step: Ready Player One contains two brilliant ideas: 1) as I have been saying for several years, setting a movie in a virtual World is all benefits for a big family production because you can just show anything, and even kill people because it doesn't mater as they can re-spawn, and 2) the pop-culture references which are not light or hidden but displayed in big. I can imagine the legal rights negotiations behind all that, and in fact we see many pop culture references but only ones from the 80's, and ones the movie studio could negotiate. But that's alright: I had a smile on my face all along when watching Back to the Future's DeLorean, hearing three music notes from the theme of that movie, having a Zemeckis cube in the plot and a million other details. And oh my God the final battle!! And the groups of kids running in the streets like their avatars fighting for the good side. Beautiful. The story is quite straight-forward, so it doesn't surprise but doesn't disappoint. Only after leaving the theater did I realize the weak points of that movie: even worst than when the usual American movies identify the entire World with the USA, in Ready Player One it is identified to one City and characters that meet online live five minutes apart in the real world. Also the final battle involves tens of thousands, not billions like it should. Another weak point is that I don't know how the movie will age, as it is surfing on the current wave of 80's nostalgia and contains time references strongly tied to today, like the emergence of Virtual Reality helmets and of drones. I am just trying not to think about that and rather remember the spectacle.
Rating: 8 /10

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Julius Onah
	Actors: Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Jupiter Ascending), David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl (Inglorious Basterds, Captain America: Civil War)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 07.04.2018, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: Onboard a station orbiting Earth, a group of scientist attempts to resolve the World energy crisis by firing up the most powerful particle accelerator ever built.
Review: Watching the first movie Cloverfield was one of the best cinematographic experience of my life, not because it is such a masterpiece but because of the conditions in which I watched it that made it memorable: one day of 2009, one of my first Blu-ray movies watched on a brand-new Full-HD Home Cinema with surround sound, and on one evening back-to-back with John Rambo that I also appreciated greatly. Both movies kept me clinging to my seat during that memorable evening. I haven't seen yet 10, Cloverfield Lane, but it seems that the three movies of that franchise are very different one from the other. The Cloverfield Paradox made the choice of going full Science Fiction, and in passing explain within 10 minutes the events of at least the first movie. I like how they re-use the real story of people's fear when the LHC particle accelerator opened (see Particle Fever), a story also present in the fictional Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. The decimation of the crew of a Space station by mysterious forces furiously reminds of the recent Life and of course of the model of the genre Alien. But while laws of physics (in particular zero-gravity) were respected in the former and not important in the latter, it annoyed me that they were completely ignored in this movie, which is even more embarrassing that those are scientists on the station. Once that accepted, I could enjoy the rest of a show composed of enough mystery and SF for me. The political context on Earth, to which we keep contact thanks to some news videos and also via the character of Kiel left there, helps appreciating the stakes. All-in-all a satisfying SF flick, even more when placed in the context of the whole Cloverfield franchise (the Universe known as the Cloververse).
Rating: 6 /10

Annihilation (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Alex Garland (Ex-Machina)
	Actors: Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Star Wars 1-3), Jennifer Jason Leigh (eXistenZ, The Hateful Eight), Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac (Star Wars 7-9, X-men: Apocalypse)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 07.04.2018, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: When her husband (Isaac) comes back home one year after disappearing in a military operation, Lena (Portman) will see her questions answered when she is arrested by the same military group. However the truth will require more sacrifice.
Review: Watching this other Netflix production back-to-back with the The Titan reveals several resemblances: the military and their control, a female scientist, alien worlds... which I think are popular among the Netflix audience. After a little while I could see where the movie was going: a group exclusively composed of women (for originality) diving into the unknown and being decimated while slowly revealing the nature of the mystery. And it is the path it follows for some time, but this apparent banality is hidden behind increasingly intriguing visual ideas, that reminded me of the organic nature of David Cronenberg's work but in more colorful and less bloody, as you can see in the example frames shown at the end of this post (warning: graphic visuals not for the faint-hearted). And the characters turn out to have more depth that the usual monster fodder, in particular the one played by Nathalie Portman and driven by what happened to her husband. But what completed to sell me the movie is the finale that I may dare comparing to the one of (spoiler, highlight to read) 2001, A Space Odyssey. Yet another movie I regret not watching on a bigger screen. And I should watch for myself Ex-Machina by the same director Alex Garland.
Rating: 7 /10

The Titan (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Lennart Ruff
	Actors: Sam Worthington (Rogue, Avatar), Taylor Schilling (Argo, Orange is the new Black TV-series, Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty, The Grand Budapest Hotel)
	Country: USA, E, GB
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 06.04.2018, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: In an attempt to save mankind from a doomed future, Lieutenant Rick Janssen (Worthington) volunteers for a program which goal is to create enhanced humans that could live on Saturn's moon Titan.
Review: I had seen the trailer for this movie and was surprised that it was available so soon on Netflix. For such a blockbuster I was expecting a cinema release before the online one, but I guess things work differently nowadays. Talking about the trailer, I have to say it is the worst thing about this movie. The Titan is relatively short (97 minutes) and half of it is spent painting the characters so that we can better relate to them, but then what little time is left for Action and Suspense was spoiled by the trailer. OK one could expect that things would go bad of course, but it is different when is actually shown to you. Besides that disappointment, the story of doomed Earth in The Titan reminds of several other recent movies, in particular Interstellar with which it shares a striking poster resemblance (look at that vertical stripe). I didn't find the scientific justification for creating a monster very plausible, but I accept that those difficult times would allow Mad scientists to do a bit more what they want. It is nice to see Sam Worthington, rather absent since Avatar, and in general all actors are quite good, and the story flows well (when not spoiler by the trailer). Unfortunately, I was left at the end with a taste of unfinished, by a movie either too short or not ambitious enough although well done, and definitely any surprise effect was spoiler by the trailer.
Rating: 5 /10

Justice League (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen)
	Actors: Ben Affleck (Argo, Paycheck), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Jason Momoa (Conan)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Fantasy, Epic
	Conditions of visioning: 31.03.2018, VOD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: After Superman's sacrifice, Bruce Wayne (Affleck) is looking for allies to help him fight a threat he feels to be imminent.
Review: DC comics is struggling to develop its own Cinematic Universe (called the DC Expanded Universe) following the Marvel example and trying to reap the same benefits. But DC is following a different approach, one darker with less humor, and it is releasing its equivalent to The Avengers without having taken the time to introduce all of its heroes. Also the franchise is more director-driven as it is the third movie by Zack Snyder after Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the only other movie in the Universe being the recent Wonder Woman. Oh, I almost forgot the forgettable Suicide Squad. Finally, the Universe doesn't integrate so well TV-series as Marvel does: Supergirl, Flash, The Arrow, Gotham, Legends of Tomorrow: they don't really mix with the movies and in fact use different actors for the same characters. So what about this movie? In the end not as bad as I feared: Snyder starts to know how to make cinema adaptation of comic books, Affleck is an OK Batman, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Lois Lane (Amy Adams) bring a female touch in this violent world, the Flash a touch of young humor not unlike Spiderman in Captain America: Civil War, Victor Stone some robotic special effects a-la-Iron Man, and Aquaman is an anti-hero adequately played by Jason Momoa. However I still find the DC Universe hardly believable. For some reason I have no problem with Captain America, Thor or Thanos, but I am having a hard time with an invincible man of steel, amazons, Greek Gods, bare-chested Aquaman, bare-legged Wonder Woman, Atlanteans and the power-hungry Steppenwolf, although he is not far from the Frost Giant king in Thor. Still, I took some pleasure when the heroes assemble for the first time, even though it was after a kind of recruitment process and not an long-nurtured need. A sequel is expected in 2019. I wonder how far will this Universe survive...
Rating: 4 /10