Some mini-reviews
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Billed as a "spiritual sequel" to J. J. Abrams 2008 'found footage' monster movie Cloverfield, this kind-a sort-a follow up is quite a bit different from its predecessor and I would say quite a bit better (though I did like the original film). 10 Cloverfield Lane is also a movie that benefits from going into it knowing as little about it as possible about it, so all I'll say is that a lot of it takes place in a bunker and its probably John Goodman's best role this century. This really exceeded my expectations and I highly recommend seeing it in the theater, I left the movie a little surprised and quite pleased. ***1/2
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Born of the backlash against Ang Lee's "artsy" 2003 Hulk, The Incredible Hulk is the last of the films set in 'canonical' Marvel Cinematic Universe I had yet to see. Wisely dispensing with The Hulks origin story in opening sequence montage the film focuses on the efforts of General Ross (William Hurt) to hunt down on the run Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) the unfortunate victim of a government experiment gone wrong and former lover of Ross's scientist daughter Betty Ross (Liv Tyler, was her voice always this soft? Her performance felt like a bit of a throw back compared to the strong female love interests of other Marvel hero's). In course of the film bad guy Tim Roth becomes 'a Hulk' too, but on the whole the film is pretty mediocre and unmemorable, probably the weakest MCU movie save maybe Iron Man II. **
Bridge of Spies (2015)
When I first saw previews for this film I thought it looked really good, I love Cold War spy stuff and it seemed that kind of historical, true story, triumph of the human spirit movie that director Steven Spielberg cold make in his sleep, but the question is how much longer will that be enough? Well Bridge of Spies proves that it may well be the movie in which that classic Spielberg formula stops being impressive. That's not to say its not a good film, it is, the story its based on is interesting and Tom Hanks is good as always, but the movie's just not great. It doesn't break any new ground for anyone, and its not particularly effecting emotionally, its intriguing as a lesser known historical human interest piece (James B. Donovan is a legitimately impressive man) but little more then that. That being said when I was watching it I had the thought that it would be fun to show this movie to my 12 year old nephew. Also of note the capture of the spy Rudolf Abel at the beginning of this film, well I'm pretty sure it also served as the basis for one of the episodic vignette's in the 1959 Jimmy Stewart picture The FBI Story. ***
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