In Theaters: June 9, 2017

There are THREE wide releases this weekend.

It Comes At Night

I don't quite know what's going on here.

It Comes At Night is apparently a horror movie.  I watched the trailer and I have absolutely no idea what was happening.  Many scary images of blood and screams and running and stuff, with no apparent villain or monster.  So I don't actually know if this is a monster movie or about, like, a serial killer or something.  No idea.

This movie is also clearly designed to copy the general look of last year's The Witch.

It Comes At Night is rated R for violence, disturbing images, and language.

Megan Leavey

Based on a truly boring story.

True story films tend to have the same problem.  You sacrifice some truth of the story, or you sacrifice traditional narrative structure.  Do either at your own peril.  This one seems to have thrown out the narrative structure.

I watched the trailer and I can't tell if this movie is about patriotism, dogs, or PTSD.  It could be all three, I suppose.  The only thing I'm certain of is that Megan Leavey is the main character, played by Kate Mara.

Megan Leavey is a soldier who sees action in the middle east and serves with a bomb-sniffing dog.  She gets blowed up a little bit (yes, "blowed up"), and when she wakes up in the hospital she immediately asks where her dog is.

From there it gets more confusing.  Among heroic clips of the dog helping soldiers we get a clip of her approaching an elected official of some kind to see about adopting the soldier dog.  Then a clip of her commanding officer telling her that these types of dogs are warriors, not pets.  So maybe it's a legal drama.  Who knows?

The main take away I got from this trailer was that the movie looks kinda boring.

Megan Leavey is rated PG-13 for war violence, language, suggestive material, and thematic elements.

I almost forgot!  Before she even joins the military we see her butting heads with her family, and society at large, so add domestic drama to the list of potential genres here.

The Mummy

The Brendan Frasier classic finally gets rebooted.  Or is it the 1932 original getting rebooted?  Nobody knows.

I'll make this simple.  The down side is it's directed by Alex Kurtzman, and he is untested as a director.  And his extensive writing credits are questionable.  The up side is Tom Cruise stars, and I find him entertaining and watchable in everything.

Also on the plus side, the woman who plays the title monster (yes, the mummy is a woman this time) has most certainly proved herself in her previous roles.  She gets top marks.

As for the story, it's set in today's world.  The general idea of a mummy being revived through an ancient curse and being a general nuisance to planet Earth is the same as the last two.  Beyond that the only relevant detail I am aware of is that Russell Crowe is in this film as Dr. Jekyll.  Yes, that Dr. Jekyll.

This is also meant to be the beginning of a shared universe of classic monsters for Universal.  I'm not opposed to the idea because Universal really does handle their franchises well.  I hope it works out, but we'll see.

The Mummy is rated PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity.

      Big Shot Critic

P.S. I saw Wonder Woman and you should too.