In Theaters: January 26, 2018

There is only one wide release this weekend.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure

This is the last of the YA adaptation trend.  The end of the line.  There are no more in development.  What Twilight started ten years ago ends here with Maze Runner.

The Passing of the YA Adaptations

Only four ever became film franchises at all.  Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner.  Twilight ended forever ago now, and the other three have all slowly dwindled into box office oblivion.  In spite of all this, the YA adaptation genre has left two disturbing trends behind: splitting the last story into two movies (Twilight had that idea before Harry Potter), and hiring Jennifer Lawrence.  I'm curious to see which of those trends ends first.  Jennifer Lawrence has stifled much of her star power, in my opinion, but she's far from any point of no return.  And this May we have Avengers: Infinity War, which was originally titled Avengers: Infinity War - Part 1.  But back to Maze Runner.

Another awful trend that comes from YA adaptations is retaining the title of the first book in the titles of all following movies, as in "Maze Runner: The Death Cure", or "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2".  It stems from the assumption that the audience is too stupid to catch on and realize that this is a sequel, and that's a bad start to any project.  Okay, but seriously, back to Maze Runner now.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure is the last of the Maze Runner series.  Basically all you need to know to be caught up is that there's some crazy disease ravaging mankind that turns people into zombies or something, and there's an evil organization that kidnaps immune kids to study them.  And for some reason the kids they study always die, I can't remember why.  So the good guys are some punk kids that got away and are gonna do their darnedest to stop those bad guys!  Because in YA sci-fi your main character needs to be a special teenager.  Like, only hope for mankind kinda special.

Dylan O'Brien plays the lead and he's very good in everything I've seen him in.  I would like to see him do more movies.  He already led his own movie outside this franchise with last year's American Assassin.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, and some thematic elements.

      Big Shot Critic

In Theaters: January 19, 2018

There are three wide releases this weekend.

12 Strong

So here it is.  I have no doubt that 12 Strong will easily be the best war movie since the last one.

Apparently right after 9/11 some soldiers saw battle in Afghanistan on horseback.  The story was declassified, a book was written, and some producer somewhere said, "Ooh!  Ooh!  Me first!", and bought the film rights.

12 Strong looks like painting by numbers for war movies.  It just feels a little pre-packaged, like someone pulled out their calculator and averaged out all the value of the explosions, action scenes, sentiment, and shaky cam you see in successful war movies set after the first gulf war.  I could be wrong . . . but I doubt it.

12 Strong is rated R for war violence and language throughout.

Den of Thieves

The latest copycat of The Town.

A bunch of criminals who do heists decide to do another heist that is naturally bigger than their last heist.

There's a good chance that Gerard Butler will be fun to watch in this movie, I should mention that right away.  He plays a cop that at least makes for some good lines in the trailer, like proclaiming himself the member of a gang that wears badges, or telling the criminals to their faces that they aren't the bad guys, he is, and that he didn't even bring handcuffs.  But that's all you're gonna get out of this movie, unless someone in this world actually cares about 50 Cent's first major film role since Get Rich or Die Tryin' back in 2005.

I also feel obligated to mention that the final heist is the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve, and that it is preceded by smaller heists at banks and stuff.  If this doesn't sound familiar, then congratulations on not being a nerd, but this is pulled straight from the main story of Grand Theft Auto V.  Embarrassing.

Den of Thieves is rated R for violence, language and some sexuality/nudity.

Forever My Girl

If you look closely you'll find that is not Andrew Garfield in the poster.

Let's review.  We have a Black Hawk Down copycat, a The Town copycat, and this would be the Country Strong copycat.  I am a little distressed that moral tales featuring made-up country stars is a sub-genre.  The main difference with Forever My Girl is that instead of Gwenyth Paltrow and Garrett Hedlund we have all the star power of Abby Ryder Fortson.  She's the cute little girl from Ant-Man, duh.

In Forever My Girl, Liam is a country star who stood up his fiancée on their wedding day eight years earlier, before he was famous.  He returns home because someone died (how else are you gonna kick off some domestic drama?), and he finds that Josie, his ex-fiancée, has moved on with her life and has a seven-year-old daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson).  Guess who the father is.  Correct.  From there on out it becomes the first Cars movie where he has to choose between small-town life or the obligations of being famous.

It looks pretty bad.

Forever My Girl is rated PG for thematic elements including drinking, and for language (thematic drinking strikes again!).

      Big Shot Critic

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In Theaters: January 12, 2018

This week there are THREE wide releases.

The Commuter

Liam Neeson is doing an action movie.  How novel.

The Commuter is about a guy just riding the train home when some lady tells him about some plot that involves some danger to some people.  And the guy has to do something about it.  I don't know, man, these Liam Neeson action movies are getting as bland as horror movies.

The Commuter is rated PG-13 for some intense action/violence, and language.

Paddington 2

There's something admirably straightforward and honest about a sequel with a numeral instead of a subtitle.  Too many times it's "The Dark World" this and "Ghost Protocol" that when a simple number will do.

In Paddington 2 our main character gets framed for a robbery he didn't commit.  And of course our band of friends must come together to rescue him!  Hugh Grant plays the villain.

Like the first one, it seems to rely on the charm of the characters rather than two hours of gags like most children's movies.  Of course, the Paddington character is very conducive to good gags.

Paddington 2 is rated PG for some action and mild rude humor.

Proud Mary

I feel obligated to pick up the slack of the marketing people and tell you this film is not set in the 70's.

Turn Atomic Blonde into a blaxploitation film and you're close.  Sigh.  In retrospect, I was too hard on Atomic Blonde.  At least its lead actress didn't have a chip on her shoulder the size of Pluto.

Have you ever heard of little man syndrome?  You know, when a short guy drives a giant lifted truck?  It's a bit of an inferiority complex.  Well a lot of women filmmakers have an inferiority complex about action movies.  That's the best way I can say it.  And until they drop their insecurities, we're gonna get a steady stream of garbage like this.

Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot are two women that obviously don't have this inferiority complex.  Guess what movie they made.

By the way, Proud Mary is about a hitman for the Boston underworld who meets a kid and changes her ways or something.

Proud Mary is rated R for violence.

      Big Shot Critic

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In Theaters: January 5, 2018

Happy New Year, everybody!  This week there is only ONE wide release.  And it's the VERY FIRST wide release of 2018.  Let's see if we can start the New Year right!

Just kidding, it's January.

Insidious: The Last Key

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret that might hurt my blog traffic until next month: January always sucks for movies.  Always.  The highest grossing January release of all time - I kid you not - is Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  Is that not the most tragic thing you've heard all day?

Now you all know I don't go for horror movies.  I'm not really into the genre, and almost all of it is total crap.  Once every couple years or so we get one that stands out, and that frequency is rising thanks to James Wan and Blumhouse delivering us from the "torture porn" era of horror.  They deserve our thanks, but that doesn't mean you have to go see Insidious: The Last Key.

It doesn't look like total crap.  This one probably falls somewhere between Unfriended and the first Insidious.  It looks passable, and for this genre (for this blog) that's high praise.

Once again, I have no idea what it's about.  You know, the usual.  Ghosts and apparitions, hauntings and maybe some possessions?  Spooky stuff.

Insidious: The Last Key is rated PG-13 for disturbing thematic content, violence and terror, and brief strong language.

      Big Shot Critic