Triple Feature: Atomic Blonde, Captain Underpants, Get Out

Time to go through that backlog of reviews!


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Man, August is always such a downer of a month. Summer's winding down and we all need to get back to our every day lives. Barely any games are coming out, except for Sonic Mania which makes it all worth it, and most of the movies this month are worth less than the air I breath. Dark Tower, The Nut Job 2, Death Note, Annebelle: Creation, Kidnap, and while I haven't seen all of them, you can tell that neither has anyone else. Well except for Death Note since it comes out on Friday, but that's besides the point.

Bottom line, I wanted to take a week just to go back and talk about the movies that I just didn't have enough time to review. Maybe it was because another bigger movie came out then, maybe it was because I just didn't see it at the time, or maybe it was because I just had nothing to say about it back when it came out, but lo and behold, here are three movies that I've seen and want to talk about instead of paying $11 to go see The Nut Job 2 in theatres. Someday, just not today.

Atomic Blonde (Released July 28th, 2017)

When Atomic Blonde came out, people were comparing it a lot to a female James Bond. Really though, the only claim that it has to being close to James Bond is that it's a spy thriller. There are new evil henchmen, gloriously insane plans, gadgets, or even a joke in sight. Instead, it's better to say that Atomic Blonde is a female Jason Bourne. Fast paced action where everyone knows not to mess with the head spy, who will frequently wreck everything in a super serious spy drama with tons of action. Regardless, Atomic Blonde was an okay time that didn't really set out to impress, but still did its job well.

Charlize Theron is a super spy that works for MI6 that is trying to track down something called "The List", a roster of every single spy employed throughout the world. The problem is that the list was last seen in East Berlin a few days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it's time to get some super spy action done, which mostly means Charlize Theron beats the crap out of some people, there are double crossings, and even a lesbian sex scene.

And that's really about it. I just summed up every reason to possibly see the film. Don't see it for a story because characters will pop in and out so frequently that you'll have no idea who's on what side and what is even happening. It's all pretty confusing to the point where by the end I just threw my hands up in the air and let the action set pieces do the talking. It's kind of a shame when the super spy thriller can't handle it's intricate plot well, but the action scenes, especially the one single take hallway brawl, and the pretty outstanding soundtrack, carries the rest of the movie. It wouldn't be a shame if you missed it, but Atomic Blonde is at least worth it if you see it on TV one night.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (Released June 2nd, 2017)

I never thought that I would actually be saying that I say Captain Underpants in theatres. Not because I'm one of those critics that's appalled by the fact they had to review something called Captain Underpants, but because this was a series that I read a ton when I was a kid. I loved this series growing up, so to see a movie released nearly two decades after is a bit of whiplash for me. And even more surprisingly, it's actually a really great movie.

It's hard to explain why a movie has heart, but Captain Underpants wears its heart on its sleeves, or elastic waistband in this case. You can tell everything about this movie was a work of love and genuine effort, from the various animation styles to how it condenses the first, second, and fourth books into one movie while still managing to put some really good adult humor inside. Everything pops, everything's vibrant, and it never feels like it's just noise to entertain kids. Granted, sometimes a bunch of the jokes come a bit too fast and the movie definitely takes a kitchen sink approach to its jokes, but I'd rather take a movie that tries to impress that a movie that doesn't.

Don't let the name fool you, this is probably one of the best animated movies of the year, and no one went to go see it! It still did well, but it's not something that everyone talks about as one of the summer's surprise hits. No, Captain Underpants is a surprise in how pleasant, entertaining, and how much it captures what it's like to be a child again for just 90 minutes. I may have gotten a bit older and a lot more cynical and crotchety, but Captain Underpants was still able to put a smile on my face for as dumb as it was.

Get Out (Release February 24th, 2017)

So this is painfully relevant due to recent events in America. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay. But on the bright side to that really dark realization, wow is Get Out a great movie, and I mean so great that it's probably going to be on a lot of people's best of lists for the end of the year. My personal take? I liked it. I wasn't in love with it as a bunch of people are, but it's a really well put together horror movie that deals with the racism of well intentioned, good old fashioned white people that don't realize that they're making a situation uncomfortable by saying that they'd vote Obama in for a third term or that black people sure are strong gee golly. In fact, if you're reading this, you're probably the target villain demographic for the movie. The villains aren't the Alt-Right or the KKK, but it's the people that try to help out race relations without understanding the implications of their action.

But enough being a philosopher, let's talk about scaring the hell out of people!

I know that Get Out is meant to be a horror film, but I never was once scared by it. I was 1,000,000% made uncomfortable by it, but I was never terrified of what I was watching, which isn't a bad thing. You don't have to make people scream to be called a horror movie, as long as you have an understanding of the appeal of horror and know what makes good tension, then that's all that really matters. In fact I kind of love the fact that the film is more focused at making you uneasy about what you're watching than anything else.

That being said, that sense of uneasiness lasts a bit too long for me. From the moment that we get to the Armitage household, where the film takes place 80% of the time, we know that something is wrong and we can't really peg what it is. But the movie insists on taking us about an hour to finally give the reveal, even though we've already figured it out about halfway through the movie. The experience is still a solid one, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new horror classic and for someone that's looking for a movie with something legitimately important to say.