@MrMoKelly is back for another edition of #MoOnTheMovies!
This week may not have the big-name releases like the past couple weeks, but there's still a couple movies coming out that you may be interested in checking out.
First, there's the action-packed, super-crazy-ridiculously-killing-filled sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado.
There’s an oppressive bleakness to the brutal action-thriller “Sicario: Day of the Soldado.” But with faces like Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, what are you going to do?
Amid the dust cloud of violence that settles over the “Sicario” sequel, nothing stands out like the furrowed brow of Brolin’s grimace or the cold, worn-out stare of del Toro. They look like gunslingers from an Anthony Mann or Sam Peckinpah western, just with heavier ammo and dark sunglasses. With such sunken, world-weary eyes, in the heyday of film noir del Toro and Brolin would have made a killing.
They do plenty of that, too, in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado.” Matt Graver (Brolin) and his cartel lawyer turned undercover pal Alejandro Gillick (del Toro) are again called into action in a black-ops operation along the Mexico border, this time without the benefit of Emily Blunt, who starred in Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario” (2015).
Blunt played a less experienced FBI agent with the naivety to be horrified by things that Graver and Gillick wouldn’t bat an eye at — you know, sissy stuff like dozens of decaying corpses stuffed like insulation into a Mexican cartel safe house. No, Graver and just-as-grave Gillick have seen it all. And Blunt’s absence leaves “Day of Soldado” without the mounting sense of dread that defined the first one.
Read the full review at Associated Press
If you're looking for something a little (a.k.a. A LOT) less gruesome and intense, there's the basketball comedy, Uncle Drew.
For a few shining minutes, “Uncle Drew” is the movie it surely intended to be: funny and clever, quick and snappy, and most of all, fun — all infused with love for the great sport of basketball.
Unfortunately, those minutes come during the closing credits, a sequence entertaining enough to be its own viral video.
But wait — that’s what “Uncle Drew” originally was, anyway: a series of web videos from a Pepsi ad campaign starring NBA great Kyrie Irving as a white-haired senior citizen who shows up on a playground court and blows all the “youngblood” hotshots away. Combining Irving’s talent with the satisfying element of age trumping youthful hubris, they couldn’t lose.
It’s perhaps not surprising that someone sought to make it into a full-length movie — and why not? Alas, the resulting film, made in association with Pepsi and directed by Charles Stone III, falls into a disappointingly formulaic lull for large stretches, squeezing all spontaneity from the proceedings. Don’t fault the talented cast, which includes a squad of hard-working NBA luminaries in heavy aging makeup, and comedy stars including the delightful Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel Howery, so memorable in “Get Out.” Fault the unimaginative script they’ve been given.
Read the full review at Associated Press
And, if you just want an old-fashioned, beat them down action movie, there's Black Water, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren.