Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

Logan Lucky

4/16/2018

B+
3.28

Two blue-collar brothers scheme to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Starring Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and Daniel Craig
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Exactly no one believed that prolific director Steven Soderbergh’s retirement from filmmaking would stick. Soderbergh took a few years to dabble in television, with exceptional results, and he finally returns to the big screen with Logan Lucky. His latest revisits the grand heists of Ocean’s 11, replacing the gawdy glitz of Las Vegas with the drawls of West Virginia. Soderbergh roars back to life as surely as the NASCAR vehicles featured in a film that retains the charm and humor of his other caper films while adding levels of earned sentimentality that his work has often been too cool to engage with.

0 Comments

Atomic Blonde

4/10/2018

3 Comments

B
2.94

A spy looks for a murderer and a mole in the days before the Berlin Wall falls.

Directed by David Leitch
Starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, and Sofia Boutella
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Having directed the groundbreaking action flick John Wick together in 2014, stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch parted ways three years later. With each releasing their own films in 2017, Stahelski and Leitch invited a friendly contest between them. Stahelski’s John Wick sequel was more of the same, stylish but drained of the emotional throughline that made the original’s high body count somewhat meaningful instead of outright exhausting. With Atomic Blonde, Leitch appears to be uninterested in repeating himself outside of capturing more visceral, bone-crunching action. His film trades the criminal underworld for Cold War espionage, casts a far-better actor in the lead, and retains a passable amount of resonance, all combining to demonstrate that he’s the more talented director of the two.

3 Comments

Ready Player One

4/1/2018

4 Comments

C+
2.47

A dystopian future where the populace drowns their boredom in a vast online world.

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Tye Sheridan and Mark Rylance
Initial Review by Phil Crone

One of the most successful books in recent memory, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One pays homage to all things nerd culture of the 1980’s through the guise of the most important man in its dystopian future setting, James Halliday, and the virtual world he created, The Oasis. As with any book adaptation, there’s always a question on how it will translate to the big screen. This was especially the case here, with wall-to-wall pop culture references and a wide assortment of locales experienced in the book. While Steven Spielberg’s adaptation largely throws many of the book’s events out the window, the movie still retains many of the important touchpoints of the book and while the execution seems a bit forced at times, it’s hard for anyone not to enjoy this movie.

4 Comments

Logan Lucky

B+
3.28

Atomic Blonde

B
2.94

Ready Player One

C+
2.47

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Logan Lucky

B+​3.28

Atomic Blonde

B​2.94

Ready Player One

C+2.47

Authors

Categories

Archives

B+
3.28

B
2.94

C+
2.47