In October we finished our quest of watching all the Fast and the Furious movies, watched some old favorites, and enjoyed a couple of new to us ones. We also got to see a new movie in theaters that we had been looking forward to. There are links to IMdb.com where you can find descriptions, trailers, and all the information you need about the movie. You can also find their parent guide information if you just scroll down a bit. Pluggedin.com is also a great resource to learn more about the content of movies, tv shows, games, books, and YouTube channel. Here’s what we watched:
1. Furious 7. This is when the movie series really finds it feet, in my opinion. Deckard Shaw is introduced in this one–he is seeking revenge for his brother (the bad guy in the last movie) and is systematically trying to take them all down. Mr. Nobody makes is introduced in this one and there is a creative plot line with a science geek who is on the run because of an invention she created called “gods eye”. There is some great action and a lot of cool twists and turns. Unfortunately, this is also the movie where Paul Walker (the actor that plays Brian O’Conner) dies in a tragic car crash. I was impressed with how they were able to finish the film using his brothers as stand ins and CGI to super impose his face. Whereas they don’t kill his character, they do sort of let him ride off into the sunset.
2. The Fate of the Furious. A new villain appears in this one–Cipher. When she blackmails Dom into working for her, the rest of the team is confused by his betrayal of them. It all comes to light and there is a great rescue scene. The stunts get really crazy and over the top. But it’s fun to watch.
3. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. This is all of our favorite in the entire series. I love the dynamic between Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs) and Jason Statham (Shaw). They have been at odds with each other up to this point, but now are forced together. I love the creativity of the final battle. But the suspension of disbelief is taken to a whole new extreme with the stunts.
4. F9: The Fast Saga. Yet another new villain appears in this one. John Cena plays Dom and Mia’s long lost brother, Jakob who has gotten mixed up in a life of crime. I think this one wins the prize of the most over the top unbelievable stunts and car chases. But then I saw the next one….
5. Fast X. When I had read that Jason Mamoa was going to play the latest villain in this series–I had trouble picturing it. Then I saw the movie. He is fantastic. His character is outrageous, over the top, and diabolical. He plays it so well. In a lot of ways he stole the show in this one.
6. Tron Ares. We had been looking forward to this one for months–since we first started seeing the trailers in the summer. Both of my boys are very into the whole “Tron Universe” and get really picky about the stories as to whether or not they pass their high standards for the story line, etc. I really liked this movie. So did Super Rockstar. We are blissfully unaware of plot holes, breaking from cannon, and whether or not it matches with the overall story. My boys were both pretty disappointed in the story. They felt it was too rushed, too much going on and that the actors were pretty bad (one or two really were pretty awful). We all agreed that the CGI and action scenes were awesome.
7. Ant-Man. We recently re-watched most all of the Marvel movies but realized we had forgotten the Ant-Man series. It’s one of our favorites. Paul Rudd plays it very well and his friend/co-worker Luis (played by Michael Pena) is fantastic with his story telling bits.
8. The Dark Knight. Both of my boys decided to be different versions of The Joker for Halloween. Grayson chose Heath Ledger’s from The Dark Knight movie. It really is very good. Arguably the very best Joker in all of the DC movies.
9. The King of Kings. We had really wanted to catch this new animated movie in theaters but never got around to it. It’s a very creative take on telling Jesus’ story–Charles Dickens (Christmas Carol) is telling the story to his very active and precocious young son. And the story comes to life in a wonderful way. We all really enjoyed it.
10. Suicide Squad. Morgan’s choice for Halloween costume was The Joker portrayed in this movie. For years he has been begging to see the movie. Super Rockstar and I had seen it when it came out and were underwhelmed, but he needed to find out for himself. Jared Letto is a terrible Joker. Now after seeing the movie–he believes us. The entire movie is just not good. They go to great lengths to introduce the Suicide Squad characters and then keep randomly adding more. I kept trying to figure out why I was supposed to care about any of them. The acting is terrible. The story is terrible. I still can’t believe they made a second one. We won’t be watching it.
11. Elementary (final season). We finally made it through all 7 seasons of this series. If I haven’t mentioned it before–it is really good. I highly recommend it.
12. Only Murders in the Building–Season 5. Oh my goodness–I love this series so much. Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez are a terrific team and this season was just as good if not better than the previous 4. I wish the seasons had more episodes, but they’ve set it up for a season 6 that looks promising.
13. Ghostbusters. On Halloween night after our boys donned their costumes and pillaged our neighborhood of as much candy as they could carry, we came home to watch Ghostbusters–a favorite of the boys.
I would love to hear about what you’re enjoying watching.