The Jungle Book

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland










Michael's Movie Grade:B

Review: Quite good film.

This film has a great and really intriguing atmosphere, very likable characters and quite good animation. In the classic Disney way the story allows itself to get dark without really losing it's sense of fun. Kaa is actually quite scary and amazingly well done, though one may question Scarlet Johanson being the voice. Best of all this film can turn from intense to laid back without interrupting the flow of the movie.

The voice acting is quite good, though Scarlet Johanson may have been miscast. Bill Murray was perfect as Ballo, same with Ben Kingsley as Bagheera. Though some will not like it Christopher Walken as King Louie was delightfully weird. Plus Christopher Walken singing I Want to be Like You just makes my day.

However the film does have a few problems. Most of this is because the other wolves and Shere Kahn, both seem quite underdeveloped for the big parts they play here. Also the ending was a change I didn't much care for (not giving it away though).

P.S. I am personally confused by this movie being called the live action Jungle Book, because though Mowgli is in live action, the rest of the characters are animated. In fact with the exception of the live action Mowgli, there is very little other live action in this film. For this reason to me this is an animated film, not a live action one.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Hardcore Henry

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade: F

Review: This film has some very clever ideas about filmmaking and a new style of action films. However all these ideas fail miserably.

The ideas of doing an action movie in all first person shots and with a main character without dialog sound like good ideas, but are completely wasted here. They simply add nothing and we are left with bland characters, a horrible story, and gore that exists for no reason other than being gory. All of this is horribly handled.

I hope a film in the future will use this style of film making better, but this film stands as a miserably failed experiment.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland
















Michael's Movie Grade:F

Review: Easily the worst superhero movie ever made, and one of the worst films I have ever seen. This film not only earns it's bad reputation, but it's much worse than that reputation could ever make it seem like.

The whole film is somehow both very unpleasant and bland. The dark look of this movie does not make the film seem more serious, but rather just makes it unpleasant without adding anything. This film is even unpleasant to look at (I can't overuse the word unpleasant because that is simply what the film is). Also with all the versions of these characters this is easily the most bland. There is nothing interesting about the characters here and they are devoid of any personality. The only exception to the bland character is Lex Luther. Instead of being bland he was extremely annoying. Every time this character appeared on screen he just irritated me to seemingly no end. Jesse Eisenberg's performance here was bafflingly bad. He is simply a better actor than this performance, and I don't know what he was thinking here. To make it worse the character's motives are horrible. These motives are for an amateurish pseudo-philosophy reason that this film somehow expects us to take seriously. More than anything though this film is unbelievably boring. However the worst thing I can say about this movie is that there is nothing good about it at all.

Horrible, Horrible movie.

-Michael J. Ruhland

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland












Michael's Movie Grade:C+

Review: While this is far from a classic, it is a charming film.

There may be more jokes that miss the mark than ones that work, but the ones that do work work quite well. The story also has been done many times before, and nothing new is added here. However stating that it works well here. This film is very unoriginal and may not need to exist but it still has a nice charm, a few good jokes and is quite entertaining.

-Michael J. Ruhland

The Lady in the Van

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland














Michael's Movie Grade:A-

Review: Fantastic film.

This movie is very well written, touching and funny, but what really makes the film work is Maggie Smith (reprising a role she played on stage and on radio) brilliant performance. She becomes almost consumed with the character, and all you see on screen is that character.

This film's combination of comedy and drama is fantastic. Both the comedy and drama work very well, and neither gets in the way of the other. Instead they complement each other very well.

It is worth noting that this film was written by Alan Bennett, who also wrote the source material. This mostly true story also was based off his own life. His honesty helps make this film work even better.

Overall this is a great movie.

-Michael J. Ruhland

God's Not Dead 2

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland


















Michael's Movie Grade:B-

Review: A quite enjoyable movie. What really works in this movie is it's story which is great, and the characters who if underdeveloped were quite likable.  The story does get you to root for the characters. Even if this story seems very familiar to the first film, it offers enough variety to make it not a repeat of that movie.

On the downside the film trying to tie itself to the first one seems really forced. The Newsboys especially feel like they are in this movie because of the first movie and to sing the catchy theme song for the first film. However judging from the scene after the trailer hopefully the next movie will do this better. However this movie is sincere and heartfelt as well as entertaining.

-Michael J. Ruhland