The Angry Birds Movie

Michael's Movie Grade:D

Review: Just a very forgettable film.

This film has little to make it stand out. The story-line and characters have been done many times before and will be done many times in the future. There is nothing new this movie brings. Everything that is done here has been done better elsewhere. 

What really hurts this film is the humor. This movie assumes just because a joke is immature it is funny. There are jokes about farting, pee, poop, and burping. However there is seemingly no effort put into these jokes. They just assume being disgusting makes them funny. It is strange to think Jon Vitti, who has written some very funny episodes of The Simpsons could have been one of the writers for a film this unfunny.

This film does have some good points though. The main character is quite likable, and the artwork looks nice. However even these good points have been done better in other films.

Overall this movie sadly is just not a good movie.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland

X-Men: Apocalypse

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland


















Michael's Movie Grade: B

Review: Quite good film, it is not without it's faults, but what works about it really works.

This film is quite exciting. The action as well as the much of the story are very good. This film is heck of a lot of fun to watch. While this is not as great of character writing as there was in Civil War, it was still good enough for us to care about the characters. The story and characters are set up well enough for the big fight scenes to be just as exciting as they should be, and not have them seem like they are there just to be there. This film is a lot of fun to watch and is quite involving.

However this film does have it's problems as well. The story simply focuses on too many characters. Because of this much of the character development feels a bit rushed. Also some of the characters while likable, are very underdeveloped and it feels like we spend to little time with them to have as strong of an emotional connection with them as the film wants us to have. However they are still likable and understandable enough for us to get involved in the story. On top of that much of this movie makes it seem like we have seen this before.

Overall this may be a faulted film, but what is good about it is quite good.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Captian America : Civil War

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland















Michael's Movie Grade: A-

Review: Fantastic film, probably one of the best superhero films of recent years.

I personally like to think that this was made to wash the bad taste of Batman VS. Superman out of our mouths (though I know that's not true), because this film does right everything that movie did wrong. This film sets up why these characters are fighting. Many of the ideas in this film are actually thought provoking (something which too many superhero movies try for and fail). The characters are very well developed and we actually sympathize with them. And with all this happening the film still manages to fit a lot of fun in, even when the movie gets dark.

What I really like about this film is that despite how many characters it has it focuses on Captain America and Iron Man. This keeps the film from feeling to busy and allows us to really focus on the story. Speaking of the story I love that this film allows the story to drive the action, and allows the audience to actually care about the action scenes.

With how much superhero movies have been disappointing me lately (especially Batman VS Superman and Deadpool) it is great to see a superhero movie can still be this great. Overall this is just a fantastic film.

-Michael J. Ruhland

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