At the Movies Movie Review: *****Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

 Avatar movie are beautiful with their foreign world.  The Avatar world is beautiful with many wonders and this movie shows us this in all it many wonders, flying creatures they ride on, flying fish that take them under water and a room under water that shows them visions of people they love.  The family has fled from their home land in the forrest and fly across the ocean to be accepted by a new people.  This is becomes the humans are out to get him.  Colonel Quaritch is back as a local, with his their strength and he is gunning for Jake and his family.  The family must learn the way of water in their next home; an so they do.  Sigourney Weaver plays a young woman who is actually her Na'vi daughter.  This movie has a very good climax battle between the humans and the Na'vi.  The whales, at least one whale joins in.  The humans are intent on killing the whales to bring the Na'vi out so they can capture them.  This leads to the big fight at the end.  

• 

  Sam Worthington

  Jake
• 

  Zoe Saldaña

  Neytiri
• 

  Sigourney Weaver

  Kiri
• 

  Stephen Lang

  Quaritch
• 

  Kate Winslet

  Ronal
• 

  Cliff Curtis

  Tonowari

• 

  Jamie Flatters

  Neteyam
• 

  Britain Dalton

  Lo'ak
• 

  Trinity Jo-Li Bliss

  Tuk
• 

  Jack Champion

  Spider
• 

  Bailey Bass

  Tsireya

Movie Review: ****The Terminal (2004)

 When you are stranded in an airport and your visa is no longer valid because your country is no more due to a coup.  Viktor Navorski finds himself in this predicament.  He may not enter the U.S. and he may not return home.  Because of the coup his passport is no longer valid.  So he lives at the airport.  At first he returns carts to collect a few coins with which to feed himself.  He befriends Enrique Cruz (Diego Luna) who is a food service worker and provides meals in exchange for help meeting an immigration officer, Dolores Torres (Zoe Zaldaña).  The conflict in this story is created by Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) who is the head of the U.S. Customs and seems to take pride in causing grief for Navorski.  Navorski also meets and woos a flight attendant, Amelia Warren (Katherine Zeta-Jones).  He also befriends Gupta Rajan (Kumar Pallana) who is a janitor, but in actuality is an illegal immigrant.  A theme is why does Navorski want to visit America.  Dixon wants to find out, and even interrogates Warren to find out.  Finally Navorski reveals he wants to get the signature of a jazz musician.  

A funny part of the show is that Navorski actually gets a job in the airport working construction.  He build a fountain and does many different tasks.  

Political issues finally resolve, and Dixon tells him he can go home; but not enter the United States.  Dixon sys he will persecute his friends if he does not go strait home.  Rajan gives himself up to convince him to finish his dream.  He does this, and then returns to catch a flight home.  

This story follow rather loosely the story of Mehran Nasseri who lived in the Paris airport for 18 years.  This is a good show telling the human spirit and the will to survive in difficult circumstances.

***^Missing Link (2019)

***^Missing Link Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) must prove that he is not a failure by making a discovery and proving it to the world.  He decides to pursue a Big Foot.  And he actually finds a Big Foot (Zach Galifianakis) who he discovers want to find others of his kind.  This results in an across the world journey to meet the abominable snowmen.  Joining them on the journey is Adelina (Zoe Saldana).  Unfortunately after making the long journey, and hiking up the mountain, the attitude of the Snowmen is not pleasant.  Their Elder (Emma Thompson) makes it clear they do not want anything to do with a newcomer.  This is a good movie exploring the theme of friendship and success.  I enjoyed myself. 

In Theaters: Avengers: *****End Game (2019)

Avengers: End Game:  This is the most anticipated movie in some time; and it more than lives up to all the hype.  From Thanos’ “I am inevitable” to “I am Iron Man” and all the ride along the way, this movie is great.  Of course the thing about this movie is having all the characters together.  There is too much here to give a plot summary, but suffice it to say this movie entertains and appeals to Avenger fans, as well as Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr. Strange.  It has all the characters taking part in their turn.  There is a part during the major battle where all the women are going to protect the glove and it just seemed to miss as tried to make a politically correct statement.  And then of course the fumbled the glove anyway as Thanos had said, :He is inevitable.”  However that is my only complaint.  A couple of our major Avenger friends will not be coming back it appears, but there are plenty others who are ready for the continued Avenger Universe, including Peter parker and Spider man later this year.  This is a must see.  In fact it warrants going back and seeing all the Avenger movies.

Robert Downey Jr.     Tony Stark/ Iron Man
Chris Evans                Steve Rogers/ Captain America
Mark Ruffalo               Bruce Banner / Hulk
Chris Hemsworth        Thor
Scarlett Johansson     Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
Jeremy Renner            Clint Barton / Hawkeye
Paul Rudd                   Scott Lang / Ant-Man
Benedict Cumberbatch  Doctor Strange
Chadwick Boseman    T'Challa / Black Panther
Brie Larson                  Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
Tom Holland                Peter Parker / Spider-Man
Karen Gillan                 Nebula
Zoe Saldana                Gamora
and many more
Marvel Universe

Movie Review: ****Guardians of the Galaxy Volumn 2 (2017)

Again our heroes team up to save the galaxy, this time from the father of Peter (Chris Pratt), Ego (Kurt Russell).  This movie has all our old beloved characters, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) the blue humanoid, Drax (Dave Bautista), the tattooed guardian, Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper)  the raccoon looking creature and Groot (voiced by Van Diesel).  In addition to Ego, we have two other new characters, an empath named Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Gamora's sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan).  First our heroes are saved by Ego, and then betrayed by him, as he is hoping to use Peter to help him reshape the universe, destroying all life except himself and his son.  Seems pretty demented.  However, since Ego is an immortal, it makes his defeat pretty complicated.  Yondu (Michael Rooker) the individual who kidnapped Peter when he was young, and emotional abused him,  also plays an important part, that enables Peter to come to terms with his past, and understand what happened.  The two sisters finally come to an understanding, after trying to kill each other most of their lives.  Some of the funniest moments happen when the empath interprets the emotions of the others.
The think that makes this movie is the relationships between the characters.  there is platonic love, admiration, friendship and camaraderie.   In theaters now and good for a fun adventure.

Movie Review: ****Star Trek Beyond (2016)

This is a movie for which you have to be prepared for lots of action.  It really keeps moving.  There is one little twist at the end that I don't want to give up, but the Enterprise faces an unstoppable enemy, bee like ships that all work together as one.  After destroying the Enterprise, they try to capture all the people, but the show never tells why or reveals how many actually die in the attack.  This is because the bee vessels were gathering everyone up and collecting them.  They all end up on the same planet, Spock, and Scottie and Dr. Bones all crashing into the planet, with the goal of rescuing their crew.  Scottie meets a local, at least local now as she has previously shipwrecked on the planet, her father was killed in an escape attempt, and she has been surviving in an Enterprise space ship which has been cloaked.  She is one pretty tough woman, but still scared to go back to the base.
Spock is determined not only to rescue the crew, but specifically Uhura, his girl friend.
This movie is a fast and exciting ride, which doesn't give up until the end.  I didn't take any fantastic theme from the movie, other than sometimes you can get lost in space.  This movie was mostly geared toward entertainment rather than philosophizing.
This movie starred: Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. Bones, Zoe Saldana as Lieutenant Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty and Idris Elba as our bad guy, Kroll.  He was some fantastic bad guy.  Scotty, or rather Simon Pegg helped write the script.

Movie Review: ***^Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

This movie is really very fun.  Each of the characters has his own back story.  Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) was kidnapped just from earth after his mother passed away.  He was raised by smugglers and thieves. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) was orphaned.  She is green, and was raised by Ronan (Lee Pace), the psychopathic killer, and served him as an assassin.  Rocket, (Bradley Cooper) the talking raccoon came about because of illegal experimentation and manipulation.  Of course this manipulation was painful and left considerable scarring. Groot (Vin Diesel) is Rocket's partner.  He is a walking tree.  We really don't learn much of his background; but he is unique.  These four have a chance meeting which leads to their arrest and imprisonment.  Quill discovers an orb, which is high desired for its powers.  Gamora is sent to kill Quill and get the orb.  Rocket and Groot recognize Quill as someone with a bounty on his head, and they want to collect.
In prison they meet Drax (Dave Bautista) whose desire in life is to revenge the murders of his wife and daughter at the hands of Ronan.  He first takes his vengeance on Gamora, but is convinced Gamora may be used as bait to attract Ronan.  become a team, and work at breaking out together.  They even recover the orb, and Quill's cassette tape of Earth songs.  However Ronan is after them.
They get to the buyer who is going to make them rich, but Ronan intercepts the orb, and leaves them mangled and disheartened.  Ronan is set to use the orb to cause mass destruction.  The team find their better, heroic natures, and are after Ronan to keep him from destroying the world. 

Movie Review: ****Avatar

This movie is a beautiful film.  It is a retelling of the Native American story, but with a different result.  Bad industry wants to possess the natives land because of the resources, and are willing to take it destroying whatever is there and killing whoever they need to kill.  The wise scientist are against this, but are helpless against the evil powers of industry and military.  However this movie has a twist.  As the native Americans very rarely are able to fight together, in this movie, they are ale to rally all the other groups, and attack as one force.  Consequently there is a different result.  Even when the Native Americans could do this, there were more white people coming  In this movie they were abel to negotiate a peace, with the non native people leaving.
That aside, this is a good science fiction.  It has our Marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who has a spinal injury, and can't walk.  However, they make for him a new Avatar body for him, and while he is connected and asleep, he has a direct link to this body, which does not have any injury.  Other scientist do the same thing.  Grace (Sigourney Weaver) is the head scientist.  In this altered state, he falls for a native girl (Zoe Saldana) and enjoys the new life.  However he is caught between two worlds, that of a marine, and his new world.  (Much like "Dancing With Wolves.")  Things run their course, and the company becomes inpatient and tries to push the issues.  Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) leads an attack.  The Avatar and their tree (which has special powers) is destroyed.  Sully is outcast.  However the scientist regroup, and stage a coup.  Sully helps the Avatar regroup, and gain reinforcements from other natives which leads to a big battle and showdown.
Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time; both foreign and domestic.  The total take is 2.7 billion.  That is incredible.  It also had a very large budget.  I watched this with Tony for movie night, and we finished this morning.  Tony's comment "I love that movie."  I enjoyed it as well, but not as much as Tony.