Sully (2016)

Sully Trailer

Sully is about the pilot Chesley Sullenberger who crash landed the flight on Hudson River. Luckily, none of the 155 passengers die. Afterwards, the NTSB investigates the accident and determines if there is any human error.

The story reminds me of Flight (2012), starring Denzel Washington, which is also about a plane crash. But in Flight, the pilot is guilty as he drinks.

I think Tom Hanks has successfully capture the spirit of Sullenberger. He shows us that he cares for the safety of the passengers, making sure that everyone has evacuated. His concern is counting the number of passengers to make sure that no one is missing. When the NTSB investigates, he starts to doubt himself if he has made the correct decision. But the more he thinks about what has happened, he is more certain that he has made the right choice. 

The non-linear editing of the movie is brilliant. You don't feel awkward when the movie jumps back and forth from Sully's memory of the accident to the present.

I like the wit of Sully, e.g. "Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time", "You are looking for human error then make it human."

This is an uplifting hero movie.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Trailer

This is a spooky, almost horror movie, as the old photos in the opening credits give me chills. When I sees the children with the masks, I think of 20th Century Boys (2008).

The premise of the story is that Miss Peregrine runs a "school" for peculiar children. The protagonist Jake's grandparent was part of the orphanage. And he told stories about the school to Jake when he was small. Jake would not believe until he finally meets Miss Peregrine and the children. Sounds a lot like Tim Burton's another movie called Big Fish (2003), where the dad tells tall tales and they turn out to be true.

The plot is average as the story is built up slowly but the ending ends too abruptly. I expect to see more of how Jake goes back to 1945.

Some think that the peculiar children are just like students in Xavier's School in X-men. I remember some people said that Elsa in Frozen is about outcast too. Elsa has special abilities that other people are afraid of her. 

Eva Green played Miss Peregrine. Her make-up is awesome. She plays a similar Gothic spooky character called Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful.

Jake is a boring character as he does not do much in the movie. He miss the bow all the time. I somehow think this British actor looks and sounds like Ewan McGregor.

Enoch's playing-with-the-dead toys resembles the scary Baby Face toy in Toy Story (1995).

The many birds in the movie reminds me of The Birds (1963), which is a horror movie, by Alfred Hitchcock.

On the other hand, "the hollows" makes me think of the movie title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, which is also a fantasy genre movie.

The gas masks worn by the characters remind me of Doctor Who Series 1 Episode 9 The Empty Child, where the story is also located in the U.K. during World War II. The episode is very scary as well.

Never has a movie that can be linked to so many other movies. Yet I still find the premise, plot and character interesting.

In my opinion, one of the message the movie wants to bring out is: is living forever is good?

By the way, I love the trailer song New World Coming by Dísa very much. It's the trailer song that attracts me to the cinema. Bravo to the trailer! But I'm surprised (not the first time though) that the trailer song is not in the movie!

Recommendation: Recommended

Premise: Excellent

Plot: Average

Characters: Excellent

Dialogue: Good

Zootopia (2016)

Zootopia Trailer
 
I think Zootopia is an animation for adults. It's a mix of Godfather series Lethal Weapon series and Die Hard series, with underground chase and train crashing, but the characters are rabbits, foxes and lions.

The life of Zootopia resembles real life, for the cops are "ZPD", mirroring "NYPD" or "LAPD", etc. The officer in DMV speaks very slowly.

The message I get from the animation is to do good.

I like the plot that the nice person is actually the bad person, and the high rank officer is actually the one who manipulates the dark forces. Just like real life. So I say Zootopia is for adults.

A Brief Comment on Marvel Cinematic Universe vs. DC Comics

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has already launched phase three. Up to this day, Marvel has produced Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel's The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Ant-Man (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016). It has been eight years since we first watch Iron Man (2008). The audience has grown to know much more about the Marvel characters and the dynamics between the Avengers.

As X-men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool, etc. movie rights are sold to Fox and Spiderman is sold to Sony, these movies are excluded in the MCU. Sometimes people wonder why they re-make Fantastic Four and Spiderman (from Tobey Maguire to Andrew Garfield to Tom Holland) every few years. It's because the studios bought the rights and they need to re-make the movie before the rights expire.

After watching X-men: Days of Future Past (2014), it's jaw-dropping that they wiped out the previous X-men stories' history (which many main characters died) and they will re-write X-men in a clean slate.

It's interesting that there are characters who appear in different universe. The first one is Quicksilver in X-men and MCU. They are played by different actors, but both actors, namely Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Evan Peters, starred in Kick-Ass (2010). The second one is Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds appeared in X-men Origins: Wolverine (2009) as no-mouth Wade Wilson. He returns to Deadpool (2016) as Wade Wilson again.

Visual Guide to Marvel Character Movie Rights
 

DC Comics has produced a lot of Batman and Superman movies, namely, Superman (1978), Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983), Superman IV (1987), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005), Superman Returns (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Man of Steel (2013), Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016).

The Christopher Nolan's Batman series is no doubt a classic. However, the recent two DC movies (Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad) were a flop. Mostly because they tried to squeeze too much characters and stories into one movie.  There is not enough screen time to develop character arc for characters like the Flash, Aquaman, the Joker, Enchantress, Captain Boomerang, Katana, etc. You see, MCU has at least one movie featuring a single character before they group them into Avengers. So the audience know much more about the characters before they see them in a group.

I actually enjoyed Suicide Squad as I think it is playful and the music matches the plot brilliantly. The make-up and costume are perfect. We just want to know more about the characters, where they come from, what are their intensions, etc. However, if they do not have any character arcs, they're just flat and boring.