Pixar's 'Soul' movie review.

Yesterday, me and my friend found time together to watch Pixar's latest animated movie 'Soul'. We decided to watch the animation after we saw that it had just been released on Disney+ streaming service and was available for both of us to see.

Indeed, whenever a new animated film is released, we're more than eager to watch them and give them a chance. Animated films, thanks to their well-intended nature, are something that - almost always - manage to entertain us and put us on a good mood.

So when it comes to this particular movie, Pixar's 'Soul' is a film that basically has to do with the meaning of life. It's about a middle-aged African american music teacher (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who hasn't managed to make his dreams in life come true.

Indeed, instead of being a successful jazz pianist who gets to perform in prestigious clubs with a jazz band, he's a music teacher for students that aren't particularly skilled. He's in limbo with his life and is desperately wanting to become something better.

Story-wise, the catalyst in the movie happens after our protagonist is about to have his break as musicians. As he celebrates getting hired to a four person jazz band after an audition, he accidentally falls through an open manhole cover on the street and goes into a coma.

Not surprisingly - since he doesn't die - once he regains his consciousness [as a new animated character] in limbo between heaven and earth, his quest to get back to earth begins. He has to find a way to do it (and help another person) even though its seems to be an impossible task.

So when it comes to the overall quality of the movie, I have to say that - as unfortunate as it is - I wasn't that impressed with the film and its story. Neither me or my friend liked it that much, even though critics really liked it (95% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com).

Story-wise, one of the biggest problems with 'Soul' is that its screenplay is just too convoluted and contrived. Its basic story concept suffers from too many parallel worlds and characters that don't mesh in well and that constantly compete with each other.

By that I mean is that once our main protagonist is transported to the otherworld (limbo) and takes a new character (see pic above), it takes a lot of time to introduce us to what the place is about. The place has its own rules and parameters that require tons of exposition.

Indeed, before our guy comes back to the real world with his new sidekick (Tina Fey), who takes our protagonist's body and our guy becomes a cat (!), it takes too long before we get back to earth. This is simply too much and is too complicated.

Structure-wise, the really bad thing about making the story too convoluted and complex is that when you do that it really hurts the pacing of the film. When you spend entirely too much time explaining the concepts about the worlds, it pulls you out of the story. 

Not surprisingly, as the movie keeps progressing, I couldn't help but to feel that it kept losing its energy and momentum. Especially when it comes to its ending that is a total cop out, that one breaks every single rule that was established earlier in the film.

Still, just because the movie had its problems story-wise, that doesn't mean that the movie didn't have redeeming values in it. I'm definitely not saying that a Pixar film would be something that is completely awful and that it didn't entertain us at all. 

Indeed, when I think of the movie, I have to admire that the writers decided to take on an ambitious project that deals with the purpose of life. 'Soul' does manage to get across good points about what life is about and what are the things that we should appreciate.

After all, as we live through our main character and his desperate quest to get another chance in life, you can't help but to be moved by his ordeal. The story manages to be fairly touching - the protagonist is relatable - and it has entertaining moments in it. 

Production-wise, when it comes to the film's quality, it also has to be mentioned that the movie looks and sounds good. The animation is once again top notch and especially when it comes to the real world, I couldn't help but to admire how everything looked.

Still, when you look at the movie as a whole, there's no question that watching the story unfold wasn't exactly a fun experience. It was just too much 'hard work', which came as result of the writers not knowing well enough what the movie was supposed to be about.

In that sense, when it comes to recommending the movie, at least in my case as a writer, I can't in all honesty do that. I can't do that, because even though the film did have its moments, as a whole the story was too convoluted and did not work well enough as a whole.

Netflix's 'The King' (2019) movie review.

So last week, as me and my friend couldn't find anything better to see, we decided to watch Netflix's movie 'The King' from 2019. We decided to give it a chance, even though I wasn't that excited about watching a film that had to do with this particular genre.

Indeed, even though I do tend to watch - and even study - 'historical' stuff, I'm not interested in medieval history. There's not that much that you can learn from the era and that time in history wasn't exactly enlightening or uplifting when it comes to us as human beings.

Nevertheless, as we decided to give the film about Henry V of England a chance, we thought that it would be worth our time. There was a chance that the movie would hold our attention (71% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com) and that perhaps it wouldn't be 'that' violent.

So having now seen the film, I think it can be said that 'The King' wasn't that bad of a movie experience. It turned out that this was a somewhat well made and an entertaining movie, even though there are some pretty obvious problems too that need to be addressed.

Premise-wise, the story is basically about Hal, Prince of Wales (played by Timothée Chalamet), who as a royalty and an apparent heir to the throne, doesn't want power. He's a royalty who thinks that wars are wrong and that there's no point in shedding blood for no reason at all.

Indeed, as his father is dying, instead of preparing to become the next king as the oldest son to fight wars, he's more than happy to let his younger brother to succeed his father. It's up to his brother to fight those future battles once their father passes away.

Yet, in the story, it doesn't take long before things change, as his inexperienced brother manages to get himself killed in a pointless battle. This leads to Hal changing his mind and becoming the king, which leads him to a difficult journey (involving war with France).

So when it comes to 'The King's' quality, one of the best thing about the films has to do with its production values. There's no question that for a Netflix movie - that hasn't been known for its big budgets - this movie clearly looks good when it comes to its overall production.

Indeed, as I watched the movie with my friend, we couldn't help but notice that everything in the film looked top notch. The sets looked believable, the battle scenes were well executed (they were pretty realistic) and you simply couldn't help but to stare at the screen.

Acting-wise, it has to be also said that the film did also a really good job. All the main roles were well acted, including Chalamet in the main role, Joel Edgerton as Falstaff, Robert Pattinson as the French prince (he was totally great) and Sean Harris as Hal's advisor.

At the same time, when it comes to the story of the movie, there are some obvious problems here that can't be ignored. The biggest issue by far has to do with its screenplay, which - as unfortunate as it was - wasn't particularly well written or well structured. 

By that I mean is that when it comes to the motivations and the consistency of Hal's character in the first third of the movie, they left a lot to be desired. The movie does an awful job explaining why Hal decided to invade France after being shown as a 'dove'.

Indeed, when he makes that admittedly brave personal sacrifice in the first 15 minutes of the film (no spoilers), there's really no way the audience is going to buy him as a warmonger after that. It's such a strong character defining moment that defines the rest of the film.

So not surprisingly, even though the movie does give some external reasons for him changing his mind and attacking France, they don't make enough sense. They don't feel natural or organic, which made the story after that feel a bit forced and questionable.

In that sense, when it comes to Netflix's 'The King' as a whole, I think it's pretty safe to say that even though this film wasn't by no means terrible, it wasn't a great one either. It's pretty clear that there were some major character arc issues in the story that hurt it.

After all, when you have a protagonist that isn't consistent and changes based on what the structure demands, that's not a good thing. It really makes the story less immersive and pulls you out of the movie, even when those other aspects in the film work.

In that sense, when it all is said and done, whether one is going to enjoy watching 'The King' isn't really that simple and easy to determine. It really depends on what your preferences are and how much you're going to pay attention to the film and its character arcs.

After all, if you manage to get past the first 30-40 minutes of the story that are inconsistent and forced, this might be a movie a for you. In that case you might be entertained by the film and might appreciate it quite a bit (I was more in this camp).

On the other hand, if you set the bar too high and think that 'The King' is historically accurate and has solid character arcs, this might not be a film a for you. In that case, you'll likely be disappointed and might think that the movie as a whole just wasn't that believable or entertaining.

Retrospect: revisiting earlier writing projects.

So when it comes to being a writer, it's not exactly secret that revisiting your scripts isn't always easy to do. It isn't always fun to take another look at your earlier writing projects and see whether they happened to be as good as you thought they originally were.

Indeed, especially when it comes to projects that didn't go anywhere, there's a good chance that you won't like revisiting these scripts. Even though taking another fresh look at them might be beneficial learning-wise, that might sometimes be a bit too difficult to do.

So the reason that I'm writing about this is that during the last week or so I've been actually trying to revisit my earlier writing projects. I've tried to take another look at the quality of them and see whether my previous assessment about them was correct.

Motivation-wise, the biggest reason that I decided to check them - not that surprisingly - has to do with my children's book. Now that I finally got the book finished and managed to make it as good as it can be, I thought I could safely check my earlier stuff 'risk-free'.

So when it comes to this task, the first thing I have to say that I was a bit surprised how I had managed to distance myself from my earlier projects. Even though a lot of time had passed, I thought that I would still be more attached to my tv specs emotionally.

Indeed, especially when it comes to my Big Bang Theory and Modern Family scripts (I wrote seven of them), those were a really big thing to me. I was so invested in them and had high hopes about having a career breakthrough with the specs (didn't happen).

Expectation-wise, when it comes to these scripts, once I was about to start reading my favorite Modern Family spec script, I expected to see some solid stuff. I wanted to see a well written spec that had good flow and that had jokes and funny moments that would make me smile. 

However, once I finally started reading my favorite Modern Family spec, things didn't go as well as I had expected. Once I started reading, I noticed right away that I had trouble adjusting to the pacing of the script and couldn't get a proper feel of what was going on.

Indeed, no matter how hard I tried to read my story about Mitchell's big day as a courtroom lawyer and Jay & Phil going to the auction event, I just couldn't get it. Especially when it came to the storyline about Haley & Alex, I felt that what I had written was just hopeless.

Not surprisingly, based on the reading, I was now pretty confident that I had been previously wrong about the quality of this script. This one, that I knew was the 'best' Modern Family script that I had written, most certainly didn't seem to be that good in retrospect.

So based on this unexpected and unfortunate reading experience, one might have thought that I was now really disappointed about the whole thing. You might think that since my best 'old' script didn't make much sense, I would feel terrible about myself.

Yet, even though it now more or less appeared that the script wasn't even remotely as good as I had expected, that wasn't the end of the world to me. I wasn't thinking that just because this script in my opinion didn't look good at all, all was somehow lost.

Indeed, the biggest reason for that was that I had recently done bigger and more demanding projects that were more challenging story-wise. Especially when it comes to my 'two years plus' book project that required tons of talent and effort, I was in a good place now.

After all, that book project had a story that required like ten times more story beats compared to a sitcom episode. The fact that I had finally managed to come up with a full length story (with 30+ chapters) was something that really made me happy.

The second reason was that just because I felt during that day that the script didn't work, that didn't automatically mean that the script was bad. It might have been that I just had an awful day and that I hadn't been able to adapt to the sitcom format as reader.  

So not completely surprisingly, a couple of days later when I started reading the spec the second time, it turned out that my hunch was correct. As I was this time able to adapt to the sitcom format, the script suddenly started to make a lot more sense.

Indeed, even though there were some tiny mistakes in it, overall the spec was genuinely solid. The way that I had managed to read the characters, come up with solid storylines and execute such a wonderful, kind and clever script was just life-affirming.

In that sense, when it comes to this thing as a whole, I think it's pretty clear that we as writers (considering this task), every now and then, should revisit our older scripts. We should look at their quality and evaluate them, even though it might be a bit difficult to do.

After all, when you as a writer keep looking back at your earlier scripts, it - first of all - gives you perspective about yourself. It shows that over the years you have probably done a lot more things that you can even remember having done as a writer.

The second thing is that once you look at your earlier scripts, you get to know what your strengths and weaknesses are and have been. You'll get to see where you have been good at and what you can perhaps do even better when you start working on your next project.

In that sense, as I'm currently thinking about my next project, based on one of the spec scripts that I just read, I think I got some fairly good feedback from it. I got information that I can use when it comes to considering my next project and its genre.

After all, in my case, even though I haven't been feeling that great about my comedy writing skills, I shouldn't be thinking that as a writer I'm not able to write to funny stuff. I shouldn't be thinking that I'm only good at writing drama and that's where my strengths are.

On the contrary, especially when it comes to that Modern Family spec that I wrote years ago, that one is still good stuff. It's good stuff and shows that even though I've done different things lately, I can still write comedy too if I'll just decide to give it a try.

Movies that I've managed to see this November.

So even though I've been fairly busy this month, I've also managed to find some time to watch movies too. Even though we're still dealing with the pandemic and things aren't back to 'normal', I've tried to check some films in order to keep myself entertained.

Film-wise, even though there haven't been that many films that have been released lately, there have still been some old ones left to see. I've done my best to check those earlier films and see whether they're actually worth watching and worth your time.

In any case, this time, even though we're starting to run out of films, we still have three new movies to review. We have an animation called 'Sonic The Hedgehog', a prison movie called 'Escape from Pretoria' and a nazi comedy-drama called 'Jojo Rabbit'. 

So the first movie that I saw is 'Sonic The Hedgehog', an animated movie about a hedgehog based on a popular video game. In that game, that was released almost 30 years ago, a blue furred hedgehog named Sonic tries to pass levels and collect as many golden rings as possible.

Not surprisingly, when it comes to adapting a paper thin character like that into a full length movie, that is easier said than done. When you have a character that has basically no depth, dimensions or back-story, as a writer you need to get creative.

Fortunately, even though I was a bit worried about the quality of the movie, I have to say that the writers and the producers managed do a fairly good job here. Sonic as a character is pretty likable and the story in the film isn't that bad either.

Story-wise, we're dealing with a movie where Sonic, using those golden rings as a teleport, reaches our human world. Once he gets into some 'hill-billy' town in the U.S, he tries to figure out what's going on and even manages to befriend some people (James Marsden). 

Later on, once the U.S government gets some 'readings' that there's some weird things going on in the town, Sonic gets into trouble. He's being chased by a scientist mad man (Jim Carrey), who wants to kill our hedgehog in order to find out what our protagonist's secret is. 

Quality-wise, the reason that the film works well is that it has an uplifting tone to it and doesn't take itself too seriously. There are more than enough funny & silly moments in the movie and the story beats are placed well enough to keep you entertained.

In that sense, when you look at the movie as a whole, even though it has some problems (weak catalyst), it's still a fairly entertaining film. This is a solid movie, so if you haven't seen 'Sonic' yet and don't have anything better to do, you should watch it at some point. 

 

The second film that I saw this month is 'Escape from Pretoria' a movie about two white guys escaping from a prison in South Africa in the late 1970s. They decide to escape after receiving lengthy sentences for simply protesting the government's racist apartheid policies.

So when it comes to the film, one of the reasons that I watched it with my friend is that I'm a fairly big 'fan' of these escape films. I've watched most of these movies in the genre, that includes films like 'Shawshank Redemption' (fantasy) and 'Escape from Alcatraz' (actual history). 

Another reason that I wanted to see the movie - not that surprisingly - has to do with its lead actor Daniel Radcliffe. I wanted to see how well he would do in a more serious role now that the Harry Potter film series has finally come to its conclusion.

So having now seen 'Escape from Pretoria' I have to say that watching it turned out to be exactly as nerve wrecking as I had imagined. Even though I had read some spoilers about what happens in the story, that didn't stop me from being at the edge of my seat. 

Indeed, as you keep watching the film that is mostly a true story, you can't help to wonder how they were able to pull the whole thing off. You have to admire their enormous creativity and all the things they had to do in order escape from the prison.

Acting-wise, not that surprisingly, Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast do a spectacular job here. They're completely believable - each and everyone of them - in their roles and you simply feel their despair when things don't seem to go their way.

Drama-wise, the only minor problem here story-wise is that the movie, especially in its first half is a bit flat in places. There aren't that many 'bad guys' or B-plots in the movie, which might explain why not everyone liked it (70% positive reviews at Rottentomatoes.com).

Still, when you look at the film as a whole, it's pretty evident that this movie works. It works well, so if you're fan of the genre and are interested to know a bit more about South Africa's apartheid phase, 'Escape from Pretoria' is a must see movie.

The third movie that I managed to see this month is 'Jojo Rabbit', a comedy-drama about a 10 year old german kid who imagines having Hitler as his friend during WWII. I managed to see the film a couple of days with my friend - who really wanted to see it.

Indeed, the fact that we actually ended up watching the film wasn't because I had huge hopes for the movie. I had seen trailer for the movie a year ago when I was at the cinema (with my Canadian friend) and wasn't impressed with the quality of it that much. 

However, having now seen the film, I have to say that my instincts about 'Jojo Rabbit' turned out to be completely wrong. There's actually a real heartfelt story here that you wouldn't guess based on its trailer (94% positive audience rating at Rottentomatoes.com).

Story-wise, the plot is about a impressionable Hitler Jugend kid who finds out that her mother is hiding a jewish girl in their attic. This reveal is what drives the movie and forces the kid to challenge his thoughts about the so called evilness of the Jews.

Quality-wise, when it comes to the overall quality of the film, the biggest reason that 'Jojo Rabbit' works so well is that it manages to mix comedy and drama elements extremely well. There's a nice balance between the different story elements throughout the movie.

Indeed, as we kept watching the film, I couldn't help but admire how well the director/writer (and the Adolf) Taika Waikiki manages to get things click. The movie does a really good job with its heartfelt and laugh out loud moments that bring out the absurdity of the war. 

Story-wise, the only minor flaw in the film is that in the middle of it the story tends to lag a bit. It kinda felt that perhaps there wasn't enough energy to keep the thing going (might have to do with the emphasis being less about the rest of the kids).

Still, when it comes to the film as a whole, there's no question that 'Jojo Rabbit' is a very good movie. This is a good movie and especially when it comes to the kids in it (Roman Griffin Davis as 'Jojo' and Archie Yates as his sidekick 'Yorki'), they absolutely steal the show here.

Thoughts on the U.S. presidential election results.

Like so many others who enjoy following U.S. politics, now that the presidential election is finally over, it has to be said that, in the end, things didn't turn out so bad. It's pretty safe to say that we can finally sigh in relief and look forward to the future at least a bit.

Indeed, even though Joe Biden wasn't that good of a candidate, he still managed to defeat President Trump in the general election. He managed to gather enough support in the crucial swing states in order to claim the presidency and beat the incumbent.

At the same time, there's no question that Biden's electoral college victory, that was almost as slim as Trump's victory over Hillary in 2016, didn't come easily. Trump managed to do way better than what the polls predicted and wasn't actually that far from winning the election.

Indeed, had Trump gotten roughly one hundred thousand more votes total in some of the swing states, he would have won the race. This would have happened, even though Biden is going to end up winning the popular vote by more than 6.5 million votes. 

So when it comes to the presidential election and its results, how did we get here and why did things happen the way they did? What were the things that contributed to Trump's loss and how on earth did Joe Biden not win the election with bigger margins than he did? 

To give you an answer, in a nutshell, the election happened the way it did for two major reasons. The first one has to do with Trump and his response to the global Covid-19 outbreak, whereas the second has to do with Joe Biden and his lackluster platform-free campaign.

So the first and perhaps the most import aspect of the election, not that surprisingly, had to do with the global Covid-19 outbreak. There's no question that Trump's administration completely bungled their response to the outbreak and did not know what they we're doing at all.

By that I mean is that as most countries took the responsible route with the virus by doing lockdowns and quarantines, the United States did not do that. For Trump, especially at the start, the outbreak was basically a Chinese hoax and not a problem at all.

Indeed, as the death toll kept steadily climbing up, that didn't faze the president. His selfish and ignorant attitude towards the virus was so blatant that it took six months before he even started using a face mask to protect himself (he got the virus a month before the election). 

In hindsight, had the Trump administration taken the 'Wuhan flu' more seriously (free masks, lockdowns, more stimulus packages etc.), they would have been in good shape for the election. The backlash - top issue for 20% of the voters - wouldn't have been as severe as it was.

At the same time, even though Trump and his administration screwed up royally, that doesn't mean that Joe Biden did that much better either. There's no question that democrats and the DNC dropped the ball big time when it came to them running their campaign.

Indeed, as incredible as it might sound, in this election Joe Biden had no nationwide 'policy based' campaign against Trump. They had no issue based messaging that would have given them direction and energy especially in the down ballot races (house + senate).  

In practice, what this meant was that instead of running on surefire winners like 'medicare for all', 'green new deal' or 'free college', they did nothing. Even though most of these issues are super popular (70%+), the party 'elites' chose not to go with them.

The really unfortunate thing about this 'orange man bad, but not all republicans are' is that you had almost nothing to vote for. Why would you vote for democrats in house & senate races when you would get nothing in return (most voted against Trump, not for Biden).

Not that surprisingly, even though polls predicted that democrats would gain seats in the house and the senate, that didn't happen. Democrats actually lost some seats in the house and only gained (so far) one senate seat, which isn't enough to give them the majority.

In contrast, every single incumbent democrat in congress who actually ran on stuff like medicare for all won their races. Not one of them lost their re-election and this included 'squad' members AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who all coasted to victories in their districts. 

In that sense, when you look at the election as a whole, it's pretty clear that this race was full of stupid stuff and unnecessary unforced errors. Both parties did completely ridiculous mistakes that turned out to be costly (fortunately Trump, unfortunately Biden).

Indeed, in Trump's case, even though his situation was challenging but not completely hopeless, he managed to make every possible mistake during the election season. He was absolutely pathetic in every imaginable way with handling the pandemic. 

Also, in Biden's case, even though he had so many advantages over Trump, he almost bungled his chances too. The fact that he didn't run on a policy like medicare for all, especially during a pandemic like this, was just mindboggling and idiotic.

Still, when you look at the election as a whole, considering that Biden ended up narrowly winning the race, the election from my point of view was a success. The fact that Biden managed to beat Trump and his neo-fascist cronies (like Stephen Miller) was certainly a good thing.

After all, even though I have tons of issues with Biden and his corporate policies, there's no doubt that he's still better than Trump with his racist anti-science administration. There's no question that Biden's win is at least a some sort of an improvement to the situation. 

In that sense, in the end, now that we're waiting for Biden to get his transition team going, I can only hope that things will go smoothly. I hope that as he starts to think about who are going to be in administration, he's able to make good decisions about his team.

After all, even though my hopes aren't that high for his presidency, it's clear the country deserves better. The U.S. as a whole deserves better and hopefully President Biden - despites his flaws - is able to do good things and is able to give the country the change that it needs.

Movies that I managed to see this October.

So even though I haven't been able to see that many movies lately, I've still managed to see some of the recently released films. I've managed to watch with my friends some of those movies that I thought looked interesting and that would be worth watching.

Indeed, even though things have been a bit challenging lately, we've tried to find time to do things together. As long as it has been possible - either in person or through skype / discord, we've managed to spend time together watching these movies.

So this time I have three interesting movies to review. I watched an animation about a girl and a Yeti called 'Abominable', a Sherlock Holmes spin-off movie called 'Enola Holmes' about his sister and 'Borat 2', a sequel to the popular Sacha Baron Cohen comedy film.

In any case, the first movie that I watched with my friend is 'Abominable', an animation from the Dreamworks studio that I watched with my friend. We watched the movie, because as fans of animations almost every animated film is worth seeing.

Premise-wise, we're talking about a movie where a Chinese girl in a big city befriends a Yeti that escapes from a research facility. Together with the help of some side-kicks, they try to avoid the bad guys and try to get the Yeti to its homeplace in Himalayas.

Quality-wise, I have to say that we were both positively surprised by the film. 'Abominable' as a movie manages to be genuinely entertaining and story-wise has a good & uplifting message in it (95% fresh rating by the audience on Rottentomatoes.com).

Indeed, as we follow our likable characters, you can't help but to be interested in what happens to them. As they get closer to their destination, you can feel how they keep growing as characters and become better as human beings (especially the self-centered guy). 

Story-wise, the only real problem in the film is that as our heroes ran into obstacles, the Yeti creature too many times comes up with magical skills out of nowhere to save them. These transitional scenes were almost too lazy and could have been better.

Still, when you think about the film as a whole, considering the entertaining nature of the film, those aspects didn't bother me too much. They weren't too serious, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should give 'Abominable' a chance at some point and check it out. 

So the second movie that I watched with my friend is the recent Sherlock Holmes film 'Enola Holmes'. We decided to give the film about Sherlock's sister chance once we noticed that the film was released on Netflix and was available for us both to watch.

Indeed, even though the reviews hadn't been that good (6.6/10 at IMDB.com), we thought that the adventure / mystery movie would be worth our time. It was likely that there would be enough redeeming qualities in it that we would be able to appreciate.

So when it comes to the basic premise in the film, the story is basically about Enola trying to find out what happened to her mother. Once her mother one day disappears and she doesn't contact Enola for quite some time, she feels like she has to spring into action.

Plot-wise in the movie, it won't take long before in in the story things start to get complicated. Once Enola hops on a train to go to the big city to find out more, she meets a young man who is being chased by an assassin trying to kill him for some weird reason. 

Later on, it's revealed that this young handsome man is a heir to a powerful family and that a big political decision in the kingdom is about to occur. Together they try to find out what is going on (women's suffrage) and how to save the day & stop the bad guys. 

Quality-wise, it has to be said that even though there are a lot of good things that can be said about the film, it didn't turn out to be as good as I had hoped for. It's not good enough, even though it has high production values and the acting is really good.

Story-wise, the biggest problem with the film is that it doesn't have a proper finale or a climax. The arc about Enola trying to find her mom (it's hinted that she's on dangerous mission) goes absolutely nowhere and turns out to be a huge dud (she just shows up at the end).

In that sense, even though 'Enola Holmes' has its moments and is fairly entertaining in many places, I can recommend it that much. I can't give it a high score, because even though it looks good and is well acted, the ending for the film really is that big of a disappointment.

The third and the last movie that I managed to see this month is 'Borat 2' that stars comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. This is a sequel to the comedy film that was made in 2006 about a Kazakhstani man Borat's documentary adventures in the United States.

So when it comes to the first 'Borat', the reason that the film was so popular and highly rated is that Borat's awkward character ran into all kinds of hilarious situations. Especially when it came to those interviews with various famous racist republicans, the movie was a laugh riot.

Sequel-wise, once 'Borat' became a household name in the U.S, it wasn't that easy to trick people anymore. Since almost everyone now knew the guy - with the exception of some hillbillies - he had to come up with something new this time.

Indeed, this time that 'Borat' is on mission (to bring a gift to the Trump administration), he not only has to wear disguises to fool of his targets but he also has a partner. He's this time accompanied by a young Kazakhstani woman who serves as a crucial sidekick.

Not surprisingly, like in the first movie, together these two run into all kinds of wild & ridiculous situations. We have the usual republican targets that include pro-life 'doctors', stepford wives, hillbillies, fundamentalists and 'America's mayor' Rudy Giuliani.

Quality-wise, it has to be said that me and my friends found the movie to be a laugh fest. As we watched the film during our pizza evening, I was totally laughing during most of the scenes in the film (warning: some of the bits were a bit too crass). 

Story-wise, it has to be said that the plot was okayish but could have been better too. There were some moments that weren't really that strong (especially the break-up with his sidekick) and you kinda felt that that movie lacked a direction in certain places.

Still, when you think about film as a whole, 'Borat 2' in my opinion managed to be a film worth watching. It's a film that has lots of laughs in it, so if you're a fan of political cringe comedy like this, I think it's a safe bet that you should give it a chance and watch it.

Spiderman: 'Homecoming' & 'Far From Home'.

So when it comes to my favorite superhero it's not exactly a secret that I'm a fan of the Spider-man character. This is a superhero that I've been able to relate to the best and have found his and adventures to be worth following (in movies).

Indeed, especially when it comes to the first two Sam Raimi films that starred Tobey Maguire, those movies were like they were made for me. Especially when it comes to the second one in the series, that film really managed to impress me. 

At the same time, once we were done with those two movies, things started to get considerably worse in the series. The third film was already a mess and when it came to the Andrew Garfield ones that came soon after, those movies were almost completely unwatchable.

So not surprisingly, when I noticed a couple of years ago that the franchise was being rebooted again - the second time in less than ten years, I wasn't getting excited. I didn't have my hopes up, because I didn't think these films in the franchise would get any good again.

Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago me and my friend decided to give these new spidey-films a chance. We thought that maybe we should check them, because even though we had our doubts, there wasn't really anything else that we had in mind to watch.

So when it comes to these 'new' films, the first Spider-man movie that we watched naturally was 'Spider-man: Homecoming'. The film stars Tom Holland as our beloved Peter Parker/Spider-man who is trying to sort his problems and save the world from the bad guys.

Character-wise, it has to be said that right from the start the film manages to get something right. Once we're introduced to our protagonist, we notice that our spider-man is a likable character instead of being an unlikable jerk (the Andrew Garfield films).

Soon after, we're also introduced to the rest of the cast - the side-kick, the villain (Michael Keaton as Vulture) and Parker's crush. We get the usual beats like Parker being a student, the villain doing his things and spider-man trying to save the day - which seem promising. 

However, as the movie keeps progressing, goes past its midpoint and is about to reach its climax, it becomes more and more apparent that there's isn't much of a real story here. Even though the story beats keep coming, these short five minute cycles don't add up to much. 

Indeed, the biggest problem with the movie is that there just isn't any overarching plot or theme that would make it memorable or meaningful. The story just plods along without giving you anything that would make you feel (the film has seven credited writers). 

Quality-wise, the movie also suffers otherwise from the script being all over the place. The jokes are too crass, they don't fit in and there are even some problems with over the top 'virtue signaling' (Keaton's daughter is black, Lincoln statue racism 'joke' references etc.).

So not surprisingly, once me and my friend were done with 'Home-coming', we weren't that excited about watching 'Spider-man: Far From Home' as our next movie. Even though Holland as spider-man was pretty good, we thought that the next film wouldn't be that great.

However, having now seen 'Far From Home' too, it has to be said that this spider-man film turned out to be a much better movie than the first one was. Both me and my friend were pleasantly surprised over the quality of this movie.

Indeed, the second film - that this time takes place in Europe (in Prague, Paris, Venice, Austria, London & Berlin) - is way better written as a whole. It manages to learn from almost all of the mistakes that it made in 'Home-coming' both story- and theme-wise.

In practice, what this means is that 'Far From Home' does its best to keep things as positive as possible. Almost everyone in the cast seems to be having a good time (the characters are more likable too) and you can't help but to be invested in what happens to them.

Story-wise, we have much clearer and better arcs that not only involve Mary-Jane and Peter Parker as a couple, but also our hero's struggles with the villain. There's a lot more (emotional) interaction between the characters that give the story meaning.

In hindsight, the only real problem in the film is that the villain by Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't make enough sense and there are some plot contrivances too. Some of them were a bit too lazy for my tastes (like Mary Jane finding the villain's broken device) and were a bit lacking.

Still, when it comes to the the film as whole it has to be said that 'Spider-Man: Far From Home', quality-wise was a positive surprise. It turned out to be much more entertaining than what I had expected based on the first part in the 'new' re-rebooted series.

In that sense, if you haven't seen the latest Spider-man film in the franchise yet, I think it's safe to say that you should give it a chance. If you're a fan of superhero films and especially the Spider-man character, you should give this one chance and not be discouraged.

After all, even though the second Sam Raimi film with Tobey Maguire is still the best in the series, this latest movie is a pretty good one too. It's a pretty solid film and despite my initial low expectations managed to keep me entertained and thrilled me from its start to its finish.