In Flight Movie Reviews

Whenever I make a leg cramping and back breaking transpacific journey, I make a point to watch as many movies as I can on the in flight entertainment system. Why do I do this?

Firstly, I rarely go out to the movies because of the cost. Movie tickets in Japan cost roughly $20 US and on a public school teacher's salary that's an extravagance. But so is an international vacation. As much as the plane tickets cost, every film I watch allows me to tick $20 off of the price in my head. Not exactly ground breaking economics, but it works for me.

Secondly, "I was on a plane" is a wonderful excuse for seeing a film that you normally wouldn't be caught dead admitting to having seen. It's somewhere between "I was with a group and was out voted" and "I was drunk."

So here are the films I watched during the flights and on the ground with some quick thoughts:

1. Mr. Holmes: Ian McKellen plays an elderly Sherlock Holmes. What more need be said? 10/10

2. Fantastic 4 (2015): Ugh. While the effects were pretty good and the acting was acceptable, whoever wrote this drek has clearly never read a comic book in their lives and certainly doesn't understand the Fantastic 4. Superheroes all have a core to them. Batman: I am Vengeance, I am the Night. Spider Man: With great power comes great responsibility. The core of the Fantastic 4 is "Superhero Family." (That's why the best Fantastic 4 movie ever made is called "The Incredibles.") Without that understanding as a base, this movie turns into yet another long, tedious, origin story that doesn't feel like a superhero film let alone a Fantastic 4 film. 3/10

3. Pixels: Adam Sandler, I will give you 20 bucks if you promise to never make another movie. 1/10

4. Arthur Christmas/Muppet Christmas Carol: Palette cleansers and modern classic Christmas movies both! 10/10

5. Hotel Transylvania 2: OK Adam Sandler, you can keep making animated films on the condition that you NEVER play yourself. Cute movie with some fun if not horribly original jokes. 7/10

6. Star Wars 7--The Franchise Reawakens: Woah boy! This deserves its own separate post. On the whole, a good movie that did most of what it needed to do. There are a few flaws, including a couple points where the film comes to a screeching halt (Tentacle monsters) and J.J. Abram's fingerprints are all over this (Tip: Action scenes are LESS enjoyable when you can't tell what the bleep is going on). I still haven't forgiven Abrams for Star Trek, but I will admit that he's learned from his mistakes and at least he seems to get Star Wars. 8/10

7. Minions: OK, I see why people love these little guys, but I just don't think they can carry a movie on their own. They work better as side characters or in small doses. 5/10.

8. Slumdog Millionaire: Very surprisingly, this mostly lived up to the hype. On the plus side, this reminded me why I love a good game show and the characters were very well done. I wanted to see the main character triumph and the villains get their comeuppance. On the other hand, I can see why this film is not exactly popular in India, it's one big stereotype. Also, they screwed up the rules of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (There are two safe points so the main character should not have been in danger of losing all of his money. Plus phone a friend doesn't work that way.) 8/10

9. The Duff: For the love of Aslan, please tell me American high schools haven't turned into this? Utterly unoriginal story of 25 year old actors playing high schoolers. Saved by the hilarious performance of Allison Janney playing a mom who turned her divorce into a self help book empire. 2/10

Then I fell asleep listening to an audio book of Dracula. Not recommended.