WONDER WOMAN [2017]

Monster director Patty Jenkins pulls off the near impossible and makes Wonder Woman the first DCEU film not to be a complete disaster.
Set during World War I, Diana, Princess of the Amazonians, leaves the comfort of her island paradise home to battle the evil---blah-blah-blah.
Ain't nothing new but it's done with so much enthusiasm one can't help but enjoy themselves.  Gal Gadot is an absolute delight as the title character, which shouldn't surprise anyone who's unfortunately sat through Batman v Superman.  There's plenty of flaws to be found if you give it enough thought but that sort of thinking isn't going to get you anywhere fun.  If anything, this one sits aside Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and Richard Donner's Superman as comic book films that are nothing but pure spectacular fun that kicks ass.

3½ babies made of clay out of 5

T2 TRAINSPOTTING [2017]

20 years later, director Danny Boyle returns to the Trainspotting world, loosely based off of Irvine Welsh's novel, Porno.
T2 sees the boys crossing paths again as they discovers old wounds don't always heal and there's always a new get-rich scheme to hatch when hard drugs are involved.
Obviously it doesn't come with the same cultural impact as the original film but it's certainly armed with far more emotional weight for those still heavily invested in it's characters.  There's plenty of callbacks to the original (with good reason), a wicked soundtrack and good laughs that all come together to produce a pretty solid sequel proving itself worthy to it's predecessor.  As depressing as it might be with it's "what the fuck have you done with your life" it also manages to be just as uplifting as well.  Time is a real prick-arsed cunt.

4 bathroom stall reunions out of 5

PEARL HARBOR [2001]

Like Titanic before it, director Michael Bay takes a historical tragedy and turns it into a melodramatic epic romance with his paint-by-numbers World War II drama for dummies, Pearl Harbor.
There's a love triangle filled with plenty of eye-rolling sappiness and somewhere beneath that there's a retelling of the surprise Japanese attack on the Hawaiian U.S. Naval base which ultimately led to the Tokyo Raid.
What we get here is 40 minutes of very horrific warfare and the effective nightmarish aftermath but beyond that is quite frankly embarrassing with nearly 2½ hours of shamefully written upchuck that serves no real purpose to the actual events.  With the exception of the some brilliantly crafted action sequences this film is pretty worthless and an insult to the real events it emulates.

2 hoola shirts out of 5

Welcome to the Jungle (2003)

aka The Rundown

A run-of-the-mill action movie with nauseating fight scenes and a buddy dynamic in need of a lethal injection. The Rock (when he was still called The Rock) is a 'retrieval expert' who goes to the Amazon jungle to manhandle someone who doesn't want to be retrieved.
I'm aware that he was basically doing what he did as Mathayus in The Scorpion King (2002), albeit in a more modern setting, but SK had heart and a sense of fun that wasn't forced. Welcome... has little of either of those things.

1½ hostile monkeys out of 5

SNOWPIERCER [2013]

With Park Chan-wook's Stoker and Kim Ji-woon's The Last Stand both being the South Korean director's first Hollywood films, it only seemed inevitable that Bong Joon-ho would come out with Snowpiercer the same year.
An absurd sci-fi social satire, the dark film is filled with wildly strange metaphors galore, making it seems like a bizarre hybrid of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Terry Gilliam's best work.  As a piece of art it excels, with careful attention to detail, heavy character moments and layer upon layer of conflict, while as a Hollywood film it might seem a bit strange for many but packs enough punch and heroism to please those willing to indulge in this intriguing world.

4 poisonous fish out of 5

TRAINSPOTTING [1996]

Director Danny Boyle takes on the difficult task of adapting author Irvine Welsh's non-linear first novel Trainspotting and turns it into one of the best and more accurate films about hard drug addiction.  

It's a raw, grungy tale about betrayal, youth subculture and being imprisoned with too much freedom.  Boyle allows the film to seep into your nerves with a flashy soundtrack, captivating wide angles & colors, a cast of charismatic, yet seedy, characters and a narrative that gleefully threatens to derail itself with each corner it takes.   One of the defining time capsules of the mid '90's, Trainspotting is fun, nasty and not afraid to spit in your face.

4½ shitty beds out of 5