Saw three movies today:
Fist Fight:
This movie was pretty damn good. Charlie Day is a terrific comedic actor and Ice Cube was a fantastic antagonist. The supporting cast fell a little flat for me though. For instance, Jillian Bell (Workaholics) kinda stuck to her usual comedic range, which is beginning to feel pretty stale. And there wasn't much for Tracy Morgan to do other than support Charlie Day's character. I see this getting a lot of negative reviews, and I don't get why. It does try to stick to its message, but it ends up with Charlie Day having a pretty solid character arc, I suppose. I thought the plot was solid. A lot happens to the characters, within the short day. Humor surrounding the students (it's senior prank day) was juvenile, but enjoyable. Also, not sure why they didn't just call the movie "Teacher Fight" because that's what they keep saying in the film itself.
8.5/10
John Wick 2:
Holy **** was this movie great. Keanu's acting is meh, but the other characters do a good-enough job of acting around him. However, I have a thing for action heros who only speak in one-liners, and this one delivers hard. John Wick seems almost always confused or just reciting codewords, which feels about right. The action though is great and plentiful. I enjoyed watching him do some prep and seeing the prep pay off later. Some action scenes are a bit long (especially one you can see coming from a mile away), but it didn't feel like it dragged the movie much. One last note: This movie seems to pick right up from the last movie and dovetails into another sequel like the trilogy could just be one long movie. Hope the 3rd one will be as good.
9.5/10
The Lego Batman Movie:
I went into this movie with some high expectations. I really liked The Lego Movie and felt the humor really jived with me. This one, not so much. It was pretty funny, but maybe my palate wasn't quite cleansed from the last 2 films. Either way, I loved the callbacks to earlier Batman movies and much of the cameos from other properties. That part of the movie made it feel really "Lego". I was mostly "meh" on the plot, especially the ending, but maybe I'll feel better about it accepting as just another interpretation of the character. Supporting cast is great but limited in value and screen time. The music is also okay.
7/10