Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Rated: PG-13 - Runtime: 136 min
tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

For this movie to succeed, it needed to do two things...it needed to look like Star Wars, and it needed to be a crap ton of fun.  Well it certainly looks like Star Wars, perhaps a little too much so (they set it 30 years later and they're still flying the same fighters?  Are we all still driving Chevettes?)  But the big problem for me is that the fun factor falls off about halfway through and we get into this whole badly written family melodrama that leads into a really dumb waste of a character.

Shame, because the character development of the newbies was firing on all cylinders for awhile.  Except Darth Drive-In Speaker.  Nothing about him worked.

Creed (2015)

Rated: PG-13 - Runtime: 133 min
tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

The first big boxing match scene in Philadelphia had some really impressive cinematography, possibly doing the whole bout in a real-time single shot. As far as I noticed, anyway.

The rest? Eh. Too much drama and not enough build-up to the big fight. It was kind of like they tacked on a three-minute training montage on the way to England. Then they were at the press conference, then the match.

The thing I kept focusing on was the soundtrack music. I kept thinking back to Rocky IV and how painfully badly outdated that music sounds today. I predict the same for this soundtrack twenty years from now.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

Rated: PG-13 - Runtime: 136 min

tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

A lot of people thought Mockingjay Part 1 was slow and boring. Slow? Yes. Boring? Hardly. I have great news for those people...THIS one is slow and boring.

Watch the first ten minutes, take a nap, then wake up for the last twenty minutes. You won't miss a thing.