Populasian: January 2020

Monday, January 20, 2020

It Chapter Two - 牠第二章

It Chapter Two (牠第二章) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Andy Bean as the older set. The younger set star Sophia Lillis, Jaeden Martell, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff. Bill Skarsgård returns as It, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. This was a sequel to It (牠) from 2017.

Set 27 years after the events of 1989, it is 2016 and they have all grown up. When they find out the Pennywise may not be dead, they must go back to Derry and kill It. Mike Hanlon calls his childhood friends, Bill Denbrough, Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Stanley Uris, and Beverly Marsh to return. When they return back to Derry, they immediately start getting messed with by It. When Mike finds out a way to kill It, they must go about getting things to run a ritual to kill it. All of them must go back to their childhood stomping grounds, oftentimes reliving those horrible events in today's reality. Can they all retrieve their items and get the ritual performed?

This movie was super creepy. I have been watching horror movies since I was a wee lad and very little freaks me out. But Pennywise freaks me out. However, like I did for the first film, I got over It and continued on. In all, it felt totally different from the first film as this moved in more of a detective drama slant. The flashbacks were a good addition to bring things back to before.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Bad Boys For Life - 絕地戰警 For Life

Bad Boys For Life (絕地戰警 For Life) is an 2020 film. The movie stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The supporting cast include Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Paola Núñez, Kate del Castillo, Theresa Randle, Jacob Scipio, and Joe Pantoliano. This is the third film in the Bad Boys franchise. Due to the successful first week, there will be a fourth installment.

Set 25 or so years after the first Bad Boys movie, Marcus is revealed to have a granddaughter. Mike Lowry is still not interested in retiring when Marcus has a change of heart. In Mexico, the Aretas family matriarch breaks out and finds their millions in stashed money. For revenge, they start to take out everyone that was involved in putting them behind bars. Some of the folks on Mike and Marcus's team are hit and they have to find out who. Unfortunately, when they looking into who it is, there are too many people that they've taken down over the years, so the cat and mouse chase starts.

This was a pretty fun movie. I will be honest, I have not watched either of the previous two Bad Boys in probably 15 years. So I was having a hard time remembering the repeat characters such as those in Marcus' family. However, outside of that, I was pretty much into the movie, the action and the story.

I really like the expansion of the team to AMMO members. The addition of this team made things fresh and melded the tech with the old school police work. If you're looking for a 2+ hours of fun action, this movie will do it in spades.