Category Archives: MPAA: PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)

Per the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a PG-13 rating is a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture, as some material might not be suited for them. A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category. The theme of the motion picture by itself will not result in a rating greater than PG-13, although depictions of activities related to a mature theme may result in a restricted rating for the motion picture. Any drug use will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. More than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating, but such nudity in a PG-13 rated motion picture generally will not be sexually oriented. There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence. A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous.

Captain Marvel

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Warning: Spoilers.

Summary: Meh.

We went to the theater on opening day. To ensure I was able to give it a fair shake I didn’t waste any of my time with the anti-SJW torrent the film has received on places like Rotten Tomatoes. That’s not my thing. Nevertheless, you just can’t help but hear how the star of the show personally hates you because of your skin color and gender. At the very least, I expect to have my opinion dismissed because I’m just a white male so my opinion doesn’t matter. She had her say, now it’s my turn.

I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In fact, they’re the only films we are still eager to see in theaters with every release, and we buy each one in all formats. Nothing else captures my attention with great stories, wonderful graphics, and such intricately woven characters that immerse you in the story. There is an immense comic source to draw from and they consistently do a great job ensuring that each character actually plays a part. For me, every MCU film has been a minimum 3 stars, and they’re often 4.5+. This one was only a 3.

On that note: The story was awesome. The cinematics were great. Young Fury & Coulson were quite entertaining, and the entire theater reveled in watching SHIELD grow from infancy to inevitably spawn The Avengers. Unfortunately, the humor was limited and many attempts didn’t draw a single laugh. I found myself the only person in the theater that laughed on two separate occasions.

Goose (the “cat”) stole the show. Really.

Brie Larson

Get used to this expression

This installment in the MCU answered many questions that have been alluded to across many of the other films.

Yet, as with most things, the feminist ruined it. I really tried to give her a chance, but Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) really hurt the story. She smiled once through the entire film and grinned a couple times. Her facial expressions were muted or non-existent. Even when learning she was actually human and not Kree there was almost no visible character development.

This was the saddest origin story of any Marvel film by far, and that’s including Spider-Man: Homecoming, which didn’t bother to show how Peter obtained his powers – the one thing that has made every other Spider-Man story rock. When “young” Carol Danvers (several different actresses) were portrayed they showed great facial expressions and character. Brie butchered it.

Brie could have been replaced by any blonde white girl and they would have done better. Fighting and other special effects were great – but would have been depicted the same with any actress. Here’s hoping that Disney acknowledges their mistake and recasts before the next film.

Is it worth seeing? Yes, but my recommendation is to wait until it’s available on Netflix. It’s not worth the trip to the theater.

Jurassic World

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I watched Jurassic World tonight with my son, Zack​. Meh.

Sure, Jurassic World grossed more than any individual Marvel Cinematic Universe movie has, but it wasn’t as good as any of them. Even The Incredible Hulk and the first Thor. I attribute the Jurassic revenue to the resurrection of the beloved Jurassic Park series, and not to the actual film itself.

Jurassic Park 4: Jurassic World

Jurassic Park 4: Jurassic World

Jurassic World stole the ideas from several of my favorite series (including the BBC Primeval series, Surface, and the original Jurassic Park trilogy) and did a rather poor integration of the ideas they stole. The much lower budget Primeval and Primeval New World series’ were each FAR better than Jurassic World, much more in-depth and creative, and of course the character development was much better, too.

The only character I really cared for in Jurassic World was Owen (played by Chris Pratt). The rest of the characters were paper cut-outs with little to no development, and no drive save survival. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) had some character development forced upon her, but aside from a few smiles and saving Owen’s life at one point, the movie could probably have done without her and not skipped a beat.

Jurassic World was so slow to build. They spent too much time and effort developing the effects and must have wanted to use them all. This created a slower-paced film with long delays between action and what amounts to silly filler being used instead of actual story development. The effects were cool, but not worth the extra time.

They would have done far better fleshing out the new “science” than displaying yet another 3D hologram of a dinosaur information module or overview shot. Yeah, yeah…the park is expansive and it’s 20 years since the original events occurred so the technology has come a long way. We get that. At least a third of the movie is there just for the sake of convincing you of this, yet they still “hang a lantern” on about 20 facts in order to avoid going into any actual detail. I guess if you’ve never seen the original films this might be helpful, but they’d have done better by reissuing them shortly before the 4th film was released rather than trying to re-hash everything from the first 3 films sporadically within the 4th. George Lucas was genius in his re-release of Star Wars 4-6 before the launch of Episode 1. It worked very well and brought a whole new audience to the genre.

My biggest complaint for Jurassic World was the lack of a clear mood. It’s a contemporary horror film so you’d expect fear or trepidation to play a strong part, or at the very least dark humor. When the credits started rolling I realized there were only three scenes in the entire 2-plus-hour film that really stood out. It’s really not a good sign when a film’s most memorable scenes could have just as easily been in either Friends or The Big Bang Theory (both of which get way more laughs and viewer buy-in, by the way) or any action flick or TV series. That’s a far cry from most other films I’ve seen recently, which create a challenge of exactly which scenes you want to talk about with your friends after the show. That won’t be the case here.

Bottom line: save your time. You’ll get a better experience watching just about any episode of any current sci-fi show. If you want to experience what this movie should have been, hop onto Amazon, Netflix or Hulu and watch Primeval.

Warm Bodies

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Warm BodiesWarm Bodies is a zombie love story. Amazon describes it:

If true love is meant to be, what does it matter if one is human and the other a zombie? Warm Bodies is a pretty delightful, tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy loosely based on Romeo and Juliet.

Maybe more appropriate to say very loosely based. It’s too much “love story” and not enough “zombie.” And to be perfectly frank, there’s not enough “love story” either.

Yet another in the recent series of inner-monologue narration films, Warm Bodies tries to create a romantic horror comedy but is woefully light on romance, horror and comedy. There’s a total of one scene in the entire movie that remotely lends itself to fright, and you’ll see worse during a typical trip on the subway.

Love story? Not so much. More like a crush ‘R’, the zombie character, has on the human, Julie. That relationship isn’t remotely reciprocated until the last five minutes of the movie. Warm Bodies tries to be too much – comedy, horror, romance – and as a result it fails at being any of them.

This wasn’t a bad movie, but it surely wasn’t worth the time. If you can watch it twice (with interest) you’re a better man than me.