Review Round-Up: All Eyez on Me Mummy’s Rough Night

Not only are the Cinema Geeks bringing their movie reviews to their podcast, but to help supplement the reviews they do in the actual podcast, each month they will be giving us their quick takes on the months new releases – in this case US releases for the month of June 2017. Each release will receive a quick take from one or more of the Cinema Geeks crew.

All Eyez on Me

Stars: Demetrius Shipp Jr., Danai Gurira, Kat Graham,, Jamal Woolard, Dominic L. Santana | Directed by Benny Boom

OptimusSolo’s thoughts:

I came into this year thinking All Eyez on Me had the potential to be this years Straight Outta Compton and boy was I wrong. This movie lacked focus in the worst way and instead fell into the same traps we have seen so many other biopics succumb to over the years. Instead of focusing on one specific event or time period and doing it well, it tries to cover the entire life of Tupac Shakur and in doing so simply glosses over the most interesting aspects of the story. There is an interesting story here to tell, Benny Boom just simply chose not to tell it. This will easily be one of my biggest disappointments on the year.

HardCandiMandi thoughts:

After how amazing Straight Outta Compton was, I was pumped to see another bio-pic that was raw and real about some high profile people within the rap game. This, however, was no Straight Outta Compton. It was too embellished and felt too much like a movie to allow us to really see things through Tupac’s eyes. Demitrius Shipp Jr. was born to play Tupac on looks alone, but his performance solidified his role. Besides that and the dope soundtrack, this movie was boring and lacked something that would make it as great as the before mentioned entry into this genre.
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The Mummy

Stars: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance | Directed by Alex Kurtzman

OptimusSolo’s thoughts:

Alex Kurtzman has yet to do anything that impresses me in the cinematic world and that streak continues with this year’s The Mummy. Although Sofia Boutella again proves she has what it takes to make a convincing and formidable villain, unfortunately the movie doesn’t have much else going for it. At times it is fun to look at and contains a few visually stunning set pieces but even that is not a consistent aspect of the film throughout. The film also does have some cool little nods here and there to the films that came before it. Perhaps, the biggest problem in this film, outside of the writing was actually its main star. Tom Cruise does little to elevate the material here and is almost out shined by every supporting character we come across, including a nice twist from a character played by Russell Crowe. The only exception to that is Jake Johnson who apparently was in an entirely different movie from the rest of the cast and gave a performance that was very jarring when put up against the rest of the film. Although, this film may excite some for the ‘Dark Universe’, it certainly did not have that effect on me.

HardCandiMandi thoughts:

I had a lot of fun with this flick! I am a huge fan of the Brendan Fraser era of the Mummy, so I had high hopes going into the theatre. It wasn’t as awe-inspiring as I’d hoped, but worked very well as a solid set up film for Universal’s Dark Universe. I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the characters was a well known figure in the genre and was portrayed really well by the actor who portrayed him (Name omitted for spoiler purposes). It was also super cool to see some hints as to what we will be seeing in future chapters of the Dark Universe.
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Rough Night

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Zoë Kravitz, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, Ty Burrell | Directed by Lucia Aniello

HardCandiMandi thoughts:

I was pretty disappointed with this watch. After seeing the trailer 7,000 times I had practically seen all of the funniest moments that this film had to offer. I was shocked that even these heavy hitters on the big screen, as well as specifically in a comedy, couldn’t make me laugh out loud even once. I was expecting to walk out of the theatre having peed my pants because of how hard I had laughed. Instead it all it elicited from me was a few smirks at a couple jokes. Kate McKinnon was definitely the bright spot of the movie for me, but even her character was hardly even believable due to the over-the-top approach through out. I needed more antics and more shenanigans and most of all more laughs. The ‘R’ rating was not used to its full potential by a long shot. For a raunchy ladies debauchery film it was pretty tame, in my opinion.