Tag Archives: michael b. jordan

04.16.25
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Sinners

Twin brothers Smoke and Stack return to their hometown to open a blues club for a fresh start, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Ryan Coogler, one of the most impactful filmmakers to come out of the last decade, creates his most original, commanding, and dazzling film, a kind many have been waiting to see for a long time. Coogler gets free reign to blend genres with unique storytelling on a larger scale than we’ve seen before. The characters leap off the page and screen with their wonderful portrayals from Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, and Delroy Lindo, as well as a more menacing turn from Jack O’Connell. As both Smoke and Stack, Jordan plays characters who aren’t free of moral question marks but still worth rooting for, and have excellent romances with Mosaku and Steinfeld, while Lindo has brilliant moments of reflection, strength, and humor.

The film portrays America in the 1930s as a place of difficulty and strive, with a system built to oppress black Americans, but in the main characters’ blues club, a dazzling, one-of-a-kind portrayal of black culture and music in a safe space of untouched, booming joy. The music is a language of its own in the film, not just another magnificent score by Ludwig Goransson, but the way music inspires and drives the characters across generations of their history. Music in the film is its own plane of sacred storytelling and unity, and it’s brought to life with roaring energy that the audience can enjoy yet by moved by. The cinematography by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who also collaborated with Coogler on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, also takes the film to another level, with distance between objects, characters, and backgrounds — or mere darkness — creating a weight in its shock. The film develops its characters in a world that’s breathing and moving around them in unexpected and exciting ways, even before the blues kicks in, and far before the horror action elevates the film to yet another level of mastery. The bloody violence is unpredictable and riveting to look at, and balances the line between horrific and irresistibly fun.

Though an ending scene stretches out and explains the themes too excessively, Sinners brings together genres and a remarkable cast full of life and heart that spreads to the audience. The visionary cinematography, music, and costume design compliment a story that’s filled with as much adoration for the immersive settings it creates as it is deeply hinting at themes of the system’s attempts to appropriate and erase black culture and history, and much more beneath the surface. Not only does it work for action, horror, or thriller fans, but it’s a beautiful piece of storytelling that only comes every few years. Not quite like any blockbuster we’ve seen, Sinners is a journey of pride, terror, and legend that needs to be experience on the big screen, solidifying Ryan Coogler as one of our great modern filmmakers who deserves all the more creative freedom and spotlight that’s coming his way.

03.03.23
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Creed III

Adonis Creed has been living out his wildest dreams, including being the reigning heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and a loving husband and father. When an old friend Dame returns from a long prison sentence, he brings back his and Adonis’ past with him, which will lead to the next big match of Creed’s career.

Though the Creed films were always follow-ups to the beloved Rocky franchise, they’ve made themselves feel fresh and modern while retaining the themes of hard work, underdogs, healthy masculinity, and family that make Rocky so iconic. Three films in, and what you’re watching still feels exciting and imbued with passion from behind the camera. Not to mention the director behind the camera is also its star, Michael B. Jordan. He delivers a strong debut as a filmmaker and brings out not only a strong visual energy to the boxing and training sequences, but the best out of the performances. Jordan and Thompson again work so well together and are two of the most charismatic, vigorous stars of this generation. The dynamic they have, now that their daughter is in the films too, brings another beautiful layer to their world that we’ve already been invested in thanks to the last two films. Jonathan Majors is a formidable screen partner to Jordan as Dame, a man ready to get back at the world for the unfortunate past he’s suffered and the life he feels he’s been robbed of. But similar to the Dragos in Creed II, Dame is empathetic and his longing for the championship Rocky and Creed have already felt isn’t as selfish as his attitude towards getting there.

Along with the excitement of seeing cool stars spar it out in the boxing ring is the complexity that the Creed films’ characters have and the scripts’ push to always have them growing and learning new things, as for every film to feel significant. Despite this, one story arc does feel slightly incomplete at the end and despite creative editing from Jordan, it does get aggressive in a few instances. Though it isn’t as wondrously directed as when Ryan Coogler was at the helm, it’s a film that gets better and better, with the dialogue just as exciting as the sports, but when the sports is there, it’s a blast thanks to the actors, direction, and always thrilling soundtrack that gives the film so much life.

08.09.15
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Fantastic Four (2015)

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Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Fantastic Four brings the 4 heroes back to the big screen. For good? Unfortunately not. The movie was only made so that Fox could keep the rights to the characters. And despite the studio also making the film to re-imagine the franchise for a new decade, no good effort comes out of this movie. The  script is lousy, cliche, and couldn’t be more predictable. It’s everything we’ve seen before, and nothing new came out of it. The directing isn’t good either, and although director Josh Trank apparently had a much better version of the movie before its release, Fox interfered and forced him to re-shoot. The result is something that couldn’t be more cliche, and like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was interfered massively by its studio, resulting in the movie being worse than the director’s original idea. I am tired of this happening in post-productions, especially with high-budget films. I don’t believe a studio is there to avert a movie from the director’s vision, is the director is the most important person behind the camera of a movie.

The cast members are all horrendous. They are not interesting to watch on screen, as they do not bring their characters to life well. Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell all deliver boring performances and aren’t special at all. Sure, they are great actors in other movies, but they didn’t work well with the script in this movie, especially because they didn’t deliver their lines well. Toby Kebbell gives a decent approach at first, but by the time his character becomes a villain, starts saying villain-y things and doing villain-y stuff, he isn’t interesting, either. Like the rest of the cast, Reg E. Cathey and Tim Blake Nelson are extremely boring, as two very cliche and predictable supporting characters.

Like I was saying earlier, everything about the story is extremely cliche, from the themes about family to the opening story about curious children wanting to solve the mysteries of science. There wasn’t a single bit of it I didn’t find to be familiar, just like my first impression of the movie when the first trailer was released back in February. The movie’s pacing is actually alright. It takes its time at first, but later it spends 40 minutes trying to convey the same thing over and over again, and then it ends way too early. It should have been at least 20 minutes longer, although no one would want to sit through 20 more minutes of utter garbage. By the end of the movie, the film’s approach is so awful. The ending is very weak, and they way they try to set it up for a sequel is in the most cliche and frustrating way possible, ti the point that I hope the sequel is scratched along with plans for a shared universe with the X-Men. I can’t yet decide what’s worse: this, or the dreadful 2005 Fantastic Four movie.

Unsurprisingly, Fantastic Four doesn’t satisfyingly bring the characters to the big screen, and more than that, it makes us want them to leave the screen. It’s time to put this franchise to rest.

Fantastic Four 2015 poster.jpg