Jon Harvey's Pocket Reviews

Initial Release : December 15 , 2017 Director:   Rian Johnson Screenplay By: Rian Johnson Box Office: $ 450,000,000 Budget:  $350,000,000 The second installment of the new trilogy is here! It’s STAR WARS ™️ by Disney™️!!! Does it meet the expectations the last film set? Will our questions be answered? Will they gracefully end Carrie Fisher’s character now that she’s gone? Will the guy who sat behind me in the theater ever stop coughing and kicking my seat? Whenever a new Star Wars ™️ film is released, it feels like buying a brand new used car - it smells nice, runs nice, but when you start to look closer at it, the cracks appear, and there’s a weird stain you didn’t notice before. Disney seems to be steering the franchise in an uncreative direction, and it might mean that we may never get another Empire Strikes Back again. It just feels like another commercial product, and less like a creative collaboration that filmmaking is meant to be. Whe...

Initial Release: May 4, 2017 (London) Director: Ridley Scott Based On:  Characters; by Dan O'Bannon; Ronald Shusett Box Office:  232.8 million USD Budget: 97,000,000 (Estimated) Following the disappointment that was Prometheus , many fans were skeptical if Ridley Scott could redeem himself. What made the original Alien so unique was its slow building of tension and the mystery of the Xenomorph. Aliens managed to take the same basic premise and make it into an action extravaganza that appealed to a broader audience. Prometheus marked the return of Ridley Scott, but left audiences scratching their heads; from its overly-complicated plot to the heady religious themes. Does Alien: Covenant have what it takes to redeem the confusion that was left over from Prometheus ? Can it return the Alien franchise back to its horror roots and scare audience with a simple but effective story? Set ten years after the events of Prometheus , Alien: Covenant ...

Initial Release:  June 17, 2017 (Germany) Director:  Greg McLean Screenplay:  James Gunn Box Office:  11.1 Million Budget:  5 Million Many people online have compared this film to  Battle Royale , a Japanese movie with a similar premise: a group of teens are carted off to an abandoned island where they are forced to kill each other, or everyone will die. What made  that  film effective was the characters and the grittiness of the cinematography. The characters were fleshed out, unique, and sympathetic. The violence was realistic and the drama was as well. Unfortunately,  The Belko Experiment  misses the mark by having a great premise, but a sub par execution. During an average work day, the eighty employees of Belko Industries, a government-ran non-profit company, are suddenly sealed in the isolated high-rise building. A voice suddenly appears on the intercom instructing them to kill a certain number of their co-w...

I have seen all the Hollywood King Kong movies, from the original 1933 classic, to the 1976 remake and the 2005 Peter Jackson remake. Every one of these films, including the new one, has the same theme; that man is the monster, not the giant gorilla. Yet, why do I like this one the best out of all of those listed above? Simple: it knows what it is and gets to the point. People pay admission for King Kong to see a giant gorilla destroying things, crushing people, and fighting other giant monsters. What the 1976 and 2005 remake get too bogged down in is spending too much screen time on the “romance” between Kong and the female lead. In the 1976 and 2005 remake, much of that is just the two staring at one another awkwardly. Rest assured, Kong: Skull Island is the Kong film we’ve always wanted, with a few minor setbacks. Bill Randa (John Goodman) is a monster chaser who convinces the government to fund his expedition (by telling them it’s for geological research) to an unchar...