Flushed Away (2006)

The very starting premise of a rat going down a toilet turned me off, but an acquaintance assured me the excremental gags are very few and relatively tasteful. He also found the movie moderately funny, especially for the running(?) gag of a cappella slugs. I still didn't get the gumption to watch until Netflix said it would stop streaming at the end of the month.

In modern Kensington, ratty Roddy (Hugh Jackman, playing at least two Brits that year) seems to enjoy life as a pet who gets the ritzy apartment to himself for most of the day. Then a slovenly sewer rat (Shane Richie) moves in, and Roddy's attempt to return him to the sewer backfires. Roddy ends up in a bustling underground town with a mostly rodent population. He takes advice to seek the assistance of sailor Rita (Kate Winslet) in getting home, but first they must contend with having run afoul of The Toad (Ian McKellen), a mob boss with a chronic hate-on for rats despite some of them (Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, and Christopher Fairbank) being his underlings.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

I had found Rise of the Planet of the Apes "very Hollywood," by which I mean entertaining but geared toward the lowest common denominator. Of course, you have to expect a lot of simplicity in a story about apes with slightly enhanced brains who want to escape captivity. The sequel promised a rather different plot but had the same IMDb rating, so I decided to give it a try.

A detail I had missed at the end of Rise was the start of "simian flu." The opening herein might remind you uncomfortably of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this one is much worse, reducing the world's human population to the 0.2% who can resist it. The maybe hundreds of survivors in the San Francisco area hope to reach and restore a hydroelectric dam, which requires a handful of them to pass through the uplifted apes' claimed forest. Head chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is pretty patient, having been raised by kind humans and sensing a similar type in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), but paranoid tensions mount on both sides....

The Batman (2022)

Despite my friend (that one) saying he could watch this repeatedly, I was not in a great hurry to see it. He told me it resembled Se7en, which is not what I look for in my fare, especially when others had made it sound like the darkest live-action Batman feature yet. Under most circumstances, I would wait and watch it at home. But when my Net went down and I decided to kill a few hours at a local theater, this was the most promising offering.

At the start of this story, Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has been donning the cowl for about two years, so many no-name crooks flee at the sight of the Bat Signal, but some are more confident. Gotham City Police Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) trusts the vigilante, but higher-ups are leerier. Regardless, it makes a certain sense to call him in when someone assassinates the mayor (Rupert Penry-Jones) and leaves an envelope labeled, "To the Batman." It becomes clear that the self-styled Riddler (Paul Dano) has several more high-profile targets in mind....

Black Panther (2018)

Two years ago, I would've had reservations about an adaptation of a character who clearly came out of the blaxploitation era. Thankfully, not only did his screen debut in Captain America: Civil War show how promisingly cool he was, but TV's Luke Cage reassured me that Marvel blaxploitation could avoid looking like old-fashioned moderate racism.

Although Prince T'Challa of Wakanda (Chadwick Boseman) had already donned the royal stylized catsuit, only in this movie does he officially become king and take the Black Panther title, along with a substance that enhances his physical abilities. Soon afterward, he learns of a murderous international museum heist that put secret Wakandan technology in the hands of smuggler Klaw (a hammy Andy Serkis), and he assembles a team to recover it at a rendezvous intended for a black-market sale. Naturally, a mere illegitimate businessman could hardly be the main villain in a work like this; he has a temporary partner with a vision for the global future....

Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

I considered skipping this review, because it's quite likely that you've already formed your opinion from multiple other reviews if not the movie itself by now. But it's also quite likely that you'll take more interest in this subject than in my usual fare, so why not? And it's not like I never read what other people say about what I've already seen.

In a way, TFA is inherently sad from the get-go: Only a generation after the end of the Empire, the galaxy faces an equal if not worse threat called the First Order. General Leia (no longer going by "Princess") naturally leads the Resistance, but Luke Skywalker has lain low for so long that many think him a mere legend, Han Solo and Chewbacca have been up to their old smuggling and other shenanigans more than heroism, R2D2 has been inert in Luke's absence, and C3PO is only so useful without R2. Taking more of the spotlight now are Rey, who resembles a young female Luke with a bit more fire; FN-2187, nicknamed Finn, a rookie stormtrooper disenchanted with the First Order's cruelty; BB-8, a diminutive droid carrying an important map; and Poe, a pilot and BB-8's master. The most prominent villain for now is Kylo Ren, an open Darth Vader wannabe who may actually outdo Vader's command of the Force. Where is the Jedi who can hold his or her own against him?