The Vault

Let me just start by saying I had no idea what this movie was other than what I was able to gather from the poster art.I have been playing catch up with Oscar nominees and wanted something other than those or Netflix movies, pulling up VUDU this was under the theater at home category, I check none of the theaters around me had this, figured it was not horribly expensive to rent ($6.99) took a chance on it. The most obvious grab from the poster is the title of the movie, a vault door, obviously we are looking at a heist film. It starts out in the ocean with a group diving to a shipwreck, was this the right movie? I exited and went back into the movie, yup it was the right movie. Turns out it was setting up what would be desirable enough to break into a vault for and that would be gold coins in a box that belong to Sir Francis Drake. The vault however is located beneath the Bank of Spain and has an elaborate security mechanism that will trap and kill anyone that tries to take anything out of the vault, that is where out main man Thom comes in aka Freddie Highmore, his character name is the only one I could remember the rest do not get much time given to developing their characters. Thom attends Cambridge and is an engineering wiz kid that is desirable to many different companies, but, decides to play bad boy for a change and take up the offer to go on this heist to figure out the vault security. The Vault is a beat for beat heist movie, it does try to shake things up a bit by letting more go wrong than typically does in a heist movie which created a bit of suspense tension. I just never felt that the stakes were that high to ever worry if they would be able to get their prize, I mean when one thing goes wrong the main man behind the heist is ready to just walk away until he sees one last opportunity, if it’s that important would you not give up that easy especially the effort already made. What is refreshing is seeing Freddie Highmore in a role that actually gives him the ability to flex his acting skills a little, this is his first R rated movie by the way, fun fact. For an evening in, there are certainly worse movies that I have taken a chance on renting from VUDU than this one. It’s a middle of the road movie, is it bad...no, is it good...not necessarily, is it entertaining under two hour...yes. 

Antebellum

 Finally getting around to watching this one, when I saw the trailers for this one I was expecting a horror movie akin to Get Out. While there are some similar aspects this one is much more in the psychological thriller after seeing it from beginning to end. The movie starts of with some sweeping views of a southern plantation akin to the likes of Gone with the Wind and things start going from pretty landscape to slave torture as we find Janelle Monáe trying to escape from a cotton plantation run by Jena Malone and confederate soldiers complete with a confederate flag in the center of things.  For the first part of this movie it seems as a heavy fisted look at treatment of slaves and then something happens we see Janelle Monáe in a present day out with some girl friends and we have a twist where a cell phone appears in the plantation. The movie shifts to a totally different terror finding this slavery is happening in this present time line no how plausible how it is occurring. Once the twist is done that’s when this movie got my attention and I started questioning how did I not see this coming, I even after the movie was over went back to the beginning for a little bit then realized everything we see from present to Antebellum version of her is there for a reason she is using every piece of knowledge in her head to figure out and survive her situation. There were several negative reviews that I read or heard about this and I would have to say there are a few points I agree with, for the most part though I would recommend this, yes the directors are trying to push a lot of concepts through do they all stick...no. It makes you think and question things which I think makes a good movie, how much wrong is going on in the world and we are oblivious to it. 

Horizon Line

 One of my favorite guilty pleasure type movies is those involving survival, swiping through options to watch something I had not seen before, I came across this title. Pilot suffers a heart attack, the pilot is Keith David and one of the passengers is Allison Williams if nothing else I figured it be a fun ride. I know in movies you have an expected level of reality suspension and disbelief, this one though asks you to accept a lot. The beginning feels rushed just to get Allison Williams and Alexander Dreymon onto the airplane in one of the more predictable scenarios. Once Keith David is gone things go straight to these two surviving through the most implausible scenarios. I can not hate on the movie too much as it did what I clicked on it to do which was entertain me, when I got to the end did I wish I picked something else, a little. 

Mulan (2020)

 I maybe a little late to the game with the live action remake of Mulan, I do not even know if you can call it a remake as it keeps very little in common with its animated counterpart, much less than the other live action adaptations that Disney has made. I was never a huge fan of the animated version it still stands as one of my lesser favorites of that period in Disney feature animation, the parts I do enjoy are the scenes with Mushu, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" segment and the few times we get to see Cri-kee. All those of course are not in this version that aims to take a more serious pass at the girl named Hua Mulan. Not being a supporter of movies of this scale skipping cinemas and going straight to VOD even in the time of COVID-19 I waited after hearing the remarks others have made about the movie and knowing that one day it will just come out on disc, which it did and I purchased it through the Disney Movie Club. Being a completionist I had to add it to my Disney collection regardless of it was good or bad, I got the 4K combo set which includes the 4K Disc, Blu-Ray and Digital Copy which I'll go into the disc contents at the end of this review. 

To me if Disney wanted to just make a more serious Mulan they easily could have, just changed the name a bit to take away the comparison and remake conversations surrounding this version. If another studio would have made this and gave it a new name it probably could have stood on its own as a Chinese action film, being Disney though even trying to look at it objectively as it's own entity no matter what their will always be that underlying comparison for viewers to the 1998 animation.