Glass (2019), Hit Man (2023) and Blue Beetle (2023)

One of these is not like the other.

Glass

M. Night Shyamalan's "third chapter" of Unbreakable and Split has all the main characters rounded up and put in a psychiatric facility to try be cured of their notions of being "super human". It's definitely a change of pace to your standard superhero fare and the ending might even piss you off, but the tale being told is a good one with the extremely talented James McAvoy actually stealing the show over both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson's title character. Recommendation for this one is a bit tricky, but I'm pretty sure if you are a fan of James McAvoy and/or Split, you will enjoy this. Also recommended if you just like all of M. Night's movies anyway. :P

Hit Man

If you were playing the "which one is not like the other" game in this post, this comedy movie is the answer. In it a regular but pretty smart guy (played by the exceptional Glen Powell) moonlights as an aide to the police department by pretending to be multiple "Hit Men", catering the "Hit Man" per client and then getting them to admit via recording their intenet to murder people which leads to their arrests. Shenanigans occur when one of his fake personas become better than his regular persona. Unlike Glass, this one is easy to recommend as it is very light hearted and entertaining. Go see it if you haven't yet!

Blue Beetle

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena doing the best he can with the script) is just trying to get a job to support his poor (but incredibly annoying and obnoxious) family when he becomes selected by an alien Scarab and sentient weapon to turn him into the titular superhero Blue Beetle. I'm going to assume this was made for the younger Mexican audience as the plot really caters to them but boy do I have issues with it. Like, is Jaime really the hero or are all his "heroics" controlled by the scarab anyway? Sure he doesn't want to kill, at the start anyway (and then what happens?). This doesn't stop the rest of his family from totally murdering those generic bad guy soldiers though. Getting grandma to chain gun a whole bunch without taking any hits in return really must get the laughs right? So... yeah. It's that type of movie and despite having the DC budget is the worst of this trio.

Trese and My Son

Mysteries in various degrees.

Trese

This animated story is all about the titular modern day supernatural detective Alexandra Trese dealing with forces from Philippine folklore. While the animation is ok, the plot is a bit average not helped by featuring a nearly all powerful and somewhat bland heroine who isn't really ever in any danger at any time. Also, things like having a ghost hacker (who wears ghost glasses) that needs a physical computer to do his work may cross your barrier of disbelief. Not recommended.

My Son

When a boy goes missing, his usually absent father (James McAvoy) goes through extraordinary challenges to find him, and I am so happy that some of these challenges are of the violent variety. Don't let me fool you into thinking this is an action movie though - it's solidly in the mystery category with dreary backdrops, lots of talking, and a good amount of rain. I do feel it runs a bit long though. It's an ok flick if you don't expect anything from it.

Wanted: Killerman

Two stupid movies but only one is entertaining.

Wanted

Gives physics the middle finger.

Wesley (James McAvoy) is a nobody who keeps getting pushed around until he is recruited by a group of assassins who reveal he actually has crazy physics defying firearm abilities.

Angelina Jolie as eye candy always gets a thumbs up!

Becoming amazing at killing people is how he takes back control of his life, but its the process that is most entertaining - even though the ballistics are quite laughable. That's part of the fun! If you are looking for a not too serious action flick, this might be for you. I give it two and a half bullet bends out of five and yeah, I'd watch it again.

Killerman

They really wanted to keep that title.

Moe (Liam Hemsworth) is good at laundering money, but not so good at keeping his friends from making stupid, dangerous and life altering decisions which puts him in everyone's cross hairs. For an action crime movie, there's not a lot of action and a pretty low body count. It does have loads of "traversal" filler padding though of Moe goes here. Then here. Drives here. All with no dialogue meaning all of it could have been cut from the film.

My biggest problem with this is that for the majority of the film, I didn't really care about any of the characters. Drug dealers and assholes who enable them by laundering their cash are the "heroes"? They can all die in a fire like the worthless pieces of shit they are as far as I'm concerned. Worthless movie and a waste of time. One dirty cop out of five.

Dark Phoenix

An accident during a space rescue sees X-Men member Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) gain a power surge which also leaves her quite unstable. It is up to the fractured X-Men to try save her, while others try to kill her. While this sequel to X-Men: Apocalypse certainly feels like a retreading of X-Men: the Last Stand, it is quite an enjoyable flick.

Effects, sets and action pieces are all good but the idea to make Xavier (James McAvoy) fill the role of semi-villain is an intriguing one, and we know the actor can certainly play villains. I was also quite impressed with Nicholas Hoult (Beast) as well.

Bend the knee?

As usual there are gaps in logic required in superhero shows to create drama and the "main" adversaries (because Xavier can't be fully bad) are rather wooden and not well defined but if you enjoy the X-Men franchise or just want an easy, turn off your brain superhero film (or just have the hots for Sansa Stark) you'll probably enjoy this. I give it 2.5 pieces of sharp wooden debris out of five, but wouldn't watch it again.

Split (2016)

People with problems are better than those without.

In this M. Night Shyamalan thriller, a group of girls are abducted by a kidnapper with a multiple personality disorder. This serves as a fantastic vehicle for James McAvoy to show off his range of acting talent. Everyone else was good too, it's just he literally had ... 9(?) roles to fill.

It also helps that the script and cinematography are spot on, though I did find it funny how there always seemed to be an excuse to keep making the girls slowly undress as the film went along (but hey, it turned out to be important)!

Many personalities, many faces.

Not something I thought I'd enjoy, but it's now something I'd probably watch again and can recommend it to people who like thrillers, or movies like Unbreakable. I give it 3 windows out of 5.