The Old Guard 2 and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Sequel movies that ignore common sense.

The Old Guard 2 

This sequel continues the story of a band of immortals (led by one played by Charlize Theron who isn't immortal now) as they continue to do dangerous things and get their feelings hurt, mainly because physical damage is meaningless. Hilarious plot devices to provoke hand to hand fights (which are not bad but very choreographed) including things like, don't use firearms near the reactor but then proceed to step on exploding mines in that area which are apparently ok? They try to give answers, but the answers are silly. Not as good as the first movie.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny 

This latest Indiana Jones flick sees an elderly Doctor Jones (Harrison Ford) still fighting Nazis over an ancient artifact (again). Good news: I feel this is better than the previous movie "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", but that is a super low bar to clear. As it is, you need to actively accept that characters here can ignore physics and common sense with simple things like, knocking someone out and dropping them off camera means no one can spot the body now since it is out of the shot - even if in reality they'd be standing right on top of them! If you can look past (a lot) of that, then you might enjoy this adventure. 

Those about to Die, 1883 and 1923

TV dramas set during historical periods.

Those about to Die (Season 1)

Ancient Rome is cruel to everyone from its Emperors to its slaves, and underworld figure Tenax (Iwan Rheon) deals with both as he navigates the ladder of improving his own position. While there are gladiators its worth pointing out they aren't the main focus (at least in season 1) as the Coliseum is still under construction. Instead there are a lot of chariot races with budget CGI and maybe a few too many characters but at least the death count cleans them out a bit. Definitely one we enjoyed for the spectacle rather than for the plot, but we'll definitely watch a season two of it if it comes around.

1883

This Western focuses on an expedition from Texas to Oregon led by an old veteran (Sam Elliot), is filled with beautiful cinematography, and almost all the main actors are mounted on horses for most of the time. Story wise it drags a little at the start but picks up rather quickly along with the death count when we witness just how unprepared most of the settlers are as they go through very dangerous territories whose "laws" don't really protect anyone and just give people an extra reason to kill. There's so much killing, it's great! Recommended.  

1923 (Season 1)

The continuation of 1883 which focuses on the Dutton family led by an elderly but grizzled patriarch (Harrison Ford) as a locust plague causes violent clashes between his cattle herd crew and a neighboring sheep herd gang. That sounds really tame how I wrote that, but while the death count so far is lower than 1883 there's still a good amount of shooting with a side of lynching. Strangely, there are three plot threads going on here and one that starts in Africa certainly gets the "adventure" segment of the show and feels like its the main story. As such while we did enjoy it, it sure feels like season 1 was just setting up the characters with no resolution. We'll need to wait for season two to see how everything ties together.

Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049

Older is better.

Blade Runner (1982)

In the grim future of 2019, bio-engineered people known as "replicants" are used as slave labor for the human race, especially in off-world colonies. When a group of these arrive on Earth illegally it is up to Blade Runner Deckard (Harrison Ford) to track them down and retire them, fatally. It's a strange, cramped and dirty world we are introduced to here, complete with flying cars, glowstick umbrellas and constant rain. The plot is an interesting one, and watching Deckard get thrown around by the physically superior (but occasionally retarded) replicants makes for good viewing as everyone likes the underdog. Not super actiony, but sci-fi fans will definitely enjoy this. Three loaded questions out of five.

Kinda glad current technology isn't near where these films envisioned.

Blade Runner 2049

The replicants are more active than ever it seems, and our protagonist Blade Runner (this time played by Ryan Gosling) gets involved investigating a most peculiar case. While the effects are clearly more high budget than the previous scale models (which were fantastic and tactile) there are some really odd design decisions - particularly with the annoying moving lighting in one location. The plot also could have used some upgrades as there are more than a few scenes that could have been cut out or shortened. In the end, lots of questions are left unanswered and more than a few threads felt incomplete leaving this movie way more soulless than the last. Not recommended, I give it one and a half holograms with feelings out of five.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

You've probably already seen a movie with Jack Ryan but didn't realize it.

The film opens with a pretty quick background on protagonist, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) who is clearly a clever and driven guy. As with most things Tom Clancy, he is soon recruited into a secret organization and embedded undercover where he can put his intellect to work. Soon enough (*cough* after a time skip *cough*) he uncovers a potential terrorist plot and happens to become the pointman in stopping said attack which also puts a strain on his relationship with his scary face girl friend (Kiera Knightley). I normally find Kiera to be really pretty, not sure what happened to her here...

There are a number of funny bits and a few action sequences in the film, though nothing over the top though and I'm actually surprised with the rather low body count. I guess it's because he's not really meant to be field-ready? Anywho, he's in luck since the bad guys here are rather stupid. Two of them actually let him win / escape. Around 35% of it is also in Russian, but that's ok since it's pretty entertaining. I give Shadow Recruit two and a half out of five hidden files, but am not really keen on watching it again.

He's a man of many faces.
More interestingly, this Jack Ryan (albeit a rebooted version) is meant to be the same Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (Alec Baldwin), Patriot Games (Harrison Ford), Clear and Present Danger (Harrison Ford) and The Sum of All Fears (Ben Affleck) - so he clearly has a lot of ground he can (re)cover if they decide to make a series with him. He'll need to up his combat game to make it interesting though.