Movie Review: Creed II

An extremely predictable sequel that is saved by strong performances. The first “Creed” suffered from going a predictable route, and the sequel doubles up on that. A half an hour into the film, I already knew all the broad strokes that the plot would deliver. An aside from a few slight deviations, I saw everything that was coming. This severely hurt my enjoyment of the movie. As well put together as the fights were, the results never felt in question. And when characters agonized over their decisions, you knew what their choice would be before they did. Fortunately, the moments between the characters still worked well. All the leads have strong chemistry with each other, and Michael B. Jordon and Stallone both deliver great performances. Even though there’s a lot of angst, a few well-timed jokes lighten things up. Also, there’s also a surprisingly deep story arc for Ivan Drago and his son that almost makes you want to root for them. He’s so much more fleshed-out here than his one-dimensional villainous role in “Rocky IV.”

**1/2 out of *****

Movie Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

A mediocre film that is only salvaged by beautiful-production designs and a couple of strong performances. The biggest issue with this movie is that a whole lot of nothing is going on. It just feels like it’s spinning its wheels, and it becomes obvious that they’re not even building towards a big climax. Instead, they’re just setting up for the next few sequels. It doesn’t help that we’re on the journey with fairly-bland characters. It took most of the first “Fantastic Beasts” for me to warm up to them, but here they seem to have lost their chemistry. As far as the new characters, Johnny Depp only shows flashes of brilliance as the evil Grindelwald, while Jude Law has a strong, but reserved performance as the young Dumbledore. And while the creature and set designs are amazing, the CGI is too obvious most of the time.

** out of *****