Sully Review

If a movie stars Tom Hanks there is a good chance I am going to like it and Sully is no exception to that rule.

Sully is directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, and Laura Linney. Tom Hanks plays Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who successfully landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York City in January 2009. The movie focuses on the plane landing itself as well as the investigation that takes place days after the incident. Aaron Eckhart plays First Officer Jeffery Skiles and Laura Linney plays Sully's wife, Lorraine Sullenberger.

Since the movie is called Sully, this movie either succeeds or fails on Tom Hanks' performance and for me that is where this movie succeeds the most. I thought Tom Hanks did a great job of bringing out the heroic side of Sully. He really felt like a regular guy that pulled off a remarkable feat by saving 155 passengers. There was this vulnerability to his character where you felt bad for him because of the investigation that followed after the crash. Having seen what he did to land the plane you know that he did something heroic, but you have the National Transportation Safety Board trying to figure out if he actually did the right thing and instead of saving people actually endangered them. Throughout the movie I found myself wondering if he actually did the right thing and you also see that on Tom's face where he too thinks he made a mistake. It was those moments where Tom questions what he did that really made me question his actions. I also liked that you got to see how Sully struggled with the new found popularity and being a celebrity. It was something that he wasn't comfortable with. One moment he is just a regular pilot and the next he is on every news station and people are shouting his name while he walks down the street. Tom Hanks' performance made that feel authentic.

Another thing that must work for this movie to succeed is the actual landing of the plane on the water. The scenes that showed this event were intense and had me on the edge of my seat, which is impressive given I already knew the outcome. One thing I liked about it was that they showed it from various angles. You first experience the landing from the cockpit with Sully and Jeffery. You see what they had to do inside the cockpit and the communication between them and air traffic control. I enjoyed getting to see how air traffic control handled the situation and their emotional connection to a single plane. You also get to experience it through the eyes of those on the plane itself. You see the calmness in the flight attendants and the fear in the passengers.

Sully wasn't a completely perfect movie for me though. I found the beginning of the movie to be fairly boring and was struggling to stay awake. The movie starts out a few days after the landing has occurred and Sully is still in New York while the investigation is going on. Sully is in a state of shock and struggling to comprehend what he just went through and I felt that since I haven't really seen what all he went through, I was emotionally disconnected to the character. After I finally saw what happened and got to experience the landing, I was more emotionally connected to Sully. Also during this part of the movie, Sully kept having visions of a plane flying into buildings in New York City and I found these to be a tad disturbing and slightly unnecessary. There was also a couple of one liners that seemed completely unnecessary and distracting.

Sully is a movie that overall I really enjoyed. It has solid performances from it's leads especially Tom Hanks. The movie started out pretty slow, but once it got into the details of the landing, I was fully engaged. I think that this is a movie that should be seen on the big screen because of how the landing plays out, the sound and visuals were fantastic. Sully probably won't go down as the best Tom Hanks movie but it is the best of his most recent ones.

4 out of 5 Stars

Storks Review

So far in 2016 pretty much every animated movie has featured talking animals. The trend continues with the newest animated movie called Storks. Like I said in my The Secret Life of Pets review, some of these movies have been pretty good while others not so much. For me Storks sits right in the middle. It was entertaining for the most part, just not very deep.

Storks takes place in a world where storks have stopped (not sure there is a world where they even started) delivering babies and instead deliver packages from an Amazon-esque site called Cornerstore. One day, a boy named Nate, decides he wants a baby brother and writes a letter to the storks asking them to deliver one to his house. A human orphan named Tulip, lives with storks and receives the letter and accidentally creates the baby via the Baby Making Machine. Tulip with the help of a stork named Junior (voiced by Andy Samberg) must work together to deliver the baby to it's new family. Along the way they run into various things that get in their way like a pack of wolves and an annoying pigeon that works at Cornerstore.

While watching Storks I was fairly entertained. I found myself laughing out loud during various parts of the movie. The funniest parts for me came from jokes that dealt with how people interact around babies. One thing I hear all the time is how great babies smell and that was a running joke throughout the movie, especially with the pack of wolves. I also enjoyed a scene where Tulip and Junior try to get some sleep but the baby will not let them and you just see the physical pain that it is causing them. Another scene I enjoyed was one where Tulip and Junior fight some penguins but they have to do it silently because the baby is sleeping.

I also thought the voice acting was pretty good in this movie. Andy Samberg was pretty entertaining as Junior. Usually Samberg annoys me, but since it was just his voice I found him enjoyable. Katie Crown voices Tulip and I thought she did a decent job. Katie is a voice actress on the show Adventure Time, which I have never watched, so before this movie I had never heard of her. I really enjoyed Ty Burrell as Henry, Nate's dad. He isn't given too much to do but I enjoyed watching him be a busy dad that then becomes obsessed with helping his son. Jennifer Aniston voices Sarah, Nate's mom. She is a pretty forgettable character. Kelsey Grammar was okay as Hunter, the stork boss of Cornerstore. He is only slightly menacing and I wish he had more to do. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele play the two leaders of the wolf pack when they were on screen I enjoyed them, but they are mainly there for laughs and not much else.

Even though I was entertained during Storks, it never reaches the emotional stakes that Pixar or even Dreamworks can attain. It's a very surface-level movie with it's laughs and story beats but has no depth that makes you emotionally attached to the characters. The main thing that kept me from being emotionally attached is that some of the characters have no reason to being in the movie. The movie tries to have these villains that have no motivation and never pose a threat to Tulip and Junior. One of the "villains" was just really annoying to me and pissed me off anytime he appeared on screen. Another character was just creepy and had no reason to be in the movie.

Storks was an entertaining movie that kids will enjoy and parents will laugh but will find not need to revisit.

3 1/2 out of 5 Stars