This movie is disappointing to say the least. With writer/director Lawrence Kasdan (of Empire Strikes Back fame) and Kevin Costner in the title role, this should have been great. Unfortunately, it’s just a longer version of Tombstone, which came out the year before. Clocking in at over three and a half hours, there’s no excuse for it to be as boring as it is. For it being essentially the same story it’s a shame that everything is better in Tombstone, from the casting of Wyatt Earp to Doc Holliday, from the pacing to Kevin Costner’s own performance in both films. It’s not terrible, it’s just not worth watching.
The Meg - 3/5
Don't get me wrong, it's a ton of fun. The jump scares are fantastic and peppered evenly throughout the runtime. The acting is mostly fine and there's some fun tech that induces cool wideshots of The Meg underwater looking properly menacing. There are long stretches of rescue-operation-type scenes that I wasn't expecting in a summer shark movie, and though they're good scenes it wreaks havoc with the pacing. Great popcorn-munching fun, but its staying power is suspect.
Together with Skyscraper this demonstrates a return to '90s-style action movies. I'm personally delighted with the trend and am interested to see how many more movies will line up to follow the trend.
Mission Impossible: Fallout - 5/5
It's really really good. Its 2h27min runtime packed full of chases and missions, with just enough time in between for the audience to catch its breath. There are solid performances all around and impressive cinematography both technically and viscerally. A return to form in many ways, this is almost as good as the 1996 original. A few problems with luckiness, a few poor lines of dialogue, and some overly convoluted backstories are all that kept this from being a 5/5.
Originally I gave this movie a 4/5, but over time all of the issues with it proved to be only nit picks which places it squarely in the 5/5 category.