Fighting with My Family (2019)

When I first heard of Fighting with My Family earlier this year I thought, "great, another dumb movie with The Rock" and I avoided it. Then about a week ago I read a blogger saying it was fun and entertaining, even if wrestling is not your cup of tea, and I decided to give it a shot.

The film tells the true story of professional wrestler Paige/Saraya Knight (Florence Pugh). Born in a family of wrestlers, she joined the family business at 13, even though she didn't love it as much as her family, especially her brother, Zak (Jack Lowden). Five years later, both her bother and she find themselves competing for the same WWE and Saraya is the only one picked among all the participants. While she is pushed to new limits by coach Hutch (Vince Vaughn), Zak must move past his dreams of making the WWE.

The fact that it's based on a true story doesn't prevent Fighting with My Family from being a predictable "underdog overcoming the odds" tale that deals with themes of family, friendship and dedication. In other words, nothing we haven't seen before. Because of its predictability, I found the story to be unevenly engaging and occasionally boring. It does, however, do a good job at showing the hard work that goes into becoming a professional wrestler and it certainly made me appreciate this sport a bit more. 

The same can be said about the characters as they too aren't anything we haven't seen before. Still, director and writer Stephen Merchant did a pretty good job at writing human and relatable characters and developing them — although some of the relationships between the characters develop too rapidly and feel rushed because of this, like something was missing. 

Lionsgate UK, Mirror Releasing, Universal Pictures

The cast does a very good job. Florence Pugh gives an intense and believable performance as Paige, and conveys Paige's inner struggles very well. It's Jack Lowden, however, who steals the show — he has certainly the most to do as Zak must deal with disappointment, anger and envy, and he conveys all that effortlessly. As for the rest of the cast, Lena Headey and Nick Frost do a good job as the negligent but protective parents, and Vince Vaughn is not terrible in the more serious but predictable role of the tough coach. 

Fighting with My Family is also quite humorous with its mixture of British humour, slapstick and dad jokes. With all that being said, the film didn't fully work for me as I never really felt the drama, the story wasn't always engaging and entertaining, and the comedy fell flat at times. Also, The Rock, who plays himself, is barely in the film. I'm not sure that's a negative thing, though. 

 

Tomb Raider (2018)

I never cared much about Lara Croft. I never played the video game and I never even bothered with Angelina Jolie's movies. I do like Alicia Vikander though (and I'm tremendously jealous of her for marrying Fassbender) so I decided to check out this new Tomb Raider movie. Having read some brief reviews, I was expecting it to be bad but I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it turned out to be. 

Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) is a fierce and independent young woman whose father (Dominic West), an eccentric adventurer, vanished when she was barely a teen. When forced to handle her father's global empire, she decides to leave everything she knows behind in search of her father's last-known destination, a mythical island somewhere off the coast of Japan. Needless to say, her mission won't be an easy one.

And needless to say, the plot is tremendously weak, unappealing and boring. It is filled with holes as big as moon craters, a pretty much useless father and daughter subplot, and basically, all that happens before Lara reaches the island is completely useless. There's also an intriguing twist at the end, but it falls flat completely.

The main character is just as dreadful and uninteresting. Lara Croft comes out only as a rich and spoiled child who is looking for daddy. She doesn't learn anything, she doesn't grow. Basically, nothing happens to her. It feels like the writers didn't care at all about the character, as if trying to make Lara Croft interesting was too hard, required too much effort. In a scene, she has pretty intense eye contact with another woman --they are basically eye-fucking. Sure, there's a gay twist everywhere nowadays but it could have made the character more interesting. Instead, they drop it and we never see that woman again. 

Warner Bros. Pictures

Vikander's performance is in line with the rest of the film. While her physical transformation is truly impressive as she gains a lot of muscle to fit the role, her performance is flat and wooden. She doesn't convey a single emotion. All she does is shout and groan, but she's terrible at those too. Frankly, I can't believe some "men" complained about her boobs being too small instead of complaining of all the above mentioned. 

The supporting characters too are one-dimensional, their motivations aren't really explained and make no sense whatsoever, which, of course, results in dreadful performances from the rest of the cast. Nick Frost makes a brief slightly funny appearance though. 

Tomb Raider doesn't work that well as a dumb action/adventure flick either. The action sequences aren't that exciting, the CGI is average --it is nice in the darker scenes but doesn't look very good in daylight--, and the sound isn't particularly good either --the volume was too loud in some scenes. The purpose was to add drama but it didn't happen.