What Men Want

Taraji P Henson is a sports agent, working at the ultimate boys club. She is in line for partnership, but never gets the call... she's a woman. When she sees a psychic, drinks some weird tea, and hits her head, she gains the ability to hear men's thoughts. Comedic hilarity. Except it is pretty formulaic. The only real comedy is perhaps in Tracy Morgan and the fact that his thoughts are always nonsensical. but otherwise, nothing new or really worth seeing here. Disappointing.
2 stars (out of 5)

The King

Timothee Chalamet plays young King Henry V. He is a reluctant leader who despises his father, disagreeing with most of his policies. But when his father dies, he takes on the throne and is drawn into a war with the French. It is an interesting look at life in 1400 England, what battle looks like, what politics looks like. I found this engaging and interesting, if not novel.
3 stars (out of 5)

Speed

Another family favorite from the 90's, Keanu Reeves (LA Police bomb squad) and Sandra Bullock (regular girl next door) are thrown together as a bus she is on has a bomb on it that he needs to defuse. The two have a good chemistry together and we get to take a tour of 90's LA, when transportation was being built (unfinished 105-110 interchange, unfinished redline extension to Hollywood), and transportation physics was suspended (city bus successfully jumps a 50 foot gap with no ramp, metro rail car has enough energy to collide through 200 meters of steel i-beams and up a slope, but not enough to damage the carriage). Worth watching once a decade if only to remember the good old days.
4 stars (out of 5)

Always Be My Maybe

A rom-com, coming of age for two asian american kids who grew up in San Francisco and grew apart after high school. Now as 30-somethings, she is a successful celebrity chef and he is working at his fathers HVAC company and playing in his band which is famous in a 1 block area of SF. They connect again as she is back in town to open a new restaurant, jumping straight to antagonism to cover the fact that they each love the other. Guess what -- it works out in the end. An over the top appearance by Keanu Reeves, playing an over the top version of himself, which he clearly had fun doing.
2 stars (out of 5)