John Wick 2

Again, this is an extremely effective film in its genre. Keanu Reeves reprises his role as Wick, maintaining the same cold, brutal demeanor as the first. Wick is basically indestructible, by bullet or by impact as he continues to exact revenge on everyone who challenges him. Here he refuses to honor a debt from his days as an assassin, so a bounty is put on his head. He needs to basically kill everyone to stay alive (but never an innocent civilian). Dark, moody, brutal, and persistent.
3 stars (out of 5)

Megan Leavey

The "based on a true story" portrayal of a young woman who becomes a marine, is assigned to the canine unit and ultimately becomes a handler for bomb sniffing dogs. She is partnered with a dog, does a tour in Afghanistan, saves a bunch of lives, gets blown up, suffers PTSD, realizes her dog is also suffering PTSD, and then enacts a campaign to allow her to save her dog/partner and give him a home. While this was one big fat spoiler, it isn't really since this was all in the preview. What makes this a good film is the chemistry between Leavey (Kate Mara) and her dog. Mara plays the role perfectly, and brings you into her journey. Oh, and I like dogs...
4 stars (out of 5)

Ben Hur

The 2016 version. Disgraced Roman leaves home when his brother accuses him of treason. When he returns, he negotiates for his pardon if he just wins a little chariot race. Maybe the drama requires that we don't know the ending. Or maybe the acting just wasn't good enough to elicit care.
2 stars (out of 5)

Blade Runner 2049

Set in Los Angeles, Ryan Gosling is a Blade Runner - a replicant detective tasked with hunting down and retiring early model replicants that didn't have the "you must obey" directive grown into them. Along the way, he uncovers a replicant conspiracy of sorts and has to figure out where he fits into said schemes and what his responsibility as a "person" is. What I liked: The pacing was outstanding. For an action film, there was no giving in to the "you must be sprinting on a treadmill" fallacy. Instead, director Denis Villenueve took his time when necessary to let me really soak in scenery and emotion. This was a rare treat in today's sci-fi genre. What I didn't like: the LA future visualization. It had some pieces that were clever, but the overall implementation felt like someone up-chucked a bunch of cliché future city pieces and made sure they were all in view. Future LA could have been yet another character, but was just a 2D background tableau that could have been any-city. Perhaps this is unfair, but for a great future city, go see Hong Kong in Ghost in the Shell. And of course, I now need to go back to see the original.
4 stars (out of 5)

Bordertown (Serial)

This police procedural is a Finnish production that follows an ace detective as he moves to a remote part of Finland to try to live a more balanced life with his family. Alas (and we can see where this is going) no such balance arrives. He is thrust into a series of complex and grisly crimes. The hook is that our detective is a bit of a cross between Monk and Sherlock. So brilliant, strange habits and ways of thinking. Add to this a Finnish sensibility and you get a pretty interesting series. I really enjoyed and hope they do additional seasons.
4 stars (out of 5)

Crossing Lines (Serial)

This 3 season police procedural follows a special investigative team that works for the world court out of the Hague. They are particularly tasked with crimes that cross EU boundaries and helping individual country based police units share information across borders. I loved the first two seasons of this as the characters all had a chemistry that developed into an interesting team. In this third season, only a couple characters are back, but the writers don't spend the time developing the team. Instead, they act like it already exists. Or it doesn't exist, but they don't really care. The conflicts are ripe, but no effort is put into letting that play out. Everything is superficial, in service to the chase. So watch the first two, skip the third.
3 stars (out of 5)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service, we know what to expect in terms of action, gore and satire wrapped together. This time, the Kingsman organization is destroyed at the start by a targeted attack taking out all agents. Well, almost all. The remaining two discover an extreme prejudice clue that sends them to the U.S. to meet their new world counterparts The Statesman. The two join forces to take out the bad guy. Enough for the plot. What made the first film worthwhile was its social commentary in the guise of an action-satire. Here again, we get bits of that commentary that clearly show the bias of the English writers. Or more correctly, show clearly the perspective that the Kingsman are true heroes and the Statesman are basically a bunch of  'merican doofus' with guns and whiskey. The caricature portrayal of the Statesman are hilarious, but I could also see that if you are not tuned into the satire, or not able to see that satire speaks truth you might not want to hear, then this is not funny at all. But if you can't laugh/grimace at your own culture, what can you laugh/grimace at?
3 stars (out of 5)