Synopsis: In an adventure that will take them well beyond what they've known before, Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch (Timberlake) discover that they are but one of six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands and devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop and Rock. Their world is about to get a lot bigger and a whole lot louder. A member of hard-rock royalty, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), aided by her father King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne), wants to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who's looking to upstage them all.
My thoughts: This was certainly a step back from the original which I did not see coming given the addition of rock music. It was not a bad movie by any stretch it just was a disappointment given the opportunity it had to improve on the originals 3.5 rating.
Final verdict: 3 musical strings out of 5.
Synopsis: Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) -- an ex-cop better known for making trouble than solving it -- just got out of prison and is leaving Boston for good. But first he gets roped into helping his old boxing coach and mentor, Henry (Alan Arkin), with a promising amateur. That's Hawk (Winston Duke), a brash, no-nonsense MMA fighter convinced he'll be a tougher opponent than Spenser ever was. When two of Spenser's former colleagues turn up murdered, he recruits Hawk and his foul-mouthed ex-girlfriend, Cissy (Iliza Shlesinger), to help him investigate and bring the culprits to justice.
My thoughts: This is the 5th straight movie in which director Peter Berg has made starring Mark Wahlberg. I haven't gotten around to most of those since Battleship soured me on him but Winston Duke was enough to get me interested and it was... Fine. Nothing spectacular but it's the best thing Netflix has done since Point Blank.
Final verdict: 3.5 Post Malone acting credits out of 5.
The Hunt:Synopsis: Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are, or how they got there. They don't know they've been chosen... for a very specific purpose... The Hunt. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a group of globalist elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt humans for sport. But the elites' master plan is about to be derailed because one of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin), knows The Hunters' game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman at the center of it all.
My thoughts: Half action, half thriller. The Hunt was entertaining enough although it could've still been improved. It didn't seem to know what it wanted to say, was it anti-rich? anti-south? Hollywood-adjacent? I think clarifying the tone would go a big way towards pushing this rating up but hey, bonus points for making Trump hate it.
Final verdict: 3.5 dressed pigs out of 5.
