John Wick, Chapter 2:

Keanu Reeves is back as the title character in this action thriller, sequel to the 2014 original, and part of trilogy yet to be completed.  Wick used to be a mob hitman, and he was very, very good at his job.  When he retired from “service” after the death of his wife, he got messed with by some punks who saw him at a service station gassing up his classic Mustang muscle car.  Wick brushed them off, but they came back under cover of darkness to beat the daylights out of him in his own home, and kill his dog.  The first movie was purely a revenge story as Wick tracked each one down and dispatched him.  In this film, we learn that one of the punks was the son of a crime boss who now wants revenge on Wick.  John tries diplomacy, but that doesn’t help much, and soon it’s all-out war.  We get a good backstory on just what the organized crime business was of which Wick had been a part, and there’s a great turn by Ian McShane as the crime boss who wields ultimate power over all things criminal.  The opening scene, with Wick in his Mustang, is worth the price of the download, DVD, or on-demand fee, and the movie, although very violent, just gets more intense and more thrilling from there on.  Keanu Reeves did 95% of his own stunt work here, and works with co-star Laurence Fishburne for the first time since the Matrix movies.  Excellent film!  Rated 18A.

The Lego Batman Movie:

For those who enjoyed the somewhat innocuous adventures of Emmett in the first of the two Lego movies now released, it’s a whole new world now – there is no Emmett this time, but many of the background characters come to the foreground in an action-adventure animated movie that is far too clever for children to truly appreciate.  As The Joker (voice of Zack Galifiniakis) and his minions do their best to take over Gotham City, Bruce Wayne, aka Batman (voice of Will Arnett) understands that he has his hands full, and reluctantly decides that he needs to learn to become a team player.  Enter the character of Robin/Dick Grayson (voice of Michael Cera), who seems to be a crime fighter of sorts, but who is really looking for a father figure.  The references to pop culture at every level keep us all attuned to just where this might go next, and the voice characterizations, from Liam Neeson as Alfred the Butler, to Rosario Dawson as Batgirl, are all perfectly cast.  There is a strong plot here too.  I watched in the theatre as kids of every age were fully engaged in this movie, and I wondered how that could be when they couldn’t possibly get even half the clever humour that is thrown out with almost every line.  Great fun! Rated PG.

Table 19:

Eloise (Anna Kendrick) is maid of honour at the wedding of her closest friend, but when the best man dumps her at the last minute via text, so he can take his latest squeeze, she is devastated.  Despite her overwhelming humiliation, she decides to go to the wedding anyway, out of respect to the bride, and finds herself seated at that table that exists at the back of every wedding reception, the one where various misfits and hangers-on are seated.  This variety of misfits played by along with roles played by Lisa Kudrow and  Rya Myers set the tone for what turns out to be a very interesting table, where secrets abound, and the possibility of romance exists in the most unlikely fashion. Rated 14A.

Denial (2016):

Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz is superb as the real-life Deborah Lipstadt, a woman who was taken to court by a Holocaust denier, and has the challenging task of proving him wrong.  Under the British system of law, the burden of proof is on the accused, so she and her legal team must prove definitively that the events depicted by historical record actually occurred.  Timothy Spall plays the denier, and Tom Wilkinson is her lawyer.  An interesting view of the British legal system, an a fine drama based on actual events.  Rated 14A.

Handsome: A Netflix Original Movie (2017):

Jeff Garlin (The Goldbergs) plays the title character here, a police detective named Gene Handsome. He is pretty good at solving crimes for the LAPD, but he struggles with the direction his live is going, and what the point of it all might be.  A good cast here, populated with well-known TV actors including Leah Remini (King of Queens), Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory), and Amy Sedaris (Bojack Horseman).