Disclaimer: There may be spoilers below, so if any of the content pictured below is of interest, proceed with caution.
Post-apocalypse, robots, and Tom Hanks, sounds like a great recipe! Unfortunately they tried too hard to make it sweet. The feel-good movie they wanted is technically there, but I think they missed the mark. By removing all logic, leaving countless plot holes, and giving us a contradictory post-apocalyptic world, it didn't bring on a single sniffle let alone a tear or two. And considering a procedural like NCIS can make me tear up a bit, that says a lot. This movie is probably best for pre-teens.
This is the story of King Henry V taking the throne, transforming from "Hal" the drunk to Henry the king. Some elements of this movie are good, like the portrayal of combat which is clumsy, messy, and brutal. Other parts of the movie aren't as good, possibly due to material on the cutting room floor. We see Hal go from drunk to king in minutes, a rough and too-short segue. For the finale, I think the movie should have ended a few minutes earlier, on a nice dark note rather than the bland and neutral point that it did.
Based on a true story, the tale of Greville Wynne, an Englishman recruited by the government to act as a courier for the Russian Oleg Penkovsky, a traitor looking to stop a nuclear war. Wynne, the unlikely hero, finds himself dipping his toe into the world of spies in order to use the cover of his business dealings as a way to go in and out of Moscow while avoiding attention. Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who has access to the most sensitive information about Russia's ambitions in placing nuclear arms in Cuba. The story is compelling and the history the movie is based on more-so. The movie is a little dry, a side effect of the spycraft primarily being that of transporting information in a manner that was quite easy compared to similar stories of that era. Still worth the watch for a good cold-war thriller.
Note that this is a prequel to a series of five live-action movies based on an anime of the same name, so the best five in this series to start on probably. Set in the 1800's, in feudal Japan, this is a beautiful movie that has all the elements of a great story including heroes, anti-heroes, epic struggles, love, and loss. The movie is centered around Battosai, an assassin of an incredible skill, one that only kills in hopes of achieving peace for his country. Played by Takeru Satoh, the character is brooding and quiet until it is time to fight, and then he becomes a dealer of death. I look forward to seeing the rest of the films and hope they are as good as this one.
For reference, here are the movies in order and note that only 2 of 5 on Netflix. Unfortunately, the next three movies in the order of the story are not available on Netflix, then the fifth and final (?) is. That means going to Vudu or another streaming service to see the full story arc. Further, note that depending on the site, some titles may be a bit confusing like calling this movie "Final Chapter Part II - The Beginning" despite it being a prequel and not the final chapter of the story.
