Queen of Katwe (2016)

Its been a long time since I’ve caught a new release at the theatres. But I got a free early screening of Queen of Katwe on Wednesday so I freed up some time to go. Especially since I’m those people who like these inspirational Disney movies. To be honest, I’ve only heard about this movie and how it was about a child and their journey to become a chess champion. I really didn’t know much about it but taking a quick look at the cast already made me want to go check it out.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Director: Mira Nair

Cast: Madina Nalwanga, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Martin Kabanza, Taryn Kyaze

An Ugandan girl sees her world rapidly change after being introduced to the game of chess.-IMDB

 Queen of Katwe is a Disney real-life based on a true story inspirational story. What makes this one better than all of the rest? It has a powerful cast which delivers outstanding performances and a setting that we haven’t quite seen before. Call my world of movie viewing small (because there are still a lot more movies to discover, I know that), I have never seen a movie that exposes the raw hard lives as such in any Disney movie before. Our main character here is a real child who lived through these events called Phiona who lived in a rural city of Katwe in Uganda. She lived in below average standards and can’t go to school in order to help her mom sell corn along with her siblings to keep up with their lives and maintain a roof over their heads. While this is about hard times as her and her family gets hit by one thing after another, its a story about her years of perseverance to achieve her dreams. It was brought by someone who saw the best in her when no one else could, her coach who took the time to introduce her to the game of chess and her mom’s views on it as well to promise her a better future.

I can discuss how great Madino Nalwanga is at her role playing Phiona and capturing the changes she went through as she achieved success at a young age. She started judging where she came from and wanting more. She lost a bit of herself and eventually found it back. She felt despair when things went bad, and joy when she felt like she could do more and that there was somewhere for her. Phiona’s journey to her success was a hard one but also saw her learn a lot from it. Madino Nalwanga captures it all fantastically. The same goes to Lupita Nyong’o who plays as Phiona’s mother. You can see her pain and worries even as she stays strong for her family. Her character may not be educated in the books but she is educated by her life experiences and for that, she has self-respect and takes care of her kids primarily. Its a beautiful performance. The same also goes to David Oyelowo who plays the coach. These characters come to life because of their humanity and that they aren’t sugar-coated. These were their lives and we can believe that it was.

However, the strength of these inspirational Disney movies lie in the fact that they carry an uplifting message. In a world where we talk about all the bad, its nice to see that despite this being still a less than fortunate situation in the beginning and we all go through hard times (some more than others), there is still a light at the end of the tunnel.  Our future is in our hands.  Maybe to some, it seems corny and silly but Queen of Katwe is heartwarming to watch even if its only small downfall is such a long run time. The best part about Queen of Katwe is seeing how Phiona grows as a person: how her successes change her and how she adapts to these changes. It is seeing her find her passions and realizing that our dreams don’t come because we are smart. Some of us need perserverance, challenges, road bumps to over and to take the time and effort to improve. Our dreams and success don’t happen in one day. It takes hard work and those who fight for it the hardest are those who never let themselves believe they are at the top (aka confident but not overconfident). I’m sure there’s a different message for everyone who watches Queen of Katwe. While it still suffers from many predictable moments, it also never quite loses its believability and authenticity.

Overall, Queen of Katwe is really good. With great performances, even the kids who I didn’t mention each and every one of, were a joy to watch. They put light into a story like this one particularly. This movie is inspirational with many great messages. It is going to be an emotional ride through the few years of Phiona’s life from her discovery of chess to learning to excel at it.

Jack Reacher (2012)

For me, Tom Cruise went back on my radar after I saw M:I: Ghost Protocol.  I don’t think I reviewed that here yet but that movie was my turning point into believing that Tom Cruise still had it in him.  My tablet has this movie streaming app and they’ve been dishing out free rental vouchers so thats why you’ll see me posting ridiculous amount of movie reviews, because I can get it for free 🙂 I still have 2 more to go as I write this! The first one I chose was a newer selection, Jack Reacher!

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Jai Courtney, Joseph Sikora, Robert Duvall

On a normal morning, five strangers are shot dead with six shots by a sniper in the opposite parking lot.  The police come in and with all the forensics and evidence, they pinpoint James Barr (Joseph Sikora) to be the obvious suspect.  Only Barr says he’s innocent and asks to Get Jack Reacher.  Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an ex-military investigator who has become a long-time drifter that has fell off the map.  Before they knew it, Jack Reacher comes to the police department to find them and he sees all the mistakes that the crime scene consists of.  He digs with the help of the District Attorney’s (Richard Jenkins) daughter, Helen (Rosamund Pike) who is a young defense attorney appointed to help Barr.  As more leads are found, the situation becomes more dangerous and he knows that there is more people involved and someone deadly at the end pulling the strings.

Jack Reacher is a pretty decent crime thriller.  For the most part, I was really intrigued by the story.  It was a bit predictable even without having read the source material.  In fact, I’ve never read any of Lee Child’s novels before but I saw a part of the “twist” long before it happened.  Even with that, the whole analysis and setup of the elaborate crime under investigation was quite detailed and intriguing and kept me wondering or even doubting my initial suspicions throughout the movie.

Tom Cruise does a pretty awesome job as Jack Reacher.  He’s a drifter who really has nothing to lose.  He’s agile when he fist fights and he will do whatever it takes to get himself the information he needs. This gives him the advantage over those in the system.  We see that he is very skilled at what he does and that even though his purpose of going there was as agreed with Barr to get rid of him, he still was able to be objective. The character design of Jack Reacher is definitely an impressive one.

The main female lead is played by Rosamund Pike as an attorney defending Barr. I loved Rosamund Pike in Pride and Prejudice. She’s so elegant and strong all in one person and she always plays roles that has that style. At least this role was similar also in its own way.  In Jack Reacher, she’s asks for a lot of reasoning especially regarding what Jack Reacher does and whenever he asks her to find certain information.  Their chemistry was good in the way that they worked together but at the same time there were trust issues and some challenging each other as they were trying to figure out the investigation.

The only problem with this movie was the ending and the villain: the guy that whipped up this whole thing.  It felt like its like it got tired and went “Okay, its too long. Let’s stop it right here and leave the rest for the audience to fill in the blanks”.  Till that very end, the reasoning behind why the villain did all this left me all full of question marks floating around my head.  Maybe I missed something during the movie since I did watch it bit by bit throughout 24 hours. I just wasn’t satisfied with the ending in general.  To me, it just felt a bit incomplete.

Other than a poorly constructed villain and ending, this is a pretty decent thriller.  The whole setup of the plot leading up to the ending and its outstanding cast led by Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike was great.  Regardless, it is worth a watch, at the very least, you shouldn’t feel like it wasted your time.

Maybe its time to check out Lee Child’s novel and maybe it’ll give me some closure 😉

 What do you think about Tom Cruise? Do you have a favorite role that he’s done? Did you see Jack Reacher? What did you think about it? Did you read the book this was based on?