Wiz RECOMMENDS Hannah and Her Sisters

Like a lot of Woody Allen’s films, its feature is more about the dialogue and actors than anything Allen can do behind the character.

This is certainly the case with Hannah and Her Sisters, an at times hilarious film about the lives of upper crust sisters and the people in their lives.

Some of the characters in this film are hilariously written and performed. Woody Allen as a hypochondriac TV writer has some of the funnier lines and situations. Dianne Weist has a good performance as well, but she’s also in the film the least (it felt like at least).

But the best performance comedically is Michael Caine as a philandering, love stricken husband of Hannah. Caine’s performance as Eliot is hilarious during his love stricken parts but also great in his slight dramatic parts.

His story in the film is the best and most entertaining of the entire film.

But what’s odd about the film is what is possibly the weakest characters of the film, namely Hannah and her sisters.

Save for Weist as Holly, Hannah and Lee, played by Mia Farrow and Barbara Hershey, are easily the least interesting of any of the characters of the film.

This is especially strange to deal with when both characters tend to be the two characters love and covet the most. Lee is sort of interesting as a love interest, but Hannah doesn’t have much of anything as a character that is all that compelling.

But Hannah and Her Sisters is a film that has some solid strengths with its male characters and stories, but it was surprising to find the weakest elements are usually something that is usually his strength: the writing of female characters.

Wiz RECOMMENDS Monkey Man

Monkey Man is a film that makes critical rookie mistakes.

It expands when it should retract. It pulls punches when it should have hit hard. It strives for ambition when it should have kept things to the fundamentals.

Dev Patel's revenge thriller about a man named "Kid" who gets into a sinister organization to find a way to murder the people who killed his mother should have just stuck with this simple, concise premise.

Instead, Patel decided to add subplots revolving around spirituality and politics that do more to distract from the main story than to enhance it.

It's easy to understand why he went this route: there is a complex history involving India, its politics and the spirituality of its people. But was it entirely necessary to put this into a bloody, brutal revenge fantasy?

The bloating of the plot is further compounded by the overall story of the film, which is formulaic and tropey at best.

If you've seen any revenge thriller, the elements that you'd expect are all in there:

• Quiet, but menacing lead
• Over the top evil villains
• Beautiful but scared woman who is in the crosshairs
• A person or group of people who help the main character find his strength to get back up.

Now, this isn't necessarily bad on the face of it: A good revenge thriller can be quite formulaic but still be exciting and satisfying.

To do that, you need really good action...and Monkey Man is decent overall.

It is clear Patel can do the hand-to-hand fighting real well as he executes the stunts to feel believable. On top of that, some of the fight scenes are particularly visceral and brutal, showing all sorts of skin tearing, blood and broken bones.

But the action is marred by some of the decisions Patel made behind the camera.

For example, during the first big fight scenes in the club at the end of the 1st act, the camera movement in the action scenes jump around and feel way too chaotic.

Now, there's likely a reason why Patel went this route: to show the inexperience and exasperation of the main character in all the chaos.

But that could have easily been told by Patel and the other actors showing that in the action. The camera placement and movement was too much to show too little.

What's odd is that Patel did correct this in the big finale of the film: all of the fight scenes and stunts are clearly visible and shows all of the fighting in its brutal, bloody glory.

And yet, another strange thing that Patel does in this film is deciding to pull back on some of the brutality.

The visuals of the film portray the place the film is set as dark, grungy, grim but bathed in neon light and fluorescent bulbs. You see a lot of squalor and dirty, delpated areas throughout the film.

The visual storytelling of the film is saying that this will be a brutal, messy film. And yet, Patel in some scenes shys away from the brutal violence in some scenes.

Honestly, the one thing I will remember with Monkey Man is that it feels like a film where the director is working through his first time jitters as the film progresses in plot.

Patel goes for something bigger and more thoughtful in his first go around where, honestly, he should have been sticking to the basics and just telling a brutally efficient story.

And yet, that's what makes this film interesting: it's a visual example of someone getting their legs up as an artist and finding that vision while showing the cuts, bruises and warts that most directors would rather you not see.

As that type of curiosity, it's an interesting and entertaining watch.

Wiz RECOMMENDS Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Mad Max: Fury Road took the film world by storm with it's amazing visuals and mind-bending stunts. It's an action film that, to this day, seems to hold a special place in action film fans hearts.

And I agreed: the stunt work, visuals and it's breakneck pace in action gave it a breathless, if not mindless, adrenaline rush.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Tale has a lot of the same strengths: the stunt work is expertly done and the visuals share the same tableau as it's predecessor.

But Furiosa does a few things differently that end up being to its detriment.

The beauty of Fury Road was the lack of time to even catch a breath. The action sequences and set pieces keep coming and coming as the film started to when it's finished only take minutes here and there for some exposition.

Furiosa is much slower in comparison: as a prequel, it tells the story of a young Furiosa and how she ended up where she was in Mad Max: Fury Road.

But as cool as Furiosa was in Fury Road, you knew barely anything about her. She was much more of a vibe or a template that Charlize Theron embodied more than played.

The problem is the depth given to Furiosa was meager at best. And for a movie that is 2 hours and 30 minutes long, that becomes a major problem when she eventually gains her comeuppance.

In fact, the character herself, whether played by Alyla Browne as a young girl or Anya Taylor-Joy as an older Furiosa, the character doesn't speak much at all until the third act.

Wouldn't the purpose of a prequel focused solely on a single character have you get to know this character better? Apparently not this movie.

The most you know is how she got captured and how she eventually started working for Immortan Joe. That's it.

In fact, you don't really get to know any character all that well.

One of the fascinating things about Fury Road was the characters were so delightfully weird and the world inhabited was so fascinating based solely on it's visuals that it became a disappointment when you would learn not much at all.

And honestly, Furiosa doesn't have that feel of "holy hell what am I looking at?!" because a lot of the set pieces and characters were introduced in Fury Road.

But I will recommend Furiosa.

One reason is, of course, the visuals and action set pieces are amazing to watch. When the action set pieces set on rigs get going, you are instantly transported to what made the last movie so memorable.

All of the stunts and action are so believably well done and are exciting to watch.

Just not as exciting as it was in Fury Road.

There is one thing that I think Furiosa does better than Fury Road and that's the main antagonist.

Immortan Joe was incredibly weird in Fury Road, but only in the "yo what am I looking at?" sort of way.

Dr. Dementus is both darkly hilarious and charismatic. Played in an incredibly showy turn by Chris Hemsworth, the character gets to show a different side of Hemsworth repertoire that is not only comedically rich but also dark. It's a side that we don't get to see in the chiseled actor since he is more known as Thor or in other action films, but it was a delightful surprise to see him chew scenery.

The short of it is this: Furiosa is a lesser Fury Road in a number of ways. With the exception of the villain, all of the aspects of the film aren't as dynamic or as entertaining as they were in the last film.

That said, if you want more Fury Road, Furiosa will tide you over nicely enough.

Just don't expect to be blown over like you may have been in Fury Road.