#2,319: Moana

As sometimes happens, increased work loads have resulted in lower quality reviews for you, the concerned moviegoer. Management regrets the inconvenience.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - ★★½☆☆
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - ★★★☆☆ 
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - ★★½☆☆

On the whole, these weren't as bad as people make them sound, which is pretty good for 9 hours of prequels. We somehow spent days and days watching these, and I don't really recall where one stops and another one starts. I think I liked the sort of political intrigue side plot Gandalf was working more than the story about The Hobbit though. 

Some time passed between viewing and catching up to these in my quick reviews, so saying anything more about them would probably just be guessing. I recall being delighted at remembering a couple of things from reading the book in grade school, a lot of fan servicey cameos and guest stars turning up, one scene with the dragon being pretty good, Stephen Fry being quite distracting, and that even while watching the movie I was unable to definitively list all five of the Five Armies. 

Moana - ★★★½☆
The best parts of this movie are the parts with Moana. The middle chunk with Maui is a little boring.

(It's kind of interesting how the zeitgeist works - I think I could have told you that Lin-Manuel Miranda was behind these lyrics without seeing the credits or anything - they sound like him, as far as I'm concerned, even though I haven't seen any Hamilton and don't really have any basis to know that about him. Maybe he re-used some rhymes from The Force Awakens...)

Set List: High Precision Ball Bearings

Set List at the Pack is brought to you by: High Precision Ball Bearings! So round! So precise! Rolling so smooth you won't believe it! 

It's okay.  The audience didn't like it much either. 

#2,315: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

99 Homes - ★★★☆☆
I'm perpetually at my most delighted when I see a movie I've never heard of before it starts. This is a classic first-half movie: digging into the world and characters is fun, but when The Plot comes smashing down, the wheels start to come off.

Cop Car - ★★★★☆
Watched this out of Spider-hype as much as anything. The kids were younger than I was expecting. The movie was better than I was expecting. Somehow, the setting makes it feel like a solid double feature with 99 Homes. Good work, everybody!

Nocturnal Animals - ★☆☆☆☆
As the French would say, "pretentious nonsense." Marvel at the symbolism! Thrill to the incredible reading montage!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - ★★☆☆☆
It seems like Potter fans found it pretty satisfying, which is probably the most important thing, but it's kind of a weird movie. It's not that nothing happens so much as that the characters might not be relevant to the plot.

Set List: Booty!

Set List at the Pack is brought to you this week by: Booty!  (You know, the spoils of war?)

It's worth its weight in gold! Get yours in the lobby today!

Escape Room Reviews: The Pirate's Den

Company: MagIQ
Room: Pirate’s Den
Date Played: 1/5/17
Player Count: 2. We could have easily had one or two more.
Success:  Success!

Premise: Treasure is inherently desirable. Pirates have treasure.

Immersion: Some props were a little well-worn, but the pirate ship looked great! It's fun to be able to look through the portholes and see 'outside.' This room is low tech and lock-based.

Highlights: This room had a fun variety of things to do. Although some puzzle types are repeated, they are accompanied by some fun objects that look like they belong on board the ship. The end game was exciting and felt urgent, even though we didn't know how much time was left on the clock.

Lowlights: Succeeding in this room requires a lot of Spot Hidden checks, which is an area where we sometimes come up short when playing as a duo. More eyes means finding more secrets faster!  One of the locks, even though we knew what we were looking for, we never found it and I forgot to ask the GM after. (We spun the last dial of the lock.)  Another puzzle was so well-worn that clues were no longer necessary. 

And Finally:   Thanks to a groupon we didn't want to expire, this room made for a fun date night. I had the prejudice that it was perhaps meant for kids (the room can be adjusted to suit birthday parties and such), and even that the *IQ locations around town were somehow 'less than' other companies, but that's all stuff and nonsense. It kept us busy for most of an hour, had some depth we weren't expecting, and it was fun. Out of 16 rooms played, this room takes the #7 spot away from last week's review.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://magiqescaperoom.com/los-angeles/pirates