 What's going on guys, welcome to a brand new movie review. We're talking Dan Fulgerman's new film, Life Itself. As I know who Dan Fulgerman is, he is very much known for writing a couple of notable scripts throughout Hollywood, but especially known for This Is Us. Now I'm not a big fan of the TV show, I've never actually watched it, heard great things about it, that's my thing, it's hard for me to watch TV, but Life Itself, I didn't see a trailer going in this movie, I heard who was in it, I was excited for it, I was preparing myself to get very emotional during this, since it's by the guy who made This Is Us, and I've heard that is a very emotional show, and I went into this movie with open expectations. The only thing I'd ever heard about this film is what my friend Griffin from Men Vs. Movie said, he said, hey, this film got me emotional, I enjoyed it. So I went in without expectation. And for certain, this movie did get me emotional. I can't say I love this film, and I can't say I hate this film, I do hate some aspects of this movie, and I also appreciated some other aspects. There's gonna be no spoilers for this, so it might be a little bit hard to talk about the movie, so I'll do the best that I can, but it's very mixed for me, and that's probably the best way to explain the film. I guess I should tell you what the story is about. Well, the story is, well, what is the story? Oh, well, I guess the easiest way to explain it without spoiling it is it's about a couple different lives of people intertwining, that that's the best way you can explain it. It kind of sounds like a Valentine's Day or Mother's Day kind of film, or it's trying to be crazy stupid love, but just not as smart as crazy stupid love, because I find that film to be very underrated. I guess we'll go off of what the synopsis says. So the synopsis for this film is, as a young New York couple goes from called romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twist of their journey create a dynamics that echo over continents and other lifetimes. Part of that is correct, and part of that is not. Let me just say, I watch the trailer after walking out of the film, because I like to not watch trailers if I have to before the film, and after I walk out of the film, I wanna see what they were marketing. This is one of those trailers where they were completely BSing you on what the film is actually about. The trailer gives maybe 1% of what the movie's about. The rest is kind of BS to be honest. Before I get really into my rant, I do wanna give my pros to this, because there are some notable pros in here. One, performances from everyone are fantastic. Oscar Isaac kills it. Olivia Wilde, sweet, charming, amazing. Daniel Benderis himself shows up here, he's great. Gives it one of probably the best performance throughout this whole entire film. Then there's some more notable stars in here as well, like Annette Benning, Olivia Cook, but they're never really given much substance to go about them, but really those three main cast members do such a fantastic job in this movie. Being honest, Dan Fogelman, I thought the film was shot perfectly. I thought the film, what it was going forward was shot great, and that Dan does have a good job of doing is getting these character interactions together. The way that character stories are told, the way that life plays itself out, and he's always really good at getting that out. And to any film that he's ever directed, written, or anything he's ever been a part of, he's really good at getting that, and life itself here is really good at getting you there. Emotional film for sure, that's for sure. And at times, yes, it does feel manipulated because it wants you to cry, it wants you to like the film, and sometimes it's trying a bit too hard. That's cool to see how all these different stories intertwine, but sometimes you gotta disbelieve some of that stuff. The biggest thing about the marketing for this movie is there's only one thing that's actually true, and it's on the poster, it's the tagline, it says, September, life will surprise you. Because let me tell you, this September, life did surprise me while watching Life Itself. Do you mean that? I mean, it's insane to me because my cons route from a different type of dynamics, because like I said, the film does feel a little bit manipulative when it's trying to get you upset. It's trying to make you sad and emotional and get entwined through these characters, which you are. The first half of this movie is excellent. I think amazing work done, with Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde doing such a fantastic job in this movie, I was shocked that by the back half of the movie, I started getting uninvested and I still appreciated these characters that it was telling the story of. But I found myself sitting there going, I know exactly how this is gonna go. It's gonna get very predictable right here and this and this and this are gonna start happening and then it's gonna intertwine here and that's how the film ends. And let me tell you, I guess, every single one of those things. That's where it kinda got me disappointed. You know, the first half is so excellent. It's wacky and a bit, seriously, when the film opens up, the tone shifts so much throughout this movie and that's another thing that doesn't really work. At times it's funny, at times it's emotional, at times it's sad, at times it's really wacky with a narration of this film being opened up by Samuel L. Jackson. I was really confused at the part because I was sitting there and I was like, am I in the right movie? Did I go into the right theater? It played the right movie going on. I was watching Life Itself for a lot of my cons stem from in this movie. It seems like he took a lot of the ideas from This Is Us that were kinda throwing trash and put them on to one film. Every single one of the stories told in this movie would have worked in its own type of film. Different arcs and different character dynamics would have worked better on separate different stories instead of trying to push them on to want to intertwine them in a very smart way, I guess. That's what these films try to do. From trying it, it just never worked out. I do appreciate how it connected. It was cool to see it but it was very predictable in those routes. Life Itself, the film tells yourself life itself. It's, life is very unpredictable and this film is kinda predictable towards the end but unpredictable in the beginning which is why I really appreciated it. There's a bunch of different stories in here that really do work out on separate stories but when they're trying to be connected it just feels very unreliable. And I didn't like that. I love the first half this part but once it starts getting to the back half as much as I appreciated and there was some good performances and I liked where it was going. If predictable, it felt very manipulative at times and I just don't think this is very much a good film. Since it's a hard film to recommend but maybe it's just me that felt this way because I'm just a guy going to see movies and seeing life itself, in a sense I feel like this is made for a certain audience that wants to get emotional and feel that manipulative stuff but that's not me. I don't like films like that and maybe I might be in the minority on this. Maybe there's a ton of people who love this film and in a sense this could be a crowd pleaser in some senses even though it's kinda depressing so I don't know how it would please crowds but I mean maybe crowds will go on droves to like this film because they do like this as us. I mean the film did not work out for me so with all that said I'm gonna give life itself Gotta hear your guys thoughts down below in the comments. Tell me are you guys excited for this film are you not excited or are you a fan of this as us? Let's talk about it. And if you guys are looking forward to this film I know it's out in some markets but mostly it should be going everywhere on September 20th that weekend so make sure to look out for it. I know in Arizona it will be out here but guys if you guys are new here hit up sandwich on films right down there cause right down there you guys can get into advanced movie screens, check out some movie news and even some movie reviews but of course guys until next time thank you guys so much for all the support and stay classy.