Movie: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) Caution Spoiler Alert

 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Came out; 2017

Time; 1 hours 55 Minutes

Watched: HBO Max

Rated: R for violence, language throughout and some sexual references

IMDB Rating; 8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes:

Tomato Meter 90%

Popcorn Meter 87%

Caution; Spoiler Alert

Staring;

Frances McDormand as Mildred

Woody Harrelson as Willoughby

Sam Rockwell as Dixon

Caleb Landry Jones as Red Welby

Sandy Martin as Momma Dixon

Peter Dinklage as James

Story Line;

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a dark comedy/crime drama from Academy Award nominee, Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner, Frances McDormand) makes a bold move; she rents three billboards leading into her town, each with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby (Academy Award nominee, Woody Harrelson), the town's revered chief of police. And when Jason Dixon (Academy Award winner, Sam Rockwell), one of Willoughby's officers--an immature mama's boy with a penchant for alcohol and violence--gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated

Thoughts:

She's credited in the very bottom, but Samara Weaving has a small part in this movie which she nails. She is the reason why this movie was even on our radar

In light of the subject matter this movie was funny and series at the same time.

It had such a “bad thing happened in a small town” feel, where the police aren't great at solving “real” crimes.

CAUTION; Spoiler Alert

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is grieving the sexual assault and murder of her teenage daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton) seven months prior. Angry over the lack of progress in the investigation, she rents three abandoned billboards near her home, which in sequence read "R***D WHILE DYING", "AND STILL NO ARRESTS?", and "HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?" The 3 Billboards are right next to the road as it enters the town of Ebbing, one after the other. It is impossible for anyone entering the town not to see the Billboards or what is written on them. The Billboards had been last rented out in 1986.

Mildred approaches Red, the owner of the Billboards and understands the laws around what can or cannot be said on the Billboards. She rests the Billboards for a year and pays Red $5000 as rent for the first month.

The billboards upset the townspeople, including Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and racist officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). They attract attention, so Bill Willoughby, the local chief of police, visits Mildred, but is unable to persuade her to take them down, even by revealing he has terminal pancreatic cancer.

Willoughby is a good man, but Mildred is not willing to let the matter slide. Willoughby says that he cannot do anything as the DNA found on Angela's body does not match any known criminal nationwide and there is not even a single eyewitness. Mildred wants the DNA of every person in the town tested to find the killer. Willoughby says that citizen civil rights do not allow for that, and the killer could also simply be passing by the town. He renews his efforts to solve the case but does not get anywhere.

Many townspeople are upset by the billboards, including Jason Dixon. Mildred and her depressed son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) are harassed and threatened, but she stays firm, to Robbie's chagrin. Robbie is subjected to bullying at school on account of the Billboards. Father Montgomery (Nick Searcy) admonishes Mildred for abandoning church and says that the whole town supports her on Angela, but nobody supports her in her campaign against Willoughby. Mildred accuses Montgomery of being culpable for the actions of the Church (including priests having underage sex with boys), and compared the Church to a street gang and a club where the members protect each other.

While Willoughby is sympathetic to Mildred's frustration, he finds the billboards an unfair attack on his character. Angered by Mildred's lack of respect for his authority, Dixon threatens Red (Caleb Landry Jones), who rented her the billboards, and arrests her friend and coworker, Denise (Amanda Warren), on trivial marijuana-possession charges.

The billboards have further strained Mildred's relationship with her son, Robbie, and she recalls that her last interaction with Angela was an argument (during which she lashed back by saying she "hoped she was sexually assaulted"). Her abusive ex-cop ex-husband Charlie ((John Hawkes) confronts her about the billboards and ends up revealing that, shortly before Angela's murder, he had turned down her request to come live with him. Charlie blames Mildred for their daughter's death.

Mildred's dentist is sympathetic to Willoughby and menaces her during an appointment (by trying to extract her tooth without any painkillers), so she drills a hole in his thumbnail. Willoughby brings her in for questioning. Milred maintains that she did not attack the dentist and that his hand slipped and he injured himself. During the interview, Willoughby coughs up blood. He has her released and is hospitalized. He leaves the hospital against medical advice and spends an idyllic day with his wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and daughters, before committing suicide to spare his family from watching him die slowly.

Before his death, Willoughby wrote several letters, including one to Mildred. Anne delivers it, interrupting an unknown man who was menacing Mildred at work. In the letter, Willoughby tells Mildred that she was not a factor in his suicide, asserts he was dedicated to finding Angela's killer and reveals he secretly paid to keep the billboards up another month.

Dixon reacts to the news of Willoughby's death by assaulting Red Welby and his assistant. This is witnessed by Willoughby's replacement, Abercrombie (Clarke Peters), who fires him.

The billboards are destroyed by arson. Mildred retaliates by tossing Molotov cocktails at the police station, which she believes is unoccupied for the night. However, Dixon is there to read a letter left for him by Willoughby, advising him to let go of hate and learn to love as the only way to realize his wish to become a detective. Dixon escapes with Angela's case files, suffering severe burns.

Mildred's acquaintance James (Peter Dinklage) witnesses the incident and provides Mildred with an alibi, claiming they were on a date. Dixon is put in the same hospital room as Red, to whom he apologizes.

Discharged from the hospital, Dixon overhears the man who threatened Mildred bragging in a bar of an incident similar to Angela's murder. He notes the Idaho license plate number of the man's vehicle, then scratches the man's face to get a DNA sample, passively accepting the resulting beating. At home, he removes a sample of the man's DNA.

Meanwhile, Mildred goes on a date to thank James for the alibi. Charlie enters with his 19-year old girlfriend Penelope (Samara Weaving), and admits to burning the billboards. Mildred instructs Charlie to treat Penelope well and leaves. Unnerved that she retaliated against the wrong target, Mildred abruptly calls off the date, but James misinterprets her decision as embarrassment to be seen with him and leaves the restaurant incensed.

Abercrombie informs Dixon that the DNA sample is not a match and the man was overseas on military duty at the time of Angela's death. Dixon gives Mildred the disappointing news and, believing the man to be guilty of some other sexual assault, the pair plan a trip to Idaho to kill him. As they set out, Mildred confesses that she set the police station on fire, which Dixon had already assumed. They both express uncertainty about their mission, but Mildred says they can decide what to do along the way

Sources

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Movie: The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Caution Spoiler Alert

 

The Fantastic Four: Final Steps

Came out; 2025

Time; 1 hours 55 Minutes

Watched: Disney Plus

Rated: PG-13 for action/violence and some language

IMDB Rating; 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes:

Tomato Meter 86%

Popcorn Meter 90%

Caution; Spoiler Alert

Staring;

Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards

Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm

Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm

Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm

Ralph Ineson as Galactus

Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal ~ Silver Surfer

Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman

Story Line;

Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic herald, then Silver Surfer. And if Galactus' plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren't bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal

Thoughts:

I really liked the Gothic, Tim Burton style feels of this one

It also reminded me of the movie The Incredible s with the superhero's cast out

It was both original movies in one with some different story lines mixed in

It wasn't bad, the graphics were good but the CGI for Ben looked weird

CAUTION; Spoiler Alert

On Earth-828 in 1964, the world celebrates the fourth anniversary of astronauts Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm becoming the superhero team known as the Fantastic Four after they gained superhuman abilities from exposure to cosmic rays during a space mission. Since then, the team have become celebrities and fought supervillains, while Reed's inventions have progressed technology and Sue's diplomacy via the Future Foundation has led to demilitarization and peace for much of the world. When Reed and Sue reveal that they are expecting a child, the world prepares for the new arrival and questions whether the child will also have superpowers.

Months later, the Silver Surfer comes to Earth and declares that it has been marked for destruction by Galactus, a planet-devouring cosmic being. Reed studies the disappearance of other planets and verifies this claim, and the team decides to return to space to stop Galactus from coming to Earth. They track the Silver Surfer's energy signature and, using faster-than-light (FTL) travel, arrive at a new planet just as it is destroyed by Galactus's ship. The team is captured and brought to Galactus, who reveals that he has an insatiable hunger that has driven him to consume planets for eons. Galactus senses that Reed and Sue's unborn child has an immense cosmic power and could take on his hunger, freeing himself from it. He offers to spare Earth in exchange for the child, and induces Sue to go into labor. The team refuses the offer and escapes from the ship. Using the gravity from a neutron star, which destroys their FTL system, the team delays the chasing Silver Surfer and propels themselves back to Earth. Sue gives birth to a boy, Franklin, on the way.

On their return to Earth a month later, Reed reveals the details of their encounter during a press conference. Their decision to save one child over the billions of other people on Earth leads to a public outcry, with many calling for Franklin to be sacrificed to Galactus. Johnny begins to decipher the Silver Surfer's native language using his interactions with her and some deep space transmissions Reed intercepted from her planet. They also have transmissions from planets that Galactus destroyed. As Galactus draws near and protests against the Fantastic Four escalate, Sue takes Franklin to meet with protesters. She explains that they will not sacrifice their child, but they will also not give up on the rest of humanity, regaining public trust. Using a teleportation system that he has been working on, Reed devises a plan to build large teleportation bridges across Earth so they can transport the entire planet to another solar system where Galactus cannot reach them. Through the Future Foundation, Sue organizes the world's nations to build the bridges and conserve the energy needed to use them.

As the bridges are being activated, the Silver Surfer returns and begins destroying them. Johnny stops her from destroying the last bridge in Times Square and reveals what he learned from the transmissions: her name is Shalla-Bal and she became Galactus's herald to spare her world, Zenn-La. Hearing transmissions from planets she helped destroy, Shalla-Bal expresses remorse but refuses to help and flees. Using Franklin as bait, the team plans to lure Galactus to the last bridge and teleport him away. Sue negotiates with Harvey Elder to evacuate New York City's citizens to Subterranea, his underground city. Galactus makes his way through the city and captures Franklin, avoiding the trap. Sue uses all of her power to push him towards the portal with a force field while Reed rescues Franklin. Johnny attempts to sacrifice himself to give Galactus a final push into the portal, but is stopped by Shalla-Bal. She pushes Galactus into the portal herself and it closes behind them. Sue dies from her efforts, but is revived by Franklin. The team later goes on a new mission as the world celebrates their fifth anniversary.

In a mid-credits scene set four years later, Sue is reading to Franklin at home and goes to get a different book. She returns to see him interacting with a man in a green cloak who is holding a metal mask

Sources

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