Monthly Archives: July 2024

Jul 28 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

G’day 3.5 reader mates.

Time to throw a review on the barbie.

“Welcome to the MCU. You’ve come at a bad time.”

Such is Deadpool’s greeting to Wolverine and not a bad welcome to anyone who is just getting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days. What was once a great cinematic achievement i.e. Hollywood figuring out how to finagle multiple highly paid actors, writers and directors to get them to all tell stories that weaved their way into an over-arching narrative, it has since fizzled out into complete drek.

And it’s not the MCU alone. Movies in general are suffering. 3.5 readers, did you even notice that I didn’t even go to the movies for most of the month of June? Had this bad boy not come out, I probably would have skipped the popcorn for the entire month, which would have been great for my waistline, but I digress.

The good news is that this film is the best the MCU has offered in awhile and it fully makes fun of the fact that the last several installments have sucked really hard. I have to hand it to Disney for poking fun at themselves.

It also serves as a love letter to the early days of Marvel movies, those first entries in the late 90s and early 2000s, brought to us through Fox/Marvel collabs. If I name them then I will give away the many fun cameos so you’ll just have to go and watch yourself. If you were sentient during the Clinton/Bush years then you can already guess. It’s unfortunate these films often get panned when in reality, they were the canaries in the coal mine, the films that lighted the way that plotted the course toward the eventual MCU we came to know and love.

The plot? The merc with the mouth is back yet again and once again, he’s broken up with girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). So depressed is he after being turned down for a job with the Avengers that he hangs up his swords and goes to work selling used cars for a living. Sad as that sounds, he still eeks out a life with his friends, the regulars from the previous films who stop by but sadly don’t have much of a role in this one. Come to think of it, I’m going to criticize this movie because Deadpool’s friends like Dopinder, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Weasel and so on really made all the jokes come alive. Weasel isn’t even in this one.

But for the uninitiated, way back on the dewy slopes of 2009, Ryan Reynolds starred in a critically panned, total flop of a Wolverine movie that sucked really hard. The intention was that RR’s side character, Wade Wilson, would be developed into Deadpool in a standalone movie but the film sucked so bad that the idea of a Deadpool film was shelved for nearly a decade. In the Deadpool films that came later, Deadpool makes fun of that movie often, going so far as to make jokes about Hugh Jackman’s aussie accent and so on.

So the collab we’ve long waited for is finally here and it is a fun buddy cop type movie.

The bad news? It mostly focuses on the TVA and I freaking hate the TVA. To the film’s credit, even Deadpool hates the TVA, pointing out that you really needed to watch a specific episode of Loki to understand any of this shit. Marvel has gone really off the deep end when it comes to multi-versal theory, time travel and timelines and its all very silly and confusing, such that I don’t even attempt to try to understand any of it.

The overall problem? Wolverine is so important to our universe that because he died in 2018’s Logan, our universe is now disintegrating. Thus, it’s up to Deadpool to travel the many universes and find a suitable Wolverine to return to our timeline and help him save the day from the big bad and repair our timeline from certain doom.

POSITIVES: It’s a lot of fun. It’s the best Marvel has made in a while. It’s intent is to entertain whereas so many Marvel movies these days seem highly agenda driven. The fun trip down memory lane to characters from the early days of Marvel movies is great and done well.

NEGATIVES: I didn’t laugh as much at this one. There were a few good laughs but I recall watching Deadpool 1 and 2 and being in absolute gutbusting, tears in my eyes hysterics the entire time. That wasn’t the case for me, though I noticed many in the theater did, so maybe I’m just getting old and not getting the humor. The film did drag butts into seats, which is rare these days. My theater even had a guy in a Wolverine suit taking pics with customers which was fun.

Speaking of the Wolvy suit, Jackman wears the infamous yellow suit for the first time and its a nice touch. Deadpool, who breaks the 4th wall throughout, occasionally busting on Wolverine’s actor, dumps on Jackman for being too much of a priss to have not worn a bright yellow cartoon suit for the past 20 years.

This is Deadpool’s first foray into the Avengers universe. To the best of my nerd knowledge, Deadpool and Wolverine were classified as X-Men and were therefore owned by Fox and as such, were not allowed to go romping about with Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and other properties that went to Disney when the House of Mouse bought Marvel.

However, Disney has since bought Fox and now the X-Men and the Avengers can be BFFS on screen as they were in the comics. Problem is, those X-Men movies came out 20 some odd years ago and all those actors are getting long in the tooth. Hell, even some of the Avengers actors are getting up there. It might be time to reboot the whole enchilada, but Marvel seems determined to just keep the whole storyline going forever and just make old characters young through time travel, multi-verse theory and so on.

Personally, I don’t like seeing a movie with this much swearing and naughty jokes being released under the Disney name. I think Walt Disney’s head would be spinning in its cryo chamber. The Disney name really should mean wholesome family entertainment such that a rated R movie and Disney should never mix.

Does that mean Deadpool has to never be on screen again? I don’t know the logistics, but I wonder why he couldn’t have been released under the Fox brand or barring that, create a new brand for naughty comic book movies. It’s all a shell game, I suppose, if its all owned by Disney anyway but even so, I just don’t think a movie where bad guys get Wolverine claws shoved up their butts and worked like a puppet to semi-comedic effect should be released under the Disney brand.

Is this Disney’s first R rated movie? I don’t know enough of movie history but I think it has to be. If you know, let me know.

One last criticism. 2018’s Logan was so good that it was nominated for an Oscar. It was a sad but somber end, a fitting hero’s end to a long journey. A very long one indeed as Jackman holds the record for playing the same superhero in the most number of films for the longest period of time.

But I guess none of that matters now thanks to multi-verse theory and timeline travel because whatever serious consequences happen in one film, they can just be undone in another film. I’ll hand it to the film for making fun of this. It begins with Deadpool digging up Wolvy’s adamantium metal skeleton from the Logan movie and doing an impression of Jackman’s voice while making his skull talk. “Disney gave me a bunch of money to come back, mate!”

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. There’s a clip at the end that shows Jackman and some of the other actors/actresses in some of the early Fox/Marvel movies and they look so young. I was young then too. Amazing how time flies. This movie is gross and silly and like most Marvel movies as of late, relies way too much on time travel and multi-verse nonsense. But it is a good time so if you like this sort of thing, then go see it.

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Jul 18 2024
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TV

TV Review – Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)

What a stinkfest, 3.5 readers.

Let’s get this review over with.

If you’re a social media enthusiast like me, then you know there’s a lot of hate afoot for this show. The YouTube reviewers REALLY don’t like it. And honestly, they go way overboard. They’re basically hating hard on the show for attention, though I don’t deny their hate isn’t genuine or that the show hasn’t earned it.

But honestly, sometimes the reviews are a bit much. I watch these reviews and they’re like “OMG! THE ACOLYTE IS A FLAMING HOT DUMPSTER FIRE THAT SMELLS LIKE RAW SEWAGE, HOBO TURDS AND REFRIED MOLDY DOG VOMIT! AVERT YER EYES LEST YE PUKE YER GUTS ODD FROM THE HORRIFYING SIGHT!”

And then I watch it I’m like, well, no, while this show does suck, it doesn’t smell like hobo turds or dog vomit or anything. So its almost as if by going too far overboard, the reviewers do the show a service. When you go in expecting hot poop on a shingle and get served cold snot on a shingle, you’re relieved by the upgrade.

All that said, I give the show a solid C, and for most shows I’d say, eh, if you’ve got the time, feel free to waste it on a C. But when it comes to Star Wars, this brand is so beloved by fans that it really burns our biscuits to see anything produced that isn’t a solid A.

The first problem? Star Wars was very much a product of its time. George Lucas invented special effects that audiences of the late 70s and early 80s had never seen before, so it’s hard to recreate a moviegoing experience when people of that era thought they :::checks notes::: LITERALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE WITNESSING MAGIC COME ALIVE ON SCREEN!!!

Flash forward some 40 years later, and we’ve been CGI-ed up the wazoo. We’ve seen it all and we’re so jaded little surprises us anymore. We expect good writing to go along with our CGI fest, which is a challenge for Star Wars, given that it is a story about space wizards who fight aliens and robots with laser swords and push stuff around with magic. Also difficult is that the property is primarily geared toward children and must be produced with children in mind, yet middle aged and even downright elderly fans will scream like stuck pigs if the stories don’t come with some adult sized depth.

Alright, all those challenges aside, Disney is one of the greatest entertainment companies in the world, right? They got this, right? No. Not as such.

Disney has been pissing Star Wars fans off a lot the past few years. It began with Last Jedi, where Luke was turned from hero into crusty old blue milk drinking depressive head case. It carried on in Season 3 of Mando, which took the great success of the first two seasons and pooped on them by turning the third season into a 70s variety act where any asshole in Hollywood could stop by for a cameo. No, Star Wars fans did not want to see a planet run by Lizzo and Jack Black.

There were other offenses, too numerous to mention. The force being turned into a magic “do it all” button with no rhyme or reason. There used to be rules to the force. Now if some character wants to do anything, the force just does it, and dweeby ass purists like yours truly who live and breathe this shit because we haven’t touched a woman in ages get pissed because if we’re just ignoring rules now, then why bother watching?

And don’t even get me started on the lightsaber stabbings that characters just walk away from…except sometimes they don’t. It’s a freaking sword that burns hotter than lava yet sometimes people survive getting gutted by one (I’m no medical scientist but I’m pretty sure a blade that hot would cauterize your intestines and cause you to fart fire out your asshole but that’s just my theory) but if the character needs to live, that a lightsaber stab is like a scratch that you just walk off.

Don’t even get me double started on all the chicks. I’m all for women in sci-fi but sometimes Disney has cast so many women and so few men that it’s like the only thing the Empire and Rebels can agree on is a hiring freeze on anyone with a weiner.

Don’t even get me triple started on Kenobi and…you know what? This is a Acolyte review, so let’s get to it.

The story is a Jedi semi-police procedural or Law and Order: Star Wars Unit, if you will. If, like me, you assumed that veteran sci-fi actress Carrie Ann Moss of Matrix’s Trinity fame would save this drek, you thought wrong, because her ass gets got in the first five minutes and from there on, the Jedi of the High Republic Era rush to solve the mystery of who killed her character, Master Indara.

Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae of Squid Game fame) leads a team with Jedis Yord (Charlie Bartlett) and Jecki (Dafne Keen, who you might remember as a young Wolverine protege in 2017’s Logan except she’s all grown up now.)

They investigate and arrest ex-Jedi Osha, at first assuming she committed the crime, but we quickly discover that her long assumed dead twin sister, Mae, is in fact, very much alive. Both sisters are played by Amandla Stenberg.

Mae is on a quest to hunt more Jedi, with the assistance of the red saber wielding, smiley masked “Stranger” and ally Qimir in tow. It’s up to the Jedi to stop Mae from killing their BFFs and unravel the mystery of why Mae wants them all outta the picture.

And honestly, that write up I just presented to you makes it sound way better than it is. I thought about explaining more, but I’ll let you watch it, if you choose to do so. There’s really no wrong answer to the question of if you should. You might like to watch it just to see what all the fuss is about or to critique it or to crap all over it. Some of you might actually like it. Truthfully, there were some parts I actually did enjoy but you know what they say. Every poop has some corn.

For example, characters like Sol, Jecki, and Qimir were pretty fabulous and I would have loved to see them in a better project. All the actors did their best with what they were given, even Amandla Stenberg. IMO she didn’t deserve all the negativity the reviewers gave her. And I believe all the stars will find this to be their breakout role with more roles to come.

I do understand the online criticism. Producer Leslye Headland was pretty vocal in interviews about hiring writers who knew very little about Star Wars and it shows. To Star Wars fans, this is the equivalent of hiring a non-doctor who has never even read a medical text book before to do your spleen surgery. Add to that, Stenberg saying Star Wars fans are gay (pretty sure she was just joking around, guys) and Bartlett confusing Luke with Anakin when it comes to the destroyer of the original Death Star and you had a team that just gave an overall impression that they didn’t really care about the world they were trusted with.

Does it sound silly? Maybe. Until you hire someone to work on your house and they have no idea what a hammer is, don’t know how to work a power drill, openly admit they’ve never fixed a house before….this is your beloved house, you’d get annoyed, wouldn’t you?

So ultimately, you had a team that didn’t know a lot about Star Wars and boy did it ever show. Long established rules and canon are thrown out the window and OK, if you’re not one of those nerds who is going to run to twitter and bitch about where a certain alien has three antennae or four, I get it, but even within the show itself, there’s just a lot of silliness, goofiness, and overall absurdity when it comes to the quality of the writing. Plotholes galore.

What are the problems? Too many to list but ultimately, it descends into a “oppressive cops got it wrong” tale. There are lesbian space witches afoot. They prefer to call the force the thread, a different space culture of force users entirely. The Jedi see them as a cult and fear they are abusing Osha and Mae and they need to be taken away and put under the Jedi order’s protection for their own safety.

Sounds like a really horrible abuse of authority…until the show goes out of its way to make the lesbian space witches do all manner of horrible things such that if you were a Jedi, you might say “eff this lesbian space witches” and whip out your lightsaber and fight them to save the children to.

Of course, and not to give it away but I guess I will, all the “bad things” are misunderstandings and the sights the Jedi saw and thought were horrible weren’t really but, you know, holy shit, if you were in the Jedi’s position and saw what you saw, you can’t really blame them so…ultimately I suppose its all an allegory for allegations of police brutality, because god knows that’s something every single last fan was clamoring to see in a Star Wars show.

I could go on. There are some dumb science mistakes and I know, it’s a show about space wizards but holy shit, just things like a crackling campfire in space. What the fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.

I could rant for days but I’ll leave you with this. Imagine there’s a new Sex in the City Movie and all you lady readers who are into that sort of thing go to see it with 3.5 of your gal pals. It opens with Carrie and her friends drinking mimosas at brunch, about to dish the latest hot goss on the men they are seeing when…KABOOM! A fuckin’ tank blows up the side of a bank building and a hundred ninjas pour out. The ninjas run inside and karate kick the guards and steal all the cash bags but are instantly foiled when a renegade team of big swingin’ dick mercenary commandos show up on the scene and what? Where’s Carrie and the girls you ask? Fuck ’em, this is an action movie now, because I wrote it and you gals need to like it, you bigots.

What’s that you say? A female rom com written to appeal to male action enthusiasts is a stupid idea and everyone involved should be fired and made to wear a dunce cap? True. That’s probably why it never happens and yet, for some strange reason, Hollywood absolutely refuses to stop gearing action movies toward women.

Oh well. I suppose the all lady audience for movies about space wizards fighting aliens and robots will show up someday if you give them another 20 years.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I’m tired of all this seemingly endless trend to make the Jedi the bad guy. I get it. You gotta do something different but this isn’t different. They’ve done it a thousand times. We want to root for the Jedi. We don’t want them to be the bad guys.

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Jul 15 2024
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Trump: Many Men (By KD Animator)

I try not to get political on this fine blog. That’s why my twitter is for, although I used to try not to get political on twitter but I couldn’t help it. But it’s not like anyone ever read my blog or my twitter anyway.

But I just wanted to wish the former POTUS a speedy recovery for his injured ear. Everyone needs to tone it down.

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Jul 09 2024
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Movies

Movie Review: Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1 (2024)

Get along, little 3.5 dawgies.

BQB here with a review of this old west epic.

The good? Thanks to the success of Yellowstone, the old west epic is back and Kevin Costner is striking while the iron is hot. This is the first of several planned movies that take place before, during and after the Civil War.

Style wise, it is beautiful with lots of great scenery and landscapes. At times, you feel like you’re in the Old West yourself. There’s attention to detail and authenticity. There’s no Netflixian cramming of uber woke lesbians fighting the patriarchy in the old west here.

The bad? It’s long. Heck, I went to my local theater at 6, thinking I’d be out the door by 8 and to my surprise, I didn’t get out until ten. Keep in mind there were previews and so on but at any rate, this sucker is a three hour plus commitment.

Costner is the main draw, featured prominently in all the trailers and marketing, yet he doesn’t enter the film until an hour in. This pissed me off at first until I realized how damn long the thing is and eventually, he was in it long enough that I didn’t feel bamboozled.

There are several competing plot strains and at times, it is difficult to keep them all straight. They all seem to center around Horizon, a town that a crooked real estate swindler sold shares to without telling the buyers that its smack dab in the middle of Apache territory and boy howdy, are the Apache ever pissed. The beginning features a rather gruesome Apache attack on a town full of settlers. From there, the narrative diverges into a number of points. There’s a mother (Sienna Miller) and daughter who survive the attack and are taken in by soldiers at a nearby fort overseen by Sam Worthington and Michael Rooker.

Meanwhile, there’s a difference of opinion amongst the Apache as to how to handle the settlers. The youngsters are pissed and see that their ability to hunt and trade has been destroyed. They want to push the settlers out, through violence if necessary. But the old gray hairs know the cost of violence is a pricey one and they advise suing for peace.

Double meanwhile, Costner’s wandering horse trader, Hayes Ellison, gets involuntarily mixed up in a dispute between a former prostitute who shot a john and his sons who want revenge. Hayes and the prostitute’s BFF Marigold (Abbey Lee) go on the run to protect the lady of the evening’s infant son.

Triple meanwhile, a wagon train heads for Horizon led by an ornery captain played by Luke Wilson. Snooty Brits under his care clash with the rough and tough pioneer folk.

Quadruple meanwhile, while some of the survivors of the Horizon massacre seek peace, others fan the flames of war by hiring a band of mercenaries led by Jeff Fahey (Jeff Freaking Fahey I haven’t seen him in a movie in years!) to retaliate against the Apache.

I sympathize with the question asked by many a reviewer of this film. Where the hell are all these storylines going and when or will they ever converge? I have no idea and the problem is at times, as you watch it, just when you settle in on one story line, you get pushed into another one. This could have just as easily been one movie about an Apache raid on a settler town and the ensuing fallout as Apache and settlers diverge on whether to go deeper into a bloodier, protracted war or to let cooler heads prevail and choose peace.

It could have just as easily been a movie about a horse trader who sticks up for a prostitute in danger and suddenly finds himself on the run with a baby and a hooah in tow and a bunch of villains chasing after him.

It could have just as easily been a movie about a wagon train.

My assumption is that all these people will eventually go to or away from Horizon. Horizon starts out as a real estate swindle but becomes the epitome of the American dream – pioneers seeking land and fighting for it against all odds.

In today’s political climate, I’m surprised this movie was made. It’s bold that it celebrates the pioneers and their spirit, putting on full display the deadly challenges of life in the old west. Pretty much any other movie made by a streaming service would go out of its way to make the pioneers look like villains.

To the film’s credit, it shows both sides, and while it starts out showing the Apache as violent, we later see the struggles and displacement that led to them to choose violence.

So the overall question: should you watch it? If the old west is your bag, then yes. I’m not sure I’d advise a trip the cinema. Although the scenery and vistas are pretty awesome and at times it feels like you’re riding around the desert with the cowboys (and if that’s your bag then by all means, buy a movie ticket) but otherwise, I think this would have worked better as 3-4 episodes of a series than a movie and if you wait for it to be on streaming, then you can pause it and watch it at your leisure.

Costner is promising more installments and all I can say is I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll definitely watch them but so far the reviews and box office results aren’t stellar and that might mean future sequels aren’t certain. But hey, if you like Westerns, then support this project any way you can and let’s hope there’s more.

Speaking of unfinished projects, it bums me out that Costner and the Yellowstone showrunners haven’t patched their differences up yet, leaving that show in limbo and I’m now doubting if we’ll ever see a resolution to the last season’s cliffhanger. I would have liked to see Costner focus on that before starting an ambitious project like this.

One more note. At times, I’m not sure who this movie is for. Sometimes it has overtones of a glorified Hallmark movie, the kind my parents would have loved, you know, nice people behaving well in olden times. But then just when you get used to that, boom! Blam! Arrrgh! Shooting! Stabbing! Fire! Death! Murder! Gore! Swearing! And yes, even sex! The movie definitely earns its R rating, which a bum like me is fine with, but I feel like its primary audience is Grandma and Grandpa who may not be happy with that.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.

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Jul 06 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

Dun dun da da dun dun dun.

BQB here with a review of ::: checks notes::: the latest sequel where one of our 1980s hero characters is brought back as a senior citizen to ride again.

You know, 3.5 readers, Hollywood sure has been keeping a lot of properties born in the 1980s artificially alive well into the 2020s, well past their prime, if you ask me. I liken it to burying your dead cat in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. You miss your kitty, so off you go to the cursed burial ground. You put your furry pal in, hoping he’ll live again, but what you get back is nothing like your fuzzy BFF. Instead, its a gross, disgusting, pathetic simulation, a terrible horror, frankly a crime against God and humanity that all you want to do is look away, beat it to death with a shovel and curse yourself for wanting it to live again.

That’s because, like your deceased kitty kat, these movies and franchises were products of their time. Star Wars was hot in the 1970s and 80s because the special effects were unlike anything movie goers had ever seen, and it had themes of defeating an evil empire and keeping the world in the light and from descending into darkness – like America had just defeated an evil empire in Nazi Germany thirty years earlier, and was trying to defeat an evil empire in Russia at the time and would eventually do so. Forty years later, art imitates life, so Star Wars has descended into nonsense about lesbian space witches, but I digress.

I could discuss why many films belong in the 80s and shouldn’t be resurrected for a time that doesn’t understand them, but we’re here to talk about the Beverly Hills Cop Franchise, which IMO jumped way over the shark when Axel investigated an evil amusement park in the third installment in the 1990s such that I’m surprised Hollywood decided to do a fourth now but as Yogurt from Spaceballs reminds us, there’s always a quest for more money.

So, my first question is why did Paramount hand this off to Netflix? Paramount has its own Paramount Plus streaming platform and I feel like this would have attracted a lot of viewers. I had a sub for a year and enjoyed watching a lot of Paramount stuff, like the old Star Trek movies, and Yellowstone, Maverick, the Fatal Attraction series (another dead cat in the Pet Sematary if you will) and so on.

I let my sub lapse but I would have renewed it to watch this because I like Eddie Murphy that much. So who knows? Netflix made the best deal I suppose.

In this installment, Axel heads to Beverly Hills where his estranged daughter Jane is a lawyer, under fire for representing a man falsely accused of a drug related murder. When his old pal Billy Rosewood calls Axel to let him know his daughter is in hot water, Axel is on the first plane to Beverly Hills, his old stomping grounds where he previously upset the status quo in this fancy schmancy uber rich town twice and/or three times if you count part three while dragging around his local cop buddies Rosewood and Taggart (John Ashton who honestly, I thought he died long ago so I was pleasantly surprised to see him still alive.)

Along the way, Axel teams up with Jane’s cop ex boyfriend Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) to take down a cabal of corrupt cops led by the top corrupt cop (Kevin Bacon). Don’t forget, Axel is from Detroit, so an opening scene checks in with his old cop buddy Friedman (Paul Reiser.)

So, whats the good? This movie has a lot of action. A lot. 1980s style action. A lot of car chases and crashes. Gun fights. Even a helicopter chase.

Eddie Murphy is remarkably well preserved. Whereas other 1980s icons bringing their stuff back in modern times (Harrison Ford, Sly Stallone) look like they are ready for the nursing home, Eddie, IMO, for an old timer, looks not that far from his younger self. It just doesn’t feel like you’re watching a geriatric running around, although I suppose you are.

The bad? Sadly, everyone else looks like they’re 1000. To the film’s credit, all the supporting characters are either in upper police management or moved on. They’d be happily spending their golden years waxing a desk chair with their butts if Axel hadn’t dragged them back into the shit. Friedman and Taggart are upper management in Detroit and Beverly Hills while Rosewood has left the force to become a private investigator.

The funny trio of Axel, Rosewood and Taggart was what made the first two films smash comedy hits. Taggart was a grizzled old prick who never wanted to deviate from procedure. Rosewood was young and trying to follow Taggart’s lead, but had a comical bloodlust such that once he got hold of a little firepower, turned into Rambo and started wildly shooting at the bad guys with any big, bad guns he could get his hands on with reckless disregard to his safety. Axel would drag these two nerds kicking and screaming into the breach.

And of course, Axel would rely on Eddie’s comedian skills to bluff his way into places he shouldn’t be, taking on all manner of silly accents and roleplays, conning his way behind closed doors.

While Taggart and Rosewood have key roles, they are, alas too old to be at the center of the action so the movie fails to recreate that fun 1980s buddy cop vibe they once had. They try by pairing Axel with Leavitt’s Bobby and they have some good moments but it isn’t the same.

Here’s my number one complaint. Apparently, all of our beloved 1980s heroes, when they are dragged back into modern times, have to be old trainwrecks, estranged from their wives and children. They did it with Han and Indy and Luke and now, Axel is divorced (he wasn’t married in the originals if I recall correctly) and his daughter hates him for letting his job come between him and his family. And by hate him I mean really hate him. Axel and Jane work the case and she is kvetching at him the entire movie and can’t give the guy a break for a second. Like seriously, the guns are blazing. The bullets are flying overhead and this chick is like, “Waah, you were never there for me, Dad, waaah.” WTF.

Look, I get that from a writing perspective, an older character being washed up can create great drama. I just wonder why Hollywood writers couldnt have said, hey we’ve done this so many times with so many other resurrected 80s characters that why can’t we give Axel a wife and a kid that actually like him? Would that be terrible? I don’t think so.

Bronson Pinchot returns as his classic Serge character but its 2024 so of course, Serge gets a lecture on how his Serge-ness might be considered offensive. I guess that was the price of allowing Bronson to be grandfathered in on doing a character with a foreign accent.

And whereas Axel fought criminals and crooks in the earlier films, today he takes on corrupt cops because, cops are evil right? The movie goes out of its way to reflect the current climate where cops aren’t too popular but Hollywood would do well to remember that cops aren’t despised everywhere in America and you know, criminals still exist so I don’t know why Axel couldn’t have been sent after some legit villains here.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’ll give it credit in that its better than a lot of other sequels that breathed fresh life into old stuff but sometimes I wonder why Hollywood doesn’t look at what makes these movies great and rather than say “we can grandfather it in because its an old franchise” just apply it to new stuff. The car chases are awesome. The action is awesome. The gunfights are awesome. Just put more of that in new movies with younger actors. You don’t need Eddie and Arnie and Sly and Harrison to carry your water forever.

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