Bookshelf Battle

Yikes.  This movie was so bad I wanted to fling some monkey poop at the screen.

BQB here with a review of “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

Here’s my first observation – there wasn’t a war.  I mean, a war was on in the background but mainly, this film is a prison break picture.  They should have called it, “The Great Escape of the Planet of the Apes” because it’s basically “The Great Escape” meets “Planet of the Apes.”

The humans are in a civil war, as a rogue colonel (Woody Harrelson) has gone above and beyond with tactics that the other humans aren’t comfortable with, seeking to eradicate the apes altogether and going against any kind of hope for a peace between man and primate.

Ape leader Cesar goes on a mission to take out the colonel but soon learns the more pressing situation is that the colonel is holding tons of apes in captivity, forcing them to do hard labor in ape camps.  Even worse, the apes are not paid in bananas.  Some apes have grown so used to their oppression that they have become Uncle Tom apes, i.e. they jump whenever their human masters say jump.

Ergo, Cesar and ape friends hatch a scheme to break the apes out.  Therefore, it’s a prison break film and not really a war film.

The movie is long, cumbersome and it meanders all over the place.  At times, it is boring, especially in long scenes where CGI simians talk to each other using monkey sign language.

Also, there are things that are introduced that go nowhere.  For example, one of the monkeys saves a little girl and takes her on as his own daughter.  The moral is that sometimes you have to do the right thing even if it is beyond the norm, i.e. a monkey takes care of a human kid.  However, spoiler alert, we never learn what happens to the human kid by the end of the movie.

Overall, it’s a stinkfest.  While “Dawn” and “Rise” were decent, this end of the trilogy should hopefully end the ape movies for awhile.  I mean, at this point, they’re going to really need to come up with a kick ass idea to justify making another one of these things.

It’s just sad because I know how the conversation went down:

HOLLYWOOD SUIT #1 – Boy, we have a lot of creative, original scripts to choose from.

HOLLYWOOD SUIT #2 – Make another monkey movie.

It’s enough to drive a man bananas, 3.5 readers.

STATUS: Un-shelfworthy, a label I don’t apply lightly, but seriously, it is worthy of much monkey poop being flung at it.  A dumb end to a prequel series where the first two were pretty good.

I always hate it when Hollywood puts a handsome actor in ugly face.

BQB here with a review of the snoozefest that is “Gold.”

There’s gold in them there hills 3.5 readers…or is there?

Matthew McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, the heir of the respectable Washoe Mining Company, started by his grandfather and built into something by his father.  Alas, Kenny proves to not be as great as these men.  He’s a bit of a screw up, a total drunk, a loser, not that bright, balding, has a paunch belly and is kind of ugly.

But he tries.  He really tries.  Alas, failure follows him everywhere.  Just as the family business is about to collapse, he risks what little he has left on the highly speculative work of Mike Acosta (Edgar Ramirez), a prospector who is certain he has found a massive gold deposit in Indonesia.

In order to cash on in this find, Kenny will have to rustle up cash quick.  In order to keep it, he will have to fend off any number of 1980s Gordon Gecko style Wall Street robber barons.

Oh and he loves his wife, Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard).  As an ugly man with a hot wife, Kenny feels a constant need to impress his lady with his business and money making skills, yet sadly, too often turns a deaf ear to Kay’s entreaties that she doesn’t really want any of that, she just happy with his ugly, broke ass just the way it is.

Overall, the film moves slow and will likely put you to sleep.  I mean, there’s some lovely Indonesian landscapes, some interesting backroom deals, but ultimately, the film has the unenviable task of trying to explain how the mining business works and not only that, but to make it interesting.

I will say I took some knowledge from the film.  Mining is apparently a very tough and speculative business.  Mining companies can take samples, do studies, get a general hunch that a certain valuable substance might be in the ground somewhere, yet ultimately, they never know for sure until they start drilling and that requires raising obscene amounts of money without any sort of guarantee that the drilling will lead to anything.  Often, these digging expeditions go nowhere, leaving the investors without a pot to pee in.

I just wish that Hollywood would stop hiring good looking people to play uggos.  Somewhere out there, there was an actual ugly actor with real balding hair and a real ugly face and a real paunch belly who would have loved playing a down on his luck gold prospector.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy, but you know, if you miss it, you won’t miss much.  This is one of those Oscar light films where actors get together to show off their chops in the hopes that critical praise will be forthcoming.