Dec 17 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Red One (2024)

Red One? More like Poop Two. Am I right?

Sigh. Let’s get the review of this stinkburger with extra turd fries over with.

“Of all the movies I’ve ever seen, this was certainly one.” I can’t take credit for that line because I read it on Twitter and the name of the quoted escapes me and I’m too lazy to look it up, just like the writers of this flick were too lazy to write a good movie.

When the trailer hit, I was looking forward to it. It looked like a fun spoof on the spy movie genre with a Christmas theme. Alas, when my butt hit the seat of my local theater, I immediately realized the problem, namely, that this movie took itself WAY, WAY, WAYYYYYYYYY to seriously. Imagine a Jason Bourne type film where spies engage in cloak and dagger espionage to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus but there’s little to no humor and the occasional jokes rarely land.

Yep. I couldn’t wait for the flick to be over. The worst part is, two weeks later its already available on streaming media and that’s where it belongs, because it’s the type of movie best enjoyed while it’s on your TV in the background while you’re cleaning your house, or on a tiny cell phone screen while you’re on the toilet taking a dump, which is what this movie is.

The plot? The Rock stars in the only movie he couldn’t save as Callum Drift, the leader of Santa’s (JK Simmons) security detail. He’s one day from retirement, because he’s lost his passion for the job. The world has become a cesspool of way too many naughty people care only about the material gain of Christmas instead of the spirit of giving. Santa understands Callum’s theory but disagrees with the execution, for he believes in a time when everyone is a self-absorbed jerkface, now is the time when people need Santa more than ever. TBH, this theme is the most redeeming part of an otherwise forgettable movie.

When infamous cyber hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) is hired anonymously to track down highly secured intel, he didn’t realize the result would be the real life Santa would be kidnapped by yuletide baddies. In fact, Jack is shocked to realize Santa even exists, which is the classic plot hole of any movie where Santa exists, because where do people who are shocked to realize Santa exists think all those presents are coming from?

Anyway, Callum is pissed and forces O’Malley into aiding him on Santa’s rescue mission. They work for Zoe (Lucy Liu) the head of a spy agency designed to protect and/or monitor the fantasy world including various holiday mascots. Personally, I wondered if this part of the flick was just useless filler or if the producers hope more holiday spy movies are underway and if it’s the latter, I wouldn’t hold my breathe for a spies rescue the Easter Bunny flick given this film’s performance.

Callum and Jack navigate a Christmasy criminal underworld as they fight various ne’er-do-wells on the path toward saving our favorite man in red velvet. Had they done this with some humor, this movie might have become a beloved classic, but they do it seriously, so it will just take up space on your favorite streaming platform’s server. Maybe you’ll stream it next year while your scrub your toilet. Then you can actually sit on the couch and take a break while you watch It’s a Wonderful Life.

Kristofer Hivju of Game of Thrones fame is in it as Krampus though by the time he showed up I was checking my watch and debating whether or not it was worth it to leave early. Ultimately, I stayed because I’d already bought a ticket, but I suppose there’s room for debate about the sunken cost fallacy.

Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men and Sabrina the Teenage Witch Reboot fame rounds out the cast as the big bad.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I watched it so you don’t have to. Who is this movie for? Your guess is good as mine. It’s too serious for kids to enjoy but too silly for adults so ultimately it’s for people to listen to while its on their TV in the background while they do the laundry.

SIDENOTE: The worst part? The film’s price tag. $250 million for a film that is utterly forgettable.

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Dec 16 2024
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Movie Review – Wicked (2024)

This post is defying gravity! La la la, defying gravity!

Let’s delve into the magic, shall we, 3.5 readers?

Well, it’s official. Wicked is a hit. So much so that it took me 3 weeks to get a ticket to see it at my local theater or any theater within reasonable driving distance. I only got a ticket this weekend because I thought ahead and bought it last week. In a time when theaters are at risk of going the way of the dodo, it’s great to see a film that puts butts in seats.

It’s primary fanbase? Females and families. Moms and daughters were singing along to the tunes that have become modern classics and producers would do well to take notes about what motivates the public to buy a ticket vs. waiting to stream at home.

Power, power and power. How do we get it? How do we hold onto it? You wouldn’t expect to learn so much about the nature of power in a movie based on a Broadway play based on a novel that serves as a prequel to one of the most beloved children’s stories of all the time – The Wizard of Oz, be it the original 1800s novel by L. Frank Baum or the beloved 1939 film starring Judy Garland.

Alas, as it turns out, the politics behind the land located somewhere over the rainbow are intense. The Wicked Witch of the West, the green skinned OG baddie of film whose black leather boots other movie villains aren’t worthy to lick, was just a scapegoat all along.

The story follows Elphaba (Cynthia Errivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande) in their early years at Shiz University, the place where Ozians go to learn all things magic under the tutelage of headmistress, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh.)

Elphaba has spent her entire life despised by all, from her classmates to her family, over the color of her green skin. It’s no different at Shiz, as she quickly descends to the lowest of social ranks while pretty and perky Galinda rises to the top. They become roommates and eventually, BFFS, until fantasy land politics drive them apart.

Literal scapegoating is at play as society starts pinning all the blame for the land of Oz’s ills at the feet or uh, paws and hooves, of talking animals. Humans want animals to stop talking and just bleat, bark, moo and cluck. Elphaba feels for them, in particular, goat professor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) whereas Galinda, a pro at being popular as the song goes, just wants to rise through the ranks and obtain power, fame and yes, love from the masses and she can’t do that by going against the grain.

And so, a power struggle begins worthy of a political science classroom discussion. When any conflict arises, you can be an Elphaba and take the morally right but politically unpopular stance and become hated and despised by society. You can be one of the blind followers like so many residents of Oz who tow the line and do and believe as they are told without further introspection. Or you can be a Galinda, who knows the status quo is wrong but really, what can you do about it, so why rock the boat when you can just be pretty and smile and go along with the flow and collect all the benefits of being a goody two-shoes?

I suppose you as a member of the Oz fandom can pick and choose what you believe, which ironically, happens a lot to many of the characters in this tale. Truth is a matter of perspective, a lesson apparently known in the 1990s when the book that started it all (the long running Broadway play and now the movie) was written, and it certainly has never been more true in today’s social media age. But at any rate, if you want to believe the Wicked Witch of the West was indeed little more than a nasty, vile beatch on wheels who lived to oppress the Ozians with her villainous ways, then you can. But if you want to accept that Wicked is cannon and believe that said witch was just a victim of social injustice who was unfairly lambasted for taking a heroic stand on talking animal rights, you can too.

Cynthia Errivo really can belt out a tune and she’s beautiful, so honestly, I don’t get the marketing where she’s showing up to interviews bald with a big ass nose ring, but I suppose she likes that look and in the spirit of the film, we shouldn’t scapegoat her for it although I could write an entire separate post complaining about the weird trend of women putting rings in their schnozes.

Ariana Grande has long wowed young audiences as a pop star sensation but this is her first starring role and she nails it. This was the role she (and other past Galindas) was born for – perky, charming, popular and only inadvertently evil.

And of course it wouldn’t be a movie with an eccentric dude in charge of everything with weird ways without Jeff Goldblum.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. This movie was only part 1 and alas we’ll be waiting awhile for part 2. There’s a reason this story formed the basis for one of the longest running and beloved Broadway shows of all time. It has a lot of heart and if you’ve ever been unfairly picked on then you’ll identify with Elphaba’s struggle. Wicked puts butts in seats, whether those butts are on Broadway or in a theater near you, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

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Nov 03 2024
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Movie Review – Absolution (2024)

He’s got a particular set of skills…if only he could remember them.

BQB here with a review of the latest Liam Neeson flick.

About 15 years ago, Liam Neeson had a surprise hit with “Taken” and thus ushered in a new era where he was reinvented as an old man action movie star. It’s not like he had much competition because Hollywood would rather lose millions than put a macho man on screen but that’s another post for another time.

I’ll be honest, none of the Liam action flicks that came next ever matched up to Taken, even Taken 2 and 3 (you’d think these idiots would stop letting themselves get taken). Like M Night Shyamalan who made one great movie with a fantastic twist at the end only to make a dozen movies with stupid twists at the end, Liam could never quite capture lightening in the bottle.

That’s not to say EVERY Liam action film was bad. There were many that are worth your time. A few that come to mind – The Commuter, The Ice Road and 2019’s Cold Pursuit blends dark comedy and action together such that in my mind, it’s the only one that comes close to living up to the Taken legacy.

But since 2020, Liam has released a string of movies that were, in my opinion, total dogshit. They just seemed like a cash grab, someone slapped together a bare bones action movie flick script and stuck the old guy in there for a pay day. The last couple I literally only watched half before I said eff it and turned it off because I was so bored I couldnt get through the last half.

And worse, all his latest movies feature him as an old tough guy who is dying from something and has to make amends before he croaks, and they crowbar a romance in for him with a 40 year old woman because God fordbid a 70 year old movie star be seen on screen with a 70 year old woman.

Anyway…now that preamble is out of the way, let me tell you about this movie where Liam once again stars as an elderly tough guy who is dying from something and has a romance with a 40 year old woman crowbarred in. This time I made it through the end. You might say I had to since I bought a ticket to see it in the theater but I wouldn’t steer you wrong. If I streamed this one on Netflix I’d still watch it till the end because it is better than his usual slapped together faire.

Liam stars as a no named (credited as “The Thug”) aging gangster who has lived a total scumbag’s life. He does jobs for Boston mobster Charlie Connor (Ron Pearlman) and has been given the task of teaching Connor’s hothead young son Kyle (played by Daniel Diemar) how to make it in the criminal underworld so he can take the reigns one day from his equally elderly Pops. The Thug’s advice for the youngblood? Just don’t do it. This is the kind of life that you do because you HAVE to but when you come from money, you’ll never make it. You’ll never be able to bring yourself to do the things you have to do to make it as a criminal if you can afford not to.

A chance encounter with “The Woman” (boy this movie likes to withhold names) played by Yolanda Ross begins a romance between two people who understand each other. Both have lived lousy lives and both understand the pain the comes with having to do things that are morally wrong just to live another day.

It looks like this romance might bring one small sliver of sunshine into the life of an old man who has known nothing but pain when he starts noticing he is forgetting little things. A diagnosis of a brain disease comes with terrible news – his memory will slip more and more until he will no longer be able to take care of himself. Throughout the film we see him forget more and more and it comes with the anger and violent rage that often comes when similarly afflicted people are frustrated when they can’t remember basic things.

Thus, the clock starts ticking. With a notepad to remind him of the deets, Thug sets out to make amends to those he has wronged, in particular his estranged daughter who hates him and wants nothing to do with him and a victim of one of his recent crimes that he never intended to victimize. To level up the stakes, someone is trying to kill him and he needs to figure out who.

Overall I give it a solid B. It’s worth your time. Not sure its worth a trip to the theater but definitely stream it someday. You won’t want to watch it again and again and in 6 months, you will have forgotten it, not because you have a brain disease but because it isn’t that memorable.

I will say though the title of the movie is “absolution” and it is film about a man trying to make up for past sins. It’s a film about intergenerational trauma, as Thug’s daughter explains, Thug is bad because his father was bad as was his father before, all the way back to the first “asshole caveman who spawned them all.” We carry pain our parents pass down and we have to try to not pass that pain on to our kids even though we often can’t help but do so even when we are trying not to. And we never truly start to get better until we admit we have done wrong and try to make amends with those we have wronged. So it does have a good message about how its impossible to change yet you don’t get better until you try to change. If that makes sense.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Nov 01 2024
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Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, 3.5 readers.

You thought I’d let a whole month go by without posting? Never! (Though I almost did.)

What costumes did you don this year?

Sep 19 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Rebel Ridge (2024)

Hold onto your cash, 3.5 readers. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

In my humble opinion, Netflix puts out a lot of crap, and I mean a lot. Most of it is unwatchable. One wonders why I even subscribe, but that’s a whole other conversation for another day.

At least once, maybe in a blue moon twice, a year, they put out one really good movie. For me, last year’s was Reptile. This year, they were due, and Rebel Ridge is it. Again, that’s my opinion. Maybe you think this is trash and another one of their offerings that I thought was trash you enjoyed. It’s all subjective.

This movie reminds me of Rambo, not the international warrior from Rambo 2 and 3, but the ex soldier in 1, who was just taking a walk, minding his own business, when a jerk cop hassled him, it escalated and a small town turned into a war zone.

In this case, Aaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a man with a simple mission. He’s visiting a small town with a large stash of cash in his backpack to bail out his cousin. Alas, he is quite rudely stopped by the local police, who perform an impromptu civil forfeiture of Terry’s cash on ridiculous, trumped up charges. The cops explain to Terry that he’s free to fight the move in civil court, but to do so will take years, cost him more than he lost, plus if he does, they’ll file one bogus criminal charge on him or another.

For most people, this terrible experience would just be a painful and very expensive learning lesson. Do not walk around with that much cash.

But Terry is in a real bind. His cousin, Mike, ratted on some bad dudes in the past. Bail for his current offense would just mean he is released and likely to just get light sentence, but if he isn’t bailed out, he’ll be transported to county jail, where friends of sad bad dudes ratted upon reside, and well you know how that will play out.

And so, the local cops learn the hard way that Terry was the wrong hombre to mess with. He’s actually a soldier who trains other soldiers how to fight. And boy is he ever in for a big brawl because this corrupt force isn’t lying down easy.

You see, noble reader, the true villain of the movie is (try not to yawn) civil forfeiture law. It’s been in the news the past few years with countless stories about how people’s money, homes and livelihoods are snatched up by the government with reckless abandon, all based on a suspicion, and it takes years and oodles of more money to fight it to get the confiscated property back, if that ever even happens. As the flick explains, the po po only take the allegedly illicit property to court so rare is the case where a judge actually hears the owner’s side of the story.

And a super corrupt police chief played by Don Johnson has gone in deep with civil forfeiture, such that he’s funded his own private little fiefdom. Anna Sophia Robb tags along as a plucky court clerk/law student who explains the whole ins and outs of civil forfeiture to us dumb audience folk and occasionally get into peril and needs to be rescued by Terry.

SIDENOTE: When I saw her I immediately said, “That’s the kid from Bridge to Terabithia!” Yep. But all grown up now. Time is an MFer.

The good? There’s a lot of action and really did remind me of the first Rambo film.

The bad? It all seems to escalate unnecessarily. There are times when it seems like a no brainer that both sides would just give up and walk away. I know this is a film so that can’t happen, but there are a lot of contrived happenings to explain why Terry and the cops keep going at it.

My ultimate complaint, this, Bad Boys and Axel F were the best action movies of the year and they all depicted corrupt cops as the villains. Does it happen? Sure. Does it happen as often as Hollywood would like us to believe? Hardly. It just feels like Hollywood is so afraid of offending any other possible group that when it comes to action flicks, they’re only willing to cast cops as the bad guys.

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Sep 19 2024
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Movie Review – Speak No Evil (2024)

Speak a good review about this movie, 3.5 readers. It is worth it.

You know, 3.5 readers, I normally don’t do horror movies. That’s because my life is horrifying enough. What’s that? You’ve got a movie about a masked maniac with a chainsaw who cuts up co-eds? That’s nice. Try dating after 40 and all the various dating sites can offer you is a plethora of middle aged blue haired, nose ringed wack-a-doos who are all waiting for Chris Hemsworth to sweep them off their feat.

But you came here to read a movie review, not discuss my pitiful social life.

Jean Paul Sartre once famously said that “Hell is other people” and that’s one running theme of this sleeper hit. Seriously, I can’t rave enough about it and I think it’s going to be one of those movies that does well by word of mouth.

Why are other people so hellacious? Because you can’t control them, you have no idea what’s going on inside their heads, and worse, you have no clue if their various quirks and poor habits are signs of something dark and sinister afoot, or if maybe you’re just an uptight a-hole who judges people for being different. People would be so much less annoying if they’d just obey your commands at all times and defer to your preferences.

SIDENOTE: Judge people, 3.5 readers. Always assume the worst, and you’ll rarely be disappointed.

Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis (she of Halt and Catch Fire fame) play Ben and Louise Dalton, an American couple recently relocated to London for work. While on vacation in Europe, they meet Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy of Young Professor X fame and Aisling Franciosi).

These couples are very different. The Daltons are very proper and straight laced nerds, while Paddy and Ciara are wild and free, a couple of fun loving jokesters who live to party. Somehow, they hit it off and become fast vacation friends, even their children Agnes and Ant become BFFs.

Time passes and the Daltons fall back into their humdrum life when they receive an invite from their new buds to visit them at their farm in the British countryside. As it just so happens (you know, for the movie to happen) the Daltons are facing some personal struggles such that a second vacay would really hit the spot, so off they go.

All seems well at first, but things quickly turn sour. The couples clash. Quite a bit. They see eye to eye on nothing. And for most of the movie, you wonder if the problem is just that. Have you ever had to spend a few days visiting a friend or relative you disagreed with on nothing? The couples disagree on what to eat, how to act, what is and isn’t appropriate behavior, parenting skills. The list is endless.

The lengths we go to in order to avoid being impolite is the second and by far the biggest theme of the movie. Have you ever been thrust into a situation where you feel like you’re being asked to put your head on the proverbial chopping block, but you shrug and go along with it for fear of being called a party pooper?

Case in point. When Ben and Louise first meet Paddy, he offers to give their daughter a ride on his motorcycle. Close up of the parents, obvious pits of doom and despair in their stomachs. They’ve just met this guy and they are in a foreign country. He could just drive away with their daughter and they’d never see her again. Or maybe he’s a shitty driver and will get into a crash. But little Agnes is saying “please, please let me go” and Paddy comes across as a nice guy with the best of intentions. To say no might offend him. What? You think I’m a creep who would hurt your daughter? Well, screw you, this friendship is over, losers.

So off Agnes goes on the bike and you instantly know what is going to do the Daltons in. They just can’t say no. They’d rather suffer a million indignities than risk offending their new friends. So they say yes, and yes, and yes again. They put up with this. They say nothing about that. Are these new friends just very different? Eccentric? Weirdos? Is it just a case of culture clash with two couples with very different lifestyles?

Or with every yes that should be a no, are the Daltons stringing out more rope to hang themselves with?

And as you might expect, Paddy and Ciara are the ultimate gaslighters…or are they? That weird thing they just did that freaked you out? “Oh. Wow. We’re so sorry. We didn’t think that was a big deal. Guess we just do things different here in the country. Well, so sorry we offended you, feel free to go but we’d be so sad if you did.”

Yeah. We’ve all been in relationships like that, haven’t we? Where they do something horrible, you freak out and they talk you into apologizing for not being on board with the horrible.

SPOILER ALERT: You didn’t think it was just going to be a movie about people from different walks of life learning to get along despite their differences, did you? Of course there are nefarious doings afoot, and this horror film doubles as a mystery flick as the Daltons uncover just exactly what those shady doings are.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. A good kick-off to the Halloween horror movie season. Some very scary and gruesome scenes, though I can’t get into it without spoiling it. My usual complaint? Children are put in peril and I never like to see that in a movie. But the scares are real and it will leave you wanting to question the motives behind everything that BFF couple you hang out with does.

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Sep 08 2024
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Movie Review – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

The ghost with the most is back for more spooky doings!

BQB here with a review.

Beetlejuice, the titular demon and bio-exorcist who ghosts hire to torment the living, last graced our TVs a whopping 36 years ago. Reagan was president. The Soviets were in power. SNL was still funny. People only talked on stationary phones that never left their homes or offices. That’s how long it’s been since Michael Keeton’s popular funny dead guy has been out of our lives.

Although, he’s been gone, he was never forgotten, and has been long cemented in pop culture. Heck, even this blogger saw the Broadway play based on the original movie and it was a hoot. I actually think that production revived interest in the IP such that Hollywood said it’s Beet’s chance to ride again.

Alas, Hollywood’s obsession with sequels and reboots often leaves us feeling like our long lost movie friends would have been better off dead, rather than resurrected as pale, zombie imitations of their former selves, projects that were hot for their time have no relevance in a different world except for the shameless cash grab.

Overall, I give the movie a solid B Plus. It’s worth a trip to the theater to get you in the spooky mood this Halloween season. It meant all the sentimental needs, thus the B, but I’ll be honest. I didn’t laugh. For me, there were a few mild chuckles here and there, but I couldn’t help but notice that when you compare the two films, there was a lot of naughty humor in the first that couldn’t really be repeated in today’s woke times, if repeating jokes even works. Sometimes there’s a movie like the original that’s just a perfect one and done that it is hard to top.

But this is a good homage. The plot? Charles Deetz, like Marley, is dead to begin with. His character is included in humorous ways, yet great, outlandish and often silly lengths are taken to hide his face, presumably because the actor who played him, Jeffrey Jones, was convicted on child porn possession charges in 2003 and is now a registered sex offender. Since the character is now dead and fans might recall what dead people look like in the original, one can only imagine.

The Deetz family’s matriarch brings the Deetz family back to their home in CT for the funeral. Lydia (Winona Ryder) now uses her gift/curse of being able to see ghosts like her old friends, the Maitlands, to cash in on a TV show where she communicates with ghosts who haunt houses. Delia (Catherine O’Hara) still produces wacky art that is more about her eccentric moods that anything artistic.

Newcomer and daughter/granddaughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is brought home from boarding school. She is estranged from Lydia because she believes her mother’s ghost communication ability is a crock.

Even more newbies to the cast arrive. Justin Theroux plays Lydia’s weaselly fiance. Arthur Conti plays Astrid’s love interest.

The first half hour moves slowly. We don’t get as much Beetlejuice as we would like. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot but briefly, we discover that in his living days, the B-Man was married and that union didn’t go so well. His now deceased wife, Delores (Monica Belucci) is looking for revenge, stalking the underworld and leaving behind a trail of dead corpses. Someone will have to explain the logic of how dead people can be killed again, but try not to think too hard.

Wolf Jackson (Willem DeFoe) a former Hollywood actor/on screen cop who died performing one deadly stunt too many, is on the case. Somehow, amidst this crazy backdrop, Beetlejuice must avoid his ex, while seizing his second chance to chase Lydia now that the Deetzes are back in the house that serves as a portal to him and blah blah blah, some hijinx ensue where Lydia begrudgingly needs the services of her tormentor and they have to work together.

The Maitlands? Stricken from the film. Director Tim Burton said he did this to focus on the story of three generations of Deetz women working together, but I wonder if it had more to do with Alec Baldwin’s legal troubles vis a vis accidentally shooting a crew member on a movie a couple years ago. That shouldn’t have prevented Geena Davis from gracing us with at least a cameo, right? I mean, can’t ghost couples get divorced? And before you point out the discrepancy of ghosts aging, Keaton’s age is hidden because, well, his character looked like a dead guy 36 years ago so all he had to do was just put the makeup on again.

Speaking of, I applaud the film for relying more on makeup and low tech effects and less on CGI. There are plenty of ornery dead folk walking around, people in this world seem destined to live out their afterlives suffering from whatever killed them, ergo they’re walking around with knives in the head, piranhas to the face and so on. Rather than do that with CGI, Burton relies on good old fashioned makeup, which looks a lot better.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Aug 19 2024
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Movie Review: Alien: Romulus (2024)

When an alien comes along, you must shoot it. When an alien comes along, you must shoot it.

BQB here with a review of the latest Alien flick.

I give this one a solid B Plus. IMO, you won’t be disappointed and its a fun night out at the theater, but you won’t remember it 6 months from now or have any interest in rewatching it a year later. Effort was put into the homework assignment and had it been any other film it would get an A but it chose to be derivative of something that has already been done many times before.

The plot? Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her android BFF Andy (David Jonsson) team up with a group of youngsters who are fed up with their lives indebted to a crooked space mining corporation. They have put in their time as indentured slaves and were supposed to be released long ago but the corporation keeps changing the deal, telling them that they have to serve more years. Their parents lived and died just this way and they want their freedom.

So they hatch a plot to break into an abandoned space station and steal unused stasis chambers that will allow them to make a break for it on a 9 year trek to a free planet. And you might have guessed the station is abandoned for a reason. ALIENS!

Overall, it is an acceptable action flick. The downside is I didn’t really care too much about any of the characters. Some of that might have been intentional. Some of them were presented as dicks so you didn’t mind too much when they became alien chow. Rain is OK but she’s no Ripley. The star of the film is Jonsson’s Andy, who goes through a Flowers for Algernon-esque ordeal. The story begins with him being a dimwitted android, for Rain’s late father programmed him to be a companion who is just smart enough to assist Rain but not smart enough to throw her under the bus. He is loyal to a fault, a lapdog who suffers all manner of abuse. When he gets an upgrade from Rook (I can’t figure out if this is the original droid from the original film or a copy) he becomes a genius and takes over the expedition and it becomes a suspenseful plot point to figure out whether Andy is leading the party to their safety because he cares about them or to their doom as revenge for all the abuse he was put through.

There are some silly CGI things. Rook, based on the original character played by Ian Holm, looks fake and I wonder if there wasn’t a better way to tie in the original. SPOILER ALERT. There’s a hybrid alien/human that just looks silly and I think they should have just stuck with the aliens.

The criticism of this movie is it is formulaic. It sticks to the plot of too many in the franchise. There’s always the pulse gun. There’s always an android. Someone needs to say “get away from her, you bitch.”

But in this film’s defense, the last couple films, where they got away from the typical space miners/explorers get accidentally trapped in an alien infested vessel and fight their way out, (i.e. the last two went in search of the creators of the aliens as in Prometheus) they seemed a bit lame too.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Jonsson is the star of the show as he plays two roles in one film – a dullard and a genius and he’s so mistreated in the first half that you almost hope that he is leading these shitty little twerps straight into a gaping alien maw in the second half.

SIDENOTE: I mean, Rain is pretty nice to him although when push comes to shove, she puts herself and humans above him but the other kids suck.

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Aug 04 2024
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Movie Review – Trap (2024)

Lights! Cameras! Action! Murder!

BQB here with a review of M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s latest film.

I give this film a solid B Plus. I don’t think it’s going to be remembered much a year from now, but it’s a solid entry and if you’re a fan of suspense then it’s not a waste of time. It’s not a steak from Nobu but it’s not a McSteakwhich from McDonald’s. It’s a fairly juicy steak from Applebees made by a line cook who was on his A game the night when you sauntered in looking for cheap, easy grub.

The plot? Cooper (Josh Hartnett) takes his teenage daughter to a concert headlined by super famous pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). Upon arrival, Cooper sees insane levels of security, with police officers and SWAT teams roaming the corridors. When a t-shirt vendor lets it slip that police received a tip that the infamous serial killer known as “The Butcher” will be in attendance at the concert and that all the venue employees have been included in on a plan to turn the concert into a trap to catch the killer, we learn that, horror of horrors, Cooper is the madman everyone is looking for.

Yes, by day, Cooper lives the life of a boring, humdrum, suburban dad with a wife and kids and there are some lighthearted moments when daughter Riley (Alison Pill) suffers her father’s uncoolness yet has to put up with him tagging along because he’s her ride and the only way she can attend the performance of her favorite singer is with her parental chaperone.

By night, Cooper kidnaps, tortures and murders random strangers for fun and games, always managing to keep his two lives separate until now.

Overall, it’s an escape film. With police posted at every exit, questioning every adult male in attendance before they leave, it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught. We, the audience, step into a psychopath’s shoes as he balances his two lives. Somehow, he must figure out how to escape a crowded concert arena where police are watching everyone so he is not held accountable for his heinous crimes. But also, he is a dad so he can’t just leave his beloved daughter there alone unattended and he can’t just drag her away, kicking and screaming from her favorite pop diva’s performance without a good explanation.

Yes. He must find an escape plan that meets with daughter’s approval and/or keeps her from figuring him out. Strangely, you find yourself rooting for him to escape because the film is from his perspective, so it’s almost makes you feel like you’re in his shoes and need to escape yourself, yet you also realize he has done terrible things and needs to be punished somehow.

M. Night Shyamalan, he who did many films with twist endings but only had one good twist ending with the Sixth Sense, abandons the twist ending here. There are plenty of twists but overall its a pretty linear story. I’m glad he let go of the twist ending premise because he’s great at telling stories that are suspenseful but his many twist ending movies were always silly, always trying to recapture that one time he caught lightning in the bottle.

Also, this is the summer where the Shyamalan daughters enter the family business in a big way. Ishana made her directorial debut with The Watchers in June and Saleka plays Lady Raven, getting a chance to display her vocal skills. She also plays a role in saving the day.

I won’t give away too much other than to say I enjoyed the first half of the film when it was all about Cooper trying to escape the arena but the second half of the film, when he was out and about, seemed to get a bit silly and unlikely, IMO.

Then again, a lot of suspension of disbelief is required. The premise is that the po-po found a Lady Raven ticket receipt accidentally dropped at one of the Butcher’s crime scenes and they have a list of unknown individuals fitting certain descriptions who witnesses spotted walking away from said crime scene. The goal of the police op is to monitor the concert for anyone matching those descriptions, which would eventually lead to Cooper.

Yeah, BS. In reality, with today’s computer tech, they could easily just scan the receipt and find out that Cooper bought and then send the SWAT team to bash down his effing door and arrest him while he’s in his underwear in his bathroom taking his morning dump.

So ultimately, yeah, it felt like M Night basically wrote this movie to give his daughter a starring vehicle but if you suspend disbelief, it’s pretty good. And I have to give M Night kudos for his first decent cameo. He always puts himself in his movies and always seems out of place but here, he plays his daughter’s uncle, so I guess that’s not too far off. He’s actually believable whereas in most of his other movies, you just yawn and look at your watch and wonder if you can slip to the bathroom while M Night strokes his ego on screen.

Is there nepotism afoot here? I suppose but its still a good movie and nepotism is the spoils of capitalism. You work hard and are able to hand something even better to your kids. You can argue against it but I tell you, my parents tried their darndest to nepotise me. “Oh no,” I said. “I’ll be my own man and pave my own way,” I said.

What do I have to show for it? This non-monetized blog read only by 3.5 readers and a big pair of rubber crocs that I wear non-ironically so yes, give me a time machine and I’ll go back and allow my parents to nepotize the shit out of me.

Double bonus points that this film stars Hayley Mills as Dr. Grant, the psychological profiler who leads the operation. Who is Hayley Mills, you say? Well, she’s 78 years young today, but in her prime, she was one of Disney’s top child actresses and played both twins in the original Parent Trap! At first, I admit I rolled my eyes, thinking what woke tomfoolery is this that an old woman is bossing around various SWAT teams but once I realized who it was, I allowed it. Perhaps this will be the start of a Hayley Mills career resurgence, though hopefully not in the Betty White direction where they have her do the “ha ha the classically trained proper old lady said naughty things” routine.

Parent Trap? Trap? I wouldn’t put it past M Night for casting her just for that. He’s that meta.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Bonus points that this, Twisters, and pretty much every film was filled to capacity at my theater this weekend so people must be turning off streaming and getting to the cinema to beat the August heat.

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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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