Change Your Image
nincompoopian
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Army of the Dead (2021)
An "okay" addition to a genre that has run its course
"Army of the Dead" delivers just about what you expect in a zombie movie: wall-to-wall violence, gallows humor, gunplay, and lotsa zombies. In Zack Snyder's new zombie pic (ostensibly his first for several years since his 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead), a motley-crew of highly-skilled pros (led by Dave Bautista) undertakes a million-dollar heist job of a vault in a zombie-infested Las Vegas casino. The undead in this movie are the same as the one in his "Dawn" redo, they're fast as hell and literally rotten to boot. One key difference is that in "Army" they're also capable of human behavior such as physical combat, dodging bullets, and following the commands of their "Alpha" leader, a unique type of zombie who's not only physically imposing but is also a loving spouse to his zombie Queen; one can expect that they will conceive a zombie baby.
The heist plot is nothing to write home about; it's not as smart and groundbreaking as the ones in "The Italian Job" remake or "Oceans 11". If anything, it borrow its plot structure from Edgar Wright's "Shaun of the Dead", which has characters who hatches a plan that is so good to be true that they're bound to fail. There's also a dramatic subplot involving the Dave Bautista character and his estranged daughter, though Snyder only uses that as an occasion to expand the runtime and divert our attention from the undead and to give us some breathing room from the movie's pacing.
Snyder's muscular visual flair is littered are all over the film as expected, including a wonderful opening sequence punctuated by drama, humor, violence, and slo-mo. The script, which Snyder co-authored with Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, unfortunately lacks the necessary character arcs (mainly because it has so many characters) that will complement its incredibly diverse cast; though Snyder seems to make up for it with witty exchanges. And there may be a political subtext underneath its conflict concerning the US government's landmark decision of nuclear bombing Vegas on the fourth of July to obliterate the zombie epidemic (an echo to 28 Weeks Later, and by proxy the Iraq War of the Bush government).
"Army of the Dead" is an "okay" addition to a genre that has run its course. It has Zack Snyder's usual trademarks as well as the necessary ingredients of a good zombie movie, and a little more. But as far as Snyder's ouevre, his first hit "Dawn of the Dead" will always be the best.
Grandma's Boy (2006)
Nasty and mean-spirited
In Grandma's Boy, there's an ugly scene in which a group of co-workers are treated to dinner at a vegan restaurant by their yogi boss. The waiter (played by David Spade), though eccentric, seems to be a nice guy, but the boys for some reason start making fun of him, equating his name ("Shilo") with being a weirdo and a homosexual. When the waiter finally snaps at them, Covert responds passive aggressively, "Aww, someone missed their yoga class this morning".
I keep thinking, what did Shilo do to deserve the boys' jeer? If the word "schadenfreude" were to take the form of a movie, it will be in the form of Grandma's Boy. This is a comedy movie that is so nasty and mean that its lead characters (and the people who jeered along with these people) could be bullies. The characters are content to BSing one another (or other people) and want us to laugh with them. Maybe they want us to like them. In any case, it's so hard to laugh at a comedy when there's no wit and subtlety involved in achieving it.
I've seen comedies that are nasty and mean-spirited but still left me howling with laughter and sympathy for its character. One such example is the cop comedy Observe and Report, in which Seth Rogen plays a pill-popping bipolar mall cop who is immature and terrible at his job, but is marked with integrity, grit and determination and we want him to level up from mediocrity and win that nice girl. In Grandma's Boy, the boys are immature from beginning to end, partaking in gross-out laughs that's more gross and less funny, yet the braindead script demands that the everyman still win the sexy boss.
Stoner comedies should be fun even when you're not high. Grandma's Boy is only fun when you're high and when not, not. There are better movies in this genre, like "Friday" and "Pineapple Express", which also stars Seth Rogen.
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)
More gory than scary, just like its predecessor
The fact that horror director Ti West was going to direct a sequel to Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (which I didn't like) sounded promising. This was the guy who would later direct well-received horror movies such as The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, and I could imagine he was going to make things better this time around. Well, it seemed he did try to make things better, but alas, distributor Lionsgate wasn't on board with that.
The result is a disastrous sequel that West later disowned, citing studio interference; the movie had been re-cut and re-shot without his consent. I didn't enjoy the final product either. The movie as we see it is more gory than scary. The prose is laughably purple and lacks intelligence and wit, just plain weird humor and gratuitous unprotected sex. There's no plot, either, just one scene of disaster after another. In fairness, it's well-acted, and the actors seem to enjoy hemorrhaging and projectile vomiting blood with one another.
It is said that editing is the soul of cinema; in the case of Cabin Fever 2, it is its downfall. West promised a superior horror comedy sequel with nods to the satire of Paul Bartel and the surrealism of John Waters had he been allowed to fix it. You would think this was not possible today, not with the advent of the Snyder Cut and Francis Ford Coppola's director's cut of The Godfather Part III in the 2020s. All Lionsgate needs is to grant West final cut privileges and allow him to make a director's cut. Then again, that would mean collaborating with a studio that betrayed him in the first place.
Monster Hunter (2020)
Dull and empty monstrosity
Full disclosure: I haven't played the Monster Hunter video games. This adaptation from visionary director Paul W.S. Anderson sure left me utterly disappointed. It's a full-bore monster romp that is heavy on action but thin on plot, dialogue, and character development. Beneath its dazzling visual effects and cool monster kills lies a badly written script filled with characters whom we don't get to know on a personal level. The movie's well-acted, however, with Milla Jovovich (Anderson's wife/frequent collaborator) once again playing a spunky heroine in her husband's own movie.
Overall, Anderson's take on the series feels half-baked. The eye-popping universe set forth by Anderson is undeniable, but the movie is ultimately dull and empty for me to recommend.
Te quiero, imbécil (2020)
I'm really tired of movies like this.
Nothing is more tiresome than seeing another loser evolve into a stud in the movies. This new loser, a 35-year-old who gets dumped by his girlfriend of eight years after he pops the question, is so taken to her he decides to win her back. However, the loser's womanizing pal thinks this is a bad idea, instead urging him to improve himself and hookup with other women in a futile attempt to forget her. Loser then takes pal's advice, and concurrently seeks the tutelage of an Internet influencer, who doles out principles on dating that ranges from physical fitness to bedding women. We then see him gradually transform into the Desirable Man, or what he calls "21st Century Man" (who I presume is the prototypical handsome dude women often lust for). Along the way he crosses paths with a girl from his high school, and they instantly become friends. Suddenly, he and his ex meet by chance and she sees how he has dramatically changed; they engage in casual flings, until he realizes that she's actually engaged.
We all know where the plot is headed, and that's the problem. The premise, worn out as it is, is conceived in a similar vein to 2004's "Just Friends", an American Ryan Reynolds-starrer about a fatty who turns into a hottie, with the sexy Amy Smart as his BFF (but not for long). Both movies are dull, neither comes even close to a decent rom-com. By contrast, however, the Spanish-produced "I Love You, Stupid" is beautifully photographed, shot with digital cinematography, yet it also employs some edits and music cues that make the movie feel like a hybrid of a TV ad for men's care product and an infomercial about the common man. It is a good-looking bad movie that features a lot of good-looking actors but very little interesting characters.
Need for Speed (2014)
It delivers the races and crashes you could possibly desire, nothing more.
I admire "Need for Speed" for its realistic car action scenes and glossy cinematography (courtesy of Shane Hurlbut). But I also hate it for its preposterous plot, wooden characters, and its ironic disregard for the rules of the road for a movie that was shot in a controlled environment.
The movie tells the conventional tale of Tobey Marshall, a car mechanic/pro racer who proved himself a better driver than his longtime rival (and possibly megalomaniac) Dino Brewster after test driving a custom Ford Mustang Dino made him build for as fast as 230 mph, selling it to the highest bidder for $2.7 million. (This Mustang was the one left unfinished by the death of Caroll Shelby, who was building it with Henry Ford himself.) Threatened by Tobey's reputation, Dino lends two of his three Koenigsegg Agera Rs to Tobey and one of his best friends, fellow mechanic Pete, and all three race across Mt. Kisco. Dino prevents Pete from claiming the victory by bumping his speeding car in the rear, sending Pete's Agera into the air and tumbling him to his death a la Michael Bay. After serving a two-year jail sentence for a crime he didn't commit, Tobey embarks on a high-speed quest with the cops in hot pursuit to California to beat Dino in the much-awaited underground tournament called the De-Leon, organized by a middle-aged man named Monarch, and avenge his dead friend once and for all.
As a fan of the NFS video games, I'm happy to say that the adaptation's car action doesn't disappoint. Shot with little CGI (accounting for that cool digital speedometer of the Mustang), it's easy to tell the movie was insired by "Bullitt", whose iconic car chase between Steve McQueen and his adversary is briefly shown in the drive-in sequence. The racers in "Need for Speed" goes a little overboard, however, causing some traffic collisions between innocent motorists and cop cars along the way. The director, Scott Waugh, is eager to heighten the realism by plunging the viewers into the action with scenes shot from the driver and passenger's POV.
Unfortunately, this "Need for Speed" adaptation is just another video game in search of a movie. It's so preposterously plotted that I fell asleep by the time the final act had arrived. It's a shame that its motley crew of talented cast, which includes Aaron Paul, has been let down by the cliched script by screenwriting siblings George and John Gatins. Director Scott Waugh has already made quite a name for himself as a good action filmmaker, all he needs is a better script to work with.
Fist Fight (2017)
Contains some laugh-out-loud moments but seemingly sends an awful message across
My experience with "Fist Fight" has been a mixed bag: on the one hand it has some funny moments (save for one shameless subtle use of statutory rape gag by a female teacher who's attracted to a senior jock); on the other hand it saddens me that its plot is structured in such a way that forces its genial hero into a situation he doesn't deserve. The hero (because he's a public schoolteacher) is Mr. Campbell, a nice guy who gets challenged to a fist fight by his physically imposing and irascible co-worker, Mr. Strickland, for failing to cover up for Strickland's frustrated ax murder of a student who pranked him during class, resulting to Strickland getting fired in the middle of a layoff. Terrified to boot, Campbell does whatever he can to avoid the beatdown, including calling 9-1-1, who ends up mocking him because he's a wimp. Hey, he may be a wimp but at least he's man enough to keep his job for his family (especially for his wife who's pregnant with their second), and to dance with his little daughter to a profanity-laced pop song despite arriving very late at her elementary school's talent show.
Charlie Day pulls it off playing a pushover who's afraid of a fight just as Ice Cube is playing a sociopathic history teacher with a bad temper. That said, the movie seems to send the message across that a man's masculinity and assertiveness is defined by how he performs well in a fight against a man who could kill him in one punch. Which is why a character like Campbell is conceived as a wimp and is subjected to a caveman plot that forces him to undergo a sort of rite of passage to manhood by fighting an irresponsible Neanderthal like Strickland. While not as gruesome as that in "Fight Club", I didn't exactly feel wowed by the promised fist fight (generally because we're supposed to do so only within the confines of boxing or martial arts movies). In fact, I found the experience rather painful to watch; worst, the youths watch it with awe and glee and I, for one, am onboard with the few who want it to stop.
Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
An unforgettable touching story about a legendary Akita dog who sorely misses his deceased master.
No one could ever forget the touching true story of Japan's Hachiko, an Akita dog who awaited patiently the return of his master at the train station. This went on even after the old man died, catching the attention of the train commuters, who would hail Hachiko as an embodiment of loyalty. While dogs are indeed notable for their intelligence and loyalty to their masters, Hachiko was unlike any other dogs: the bond he developed with his master was so special that he knew his master's about to arrive home by the time his train honks its loud horn from afar. These events are incorporated in Lasse Hallstrom's "Hachi: A Dog's Tale", which is just as equally touching that I couldn't help but weep to this unforgettable story about love, friendship, and loyalty.
The movie begins with a puppy Hachi being flown from Japan to the United States, and then transported to the train station where he gets in the way of Parker, a middle-aged music professor who is married with children (a deceased son and a grown daughter). Parker tries to have him adopted but is surprised that no one was interested, not even his Japanese colleague, Ken, who reveals that Hachi's name means "8" in Japanese (the number of which is considered a good fortune in Japanese tradition), and that Akitas' loyalty can't be bought. His wife Cate also wants Hachi adopted by a loving family, but seeing how her husband has come to love the dog, she believes that Hachi has already found a family in them.
We then see a grown Hachi that has developed a strong bond with his master. At one point, Hachi escaped from home and chased Parker down to the station, eager to join him aboard the train to work; but the professor is kind and patient and it never crossed his mind to admonish him for being a naughty dog. Hachi would then accompany his old man for a walk to the station every day, and then await his arrival there at 5 in the afternoon. After Parker died of a heart attack, Hachi continued waiting for his master's return in his usual spot for the next 10 years until his own demise. Concerned citizens fed Hachi all kinds of food as he waited, but to my surprise no one bothered to bathe him.
The direction by Lasse Hallstrom, coupled with Jan Kaczmarek's beautiful piano-oriented score, really packs an emotional punch. The movie's a pleasure to look at because it's inhabited by characters who are good people. Whether you may have a preference for any animal but a dog, it's hard to hold back tears during its emotional moments. Believe it or not there's a dog-shaped hole in all our hearts, so I urge you to allow the memory of Hachiko fill it.