Eric266 Reviews

Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War (2024)

Superb Documentary

[8/10 · 26 August 2024]

This is an outstanding documentary on the events surrounding the Earps and the Clantons. I have read and watched plenty of books and documentaries about the events and this still provided new facts I never heard. This is not a straight documentary as they have actors playing the roles in little vignettes of the events. They all do a very commendable job of giving a human touch to the events. Ed Harris is a fantastic narrator. He is not just reading the script.

He uses various inflections in his voice to provide either humor or tension to the events he is narrating. He needs to do more of this kind of voicework. Where this show really shines is taking a very broad approach to the the events and discussing outside factors that led to the conflict. Some of these are the hurt feelings still being held by the South after the Civil War, America's debt from the war, trying to pay off that debt with silver from Arizona, said silver getting hijacked by stage coach robbers, J. P Morgan trying to get investors in England to give him loans to buy up the railroads, the recent assassination of President Garfield, Wells Fargo bankrolling Wyatt's Vendetta Ride until it becomes too scandalous, and, finally, the impression people in the East were getting of the West based on the inflammatory news articles in the New York and Washington D. C. papers. President Arthur even sent General Sherman to Arizona to determine if the violence was getting out of hand. Hint: It was. The gunfight at the OK Corral and the aftermath were not happening in a vacuum. They were affecting events all the way to Washington and Europe.

All of this is handled with pinpoint storytelling. Each of the six episode focuses on a different aspect of events. In the first episode you get the backstory to include how Tombstone came to exist, the climate in America post-Civil War, and the background on the Earps' and Clantons' conflict. Then you get an episode dealing with the OK Corral gunfight and the alternate views of both sides. There is an entire episode on the preliminary hearing trying the Earps for murder. This was fascinating and the best part of part of the series IMO, as most of the movies skip right over or give very little attention to the details of how close the Earps came to hanging. Ike Clanton comes across as a pretty sly and wily opponent rather than a drunken fool like he is portrayed in the movies. Yes, he drank, but he was also ingenious at times in how he manipulated the press and the townfolk.

The one negative I found in this show is the way they completely ignored Johnny Ringo. He is not even mentioned. Michael Biehn deserved better. Haha.

I binged this entire series last night as I could not wait for the next episode. A very well done series that deserves to be watched by anyone who enjoys historical documentaries.

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)

Fun for What It Is

[7/10 · 21 August 2024]

I've enjoyed both the original and this sequel. Its hard to make a comedy horror movie and make it work. These two films do a fine job of getting the balance right. The characters are interesting and the story is funny. They are not classics and they are not movies you will probably stop surfing to watch, but they are enjoyable.

Its been 10 years since the events of the first movie. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jessie Eisenberg, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) are still killing zombies, but have settled into domestic bliss at the White House, yes the one in DC. When Little Rock runs away with a dimwitted hippie musician named Berkley (get it?), the other three go on a quest to find her. Along the way, they meet up with Madison (Zoey Deutch) a dumb blonde who has survived living in a freezer at the mall and Nevada (Rosario Dawson) who is living in a former Elvis museum in Memphis. The highlight of the movie is when they encounter a pair of zombie killers named Albuquerque (Luke Wilson) and Flagstaff (Thomas Middleditch) who bear a striking resemblance to Tallahassee and Columbus.

There's lots of blood, funny catch phrases and enough heart to keep the movie going. Its mostly a repeat of the first movie, but it still works because the cast is so good. I've never been a fan of Eisenberg's as he seems to play Mark Zuckerberg in every movie, but when he plays these fish out of water characters, he does well (as he did in American Ultra). The rest of the cast are excellent and each one gets a chance to let their character shine. Even the supporting cast (mentioned above) are superb and add to the story rather than just being window dressing. I could watch Rosario Dawson tend her garden and be blissfully happy.

At 99 minutes the movie is a perfect length so that you don't get bored and the plot holes don't get too big. The big fight at the end was great and everyone really put their all into the film so its infectious. I'd look forward to a third film as long as we don't have to wait 10 more years.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)

Has Lost Some of the Magic

[5/10 · 19 August 2024]

I used to watch the original show on MTV when they just watched videos and found the humor hilarious. I enjoyed the full fledge cartoons and then B&B Do America was more of the same hilarity.

I think this movie is just something that has passed its expiration date. I only chuckled a couple of times and did not laugh out loud once. Maybe I am just getting old. The running gag where they interpreted everything as a sign they were going to get laid and the "white privilege" lecture were funny, but they were jokes that had been done on the TV show and previous movie. There was so much fertile ground they could have covered just in the classroom scene, but it flew by and was done.

South Park, Family Guy, and the Simpsons always seemed to reinvent themselves and stayed relevant as counterculture cartoons. Beavis and Butthead just seems stuck in the same jokes and plots. I didn't see anything really original here to carry on the legacy.

The Lost City (2022)

Fun Film But Lots of Fluff

[6/10 · 12 August 2024]

As its obvious by now, this is a loose remake of the superior Romancing the Stone. While its weaker than that film The Lost City is still fun.

Full disclosure, I have never been a fan of Sandra Bullock because my ex-wife actually looked just like her and used to get asked on occasions while we lived in Europe, if she was, in fact, Ms. Bullock. Still, that was 20 years ago, so I think its time I let it go.

Bullock is a romance novelist named Angela. Channing Tatum is a model, Alan, who appears on the cover of Angela's books. Angela is bored with her celebrity and hates the book tours. Alan is a bit dim, but loves the attention and enjoys pretending to be the embodiment of the hero Angela writes about. Angela has started translating some language for a new novel that supposedly leads to a lost city and something called the "Crown of Fire." A rich businessman (played by the scene chewing Daniel Radcliffe), kidnaps her and forces her to help him find the city, Alan hires Jack, a former special forces soldier he met in yoga class, played by a funny Brad Pitt, to rescue her. Holding unrequitted love for Angela, Alan tags along with Jack even though he is pretty clueless.

There is not a lot of new stuff here and it was all done much better in Romancing the Stone. The cast is game and the scenery is beautiful. Neither Bullock nor Tatum really infuse their characters with any depth and, honestly, they are pretty one-dimensional. Some of the jokes work, but the overall plot of tracking the lost city is very weak. I do give the movie props for the treasure at the end. I won't spoil it, but it was unique and different. If you have 112 minutes to spend, its not a bad movie. Just don't set your sights too high.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

A Fun Movie, but a Little Too Full of Itself

[7/10 · 11 August 2024]

Hugh Jackman could probably play Logan for another 20 years, but I doubt he will. Ryan Reynolds was born to play Deadpool. Hopefully, we get at least one more team up because their chemistry is amazing.

Things have changed for Wade Wilson since Deadpool 2. He and Vanessa are broken up. He has been turned down by the Avengers and the X-Men for membership. He is trying to be normal selling cars, but that's not working out either. He is lost. Then the TVA (if you haven't seen Loki, this might not make sense) arrives and offers him a job and lets him know the timeline he knows is going to disappear. He decides to fix his own timeline and seeks out a version of Wolverine to help him. There is then a hilarious montage of him jumping through universes and meeting variants of Wolverine. This was genius and a highlight of the film.

Sadly, I was not as enthralled with the plot of the movie as much as I was the actors and cameos. There are some really fun cameos in the movie and some that are extended cameos to the point of almost being supportive roles. However, from the previews, I got the impression Deadpool was going to be jumping around into other Marvel movies and resetting the plots of those films. Instead he gets zapped by the TVA and they send him to the Void, a Mad Max-esque wasteland for people who the TVA has decided are dangerous. The rest of the movie is Deadpool and Wolverine trying to escape The Void. Not very inventive.

The quips and one liners from Reynolds are on target and the cameos make for some fun callbacks. But there were just too many of them. The movie lacked the heart and sincerity of the previous two films. Don't get me wrong, its a fun ride and there is seldom a dull moment. It just felt a little too full of itself with all the fan service. Deadpool was fun because he wasn't part of the Marvel universe. Now that he is, they shoehorned in like a dozen legacy characters and I think that took away from what Deadpool represents. The movie felt padded to me. I would have preferred they stuck to Reynolds and Jackman and dropped at least half of the cameos.

I normally don't do spoilers, but the inclusion of X23 confused me. In Deadpool's timeline, Logan (2017) hasn't happened. Which means X23 hasn't been created yet, so how does she exist at this point? Everyone else in the void is from the past, so why is this one character from the future included?

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

A Fantastic Return for Maverick

[8/10 · 9 August 2024]

I remember watching the original film in a kino theater in Germany. I can't believe its been 38 years since that movie came out. Maverick's return is welcomed and the movie is fantastic. It might almost outdo the original.

Maverick is now a test pilot and his career has kind of stagnated because of his arrogance and over confidence. He is recalled to Top Gun School to train a group of recent graduates to perform a dangerous mission bombing a uranium enrichment plant in an unnamed country. The run to the plant is similar to the one in Star Wars (1977) in many ways. The graduates are all arrogant pilots like Maverick, including Rooster (Miles Teller), who is Goose's son. Jennifer Connelly plays Penny, a former lover of Maverick's. Jon Hamm is the commander at Top Gun, Admiral Simpson. Also returning is Val Kilmer as Iceman who is now an Admiral and has acted a Maverick's guardian angel over the course of his career.

The flight sequences are amazing and the music score keeps the tension high. The secondary pilot characters in this version get about as much screen time and development as the ones in the original.

The weakest part of the gilm IMO is the manufactured tension between Maverick and Rooster. Don't get me wrong, I love Jennifer Connelly, but they could have deleted her scenes and focused on the relationship between Maverick and Rooster without detracting from the overall plot. Rooster is mad and then he isn't. Its that simple.

This was a fine sequel to the original. Its a shame we had to wait almost 40 years to get it, but it more than meets expectations.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Great Action Film

[8/10 · 9 August 2024]

Tom Cruise is probably once of the greatest action stars ever. At age 60, it is fascinating that he performs the stunts he does. You know its him and its incredible to think of the danger he puts himself in to get the shot.

MI: Dead Reckoning is drawing a close to the series of films. Ethan (Cruise) is tracking down two pieces to form a key that unlocks something. He is joined by his team of Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson). There is an AI software that has become sentient and infiltrated all the security services on the planet. Every country is trying to get the key so they can control it. Esai Morales is the nominal villain, Gabriel, who is working for the AI. The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) has one piece of the key and is going to sell it to the highest bidder. Pom Klementieff (Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy) plays an assassin, Paris. She is fun and menacing and a nice addition. Finally, Hayley Atwell joins the cast as Grace, a pickpocket/thief, who gets in over her head by stealing one of the key pieces. She is a positive addition and they gave her character lots of screen time.

The movie's plot jumps around the world and moves at a pretty brisk pace. At 166 minutes, this movie never drags. The action sequences are some of the best in the series. The one drawback is, much like the Fast and the Furious franchise, they have lost the human aspect of the show. The characters become just props in the action sequences and their motivations don't really have much to do with anything. I've also never liked the fake masks they make to impersonate people. That gimmick has been part of the series from the beginning and its always seemed silly to me since Cruise is always shorter than the people he is impersonating. Still, everyone is game and I was never bored watching it. The final action on the train sequence going through the Austrian Alps is amazing starting with Cruise's motorcycle jump off a cliff. Just breathtaking.

I look forward to Part Two.

The Vast of Night (2019)

A Unique and Innovative Film

[8/10 · 5 August 2024]

The Vast of Night is a creepy, eerie thriller that works because of its two main characters and the atmosphere developed by the director.

The film is set in a small 1950s New Mexico town at night. It takes place over the course of a single night, while most of the town is attending the local high school football game. Two inquisitive people, not at the game, start noticing a strange event.

Fay (Sierra McCormick) a police dispatcher and Everett (Jake Horowitz) a radio DJ, stumble upon a weird sound coming over the telephone lines and radios. When Everett broadcasts the sound over his radio show, a caller lets him know he has heard the sound before while in the military and being part of a secret mission. Another caller tells them about an event that happened to her many years before involving her son going missing. As Fay and Everett run around chasing clues, there is an overall creepiness that invades the town. The ultimate reveal is scary and terrifying.

The movie works because of the excellent dialogue and the focus on two characters saying this dialogue in long sequences. The darkness of the evening acts as another character. Its ominous and overbearing. Fay comes to believe quickly, but it takes Everett a bit longer. Both Ms. McCormick and Mr. Horowitz are superb in their roles and they speak the dialogue with such earnestness it helps build the tension. There is an opening sequence of Everett and Fay walking around town talking to various townspeople where the dialogue is sharp, rapid fire and funny. I knew from that opening sequence, that this movie was different. Its a throwback to the Twilight Zone or other shows from that era and boy is it a well-made film.

Freelance (2023)

Fun Popcorn Movie

[7/10 · 5 August 2024]

Freelance could have had a lot to say about the way Latin American countries are used by First World countries and corporations for their natural resources. However, while they touched on it, they went for the big action sequences and jokes. A seriously missed opportunity.

John Cena is Mason, a former special forces soldier who was injured on a mission that killed his entire team. He becomes a lawyer and basically hates his life. His loving but frustrated wife, Jenny (Alice Eve) knows he's not happy and moves out, taking their daughter. In this moment, Mason is contacted by a former operative in his unit, Sebastian (Christian Slater) who went into the private security business. He has a job for Mason to be a bodyguard for a disgraced journalist, Claire (Alison Brie), who has been invited to do an interview with a South American dictator, Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba). This dictator just happened to be the target of Mason's failed mission years before. Martin Csokas as a rival private contractor plays the same character in every movie. On the day they arrive. Mason and Claire get caught up in a coup attempt on Venegas and the three spend the rest of the movie running through the jungle avoiding various groups trying to kill Venegas.

There is no real new ground covered here. This plot has been recycled many times before. Cena is a likeable star and he keeps getting better at the craft which each film. He has the muscles, but he also has a certain vulnerability that makes him relatable. Alison Brie is beautiful to look at (full disclosure: she is my celebrity crush), but she keeps taking roles that don't stretch her as an actress. Her character is annoying at times, useless at others, and then useful when the plot requires it. The writers did her no favors with this role. Juan Pablo Raba is the big reveal in this movie. His portrayal of the leader of the fictional South American country is hilarious, charming and charismatic. He is the only character who is really written with any dimensions.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed this movie immensely. It doesn't cover any new ground, but the actors do their best to make it enjoyable. It has a streamlined plot, a crisp run time, and no fluff. They went a little heavy on the shootouts, but Freelance is a fun way to spend 90 minutes.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

Fun, but Misses the Spark of the Original

[6/10 · 3 July 2024]

Hard to believe its been 30 years since Axel Foley graced the screen in a movie. While Beverly Hills cop III was awful, Axel F is actually a good time. Its not up to the first two, but it certainly is better than the third one.

Axel is still in Detroit causing mayhem when old friend, Billy Rosewood calls to alert him that that his estranged daughter, Jane, is in trouble. Jane is a Beverly Hills lawyer defending a young man who is accused of killing a cop. The cop was undercover and may have been exposing other corrupt cops. Axel takes off for California again. While trying to reconnect with Jane, he finds out Billy has quit the force and become a private detective, but is now missing after discovering a crucial piece of evidence. The rest of the movie is just call backs to the previous films. Some work, a lot don't.

The cast is excellent. Murphy looks good for being 63 and still has a lot of charm. Judge Reinhold as Billy is nutty as ever. John Ashton returns as Taggert who is now chief of police. Also getting a promotion is Paul Reiser's Jeffrey, who is Axel's boss. Bronson Pinchot returns as Serge. Newcomers to the cast are Taylour Paige as Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jane's ex boyfriend, Detective Abbott, and Kevin Bacon as the slimy DEA Captain Grant. The cast foes a good job with the material, but can't quite raise it to the level of the previous films. I was so disappointed they didn't get Lisa Eilbacher to return and reprise her role as Jenny.

I don't remember laughing out loud once. I smiled a few times. Many of the jokes were just mimicking events in the previous films (i.e. Billy holding up his badge and telling a dozen gunman to put down their weapons). The shootout at the end of the film is a direct ripoff of the shootout at the end of the first film. There is a fine line between homage and copying. BHC4 crossed the line into outright ripoff too often to be considered an homage. It was disappointing. After 30 years, they had plenty of time to flesh out new ideas while still doing callbacks. The charm of the actors carried the film and i was never bored, but it should have been better.

Damsel (2024)

A Twist on an Old Trope

[7/10 · 25 March 2024]

I'm an avid watcher of the YouTube channel The Critical Drinker. He's a film critic who gives his reviews while pretending (I think) to be drunk. He absolutely eviscerated this movie.

However, I quite enjoyed it. It took a basic principle of the damsel in distress and added a new twist. Millie Bobbie Brown is the damsel of the title, named Elodie. She is the oldest daughter of the King Bayford (Ray Winstone). Elodie has a younger sister, Floria (Brooke Carter) and her stepmother is Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett). Their kingdom is very poor, so King Bayford betroths Elodie to Prince Henry (Nick Robinson) from a rich kingdom run by Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright). The problem is, Queen Isabelle's ancestors tangled with a nearby dragon (Persian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo provides the delicious voice of the dragon) and are forced to offer a sacrifice to the dragon in the form of a princess. By having Prince Henry marry someone from another kingdom, they can sacrifice that poor girl instead of one of their own. So, naturally, Elodie gets hurled into the dragon's lair after her wedding.

However, Elodie is not your typical damsel. She is smart, resilient and resourceful. She plays a cat and mouse game with the dragon trying to stay alive. Along the way, she discovers the truth about the dragon's history.

Ms. Brown is very good as Elodie. She does not come off as a girl boss. She is determined, scared, brave and vulnerable. Angela Bassett also has a nice turn as the stepmother who is anything but evil. Another trope twisted, as she is a fierce ally. Robin Wright is elegant and vile as Queen Isabelle who is willing to offer up innocent girls to save her kingdom.

The sets are beautiful and the action is well directed. The story moves along and is very compact so we learn everything without having to have it explained to us via exposition (a very common thing with today's writers). There is no fluff in this movie and its runtime of 110 minutes moves along quickly. The one negative in this movie is the dialogue. Its not terrible, but its not great either. Some of it is corny and some of it comes off as copied from an old folk tale. It doesn't ruin the movie, but it does make you chuckle for the wrong reasons.

I gave it a 7 because of the dialogue and some of the scenes are so dark you can't tell what's happening.

Hidden Strike (2023)

Poor Plot, but Fun Cast

[6/10 · 13 March 2024]

Jackie Chan supposedly retired from acting several years ago, but occasionally makes a movie to fund his various causes. It sure looks like this is one of those films,

Chan is Luo, a special forces soldier rescuing villagers from a war torn area. Cena is Chris, a former special forces soldier who gets mixed up with his brother's mercenary friends and crosses paths with Luo. Once Chris' brother is killed, he teams up with Luo to get revenge on the one responsible, Paddock (Pilou Asbaek). There are a lot of fights, lots of jokes, and silly (and goofy) scenes. Its obvious Chan is getting a little old to be making these movies as there are a lot of jump cuts in the fight scenes as opposed to long scenes of Chan doing amazing stunts. Time catches up to us all.

There is nothing new here that wasn't done better in Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon. Despite its definitive unoriginality, the movie sparkles because of its leads. Cena and Chan are likeable and have enough screen charisma to carry the film...barely.

Its not a great film, but its a fun way to spend 100 minutes.

Seraphim Falls (2006)

Good Only Because of the Actors Involved

[6/10 · 11 March 2024]

This movie starts out as a typical revenge Western, but then tries to be a mythical allegory. It was as if two different writers wrote the script. It could have succeeded as either, but it needed to chose one or the other.

Pierce Brosnan is Gideon, a former Union Colonel who burned down the home of former Confederate Colonel Carver (Liam Neeson). Carver swears revenge and spends the entire movie chasing Gideon through the mountains and deserts of Nevada with a posse of four other men (two of whom are played by Ed Lauter and Michael Wincott). The two actors raise the script above the tediousness of its plot. The men encounter other people along the way who either help or hinder them. None of it is really exciting or original, but again, Brosnan and Neesom could make reading tax code interesting.

The final act is where the movie started to bog down. It tries to get mystical and bgrings in Wes Studi and Angelica Huston to lend some gravitas to the goings on. It kind of works, but had the entire movie been more allegorical, perhaps the ending would have fit. But it felt like a totally different film at that point. When Studi delivers his line about what you take and what you have, I chuckled a bit because it reminded me of his character in Mystery Men where he spouted out pretentious platitudes.

The cast is really all this movie has to offer. Its well acted and the scenery is beautiful at times. The story just lacks any power or draw.

65 (2023)

Mediocre Movie

[5/10 · 27 January 2024]

I'm an Adam Driver fan, but even he can't save this movie. There is nothing really wrong with it, but there's nothing really right with it either. It just takes every basic trope from every other dinosaur and sci-fi movie and uses them at their most basic effect.

Driver is Mills, an astronaut from a distant planet who agrees on a two year mission to get the funds to save his dying daughter. While in cryogenic sleep, his spacecraft is hit by asteroids and he wakes up just in time to crash land the craft. Everyone else on board dies so he strikes out on his own to find two of escape pods that his onboard computer tells him are still functioning. Along the way, he discovers the sleep pod of another passenger, a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) who speaks a different language so they have to communicate as best they can.

There are dinosaurs, swamps, and quicksand to fend off. None of this is original and nothing really interesting happens. They just fight off various creatures and go from one danger to another. There is a twist ending that the writers seem to hope no one remembers a certain 1968 movie about astronauts crash landing on a planet.

The special effects are good, but nothing you haven't seen elsewhere.

The Out-Laws (2023)

Utter Waste of Talent, but Not a Waste of Time

[5/10 · 25 January 2024]

How does a movie that includes Pierce Brosnan, Ellen Barkin, and Michael Rooker fail? You let Adam Sandler's production company produce it.

Owen (Adam Devine) and Parker (Nina Dobrev) are a young soon-to-be married couple. Owen's neurotic parents (Richard Kind and Julie Haggerty) make his life miserable. Mere days before the wedding, Parker's absentee parents, Billy and Lilly (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin) show up out of the blue. They have missed huge parts of Parker's life recently as they have spent time abroad in third world countries. The typical hijinks of parents meeting each other as well as their soon to be son/daughter in-law gets another take. Nothing new here and I saw almost the same scenes when I watched You People last night. Michael Rooker is an FBI agent tracking the notorious bank robbing couple known as the Ghost Bandits. Guess who are the bandits? When a former partner of the thieving couple returns and kidnaps Parker, Owen inserts himself in a scheme to rob banks to pay back the kidnapper.

There are some laugh out loud scenes here, but they are few and far between. Devine is a likeable actor, but he has done much better work in When We First Met, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and Game Over, Man! There is a cute throw away joke about James Bond and a hilarious runnig gag about an orgy and Dan Marino (yes you read that correctly). The biggest problem here is that Billy and Lilly are bad people. They rob banks and actually physically injure the security guards. During a chase scene, dozens of cops are supposedly injured when their cars are destroyed. Owen even drives an armored vehicle through a cemetery, destroying headstones by the dozens. Its supposed to be funny, but its kind of disturbing.

The cast is the only thing that keeps this movie afloat. They seem to be having a good time. The writing and directing just really lets them down. The whole "meet the parents" trope has been done before and to much better effect. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was and wasn't expecting a whole lot.

You People (2023)

Decent, but Missed the Point it was Trying to Make

[6/10 · 23 January 2024]

This movie was trying to say something about how different cultures can work together if we don't let our ignorances and biases get in the way, but the characters are so one-dimensional that the point gets lost in weak screenwriting.

Ezra (Jonah Hill) and Amira (Lauren London) meet cute and fall in love. When Ezra proposes and Amira accepts, their worlds collide as he is a white Jew and she is a Black Muslim. Ezra's parents, Shelley and Arnold (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny), and Amira's parent's, Akbar and Fatima (Eddie Murphy and Nia Long) do more harm than good as they try to to grasp what their children are doing. Nothing new here as this has been done dozens of times in movies and TV shows. The actors are all skilled enough to pull it off (especially Hill and London), but it just feels so familiar.

What I have an issue with is the way the two groups of parents are portrayed. Ezra's parents are shown as pretentious and out of touch while Amira's parents are shown as proud black people standing up for their people. Akbar is kind of a jerk, but he is portrayed as a father who loves his daughter while Shelley is portrayed as unknowingly racist looking down from her ivory tower. Do both of these kinds of people exists? Sure, but the movie would have been way more impactful if the parents on both sides had been portrayed equally and displayed these same traits. The more we think we are different, the more we are actually the same. Our biases and insecurities about other cultures make us more alike than we think. Akbar's change of heart at the end is totally unbelievable as his need to protect his daughter would not have waivered, while Shelley's makes sense as she never disliked Amira, she just didn't know how to relate to her.

I really enjoyed this movie for the first hour. Most of the jokes hit and I was laughing out loud quite a bit. The supporting cast was funny and there were a lot of famous actors doing cameos. It took me a second to recognize Richard Benjamin.

You know what would be really original? If this movie had been written without the racial theme. It was just two people from different lives who fall in love. The racial divide is up on the screen for you to see, you don't have to get hit over the head with it in every word of dialogue.

Love and Monsters (2020)

A Small Budget Gem

[7/10 · 13 December 2023]

This is a really sweet, funny, and charming movie. A young man, Joel, survives an apocalyptic event that turns insects and certain other creatures (ants, frogs, crabs, etc) into gigantic monsters. Survivors live in colonies underground. In his colony, Joel is designated as the cook, as he freezes up in tense situations and is useless on hunting parties. When Joel finds out his former girlfriend, Aimee, is alive in another colony 85 miles away, he decides to trek across open country to reunite with her. Along the way, he picks up a canine friend, Boy, and meets an older man (the always reliable Michael Rooker) and a young girl, who teach him how to survive.

The budget is small, the special effects are bargain basement, but the movie has a heart that is missing from most movies. It is well written and directed and a cast of basic unknowns do a great job.

Every character is imbued with humanity and Joel's physical and emotional journey are well acted by Dylan O'Brien. His girlfriend, portrayed by Jessica Henwick, is resourceful, determined and compassionate.

This is how movies should be made. They made it for $30m and you can see where they cut corners with the effects. Still, you don't need to spend $300m to make an entertaining movie. While it only made back $1.1m, COVID had a lot to do with that. I hope they make a sequel, preferably on a streaming platform. I'd like to see how Joel and Aimee fare in the future.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Its Not Terrible, but Its not Great

[6/10 · 12 December 2023]

It took me four separate viewings to get through this movie. It did get better, but its not a great movie by any means.

The first 20 minutes are about as good as any other parts of the series. But then the next hour is grating. The dialogue is amateurish and the action scenes are so contrived its like they had several set pieces in mind and just needed to fill in gaps to get from one to the other. Lots has been written about the Helena character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She annoyed me very much in the early parts of the film, which is why I kept turning it off. The last 45 minutes or so, her character tones down the annoyance factor and she's a decent addition. Had she played the character that way from the beginning, I think a lot of the hate would have been diffused. It wasn't a character arc. There was no situation that made her stop being annoying. She just stopped being annoying. Its like they wrote scenes for two separate characters, one who would be killed off, then changed their minds and combined the scenes/dialogue into one Helena character.

During the iconic scenes of the red line crossing the map as they traveled the world, someone decided NOT to include the theme song. I mean, WTF!?

Indiana Jones deserved a better send off than this. It wasn't terrible, maybe a bit too long and the direction was weak, but it still can't match the previous entries. It was missing the element of fun and adventure from previous entries and that is what really turned me off. It just didn't match the escapist tone of the earlier movies.

Obliterated (2023)

Betrer Than It Has a Right to Be

[7/10 · 2 December 2023]

I had never heard of this show. I was scrolling through my Yahoo news feed and saw a review of the show. The title of the review was so condescending I just had to read it. The author obliterated the show (pun intended). She was extremely critical of all the sex and gratuitous nudity. She basically said the show was a waste of time.

Of course, this made me want to watch it. I have to say, it lacks direction, the writing is poor, and there is a ton of filler to bloat it to eight episodes. Having said that, I LOVED THIS SHOW for the exact reasons the critic stated. It dumb as hell, but its a fun ride. The actors have really good chemistry and I binged watched it.

An elite special forces crew thinks they have stopped a nuclear terrorist attack in Las Vegas, so to celebrate, they get hammered on a combination of drugs, alcohol, sex, and other basic debauchery (a camel is involved). They then learn the plot they stopped was a decoy, so they have 7 hours to stop the real bombing. Still obliterated (hence the title) they spend the next 7 hours whacked out of their minds while trying to find a briefcase nuke.

Ava is a hardened CIA operative running the team who recently lost her fiance on a mission. McKinight is the Team Lead and resident hunk with an ego problem. Trunk is the muscle who can't ever seem to get something to eat. Gomez is the sniper, a Michelle Rodriguez knock off who is a lesbian and hides her emotions. Paul is the married helicopter pilot with family issues. Maya is the tech nerd who is in love with McKnight, but is too shy to say it. Lastly, there is Haggerty, the explosives expert who spends most of the series in a drug induced stupor. There is another character named Lana, a ditzy blonde who the team rescued during the original mission and she tags along as she has intimate knowledge of one of the villains. These characters all seem pretty standard on these types of shows, but the actors imbue them with just enough personality to make them stand out. Unfortunately, the villains are pretty one-dimensional which is really the biggest failing of the show.

There are a ton of gunfights, fist fights, sex, graphic nudity, humor and some pretty extreme torture scenes. In fairness, all the actors wind up nude at some point so there is definitely no inequality there.

Sadly, I think this is one of those one season events. The premise of the show could not be repeated and I don't think there is enough originality to the show for it to sustain a second season. Still, it was a fun watch and the show knew exactly what it was and didn't try to be anything else.

Loki (2021–2023)

Marvel Still Has Some Magic Left

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

I adored Season 1 and I think I might like Season 2 just a smidge better. Most of the MCU since Endgame has been pretty bad, but Loki was the exception. Season 1 had a great story, fun characters and kept my interest. Season 2 felt like a different show to me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it feels different in tone and direction from Season 1.

After Sophie killed Kang last season, the multiverse went into overload. That leads to Loki attempting to stop the destruction of all of the universes by getting assembling a team of his own to get everything back to normal. That is a very simplistic explanation for Season 2, but its all about the execution of the story. The time travel elements of the plot have been done before, but the acting, directing and writing are so good, its one of the most enjoyable time travel shows I have watched in a long time. Tom Hiddleston is an amazing actor and the MCU needs to figure out how to get him back into the movies, even though I think he is done with the MCU. The supporting cast is top notch and there is nary a weak link here. Even Jonathan Majors, whose reputation has taken a hit of late, does well playing a Miles Dyson-esque version of Kang (if you get the T-2 reference). New cast member Ke Huy Quan is a fun addition and the beefing up of other characters' roles were done well. Again, no weak links here.

As I said, the one thing about this show is it doesn't really feel like an MCU show. That's not a negative. Loki Season 2 is a really well made show with enough tension, comedy and action, to keep it going. There is no filler episodes to pad it out. I just wish the creators of the other shows and movies would pay attention. This is how you make movies/tv shows.

The Flash (I) (2023)

Better than its Box Office

[6/10 · 30 August 2023]

Like most people, I waited for this movie to come to Max as I did not think it was worthy of spending the money to see it in theaters. While it has problems, its still an enjoyable and fun movie.

Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) decided to go back in time to try and save his mother. In doing so, he gets trapped in the past with his younger self (who hasn't received his powers yet). The two of them seek out Bruce Wayne for assistance, but the Bruce Wayne in this timeline is a retired Michael Keaton, not Ben Affleck. The two Barrys convince Bruce to assist them in finding the Superman. When they discover the imprisoned Kryptonian in Siberia, its not Kal-el they find, but Kara-el (Sasha Calle), his cousin. Old Barry also finds out he has unleashed General Zod (Michael Shannon) on Earth again. Together, with a newly empowered young Barry, this new Justice League attempts to thwart Zod while also resetting the timeline.

The CGI is awful for a movie that costs $200m (before marketing). I simply do not understand how a movie in this day and age looks so cheesy. Actors are on strike to avoid digital representations of them in the future, but if The Flash is any indication, they don't need to worry. My second issue is with the character of Supergirl (can we still call her that). I enjoyed Ms. Calle's performance as Kara, but she is way underutilized. In the comic on which this movie is based, its Kal-el they find not Kara, but I didn't mind the gender swap. I did mind, the swap if you are just going to waste the character. She contributes almost nothing to the plot and there was some great storyline that could have been explored, but it seemed like the director just wanted to get in more CGI battles. The other issue i had was the idea that two Barry's could defeat an army of Zod's supermen. One Superman kicked the snot out of Barry in Justice League. Yet hundreds of them are easily defeated by...I'm not making this up...kicking them.

Having said all of that, the individual parts are better than the whole. I know Miller has a ton of off camera issues, but he has always been my favorite part of the Justice League. His wide-eyed, innocent attitude was a perfect counterbalance to all the gods around him. This Barry is more mature and even he gets annoyed by his younger self. I imagine I would also get upset with my arrogant 20 year old self if I met him...me....today. The byplay and filming of these scenes are excellent and you can't tell its one guy playing two roles in the same scene. The inclusion of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman was a nice nostalgia kick. He still looks menacing and psychotic which was the best part of him being Batman. He looks insane enough to be running around at night dressed like a bat. Sasha Calle looked amazing in the costume and there was some serious potential for a story arc that got wasted. She went from being an isolated prisoner to being human's best hope rather quickly. There was a moment where it seemed like she might turn on the humans (for imprisoning her) but then she sides with them almost at the drop of a hat. Missed opportunity in my opinion.

I'm not a huge fan of these multiverse storylines. Seems like it just an excuse to bring back actors or characters and shuffle plots lines when you run out of new ideas. I did enjoy it in Spider-man: No Way Home, and to some extent it was fun in The Flash, but its being overdone. Still, I enjoyed The Flash as a low-tier superhero movie and was not disappointed at all.

The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Gladiator vs. Satan

[6/10 · 21 August 2023]

Russell Crowe plays the real life Pope's exorcist, Gabriele Amorth. Father Amorth passed away in 2006 and its probably a good thing. While this movie is spooky and entertaining, its a big, exaggerated, and I assume highly fictionalized, version of a time in Father Amorth's life.

The Pope (Franco Nero) assigns Father Amorth to look into a potential demonic possession of a young boy in Spain. The boy, Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), his mother Julia (Alex Essoe) and his sister Amy (Laurel Marsden) are Americans who move to Spain after the death of Henry's father in a car accident. They are living in an old Spanish abbey that is the only think Julia's husband left them when he died in a car accident the year before. A local priest, Father Esquible (Daniel Zovatto) is out of his element, but is enlisted by Amorth to assist in the exorcism.

The possession tropes are all here. Contortions, scary voices, lights going on and off, crosses turning upside down, people getting thrown around, possessed people spewing fluids and cursing, climbing walls and crawling around like spiders. There is a mystery about the origin of the abbey dealing with the church's role in the Inquisition.

There is some gratuitous nudity that just felt out of place in this movie. I mean, I like naked breasts as much as the next guy, but it just felt a bit uneccessary.

Crowe does a really good job as Father Amorth. He has the right balance of faith, weariness and conviction for someone who faces evil of all kinds. Zovatto's performance as Father Esquibel, to me, was the highlight of the film. He keeps everything grounded, despite the bizarre happenings. All three of the actors playing the family members are cookie-cutter performances and don't really add or subtract from the proceedings. There are some genuine chills in this move and a few scary moments. I enjoyed it and its crisp runtime kept it from getting boring. Still, I was hoping for a bit more story and less stunt work. I mean how many times do we need to see someone get thrown across a room into a mirrored wall and get right back up? One character, while wrestling with a possessed child, gets their head smashed through a ceramic sink with no effect. I might have tapped out and sought some aspirin.

Enjoy it for what it is. Then go watch the Exorcist again.

The Hungover Games (2014)

OMG Its Bad

[3/10 · 2 August 2023]

I generally try to find the best in just about any movie. However, there is nothing to see here. This is what happens when you take the decayed corpse of a franchise (the Freidberg/Seltzer spoof movies) and then run a few jolts of electricity through it. The movie tries, but boy, is it bad. The aforementioned joke I made about reviving a corpse is appropriate since Jonathan Silverman somehow got dragged into this movie and his main claim to game are the Weekend at Bernie movies.

They tried to combine the Hunger Games with the Hangover, and then throw in just about every pop culture character from the time (circa 2014), you get this mishmash of ideas and its completely a waste. If you took the scripts from the two movies its spoofing, shredded them, threw them in the air and then taped together what you could catch, you'd have something funnier than this nonsense. The end credits alone are like outtakes from rejected Jackass episodes.

How does something like this even get made?

Reminiscence (2021)

A Dark Moody Dystopian Film

[7/10 · 26 July 2023]

In the near future, global warming has caused flooding that drowns most of the southern coast to include Miami and Louisiana. The rich live up high on dry land while the poor dwell down at water logged level. Apparently a war broke out at some point when the flooding began as several characters reference it. In this bleak future, Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) has the ability to aid people in reliving memories by putting them in a sensory tank and projecting a hologram of their memories onto a platform. It allows people to relive a fond memory, find missing items, or just go back to a time when they were most happy. The problem I had is the way this is portrayed in the film. You would think if he is accessing someone's memories, you would literally see it through their eyes or viewpoint. Instead, we get a panoramic view of whatever is happening in the memory. I understand it makes better viewing for the audience, but its odd that it looks like someone was there filming their memories from a distance. He is assisted by his partner, Emily Sanders (Thandiwe Newton), who has some bad memories in her past that she has no interest in reliving. One day, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) enters their business because she has lost some keys, Nick falls hopelessly in love. When Mae suddenly disappears, Nick puts himself in the tank and keeps trying to find things in his own memories that he thinks he missed that might help solve Mae's disappearance. This leads him down a rabbit hole of trying to locate Mae and finding out she may not have been who he thought she was.

I really liked this movie. It was an interesting concept with a great cast and while the plot is a bit convoluted, its still well acted and directed. I had never heard of it, but anything with Jackman in it is worth watching. The moodiness of water logged Miami and then New Orleans acts as a character all its own. Nick still believes in love despite the circumstances and he goes to great lengths to find Mae. He uses his ability to pull out people's memories to track Mae and his hunt for her leads him to seedy mobsters, a corrupt cop (the always reliable Cliff Curtis) and the tearing down of the facade of the rich. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Nick continues to believe Mae is good. The truth is somewhere in the middle and is handled really well. Jackman delivers a fantastic performance as a man obsessed with love and then is undeterred in finding out why his love was not returned. Ms. Ferguson is a beautiful screen presence, but her character is not very well fleshed out. Her motivations are not real clear and it would have made a better film if we knew why she was doing what she was doing. Everything is told from Nick's perspective and through the memories he hijacks, but its all through his eyes and not really through the eyes of the other characters. I understand the premise as we discover the clues right along with Nick which keeps us in suspense, but it does have the drawback of being a bit one-sided in its presentation. The only other thing I would nitpick is the fight scenes. Nick gets in a lot of fights and sometimes he gets his butt kicked pretty easily. Other times (like when he fights Curtis' corrupt cop) he looks like Wolverine. He either knows how to fight or he doesn't. He's a former soldier so I would think he would have some kind of hand-to-hand combat training, but it comes and goes depending on the need in each scene for the antagonist to get away.

Give this film a look. Its not something you're gonna watch again, but its well-made and its entertaining as a film should be.

The Binge (2020)

Not Bad, Not Good, A Few Funny Moments

[5/10 · 24 July 2023]

This movie wants to be a teen comedy version of The Purge. It had its moments, but not enough to make it a cult classic. It tries to elevate its station by having Morgan Freeman narrate the events, but I doubt he is going to be adding it to his resume.

In the future, all alcohol and drugs are banned. On one night, however, everything is legal. This night is called The Binge (roll credits). Three high school seniors, Griffin (Skyler Gisondo), Hags (Dexter Darden) and Andrew (Eduardo Franco) are in search of the greatest party being held on this night. Everything goes wrong and they spend most of the movie just trying to get to the party. Griffin is desperate to meet up with Lena (Grace Van Dien) so he can ask her to prom. Her father, Principal Carlsen (Vince Vaughn) is obviously trying to prevent his daughter making it to the party.

There are a few funny scenes, but not enough to sustain it. A visit to Andrew's brother's place, an accident involving a cow and a musical interlude (a bit out of place, but made me smile) are well-done and funny, but those are the highlights. Most of the plot is contrived and has been done before, and done better. The supporting characters add nothing and are so one dimensional they could have used cardboard cutouts.

This is one of those movies you put on in the background and mentally tune in and out during its runtime. There is not enough to keep you interested, but individual scenes are worth watching.