Team America: World Police.

Review #2557: Team America: World Police.

Cast: 

Trey Parker (Gary Johnston/Joe Smith/Carson/Kim Jong Il/Hans Blix/Matt Damon/Tim Robbins/Sean Penn/Michael Moore/Helen Hunt/Peter Jennings/Susan Sarandon/Drunk in Bar/Liv Tyler/Janeane Garofalo/Additional voices), Matt Stone (Chris Roth/George Clooney/Danny Glover/Ethan Hawke/Martin Sheen/Additional voices), Kristen Miller (Lisa Jones), Masasa Moyo (Sarah Wong), Daran Norris (Spottswoode), Phil Hendrie (I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E./Chechen terrorist), Maurice LaMarche (Alec Baldwin), Chelsea Marguerite (French mother), Jeremy Shada (Jean Francois), Fred Tatasciore (Samuel L. Jackson), and Greg Ballora, Scott Land, Seb Hartman & Tony Urbano (Lead puppeteers) Directed by Trey Parker (#2226 - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut)

Review: 

"It's funny when someone responds with, “Oh, well they think this is funny?” No, we just think that everything's funny. We think that “funny” is a great thing and “funny” is a great way to think about things and deal with things. People who don't have great senses of humor think that comedy is that you just think something's trite and stupid and you don't care about it. [They think] if you're laughing, it's because what you think you're laughing at is stupid — because that's about as far as their sense of humor goes. People don't realize that it can be something a lot deeper than that." - Trey Parker

Sure, let's talk about the movie with puppets and American spirit for the 4th of July. The production of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999) was a pain in the ass for Trey Parker and Matt Stone (particularly with the ratings board), but it was a successful pain in the ass, and eventually the two of them came up with something they thought would be funny to do for a film. They landed upon the Thunderbirds (as originally created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson from 1964-1966), which they vaguely remembered watching as reruns when they were bored and found it "so expository and slow" for a show that took itself really seriously involving the Tracy family and a few vehicles (when production was rounding the corner to finish, Parker and Stone jokingly called Anderson "absolutely insane"*). Of course, it also helps to be a "send-up" of the Jerry Bruckheimer productions of the time (most notably Pearl Harbor [2001], although non-Bruckheimer films like Megaforce [1982] also proved an inspiration). Parker and Stone wrote the film with longtime writing partner Pam Brady. The Chiodo Brothers helped create the hundreds of puppet characters, with Parker and Stone soon realizing during filming that the comic tone to them came from the marionettes trying to drama rather than just having "puppets doing jokes". Trying to capture every stunt live on film and making the deadline of late September 2004 took a toll on the filmmakers, who also had to battle with the MPAA for the rating because, and I'm not kidding, a puppet sex scene (but the violence, well...), but they got the job in time for release in theaters in October, which happened to be less than four months after the live-action adaptation of Thunderbirds. 

Team America: World Police was a fair hit with audiences at the time; various filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright have called it among their favorite films of this particular generation. The biggest compliment is that the movie is clearly more entertaining than the two Thunderbirds movies. With a film that was about American optimism that basically has kept Americans looking forward regardless of how naive it all sounds. Stone and Parker clearly enjoy dealing in humor when it comes to the world that gets construed for nihilism because they favor the middle ground and what sounds funny in common sense. It just so happens that there are a few folks worth making fun of (visually/audibly) to go with a rhythm of four-letter colorful words (including a climax involving the nature of what can be construed as "collateral damage, am I right?"). It freewheels for 98 minutes on a loose plot involving looming terror, a horde of film actors guild (get it?) members and the Bruckheimer spirit of entertainment at all costs in chaos that is pretty funny for what actually gets on screen beyond (obviously) the wires. Beneath the tension (in the "I think America will win, but unless....") is a few silly moments on the side that ranges from the hang-ups of "actors" and whatever goofy stuff you spot in the staging of puppets trying to maneuver around the environment. Parker and Stone are perfectly comfortable with the voices they want to put on (Norris probably hones it in the best for the not-Jeff Tracy from) and the movie rolls along with its tongue-in-cheek ra-ra spirit that, naturally, has a rip-roaring "America" song (the one that goes "fuck yeah", yeah, yeah, yeah). You see a few neat-looking vehicles to house the puppets and staging that works with the scenarios. It ribs at wannabee global dictators and wannabee do-gooders with enough conviction in actually having fun (well, unless you're Sean Penn*). As a whole, Team America is packed with enough goofy moments in the audacity of going nuts with puppets going on an adventure ends up being a bit more than just being swears and strings. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Apparently, Gerry Anderson was quoted as stating "there are good, fun parts [in the film] but the language wasn't to [his] liking".

*Bro really sent them a letter being mad that Parker and Stone said there was "no shame in not voting" and closed it with "All best, and a sincere fuck you".

Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Review #2540: Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Cast: 

Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi / 4A-7 / Medical Droid), Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Rex / Commander Cody), Tom Kane (Yoda / The Narrator / Admiral Yularen), Nika Futterman (Asajj Ventress / TC-70), Ian Abercrombie (Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious), Corey Burton (Ziro the Hutt / General Loathsom / KRONOS-327), Catherine Taber (Padmé Amidala), Matthew Wood (Battle Droids), Kevin Michael Richardson (Jabba the Hutt), David Acord (Rotta the Huttlet), with Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and Christopher Lee (Count Dooku) Directed by Dave Filoni.

Review: 

Imagine, it is the year 2008, for a moment. All you've got with Star Wars is six theatrical movies (and a bunch of television that, what, twelve people cared about?)...and a new film coming out, one that's animated. Then you ask what the hell is The Clone Wars? Well, your immersion has expired, but I might as well run it down anyway. Well, there are two shows under that title, with the first coming around in 2003 via animated shorts that was developed by Genndy Tartakovsky with digital 2D animation (and select cel-shaded 3D). Then you've got the 2008 animated series (now with "The" in there because, well, why not?) that came around because of George Lucas. Lucas had thought about doing this as early as 2002, once stating that Star Wars was "a sandbox I love to play in"; Lucasfilm Animation was created in 2005*. Dave Filoni was among the team of people (described by The New York Times as "young Star Wars-obsessed artists") hired by Lucas. The Mt. Lebanon native had studied animation at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania prior to serving as a storyboard artist/assistant director on a variety of television such as King of the Hill and also directed/wrote a number of the first season episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first season was pitched around to TV networks in 2007, but nobody initially went with it. Regardless of this, encouraged by the animation results he saw, Lucas decided to produce a theatrical Clone Wars movie, which only then got Warner Bros. interested in the show. Essentially, a couple of episodes were stitched into what you see for a 98-minute movie, with Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy being credited as writers for this film. Released in August 2008 (the first and so far, only, Star Wars movie released in that month) with a reported budget of $8.5 million, the movie was a light success with audiences. Two months later, Star Wars: The Clone Wars aired on Cartoon Network and ran for five years (before returning for stints on Netflix and Disney+ because, well, why not?). 

It may actually be the most vacant Star Wars film of its ilk, managing to do the bare minimum in "space battles" and plot that probably does make one appreciate the live-action filmmaking of Attack of the Clones [2002] (especially when one realizes that the war is basically window dressing for one guy acquiring further power anyway). Things happen in a vacuum that probably are explored in televised form, but it all feels like the paint has rusted off a familiar format with little to really back it up. The animation was deliberately meant to be "a little bit of anime, a little bit of feature animation", one that basically was inspired by the Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds as opposed to say, Beowulf. With that understanding in mind, I can't stand the animation in the same way that I just couldn't stand Thunderbirds in all of its off-putting ways (but with no strings). There are moments when it looks like something you could create with a bunch of foam cups, honestly. The voice cast is in that odd spot where going from folks such as Hayden Christensen/Natalie Portman/Ewan McGregor can only go so far in a movie that doesn't really give them much to actually show off anything beyond the most perfunctory of things (this is a fetch quest movie to save a gassy aged soccer ball looking kid, after all, and I totally will never hear the phrase "Rotta the Hutt" ever again)...to contrast with the bit moments of Jackson and Lee (paycheck time). The banter between Lanter and Eckstein is, well, not exactly endearing, mainly because it feels like a workshopped encounter between siblings more than anything. I remember having basically one question about this film as a person who didn't see the show as either a teenager or an adult: what exactly is the point of Ahsoka Tano? Okay, sure, there were other questions (namely if the animation ever looked better), but really, what is the big fascination about this character that they have their own show nearly 20 years after this film? (going as someone who just watches the films, anyway, since this character never showed up physically in any of the movies, which suggests they were somehow important for the show, but not the main saga*). All I got from this film was a bunch of chuckles at the banter and that was about it. With such sluggish amusement all the way around, it only seems appropriate to call it a middle-of-road misfire, one that did not exceed my expectations in mediocrity.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Incidentally, the only other feature film Lucasfilm Animation has been involved with came with Strange Magic seven years later.

*What the hell is The Mandalorian? Also, I fudged a bit, there is one Clone Wars "bit" I did see: "I am coming back from my ten minute ban.."

Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Review #2528: Resident Evil: Apocalypse. 

Cast:

Milla Jovovich (Alice), Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Oded Fehr (Carlos Olivera), Thomas Kretschmann (Major Timothy Cain), Sophie Vavasseur (Angela "Angie" Ashford), Razaaq Adoti (Sgt. Peyton Wells), Jared Harris (Dr. Charles Ashford), Mike Epps (Lloyd Jefferson "L.J." Wade), Sandrine Holt (Terri Morales), Matthew G. Taylor (Nemesis), Zack Ward (Nicholai Ginovaef), and Iain Glen (Dr. Alexander Isaacs) Directed by Alexander Witt.

Review: 

Hey, remember Resident Evil (2002)? I...uh, sort of remember it? Well, okay, I'm just going to perform straight plagiarism by reminding myself that I saw the movie was the kind of movie you could probably watch while doing your taxes. No, it did not spur me to try out the games.* But people bought tickets to see it, so I imagine there were plenty of tax forms all brought up for fun amidst a "treasure trove" of violence and effects. Paul W. S. Anderson* enjoyed doing the first movie but had commitments to Alien vs. Predator (2004) that meant he could not direct the sequel, although he served as a screenwriter and co-producer. Various inspirations ranged from the third game to Escape from New York (1981) and The Omega Man (1971). This was the directorial debut for Alexander Witt, who had been working in film since the 1970s in a variety of roles such as camera assistant, commercial director and second unit work on films such as who had done second unit work on films such as Speed (1994); Witt has mostly stayed around in second unit work in the two decades since the release of the film. The series returned with Resident Evil: Extinction (2007).

It is a movie where someone makes an entrance by crashing through a stained-glass window on a motorcycle. Honestly, the enjoyment level is a smidge above the first film, mainly because at least it tries to aim for action that isn't confined to a lab. It finds new and exciting ways of being a hack spectacle that doesn't do anything new with its zombie creatures or its new ensemble for Jovovich to blankly encounter. Some movies can coast on characters basically being described as "job description" or "the chick with the neat shorts" or "the funny guy" even with a shelf life above, say, 93 minutes. This is not one of those movies, because even horror movies in small locales such as, say, Chopping Mall (1986) had enthusiasm in its mayhem. Here, it just feels like the equivalent of going to the supermarket without a list in mind only to suffer a stubbed foot in the store has no A/C before realizing that the jug of milk expires today*. Jovovich has done little to nothing to really further a character that is doing the exact same thing as before in teaming up with a ragtag bunch to survive but not really showing leadership besides "don't die". It isn't even worth trying to talk about Kretschmann as a "villain" because the general maneuvering of the film just feels so cookie-cutter and so bland that it doesn't even feel worthy to make fun of the reveal of "Nemesis" (I know it is related to the game, because otherwise I'm surprised they didn't call it something sillier like Vengeance Knight or Deadman). It just feels like a movie you put on to, wait for it, to do your taxes while it is on in the background. Two movies in and I barely feel like I really care much about the "T-virus" or "Raccoon City", but hey, gotta move forward to see slow-moving creatures by mowed down. For whatever reason, I guess the setup of the next film will be that in addition to going around doing action sequences of shooting, our hero now has psionic abilities. Oh, and I guess Umbrella is fine with her escaping as part of their plan (some plan, the next one is called "Extinction"). As a whole, if you were a fan of the first movie, maybe you'll be right at home with this one in terms of spectacle, but it just came off as hollow middle-of-the-road noise.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*It's funny, the only horror game I played from start to finish was The House of the Dead: Overkill.

*You might remember that Anderson eventually married Jovovich. Cool, did they ever make a movie together that was actually good?

*I was going to use a bad experience in say, accidentally bumping into someone who likes to gab endlessly in small-talk, but I realize some of you may have friends that actually take the time to do so. Self awareness, pal!

Underworld: Evolution.

Review #2527: Underworld: Evolution.

Cast:

Kate Beckinsale (Selene; Lily Mo Sheen as young Selene), Scott Speedman (Michael Corvin), Tony Curran (Markus Corvinus), Derek Jacobi (Alexander Corvinus / Lorenz Macaro), Steven Mackintosh (Andreas Tanis), Shane Brolly (Kraven), Bill Nighy (Viktor), Zita Görög (Amelia), and Brian Steele (William Corvinus) Directed by Len Wiseman (#320 - Live Free or Die Hard, #1916 - Underworld, #2388 - Ballerina)

Review: 

Admittedly, I was a bit hesitant to actually get back to the sequel to Underworld (2003), mainly because I had a funny feeling it was going to sink below the level of the first movie, which surprised me in being average goofy entertainment that was at least endearing for one watch. You've got leather-clad folks, guns, and some war that tries to make werewolves sound cool by calling them "Lycans", how could one go wrong? You might remember there was a vampire assassin and a vampire/lycan hybrid that had to run off because of the death of an elder vampire and the accidental spilling of blood onto a sleeping vampire elder. For whatever reason, now there is a talisman in the proceedings to go along with tombs and family reunions. Len Wiseman and Danny McBride returned to write the story together while McBride wrote the screenplay. The relative success of the film with audiences obviously led to further films. Wiseman and McBride ended up contributing to the next Underworld film, a prequel directed by Patrick Tatpoulos with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009). The next sequel came with Underworld: Awakening in 2012.

It really does sting sometimes to say that a movie is just not that good. Sure, it isn't in the bottom of the barrel and it definitely has some appeal for those who got really into the idea of leather-clad slugfests with ideas of "lore"...but it just rings hollow in the final result in trying to pursue the series as a "franchise". Beyond the blue filter that basically pervades one's eyes over and over, the movie crashes and burns at the feet of being so scattershot that it actually almost becomes funny in spite of its overblown seriousness. You get a prologue set in 1202 to look at three vampire elders (with only one of them actually mattering for the movie at large, since one of them died in the first movie), with one being the son of an immortal and, oh, the brother of the first big bad werewolf. This wolf is put in what is supposed to be a forever jail to hide away from the immortal vampire. You get further explanations (read: ramblings by a vampire historian that we first see with Lycan women) that make you realize that this is going to be one of those fetch quest type of movies but with less Gothic wannabee fun, where only Mackintosh or Jacobi seem interested. As it turned out, this was the last of the movies with both Beckinsale and Speedman, as the latter did not reprise his role for any further films. Even with the sex scene they share together (or whatever you want to call a scene with the most select type of skin shown), they have about as much chemistry as lettuce on a sandwich (nuke the plant from orbit). You would think having a ship in the film (immortals have to go around on their boat miles) would be really big, but nay. You don't even get to have the air of a respectable actor such as Jacobi* for so long because hey, gotta focus on the hybrid stuff, because Curran sure isn't going to provide menace in hybrid-infused world domination. Hybrid hybrid hybrid, hmm? The movie may be a bit gorier and maybe may work better for those who like to see a few computer creatures that look decent if you actually watch it at night, but calling it a junk movie might almost be a compliment for those who know what they are getting into. Being a notch below a movie that was average as the day that it was created is a negative thing, but at least you can say they tried.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Derek Jacobi, otherwise known as the only interesting incarnation of the Master in the 21st century, and yes, I'm still mad his incarnation got killed off that quickly. Sorry, I meant Sir Derek Jacobi, famous Tony Award-winning actor. Hey, I don't do the theater.

Oldboy.

Review #2504: Oldboy.

Cast: 

Choi Min-sik (Oh Dae-su; Oh Tae-kyung as young Dae-su), Yoo Ji-tae (Lee Woo-jin; Yoo Yeon-seok as young Woo-jin), Kang Hye-jung (Mi-do), Ji Dae-han (No Joo-hwan; Woo Il-han as young Joo-hwan), Kim Byeong-ok (Mr. Han), Yoon Jin-seo (Lee Soo-ah), Oh Dal-su (Mr. Park Cheol-woong), and Oh Kwang-rok (Suicidal man) Directed by Park Chan-wook.

Review: 

"Many people tend to differentiate starkly between commercially successful or nonsuccessful movies, but the simple truth is merely that people have differing tastes about what kind of movies they like or don't. The audience seems hazy to me, shrouded in a veil through which I can't see. They are not real, not concrete. So I chose one person to be my sole audience, representing all the audiences out there. That person is my wife. From the scriptwriting and the editing process all the way to deciding on the music, I discuss everything with her thoroughly in detail. She is a normal housewife with an incredible eye who constantly offers me much advice and help."

One of the reasons for New Directors Month is to make up for lost time and go with people that clearly will get further featuring over time. Born to an architect and a poet in Seoul, Park Chan-wook actually planned to be an art critic. His major was philosophy at Sogang University but couldn't quite settle in to his major (the university did not have many arts classes) and found interest in a photography club. He then saw a screening of Vertigo (1958) and apparently was compelled to "at least try to become a movie director"*. Park worked as a film critic (when he had to make money in college, he did stories based on movies prior to being shown in Korea with subtitles) while earning film experience as an assistant director on Kkamdong (1988). He made his attempt to be a filmmaker with The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream (1992) and Trio (1997) ...and neither found an audience, to the point where Park essentially disowned them. At any rate, he kept going, directing the short film Judgement (1999) that basically made him realized that actors "were not puppets". He got his breakthrough with the mystery thriller Joint Security Area (2000), which for a brief time was the highest ever grossing movie in South Korea. Unintentionally, Park's next film became the first of what has been labeled as "The Vengeance Trilogy" with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), with Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005) soon following. According to Park, the theme of vengeance recurred in certain movies of his because of how people have had to deal with the rage and grudges within themselves (with smaller and smaller outlets to get it out) that basically leads to "stories of people who place the blame for their actions on others because they refuse to take on the blame themselves", where morality and guilty consciences are what matters as the subject (he also has stated once that his "through-line of violence" comes with the turbulence he had witnessed as a college youth in the 1980s). In addition to the occasional work for television (such as The Sympathizer in 2024*), Park has continued to make a wide variety of films such as I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006), Thirst (2009), The Handmaiden (2016) and his most recent work, No Other Choice (2025).

The source material for the film was the Japanese manga Old Boy, which was written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi that was serialized from 1996 to 1998. Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Jun-hyung, and Park Chan-wook adapted the script for the film you see here. An unauthorized Indian adaptation called Zinda came out in 2006 before Oldboy was subsequently remade for American audiences with Spike Lee in 2013. What you get here is a movie all about making you feel every nook and cranny of the complexities that arise in what it really means to try and seek revenge and the all-encompassing perils that come with guilt. It is an action thriller of course, with a particularly standout single-shot corridor fight scene, but there is something much more involving in what the movie wants to make you feel in the cycles of violence that come every now and then that isn't so much exploitative as is evocative. The performances are particularly worthwhile to experience this disturbing journey of all-consuming violence, with Choi (who did most of his own stunts) managing to take it all in a stride that fits the film perfectly with where it has to go for a movie that really just involves two people confronting a mirror of each other rather than just good vs. evil. Yoo makes that other side of all-consuming revenge just as unnerving with a chilling performance that really does get under one's skin for what you see of him (I think back to the scene where he is just standing in the room with a mask, honestly). Caught in the middle of it is Kang, who handles it all with such hurried grace in this wavering story of someone trying to understand what they cannot possibly understand. You understand the feeling of being in captivity like a chained beast and wonder if they ever actually got out of the cage. Rage and vengeance can be all-consuming if one allows it to permeate through their wellbeing, and it helps that the film basically spreads its violence out in ways that make the punishments all the more unnerving (whether that involves pulling teeth, eating a live octopus, or, well, with its climax). It is a fairly brisk film that manages to be pretty unnerving with its slow burn about what really matters in the pursuit of "the truth" that you really have to not spoil for yourself. There are no triumphs or easy answers at the end of the film, which actually is a pretty big relief when you get down to it. It's a pretty damn good movie, particularly if you go into it with as little to know as possible to really let it wash over you.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

*Among influences Park listed in 2004 were: "Sophocles, Shakespeare, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Zola, Stendhal, Austin, Philip K. Dick, Zelazny and Vonnegut." Fun fact: one influence on Viet Thanh Nguyen when writing The Sympathizer was in fact Park's Oldboy (2003).

Another end to the New Directors Month tradition. Among the finalists for this year include the following: Pigs and Battleships [Shōhei Imamura] · The Man Who Fell To Earth [Nicolas Roeg]  · Wakefield [Robin Swicord] · Bad Company [Robert Benton] · Jacob the Liar [Frank Beyer] · Hundreds of Beavers [Mike Cheslik]

As always, see you next time.

Sexy Beast.

Review #2501: Sexy Beast.

Cast: 

Ray Winstone (Gary 'Gal' Dove), Ben Kingsley (Don Logan), Ian McShane (Teddy Bass), Amanda Redman (DeeDee Dove), James Fox (Harry), Cavan Kendall (Aitch), Julianne White (Jackie), and Álvaro Monje (Enrique) Directed by Jonathan Glazer.

Review: 

"I’m not the kind of director who has 10 projects on the go to see which one works out. It feels more like music to me — I have this idea for an album and I want to make it. If I do something, I have to do it well and sometimes that takes a little time."

I suppose I should've done this one sooner. Sexy Beast was the debut feature film of Jonathan Glazer, who grew up in London to a Reform Jewish family (he noted that that in his childhood, he encountered various "East End Jews who had moved to the suburbs for a better quality of life" that imprinted on him with their culture) saw him attend Jewish Free School. He then went to art school because he believed that drawing was the only thing he was good at. However, he got into the habit of directing because there were friends of his in bands that wanted him to shoot music videos for them. Eventually, after graduating with a degree in theatre design from Nottingham Trent University, Glazer got into making film trailers and eventually got into doing commercials; eventually, he did videos for bands such as Radiohead. Apparently, Glazer was slated to direct for the first time with the movie Gangster No. 1 which was written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto based on their play before disagreements with the casting led to all three people leaving (Paul McGuigan eventually made the film in 2000). According to Scinto, Sexy Beast "was born, out of a reaction to all that chaos and soap opera", going from a stage play draft with the working title "Gangster No. 2" to, well, Sexy Beast; the two had one further collaboration turned into a film with 44 Inch Chest (released in 2009 which also featured McShane and Winstone). Made for a budget of roughly $4 million that premiered in the festival circuit in 2000 before going into theaters in 2001, the movie was a light decent hit with audiences, apparently more so in America than expected. Glazer has since directed select commercial advertisements and three further films (which unlike Beast had Glazer serve as co-writer) with Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013) and The Zone of Interest (2023), which won an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film*.

Glazer apparently called the making of the film "perfect baptism for me" because of the writing that he could trust completely for a film that is particularly intense in its dialogue for what Glazer once called "neo noir" that is basically trying to have a heist while avoiding being a "heist movie". Shaggy dog heist film or not, there is plenty of mischief to experience within the obvious qualities that come with Winstone being paired with Kingsley. It's because you get a passively bulked sunburned lead presence paired with someone who basically is fighting with him on a primal level with such a level of containment that is actually pretty frightening. At least, for a movie that basically shows the upcoming storm by having a boulder crash down the hill onto a pool in the opening minutes. So yes, you can't really hide from your past, but you can sure try to confront the present to maintain a worthwhile future. Within its aspects of the thriller is black comedy that actually is quite entertaining in the machinations of how you can make 88 minutes roll along where you aren't thinking about the heist as much as you are experiencing pros at work. Kingsley just has that magic to startle you with his presence and where he packs his expressions and dialogue in a way that just sounds tailor-made to him while Winstone lumbers as one could only do as someone who aspires to stay in their particular corner of the burning sun (as opposed to the burn of the heist). McShane is intimidating enough in the brief moments one sees of him around the scene of the growing crime (consider how the last scene sees him and Winstone talk about the various truths that lie under the surface). The heist in London isn't the point, it's a film all about what you see and hear in Spain more than anything, I imagine. As a whole, Sexy Beast is basically an acquired taste that either sticks with you or just leaves out the back door. I thought it was curious enough within its maneuvering of the crime film with humor and solid enough performances to make the journey worth watching.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*It was set in 1943 in the life of German Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss filmed in German, Polish, and Yiddish. I hear it's a good movie. I just want to mention that film mostly because the Oscar speech he did talked about the ongoing Gaza war that managed to make a whole bunch of people look like petulant children. 

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Review #2486: The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Cast: 

June Foray (the voice of Rocky / animated Natasha Fatale / Narrator's Mother), Keith Scott (the voice of Bullwinkle / the Narrator, animated Fearless Leader / animated Boris Badenov / RBTV Announcer), Robert De Niro (Fearless Leader), Rene Russo (Natasha Fatale), Jason Alexander (Boris Badenov), Piper Perabo (Karen Sympathy; Julia McAnuff as young Karen), Randy Quaid (Cappy "Frank" von Trapment), Kel Mitchell (Martin), Kenan Thompson (Lewis), with David Alan Grier (Measures), Jon Polito (Schoentell), James Rebhorn (President Signoff), Carl Reiner (P.G. Biggershot), Jonathan Winters (Whoppa Chopper Pilot, Ohio Cop with Bullhorn, Old Jeb), Rod Biermann (Ole; Adam Miller as young Ole), Paget Brewster (Jenny Spy), and Janeane Garofalo (Minnie Mogul) Directed by Des McAnuff.

Review: 

Hey, ever hear of a modern adaptation of an old TV show? You might know from your parents (or grandparents, anyway) about aa show called The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, which originally aired from 1959 to 1964 on ABC and later NBC. It was originally devised by Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, who previously collaborated on a program called Crusader Rabbit; Bill Scott was head writer and also part of the voices that made up the show that featured June Foray, Paul Frees and others. It was actually a variety show that consisted of such segments as, well, the serialized adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and other segments such as "Dudley Do-Right" (which was adapted by Universal Pictures into its own film in 1999) "Peabody's Improbable History" (later adapted into an animated film in 2014), and "Fractured Fairy Tales". The film was made after many years of development that originally saw Danny DeVito and Meryl Streep for the roles of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale; the sciept for the film was written by Kenneth Lonergan. He had been involved in the theater since the 1980s but had done a few film scripts, with his next one being, well, work on Gangs of New York (2002). As for its director in Des McAnuff, he has mostly done work for the stage beyond directing just this film and Cousin Bette (1998), although he co-produced The Iron Giant [1999] (go figure). Released in June of 2000 on a budget of $76 million, the film (produced in the wake of Universal's apparent attempts at trying to tap the old TV market such as Flipper [1996], McHale’s Navy [1997], Leave It to Beaver [1997], Dudley Do-Right) was a considerable financial failure for what either was a flop because it didn't hit for young audiences or didn't hit for "Baby boomer nostalgia" or something.

As someone who wasn't too familiar with the show, I actually kind of like this movie. Sure, it is pretty goofy, and sure, it probably is the ultimate hit-or-miss movie with its gags. But damn it, I like goofy stuff like this. Silly narrators, odd hijinks, a deluge of celebrity cameos for the sake of having them, some strange plot involving animated characters in the real world to go along with a totally-not prescient idea of mass-marketed slop.* The effects for our heroes were done by Industrial Light & Magic that had plenty of involved people trying to accomplish McAnuff's wish to have the characters interact with the space and people that looked simple enough (so, yes, having to deal with problems such as selective motion blurring - you can read more here). Foray and Scott make a quality duo to accompany the film in goofy and sly charm, mostly because they just happen to come off as, well, a worthwhile pair to listen to. Of course, a movie like this needs a human counterpart, which is where Perabo (cast after Monica Potter stepped out) comes in. She does relatively fine here, having a few good moments of actual timing (along with an accompanying joke about her "inner child", heh, get it?) mixed in with plenty of okay ones, mostly because even a mild-energy Quaid is still curious to view*.  It should be noted that De Niro was a co-producer on this film. He seems to have a bit more fun than Russo or Alexander in hammy nature that seems ripe for a goofy adventure, and I would say that is more than enough for a film that relies on ham-handed puns and zippy things. There are an array of bit appearances and one-joke cameos that is mostly highlighted by Winters being three one-bit parts that I'm sure will please a few people for 92 minutes, or perhaps it will make you wonder if would've been better as just an animated movie. But at any rate, the movie could be a decent experience for those who like silly jokes and goofy enthusiasm that may hit just enough to make one have enough chuckles to make one believe it was worth the curious trip.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*I did have this movie on DVD when I was younger but I was the kind of idiot kid that liked to scratch DVDs on the front side and never actually saw the movie until now. Also: This 2000 article namedrops the wave of the past decade and can you imagine how weirder it got?: The Fugitive, Dennis the Menace, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Flintstones, The Mod Squad, The Avengers, Maverick, Casper, The Brady Bunch, Mission: Impossible, Wild Wild West, Charlie's Angels...

*Call me delusional, but the whole idea of having bad television put on screen sounds a bit like the current day debate over "slop". Sure, people in the film don't try and justify slop like people do try to justify the disgusting use of generative AI, but food for thought.

*Just don't ask him about elections or legal issues.

Postal.

Review #2479: Postal.

Cast: 

Zack Ward (The Postal Dude), Dave Foley (Uncle Dave), Chris Coppola (Richard), Jackie Tohn (Faith), J. K. Simmons (Candidate Eugene Welles), Verne Troyer (himself), Larry Thomas (Osama bin Laden), David Huddleston (Peter), Seymour Cassel (Paul), Ralf Moeller (Officer John Mann), Chris Spencer (Officer Greg Sharp), Michael Paré (Panhandler), Erick Avari (Habib), Lindsay Hollister (Recorder), Brent Mendenhall (George W. Bush), Rick Hoffman (Mr. Cornelius Blither), with Michael Benyaer (Mohammed), and Uwe Boll (himself) Directed by Uwe Boll (#1765 - In the Name of the King, #1924 - Alone in the Dark, #2144 - House of the Dead, #2317 - BloodRayne)

Review: 

"The lessons I have learned from my live-action adaptations of video game franchises have shaped my growth as a filmmaker. While there are areas where I would have approached things differently in hindsight, I am grateful for the opportunities to bring these beloved games to the big screen and to continue evolving and pushing boundaries in the world of film."

Oh go figure, another Uwe Boll video-game movie. You might call it low hanging fruit, but there is a curiosity to what Boll does so weirdly in trying to adapt material in his own vision for audiences. The basis for this film is Postal, a 1997 top-down shooter game developed by Running with Scissors (as founded by Vince Desiderio). Whichever game one played (the first was isometric, the second was first-person and open-world), you went around encountering the town of Paradise and shooting things (the first was probably a bit controversial, it featured an attempted shooting of a school). Apparently, the German fan club of the game contacted Uwe Boll and asked him about doing a film based on the game. Boll contacted Desiderio and got the rights to do a film as long as the company had involvement with the production. Apparently, Desiderio did have a dark and gritty script in mind with Steve Wik (who was involved with the two games) but Boll instead went with a script he wrote with assistant director Bryan C. Knight that had "satire". After all, his first film (German Fried Movie) was a comedy. Apparently, there are two versions of the film, one that is 100 minutes and a "Director's Cut" of 114 minutes (which did have a festival screening); inquire further here. Although there were ideas of doing a wide release...distributors balked to where it had a release to four screens on opening week in America. The movie was shot in September/October 2006, roughly around the same time that Boll had a series of boxing matches against alleged online critics of his films (for whatever reason, one of the DVDs included footage from said fight as a bonus feature). Boll didn't take certain reviews well, but your milage may vary. Boll tried to do a Kickstarter for a sequel in 2013 to raise $500,000 but dropped out after it raised less than seven percent of its goal. Boll was involved in a few more sequels to his video game films with BloodRayne and In the Name of the King, albeit for the video market. Postal is the penultimate feature film adaptation of a game that Boll did, with the last one being Far Cry (2008).

Technically speaking, this is his best video game movie. Go figure, the one where he tried to do jokes on purpose is almost an actual movie. The opening scene may or may not set your expectations a bit too differently from the actual film: it starts with a debate from two terrorists flying a plane over just how many virgins they will get for the attack they will do before the plane. When they don't like the answer and try to abandon the mission, the passengers end up breaking into the cockpit right as the plane crashes into a tower. So, there's that. For all of the controversy one could have about making light of a certain plane crash, the real issue of the film is that it only works on a basic level of humor that barely rises above juvenile at times because of the assortment of jokes that basically come off as ones done based on what irritates Boll or what might get the most jollies, whether that involves male nudity (don't ask who), bad women drivers getting shot up, annoying panhandlers that won't leave you alone (okay that one is relatable) fat people antics involving food or sex, a lead character wearing a "Peace" shirt when shooting people, depicting Osama bin Laden and Bush as buddies, and so on. Boll claims that various actors (Foley, Troyer, Simmons) wanted to be in the film against the wishes of their agents. Sure. Some of the cast do better in timing than others, probably best served with Foley, who seems to practically glide in playing sleaze for over-the-top amusement. Ward (who apparently would be a featured option in the next two Postal games) has a few effective moments in timing where life is basically hell around him, one where basically regrets are for lesser people, as evidenced by the scene where he tries to get a better numbered ticket while a rampage is going down at the unemployment office. Boll must've at least had a tiny bit of glee to play a fictionalized version of himself here: he gets to make an Auschwitz joke and tell folks that he hates video games. The gallows humor basically works best when it seems to deal with how violence begets more violence as opposed to say, Verne Troyer getting penetrated by monkeys or a ridiculously complicated plan about trying to steal dolls. The violence is about as stock as it can be and the timing of the jokes may or may not be the result of having just a few takes to do them for "freshness". The film can't quite achieve the humor it yearns to have and instead is a bit too goofy to actually click on a consistent level, but I did at least enjoy a chunk of its simmering annoyance at human foibles. As a whole, Boll clearly wanted to make a broad satire about violence or something about political anarchy that might as well be a poor man's Dr. Strangelove. Is it successful? No, it is full of crude hits-and-miss moments, but it definitely is watchable enough to at least make you believe Boll has potential as a filmmaker beyond calling him one of the worst. Pick your poison. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Saturday: Double feature.

A Sound of Thunder.

Review #2477: A Sound of Thunder.

Cast: 

Edward Burns (Travis Ryer), Catherine McCormack (Sonia Rand), David Oyelowo (Marcus Payne), Ben Kingsley (Charles Hatton), Jemima Rooper (Jenny Krase), Wilfried Hochholdinger (Dr. Lucas), August Zirner (Clay Derris), Corey Johnson (Christian Middleton), Heike Makatsch (Alicia Wallenbeck), Armin Rohde (John Wallenbeck), and William Armstrong (Ted Eckels) Directed by Peter Hyams (#233 - 2010: The Year We Make Contact, #326 - Timecop)

Review: 

Hey, ever read A Sound of Thunder? Well, there were rumblings of making a film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story of the same name (as originally published in 1952) since at least 2000, when Renny Harlin and Pierce Brosnan were tapped to work on it for Franchise Pictures, with Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer tapped to write the script (Gregory Poirier later worked on the screenplay to get credit with the duo, known for co-adapting Sahara). They wanted to fast-track production before a possible actor strike, but the following year saw Harlin taken out for Peter Hyams and eventually Edward Burns was cast over Brosnan, who wanted re-writes. Franchise Pictures went down under during post-production, which got in the way of a movie that was meant to be $55 million. In 2004, Franchise filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The movie was being filmed in Prague when an actual flood hit the area that saw re-scheduling and a post-production that went on for nearly two years. Previsualized software (and sub-contracted work) was used to basically save time what became a nightmare. This was the 18th feature film for Peter Hyams, who had previously started the 2000s off with The Musketeer (2001), which didn't exactly rock the world. After this, he made two more movies: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009), a movie that may actually have even less of a reputation than this movie, and Enemies Closer (2013), a film that had a limited US release; the then-66 year old also shot for Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009), as directed by his son.

In the future of 2055...people spend money to go back in time to wait for a guy to tell them when they can shoot a dinosaur dead. Sure. It almost seems too easy to say this movie is really, really bad. There's something to be said about a movie that talks about "time waves" and "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" with the confidence that audiences would just accept the malarkey that comes across for a mess in both visuals and as a time travel movie. What you get here is a bland movie, one that has a handful of bad green screen effects and dopey-looking creature effects that would've seemed ripe for an Irwin Allen movie. But even if the effects were magical or invoked some sort of interest, it was not going to override the lack of an interesting story that can't really evoke the Bradbury story. The original story wasn't really much besides saying "careful about stepping on something, otherwise everything goes to hell because, that insect was important millions of years ago" (the name of the story came from the firing of a rifle), but here you get a movie where for whatever reason the changes to the timeline happen from wave to wave that makes plants and stuff grow weirdly. All from a mess-up where trying to shoot up a dinosaur that was planned to die (notice how shooting the gun doesn't have an effect on the stuff around the dinosaur). With how the characters have to go on a trip to see who messed up with the stepped-on thing, I wonder if someone watched The Warriors a bit too much. It also lacks an interesting hero or villain to really latch on to, and that's even with the presence of a white-haired Kingsley. Burns might as well be transparent with how he brings nothing to the table as the lead focus: there isn't a sense of guilt or adventure to anything he goes through, and McCormack can't actually make the consequences of time travel seem compelling either. You would think Kingsley would know better than to do stuff like this, but between him trying to be "funny" here and a "villain" in BloodRayne (2005), I suppose money does win out. The others don't end up any better, mostly being used to basically serve as fodder (given that the ending never seems in doubt, obviously the dead-count is back to zero). There just isn't anything to laugh with in terms of humor or anything to really gawk at for interest, and the climax is all about...using a few seconds to say the right thing and save the insect. As a whole, even when knowing that the film took years and years to actually realize its vision, there is no slice of hope to be found here with how bland and uninvolving it all is.

Overall, I give it 2 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Twisted Pair.

Half Past Dead.

Review #2473: Half Past Dead.

Cast: 

Steven Seagal (FBI Agent Sasha Petrosevitch), Morris Chestnut (Donny Johnson "49er One"), Ja Rule (Nick Frazier), Nia Peeples ("49er Six"), Tony Plana (Warden Juan Ruiz "El Fuego" Escarzaga), Kurupt (Bernard "Twitch"), Michael "Bear" Taliferro (Joe "Little Joe"), Claudia Christian (FBI Special Agent Ellen Williams), Linda Thorson (Judge Jane McPherson), Bruce Weitz (Lester McKenna), Michael McGrady (Guard Damon J. Kestner), Richard Bremmer (Sonny Eckvall), Hannes Jaenicke (FBI Agent Hartmann), with Mo'Nique (Twitch's Girl), and Stephen J. Cannell (Frank Hubbard) Written and Directed by Don Michael Paul.

 

Review: 

You might know that Steven Seagal was a star at one point in time. Above the Law (1988) utilized him to his strengths in, well, kicking the crap out of people, even if he already had ideas of being a filmmaker too. His fifth film as a star in Under Siege (1992) was probably his peak, mainly because he was surrounded by people who looked like they wanted to be there for what could've easily been just "Die Hard on a boat". He finally made his presence known as a director (a bad one) with On Deadly Ground (1994), a movie that was beyond absurd in its environmental message in the face of having so many bodies all around the place. He then did a sequel to Under Siege in 1995 before having one noted supporting role in a movie with Executive Decision (1996) before starting to get into doing direct-to-video work such as The Patriot (1998) or stuff that didn't even get a US theatrical release such as Ticker (2001). Exit Wounds (2001) paired him with DMX in what was thought to be a "comeback movie", although it was this last venture with Warner Bros. At the end of all of this is Half Past Dead (2002), the 11th and final theatrical movie with Seagal as the key star, and it is the only one that was rated PG-13. No, seriously. He has made one theatrical movie in America since* this film with Machete (2010). Half Past Dead was directed by a first-timer in Don Michael Paul. The actor-turned-director/writer wrote the script for the film, which was his first theatrical script since Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991). He would go on to such vaunted works as Who's Your Caddy? (2007) to go along with a litany of movies for the video market (Jarhead 2, three Tremors sequels, Kindergarten Cop 2). Half Past Dead was not a hit with audiences even with just a budget of $25 million. Two years later, Seagal added music to his "forte" with an album of music that had "pop, world, country, and blues music" in it. The less said about his ties to other countries, the better.

There is plenty of satisfaction to be had here. No, not as a good movie, I mean the satisfaction of seeing a bloated, lazy, arrogant Steven Seagal fall off the lowest bar possible when it comes to "action star", complete with barely even having a close-up of Seagal. This is delightfully pathetic, managing to evoke a sense of feeling like a ripoff of any action movie that just pops up in your head. To add on to this, apparently, some unused aerial shots from The Rock actually does show up in the movie. Being painfully generic is one thing, being painfully generic with a star having the charisma of a rotted potato is another. There is absolutely nothing to Seagal in this film to latch on for interest, unless you count him wearing a durag for, um, some reason. The near-death experience the character suffers at the opening doesn't really come into play, honestly, because Seagal just drifts through scenes with the same blank expression. It isn't a story of revenge or even a story of finding one's place after suffering trauma, nah, it is just a guy who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that is totally not a regurgitation of Die Hard and The Rock (did I mention the movie is set with a restored Alcatraz? It goes right up with a plot about a guy wanting to get the secrets of a doomed man of where he buried valuable gold). His fight scenes seem more like the work of creative cutting with stunt doubles than an actual physical presence. Chuck Norris in his fifties probably had more fitness than Seagal, so where's that excuse? Chestnut seems mildly invested in getting to play a villain in it for the paycheck that probably isn't too different from an actor in it for the paycheck, which is a nice thing to say in a movie where Peeples and her getup of leather (someone watch The Matrix or certain magazines, hmm?) and eyeshadow probably serves as the one attraction worth watching for the whole movie in terms of curiosity. Ja Rule appeared in a handful of movies in the 2000s that probably were fun to do (Assault on Precinct 13 [2005], for example) alongside having a rap career. In that regard, being in this film to try and play buddy with Seagal (a'ight is said a handful of times to make that clear) is not nearly as embarrassing as being the future co-founder of the doomed Fyre Festival, to put it mildly. Stephen J. Cannell appeared in one film as an actor when not doing work on TV, and it was this one. Your guess is as good as mine. By the time the movie ends its pursuit of, uh, retribution and gold, you will have learned that a "generic" action movie can be a blessing when compared to bad action movies like this. As a whole, Seagal was reaching his fifties when doing stuff like this and it shows pretty clearly for a movie that is too bloated, too under-cooked and too tired out to be anything other than a piece of crap fit for laughter.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Bring on the sixth year of bad movies to celebrate Thanksgiving Week, hell yea. Next one up: The Nutcracker in 3D (2010).

*On a probably unrelated note, the following year after Half Past Dead, Segal had to take the stand because a bunch of mobsters from the Gambino crime family were brought in by one Julius R. Nasso to try and threaten Seagal after the dissolving of their partnership.

*For whatever reason, someone actually transcribed the dialogue of the film into text form here: Half Past Dead Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Steven Seagal movie

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Review #2467: Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Gabriel Mann (Father Francis), Clara Bellar (Rachel Lesno), Billy Crawford (Cheche), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Israel Aduramo (Jomo), Andrew French (Chuma), Antonie Kamerling (Kessel), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Eddie Osei (Emekwi), with Rick Warden (Corporal Williams), and Mary Beth Hurt (Pazuzu) Directed by Paul Schrader (#2290 - Cat People [1982])

Review: 

"I’m happy with the film. I realize its limitations. I realize that I made a film with a problematic commercial premise. Now, it may be a quality film, but there was no way this film was gonna go out and break box office records. Not gonna happen. Now the truth is, if they had tarted up my movie, cut it with some gore, done a misleading ad campaign, not shown it to critics, did a huge television [campaign], which is what they did for Renny’s film, they probably could have made somewhere in the same vicinity of money...But, I’m much happier having the film that I made exist in the form that I made it in rather than some tarted-up version I’d have to disown."

Exorcist: The Beginning was such a flop that Paul Schrader actually saw the film on opening weekend with William Peter Blatty and stated, "This is really bad. If it stays this bad, I bet there's a chance I can get mine resurrected." While Warner Bros. planned to give Schrader's film a direct-to-video release, Morgan Creek "generously" let Schrader do a limited theatrical release of his version, specifically a small amount of time and money to refine things (examples include that most of the music is recycled from the Harlin film and a lack of time to do ADR and color timing work). Tim Silano was approached to edit the movie but he insisted that Schrader be around to oversee it. Schrader, in seeing the nature of the Harlin film, went for "a little more leisurely" edit rather than the staccato cut he had done prior (the final movie was 116 minutes, which happened to be two minutes longer than The Beginning). Caleb Carr (who once called Schrader's original cut "one of the most inept, amateur, utterly flat excuses for a film that has ever been concocted") and William Wisher Jr were the only writers given credit for the screenplay. With a limited release in a few theaters (the same weekend as Revenge of the Sith) the movie was at least seen by people the way it should have been: not on the direct-to-video bargain bin; Schrader later called the experience as one he shouldn't have done, complete with saying he "got suckered". The Exorcist was not done being pillaged for new material, as a television series came and went in the 2010s before a new film came out with David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer (2023), a movie that, you guessed it, paled in comparison to the original. 

It may interest you to know that Schrader once called The Exorcist "the greatest metaphor in cinema - God and the Devil in the same room arguing over the body of a little girl." The two Exorcist prequels basically run from the same start and end points with diverging ways to get there: a priest with a crisis of faith (1947/1949) encounters something in the midst of his time in Derati (British Kenya) that challenges who he is before he regains his faith. You could say that Blatty had a point in calling this film a "handsome, classy, elegant piece of work" while also noting that it can only go so far in trying to live up to its namesake. Both movies show Merrin have his faith shaken after being terrorized by a Nazi that has him choose people to die rather than see a whole group get taken out but this one starts with it rather than show it in parts as before. But here he is now an archaeologist that happens to find a buried church in Kenya, complete with having the exorcism target be a youth who goes from crippled to far more walkable by the time the effects (not quite finished, but hey) show up for a movie that at least tried to take evil seriously (before the loin cloth, anyway, that is when I start to chuckle). It is curious to see Skarsgård again hold up an Exorcist movie with the best performance, mainly because there is something to ponder in seeing one try to pick up the pieces of their faith with conviction that does at least make you believe he would be ready for what could happen next in say, The Exorcist. I guess you could say Mann provides the one supporting presence in either of these movies that is worth a glance, even if his role is mostly a whimpering one in the eyes of guilt (both movies end the same way for him anyway).You could say that the depiction of the military intruding upon the natives imitating what Merrin saw in the war is a curious one, but even then, it feels a bit polite when one is talking about evil (Merrin isn't exactly much better, at one point he wants people to work really really hard to dig out that church). I really wanted to like the movie, but there is a hollow feeling I get when watching the movie, it just doesn't feel nearly as tense or as interesting as it wishes to be in "angst". Schrader just seemed more interested in personal angst with Cat People and it also just seemed like a more well-rounded film. As a whole, Dominion holds up better as an overall movie than The Beginning, but neither movie really moves the needle on belonging as an actual prequel to The Exorcist. In their travels from finding faith through an exorcism, Dominion is mild in execution and altogether not as curious as it really feels like it should be, but it at least is entertainment when compared to the slop of Beginning. Pick your poison, I suppose.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Exorcist: The Beginning.

Review #2466: Exorcist: The Beginning.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Izabella Scorupco (Sarah), James D'Arcy (Father Francis), Remy Sweeney (Joseph), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Andrew French (Chuma), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Ben Cross (Semelier), David Bradley (Father Gionetti), Alan Ford (Jefferies), Antonie Kamerling (Lieutenant Kessel), with Eddie Osei (Emekwi), and Rupert Degas (Pazuzu) Directed by Renny Harlin (#016 - Die Hard 2, #670 - Cliffhanger, #745 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, #2163 - The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, #2240 - Cutthroat Island)

Review:

"What I tried to do is set up a lot of those unanswered questions that we see in the original. There are a lot of open plotlines that are never explained, so I tried to make it so that if you watch this film and then watch the original 'Exorcist,' the original will seem like the sequel."

Hey, remember when people thought The Exorcist could be a franchise? Morgan Creek Productions, not content with their excessive tinkering of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), had started plans to make a prequel to, well, The Exorcist (1973) in the late 1990s. William Wisher Jr (co-writer of Terminator 2: Judgement Day) did a first draft, and there were already people hired to try and helm the project by 1999 with Tom McLoughlin, but he left because of issues with the script. Apparently, the 2000 re-release (and subsequent money made from it) of the Exorcist film helped to put The Beginning on the fast track. Caleb Carr (novelist of books such as The Alienist) revised the screenplay and there were plans to have John Frankenheimer direct with Liam Neeson as the star in the summer of 2002...but neither came to pass, as Frankenheimer fell ill; he died in July 2002. Instead, Paul Schrader (director of Cat People (1983) and writer of films such as Taxi Driver) was hired to direct, with "Exorcist: The Beginning" beginning filming in late 2002. Schrader did his rewrite of the script to trim certain things, and the film was first screened to studio executives in May of 2003...and they didn't even bother to give him notes, as he was dumped because they apparently wanted to "re-edit the movie to make it scarier". They tried to re-cut the movie with Schrader involved and then Morgan Creek said to hell with things and instead searched for a new director for the film. They landed on Renny Harlin, who went with re-writes (Skip Woods, Alexi Hawley, and even Harlin himself, although only Hawley was credited), a few new actors (all but Skarsgård, French, Kamerling, and Wadham left) and, well, "action". The new Beginning film was shot in late 2003 but apparently had a hell of a time actually finishing production (Schrader had his film ripped out from under him, Harlin got hit by a car during production and was on crutches). In total, a movie that wa meant to be done for $35 million ballooned to $90 million and wasn't even screened for critics. At least Schrader seemed positive about seeing his version come to the masses, albeit as a "there's a buck to be made" while Blatty (in seeing The Beginning with Schrader in a theater) called The Beginning "surely the most humiliating professional experience of my life, particularly the finale."

It is so funny that Morgan Creek wanted to make a "scarier" film and wasted so much money on a venture that was just going to be skewered no matter what because of the history that comes with trying to play off the "Exorcist" name. III was the only good follow-up, and that was the one where the studio forced an exorcism for the climax. Harlin's movie suffers from just feeling so routine in its execution to the point of exhaustion, mainly because it is a corny experience to actually see play out, at least when you consider buried churches, goofy climaxes with voices, and butterflies. Apparently, Skarsgård (cast as a young version originally played by Max Vox Sydow, who also happened to be from Sweden) had differing approaches for his performance in each movie, once being quoted as saying that he was "much darker" in the Schrader version and even changed his makeup for this version. Undeniably, he does at least manage to be the shining light in either version you watch, mainly because you buy him as Merrin without it seeming like someone just playing dress-up. It at least matters a tiny bit to see his progression beyond just moving away from religion and to step into the shoes that we know, suffice to say. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast does not fare as well, mainly because the movie is so confused about what it really wants to do besides cheap moments (one guy slashing himself, another guy confronting butterflies and shooting himself) that you don't get a feel for any of them. One guy has a bunch of boils on his face and that's about all you can really say as a character. I guess there's one neat line in talking about the spot where Lucifer fell when it comes to the spooky buried church. The movie tries to fake you out in the idea that the focus of the possessed is actually a kid when really it is a woman and honestly, I couldn't help but chuckle because it meant that you at least see a spider-walk from an adult (complete with a demon voice talking about mounting because get it, they did it in the first one) rather than having to see the image of a kid doing it. One doesn't care about the conflict of the people besides Merrin, this could've almost been set anywhere if you think about it, complete with a lack of mystery. In general, the movie is just kind of boring, not really doing anything that makes you think about the first film in a different light while being a general waste of everyone's time. As someone who does give slack on occasion to compromised movies and things*, this was just one of those movies that goes out one ear and through the other. Morgan Creek spent oodles of money but couldn't find anything for audiences to give a damn about, that's probably the scariest thing in the whole movie.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Exorcist III was probably better with the exorcism in it, change my mind. Or Rise of Skywalker. Or The Stupids. Or any other strange film that I at least have given credit to over the years.

Jennifer's Body.

Review #2457: Jennifer's Body.

Cast: 

Megan Fox (Jennifer Check), Amanda Seyfried (Anita "Needy" Lesnicki), Adam Brody (Nikolai Wolf), Johnny Simmons (Chip Dove), J. K. Simmons (Mr. Wroblewski), Amy Sedaris (Toni Lesnicki), Kyle Gallner (Colin Gray), Cynthia Stevenson (Mrs. Dove), Chris Pratt (Officer Roman Duda), Carrie Genzel (Mrs. Check), Juan Riedinger (Dirk), Juno Ruddell (Officer Warzak), Valerie Tian (Chastity), Aman Johal (Ahmet) Directed by Karyn Kusama.

Review: 

"I was blessed to read this script at a moment where the producers were meeting with directors and it just knocked me out. It was just so original, so imaginative. That’s what it is about this script and the world is that it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho and I think that’s what most fairy tales actually started as. So, they’ve just been sort of neutralized over the years and there’s something about this story that felt old, like coming from old stories but totally fresh, and I just went to bat for myself, I guess."

It isn't often you see a film poster that bills the talents of its writer, but here we are. In the buildup to the sensation that was Juno (2007), Fox Atomic (a short-lived label of 20th Century Fox and Searchlight that was aimed for comedy and genre film distribution) bought the rights to a certain script by Diablo Cody, the blogger-turned-stripper-turned-writer that, well, wound up winning an Academy Award for Juno (hence the film poster); Jason Reitman served as a co-producer for Jennifer's Body. Cody stated in interviews that she wanted to “pay tribute to some of the conventions that we’ve already seen in horror, yet, at the same time, kind of turn them on their ear" while also saying that her macabre sense of humor played into how it became a comedy-horror movie. As it happened, the movie was directed by Karyn Kusama. Kusama previously had directed Girlfight (2000) and Aeon Flux (2005). According to Cody, the movie (distributed by 20th Century Fox after Atomic closed down), which made nearly double its $16 million budget back in its release in 2009 was marketed terribly, as it apparently was marketed to target “boys who like Megan Fox” (which is how you get a poster that has Fox in a miniskirt) as opposed to trying to target, well, girls too; in recent years, with the growing cult audience for the movie, Cody has stated her wish to do a sequel to the movie, while Kusama noted her appreciation for the following the film has developed in recent years.*

It helps that the movie basically is a fairy tale of two growing women who have rapid change befall them, right down to the line actually said in the film of Hell being a teenage girl...that just happens to run with one of them becoming a succubus that actually reminds me a bit of Rosemary's Baby (hey, when the high schoolers get mowed down and "honored" in a manner not exactly more dignified than Heathers, why not crib from one of the alleged great horror movies too?). I thought it was a pretty funny movie, to be honest, mainly because I went in with mild expectations of expecting a bit of humor and gore that hopefully wouldn't crash and burn up and found a delight. Sure, you can probably understand where people may not have got what it really was going for 15 years ago beyond just leering at its star and waiting for things to happen. You've got a succubus who for her first act (that we see) of trying to cope with their new surroundings of desire go up to a person's house to try and eat an entire rotisserie chicken only to vomit goo, fail to bite someone and then just leave. In that sense, Fox does a tremendous job in the lead role, managing to be quite funny along with unnerving in the plight of a person who goes from a creature that might as well be the parasite in their one friendship to a very hungry creature that could be the parasite for all people (hey, an equal opportunity succubus) involved if she had her way. Her dynamic is compelling with Seyfried in ways that work far better than just simply being a creature bereft of comic timing. Seyfried's journey of change is just an interesting, mostly because it is a self-realization story that perhaps one of the miserable people lurking in the world today actually can get lucky for once beyond just being lumped in as a needy odd-duck. It is a worthwhile time to see the two of them engage in banter all throughout that shows just how one can really view somebody they've known for years when the grisly details are presented so clearly. The rest of the cast is fairly interesting in parts, whether that involves the conniving group of wannabee music icons led by Brody or the hook-handed straight-laced Simmons. The gore sequences (as could be read in some part here) involving the unfortunate souls being led in to the promise of, well, flesh (three) is pretty well done as well. The 102-minute runtime does prove worth it, although one wonders if the real ending is worth being in the credits. As a whole, Jennifer's Body is a delightfully macabre film about the perils of growing womanhood that happens to involve blood and guts for a solid curiosity that really did take time for its audience to really find it and appreciate its merits.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Hey, they even did a Q&A of the movie just this week. 

Hell of a coincidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRGd7sHN1io