Final Destination 2.

Review #2137: Final Destination 2.

Cast: 

Ali Larter (Clear Rivers), A. J. Cook (Kimberly Corman), Michael Landes (Thomas Burke), David Paetkau (Evan Lewis), James Kirk (Tim Carpenter), Lynda Boyd (Nora Carpenter), Keegan Connor Tracy (Kat Jennings), Jonathan Cherry (Rory Peters), T. C. Carson (Eugene Dix), Justina Machado (Isabella Hudson), and Tony Todd (William Bludworth) Directed by David R. Ellis (#437 - Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco)

Review: 

You may remember Final Destination (2000) came from a spec script by Jeffrey Reddick that would've been proposed for The X-Files if it wasn't for the fact that he had a suggestion to pitch it to New Line Cinema (which led to ensuing writing contributions by James Wong and Glen Morgan). The resulting film was such a success that New Line approached Reddick for a sequel. He agreed while Wong and Morgan (unavailable due to other projects) were replaced by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. If you would like an impression of what I thought about that first film, here goes: "Cardboard cut-outs getting killed with Rube Goldberg-type deaths is still cardboard cut-outs getting killed. The curse of knowing the potential for death could have made an interesting movie, really. That, or maybe it really was something suited for television." 2021 me did not have much patience for the original Final Destination, of course it took me two years to return to this series. Actually, he thought of a movie where instead of a bunch of bland cutouts led by a guy who looked like a nerd until it became more apparent that "Death" really was coming for them, time would be best served by just making that character a real loser. Two years later, I have come up with one other idea that was inspired by viewing this cheap sequel: a killer that goes around offing people in a manner that look like accidents just so that way he can get people to believe that Death is coming for them (if you have seen a film or story that is based on any of those premises, that is cool, because, well, you won't hear me whining).

Okay, so you can't just say a movie is not good just because it doesn't have the premise better than the one you imagine in your head. But you can say it is not a good film if it doesn't do anything to improve on the original beyond perhaps diving into what might as well be ripe for parody. Maybe I should've seen it coming before, since I never really thought much of naming a character "Clear Rivers" the first time around until I thought, wait, really? I think the only time I felt anything with this film was in laughing at it rather than with it, such as the case of one death scene: a teen spooks some pigeons, which leads to them buzzing by a crane operator that leads to the operator dropping a windowpane right on the teen that reminds me of a Roadrunner cartoon. The scene where a guy decides to just use a gun to try and shoot himself only to have it not fire even with six bullets is probably the only spooky idea presented. Other than that, if you've seen the first film, you basically have seen the second film. I'm not even irritated of what I see here, I just find it hilarious that you retain two castmates from the first and only use them to basically serve as exposition (it amuses me that Larter's character responds to being flipped off by leaving the padded and safe asylum to lead to exposition because [insert reference here]). Wasting Tony Todd the second time around should be a crime, but what do I know? Anyway, the acting is the kind of cut-and-dry stuff you would expect, mildly involving but not nearly enough to make me remember an iota of who these people are. Even Larter seems bemused to be there, as if the only thing worth doing is saying exposition and looking ready for the last check to clear. The death scenes are, well, deadly, which is more of a compliment to the one who had to sketch out how a man will get killed as a result of throwing junk onto pavement minutes earlier (that, or how CGI logs will make a bigger crash than real logs, obviously). You might think I should be more fair with the rating, because, hey, it's not that much better or worse than the original. You know those latter Sherlock Holmes movies Roy William Neill did? Watching those eleven films in all of their average-ness is far more tolerable to write about than being fair to junk like this.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

next up: Night of the Living Dead...remade.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Review #1849: Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

Cast: 

Steven Pasquale (Dallas Howard), Reiko Aylesworth (Kelly O'Brien), John Ortiz (Eddie Morales), Johnny Lewis (Ricky Howard), Sam Trammell (Tim O'Brien), Ariel Gade (Molly O'Brien), Robert Joy (Colonel Stevens), Kristen Hager (Jesse Salinger), David Paetkau (Dale Collins), Matt Ward (Mark), Michal Suchánek (Nick), David Hornsby (Drew Roberts), and Gina Holden (Carrie Adams) Directed by The Brothers Strause.

Review: 

You remember Alien vs. Predator (2004), don't you? The crossover movie between Alien and Predator that ended up being more average than Alien: Resurrection (or perhaps a predicator of further predictable fare like Predators) Well, if you liked seeing Paul W. S. Anderson cobble together a story with Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon, too bad, the sequel just has Shane Salerno, who had given a re-write to the prior movie to go along with his occasional contribution to scripts for films such as Armageddon (1998). Oh, and now the director is a pair of brothers named Greg and Colin Strause. The brothers were born in Waukegan, Illinois but were raised in Chicago. They liked to experiment with computers from a young age, such as with the Amiga computer, and they convinced their parents that a Silicon Graphics Indy processor and software was something they wanted to work on and use for their interests in effects. This led to them moving to California in the 1990s (with inspiration for making movies coming from Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) along with making their own company with Hydraulx, which did work for 20th Century Fox productions such as Volcano (1997) and The X-Files (1998). They also did music videos (like for the song "Californication") and commercials. So, when it came time to do a sequel of "AVP" without the service of Anderson, it should only make sense that Fox thought the Strause brothers would be suitable to carry an effects show for the sequel, and they were hired in 2006 for an eight-week shoot to direct their first ever feature, and it should be noted that they had pitched their own version of Alien vs. Predator years before that was rejected.

For reference, I watched the 101-minute unrated cut of the movie, although the theatrical release was only 94 minutes (rated R). If you thought that the first film took things a bit far with ridiculous spectacle, the sequel only proves to embiggen the failures present in the prior movie. Now one gets to see creatures in the old familiar format: in the dark, but not as clever as earlier and better movies, where perpetual rain falls down for the climax that might as well make me wish I had a shower less predictable than this movie - even the lead character from the last one would've been a more useful focus to return to. I get having actors that aren't exactly household names, but I just can't get behind a movie that is murky as hell to watch, where the one bright (subjectively speaking) sequence is a scene in a hospital. Yes, the movie actually features people in a hospital (and babies) having an encounter with the creatures. The scene may be disturbing, but it also might be the only noteworthy scene in the movie (complete with a pregnant woman involved), one that has the bright idea of introducing multiple plot threads of people with no sense of depth or interest besides being inevitable creature fodder. You know what would have been better? Throwing your action figures in a box while pouring ketchup all over it. There just isn't anything to draw on with Pasquale or Aylesworth, who might as well be playing broom-sticks when it comes to leads that are there just to engage in action and other things that are possibly too flat for name actors to get going. The focus is on the creatures and the "Predalien", but it kind of just falls by the wayside in generating actual curiosity for these creatures beside saying "well, they look nice, so?" It is like taking a rusty old car (i.e. the equivalent of the first movie) and giving it a paint job that somehow broke all the windows. Honestly, nuking the town in the climax is probably an apt description for what happens in the movie, since plans for a third film (complete with awful sequel-baiting) were scuttled despite its marginal success at the box office. In the end, one would best skip this hodgepodge of boredom.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Goon.

Review #1693: Goon.

Cast: 

Seann William Scott (Doug "The Thug" Glatt), Liev Schreiber (Ross "The Boss" Rhea), Alison Pill (Eva), Jay Baruchel (Pat), Marc-André Grondin (Xavier Laflamme), Eugene Levy (Dr. Glatt), David Paetkau (Ira Glatt), Kim Coates (Coach Ronnie Hortense), Richard Clarkin (Gord Ogilvey), Jonathan Cherry (Marco "Belchie" Belchior), Ricky Mabe (John Stevenson), Georges Laraque (Huntington), Curt Keilback (Rod McCaudry), and Larry Woo (Park Kim) Directed by Michael Dowse.

Review: 

There is plenty to go around when it comes to hockey, the good and bad. Referees, dubious team management, the feasibility of a sport that can be wracked with head injuries, and the innate ability of bad timing within television broadcasting. But, I imagine there is something interesting to say about the role of the goon, an enforcer that is tasked with responding to violent play in kind. On the one hand, one doesn't really want to see their guy get decked out and potentially suffer short-term injuries or even worse in the future. On the other hand, the violence is what one can dig when it comes to seeing goons take one out on each other for the good of their team. There are plenty of examples to list, such as Slap Shot (1977) with the Hanson Brothers (played by real-life hockey players Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson). Of course, there is also the case of enforcer John Scott, a beneficiary of voting for the NHL All-Star Game (via fan online voting, which as a fan I deem embarrassing for all leagues despite doing it anyway, mostly for baseball), or infamous enforcers like Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi, but the real life inspiration for this film comes from the exploits of Doug "The Hammer" Smith, who co-wrote Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey with Adam Frattasio. Smith played for seven teams over the course of six seasons after being encouraged by Frattasio to try enforcing after boxing with the Golden Gloves; Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg (who you might recognize as the co-writer of films such as Superbad (2007) with Seth Rogen) wrote the screenplay for the film, one mostly shot in the province of Manitoba, and it seems appropriate to have a Canadian at the helm for director with Michael Dowse, directing his fifth feature (his most notable feature was likely his first with FUBAR (2002), a cult hit shot in digital).

So, here we are with a hockey movie for folks who want a few raunchy chuckles while seeing quite a few fights and blood to spare from the ol' hockey game. Strangely enough, this was not actually a hit with audiences upon initial release (making just barely half of its $12 million budget), but it became a bit of a hit with video releases that ended up with a sequel being greenlit in Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017). There is probably a small comparison to be made to films like Slap Shot or Superbad (2007). I guess this can be a compliment, despite the fact that what we have here is a warmly crude average movie. It is probably the strangest example of a movie that is so earnest in its attempts at balancing heart and grimey charm. When it comes to "Canadian nice", I'd say this is a pretty good example of it, at least for a movie featuring a guy who finds his calling in beating folks up on the ice rink. Look, I care about what I see here, but I don't feel that I care enough beyond just saying it is okay - I think it is the cult hit effect, where if one hears about the notices, the expectations sometimes just won't meet the (loose) reality. The best things about the movie are Scott and Schreiber, really, and that generally will result in a good thing if one is up for it (because the journey is what matters most), and I guess it is interesting enough as a sports movie to go with some chuckles for a mild 92 minute movie. Scott plays the lead role with earnest curiosity that rolls with a film parading clichés as one might expect without being swept into staleness, friendly to what goes on around him. Schreiber provides a useful contrast within the theatrical ice-hitman in careful brooding interest amidst the fights. Pill serves fine with her offbeat chemistry when paired with Scott, which works alright for small moments off the ice. Baruchel gets to play the loudmouth, which might prove familiar for those who follow a sport intently (in theory). Grondin eventually ekes a few interesting moments, although really it is Coates as the blathering coach that generates the most interest (again though, sometimes the cliché roles work the best). As a whole, the hockey action is fine, the comedy and the atmosphere prove fine, the fighting is relatively reliable, and yet here I am wondering why I didn't really think of it as anything pretty good. It is as inevitable as when one watches Slap Shot, but somehow there is something more involving in that film that I can't quite quantify. Maybe it is the sensibility of the filmmaker (George Roy Gill vs Dowse), or maybe it is something more, but when it comes to hockey movies, there are a few good ones one can sport out and consider for fun. In that regard, Goon makes for a useful experience to sit around with, hearty enough in sticking its love letter to a hockey goon fit for the Canadian flavor.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Ah yes, the Stanley Cup is upon us once again. Tampa Bay, Montreal. Easy choice: Go Habs.