wolfkin

This is watchable but awful. My opinion of this completely changed when I realized this was a movie and not a pilot of a TV show. I mean that actually explains like two scenes which felt extremely out of place in a TV show (The montage and the smushing of the Paxton and Dylan).

The premise isn't any different than a mid season fantasy show like Charmed or a Dean Devlin show like The Librarians. Conceptually I was ready to watch this show. If I had known it was a movie I wouldn't have turned it on. But there's so much goofy nonsense I'm still struggling with the idea that this wasn't a pilot and there's not going to be episode 2. At one point they escape the bad guys by running down a hill. The bad guys drive to the edge of the hill and pause. The lead henchwomen forces them to drive and they immediately hit a tree. Not like a tree in the down hill or on the way down just IMMEDIATELY without even getting to the edge.

There's an extremely awkward Walmart shopping bag product placement that it just awkward. The movie (and I'm still baffled at this) just can't decide what lane it want to be in. There's a lot of telling with no showing. A lot of things working just because. At one point they need a passcode and the numbers are the times on two clocks. They just put them in. They don't debate about which clock goes first they just wing it and it's fine.

Just an utterly atrocious film.

I mean what's not to love. Nicole Kidman is as pretty in the face as her body is average. Daniel Craig is barely recognizable. Like his makeup and hair people wanted to make him just a little schlubby but didn't consider that maybe people might want to recognize him. But 2007 was a magical time it's possible and likely this was filmed before Casino Royale really introduced North America to Craig. Jeffrey Wright is a bit underutilized but in 2007 when wasn't he. Jackson Bond as the child Oliver fades in to the background which for a child is amazing. Child actors are at they're worse when they're distractingly bad but Jackson isn't. I find Oliver as a character annoying but that's how he's written not because Jackson is annoying.

The tension in this movie is just great. The editing could have been smoother I don't remember it being so jarring when I saw it in theatres. The movie even does a mostly decent job of presenting a plausible narrative although you could write a graduate thesis about a movie where everyone gets taken down except Nicole Kidman. Twice two black dudes give her the survival game. Three is you count the fact that Wright's Stephen Galeano is the one who break down that sleeping triggers the change. But it's fine. It mostly flows pretty well.

What a strange film. It's like a mix of The Ringer and Tag with hints of This is 40 and I Love You Man.

For a Farrelly movie it's remarkably tolerable. None of the gross out humor they're known for. That was always the pill you had to swallow with the desert of their laugh out loud comedies. The good ones let you get past it. The bad ones were too gross to fully enjoy. But this is perfectly fine with that respect. There is a character with hair that's far far too long that is gross but not even close to the point where it's distractedly so. There's also a scene in the start where kids step on dog feces and it splatters on their face. For the life of me I'll never understand this prank that I can't call anything but the whitest thing ever. Why on earth would someone's first instinct to seeing a small fire be to stomp on it? That doesn't make any sense and yet I've been watching people do this on TV since I was a child watching 60s sitcoms on Nickelodeon.

Cena's Rock Hard Rod is effective. He's hilarious when he needs to be. His X-Rated songs are all full laugh worthy. He fills out a bloody suit well in Act III. He manages to be that third wheel character without being full on annoying like Bill Murray's Bob in What About Bob? (1991). He's earnest without being cringe. He's a third wheel character you want to root for even if looking at John Cena and seeing a dude who is a loser just doesn't compute.

There's some balls the movie doesn't bother catching. They really flesh out Efron's Dean as a victim of abuse but aside from being a very plausible explanation for his motivations and actions it doesn't really get explored. He never deals with it. He never admits it. It's just a setup with no payoff. Ricky stays on in the movie because of his fear from people he owes money to and (minor spoiler) they never show up. His money issues never become anything. The movie did pay off the inevitable reveal in a way I didn't expect. I assumed that the story would be about how Ricky made the trio better people but while that appears to be the first and easiest idea that movie is better for doing something different. All of this makes the movie fun but it does mean there are parts of the movie that don't resolve.

The movie is also unexpectedly diverse. Honestly if I had remembered this was a Farrelly movie I would have expected a punchline more but they don't come. They don't really do anything. These characters with various "atypicalisms" are just there living their life as part of the movie. Some are important, some aren't. Some speak, some don't. They're just part of the fabric of the narrative. Which is pretty cool and inclusive representation. All in a movie that I have basically no issues recommending which is great.

"I'm just a patrol officer. I couldn't [take charge]"

I dunno. Have you seen "The Rookie" because that show teaches me that beat patrol cops are capable of taking on serial killers. Beat cops can take on organized crime. Beat cops can take down criminal conspiracies on their vacations. Heck patrol cops take down the cartel.

Mostly solid documentary that is if anything too passive. Too clinical. And even with that if you can watch this and come away with anything but utter disgust for the law enforcement. You're a psychopath. It's called "Inside the Uvalde Response" but it should be "Inside the Uvalde Police Response" because it really is only focused on what the police did. There's a whole other hour long documentary missing about what was happening at the time. And that's not even going to the post incident response which is barely hinted at here. From Abbott gladhanding the police response to how many of them escape with zero jail time for utterly failing these children. It doesn't touch of the kids the police got killed by asking them to shout out their status. About the only really interesting points in this doc are that a) the school shooter training is WILD. I went to high school in a post columbine world but a pre-9/11 one. We didn't have shooter drills. Though school shootings were a reality. Heck my high school ended up becoming a national story because of a school shooting. But the takeaway is that the kids were so quiet the police just assumed the school was empty. I mean that say something about these kids. b) the documentary ends with a police response that is most intriguing. I really wanted to hear from that dude what he thought went wrong in the immediate aftermath when he wasn't aware he was being recorded.

In spite of a charmingly sexual Margo Martindale and an overall solid cast. This is a movie that feels like a harder romance spin-off of American Pie. The poster design with the American Pie style stamp doesn't help. Isla and Jason have decent chemistry but nothing you want to write home about. There's gross out scenes for no reason just to remind you that hey this could have been an American Pie spin-off. Honestly I was being facetious the first time I said it as I reread my words. I wonder. What are the chances this was originally supposed to be an American Pie spin off or some sort of spec script and someone said "let's get a red-head and just do it man".

There's not too much memorable in it though. It's not gross enough for the gross out comedy. It's not rom enough for the rom-com genre. The big scenes aren't big enough. And it's too blasé for the indie rom-com genre. It has a solid concept but it just doesn't stick the landing. It's watchable but unless you're literally tethered to your desk for hours with nothing else to do and you want to watch something, in 2-3 minute segments spaced with 10-30 minutes of mind numbing work, that you don't have to invest in emotionally or care about when it's done.. then why bother. I mean that's my excuse but what's yours?

As a movie it was great. Filled with a sorts of goodness. Great emotional character arcs. In spite of the ambiguous tragedy that starts the narrative it all feels real rather than just moralistic which is a fun thing to see in a children's movie.

As a musical it was… okay. The songs are great but they're a little too real. It just sounds like I'm listening to a sick Colombian radio station rather than a music with a song that I want to sing in the shower. All the songs are great to listen to, but nothing makes me want to remember any of them much less vocalize. My favorite musics had me singing the songs the next morning. Heck even ones that are decent I could sing a song to my sister and tell her which was my favorite. But this movie even though there are maybe three songs I know I liked. I couldn't tell you an hour after the film finished how they go.

The narrative is interesting but for a while I thought maybe Mirabel's power was going to be gift of song or making everyone sing. I think that's kinda says how disconnected the songs are from the film.

For all the talk I've been hearing about "We don't talk about Bruno" when it actually showed up it wasn't really all that… compelling. It was so quick and non specific I kept expecting it to come back. They say it like twice in the song and that's about it. The song was great but it missed that singable zip. Surface Pressure was a song with amazing lyrics and, honestly speaking, trash vocals, which is somewhat unfortunate because it might be the best song in the movie to the point where I was disappointed the movie wasn't about Mirabel helping everyone else realize that the picture perfect life wasn't working for them. One learns she's tired of the pressure of strength. The other learns she doesn't want to be perfect. Another learns to accept her emotions. I mean THAT movie was sitting right there waiting to happen. But the movie we got wasn't awful so I'm not torn up about it. Though Mirabel's power could have been the power whisperer.

But I did like the movie. I would even watch it again.

In spite of some cute faces, decent acting, and somehow a penis prop not being the worst part (don't get me wrong it was bad). This movie fights against the odds to be as blasé as anyone would imagine based on the trailer. The elements are all there. There's a touch of cleverness to some of the dialog and the rest of it doesn't make me want to poke out my eyes. The nerdy guys aren't so nerdy they're gross. The girls aren't so attractive you lose verisimilitude (I have no other way to phrase it that doesn't come out like a backhanded compliment but I do love Geraldine Viswanathan legit she's great). Eduardo Franco and Blake Anderson fulfill a need for long haired men I didn't realize the movie had. Mary Holland as the Triage nurse does her best. But this isn't the American Pie/EuroTrip inheritor you hoped for. It's not a teen sex comedy. It's not a teen drinking comedy like 21 or The Binge. It's a wanna be sexed up Goonies with neither the heart or the sex to go with it.

There's a lot of elements that unexpectedly work in favor of the movie. The locations are effective. I could have used a few more hi-jinks but mostly on paper it works. Which is why it's such a shame the movie just kinda flops about and flails to the finish-line. The dick sucking jokes come across not as crass or gross but instead just weird and pointless. For what is so clearly a grossout comedy. I just feel sad for it. Shame because there's occasional bright spots that almost make me wish they'd taken another crack at it.

While the little amount of advertising I saw clearly showed the first posters and tagline to be garbage (meaning they're nothing like the movie) even that first trailer which sold me didn't really reflect the final product.

This movie in any given scene looks like it's going to be something along the lines you predict like My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1987). It's got some similar vibes and certainly Diablo's script and Zelda direction pay enough homage to the 80s even if I would have preferred some more modern synth tracks just for variety to the well worn tones of REO Speedwagon.

But even though it's not what I expected walking in. I can't say I hated it. It's a movie that loves it's characters as much as it loves the 80s. Lisa makes decisions that one might call bad but the movie doesn't hate her for it. She's not a longer constantly bullied by literally everyone around her. She's a girl in pain being bullied by mostly everyone around her. The difference is slight but interesting. Visually it's fantastic. A delight for the eyes.

I've been saying for a long time since I found out how wrong I was about Jennifer's Body (2009) that I wanted to see more Diablo Cody work. Finally I've taken the time to do it and yeah great stuff. Zelda's debut is an excellent one. Should be interesting to see how she fares in the future.

This movie is interesting. It's not the throw away nonsense I was expecting from the trailer. I maintain that Cena and Brie don't have the chemistry you want in a man-woman adventure action movie. But unexpectedly the script doesn't push it. The script does a lot of things unexpectedly to be honestly.

The strange thing about this movie is that somehow in spite of everything in it's premise, from the big strong man my people call 'The American' shooting up a poorer nation ruled by an insane and violent dictator to the jungle poor but honest working people, the movie manages to avoid being the most jingoistic thing I've seen in 5 years. Considering how lazy the other elements of the movie are it's almost as if genuine criticism of typical jingoistic action films was it's real purpose one that it manages to do with a touch of actual heart. One that isn't distracted by a budding romance and sexual tension between it's male and female lead.

All that and still I say if you are the type of person to find Allison Brie attractive, then this is the movie for that kind of thing. Full of The Layover (2017) (https://trakt.tv/comments/155857) moments. Yes she does saucy-sashay her way through the movie which is a hilarious contrast to her character's motivation as being taken seriously.

It's just so unexpectedly interesting. I put this on for a lark. The trailer looked kinda bad and bland. But in the end I think I have a movie that I not only like but that I might want to watch again. Even though it's has tonal jumps all over the place. Unearned scenes of humor. Scenes of gore that come out of nowhere. Editing that in any given scene might just make you want to rewind five seconds to see if that scene even made sense visually. Yet it seems to avoid doing the "same old thing" that most action movies of this type do. Even the ending didn't have the requisite secret backstabber that I expected from the start of the movie.

The comparison for this movie is last year's The Lost City (2022). Now if you look at the two movies. The Lost City is going to be rated much higher. I think they put more budget in that. They have bigger not muscle man stars (Bullock, Radcliff, Pit). Tatum and Cena are practically interchangeable in my opinion. But The Lost City is more polished. It's also more shallow. It's more navel-gazey. It's very focused on the characters and doesn't really care about the people in the country they arrive in. In contrast while Freelance isn't as polished. It cares less about the main characters and more about developing the narrative about people of the country. I enjoyed both movies. But I think Freelance has fewer sustained flaws. Yeah there's some awful CGI scenes but that outfit Sandra was in was just awful and that lasted much longer. It's just The Lost City also has greater interpersonal chemistry and the big names are very effectively used. The jokes are setup better and land harder. But still as I said earlier. I kinda want to watch Freelance again where as The Lost City is probably just a movie I wouldn't switch channels from if it pops up on PlutoTV or something.

I can say I've seen it. I can say I laughed uproariously. Because holy wow is this movie awful. Front to back, start to finish. It's so bad you sometimes forget it's offensive too. On purpose.

One of the first gags is that after failing to inspire his new youth male team. He dismisses them reminding them not to steal his catalytic converter. After being called out for it by the black player. The black player drops a saw used to steal catalytic converts. In the next scene he doesn't have a catalytic converter.

There's not so much acting as there is setting up punchlines whether they're awful verbal jokes or pointless (and often too long) visual gag montages. I was going to say something about the imitation indie music and wanna be Karate Kid soundtrack but the credits were still rolling and the song section came up. All the songs are by William Boreing. I don't know if that's Jeremy's son or whatever nepotism nonsense but the music was uninteresting. It wasn't sonic garbage just... boring.

You could spend an hour debunking all the nonsense assumptions the movie makes erroneously. But for my money even from a conservative Daily Wire standpoint most of the movie is just dumb and pointless which is a problem because the movie's only saving grace is supposed to be it's messaging. It's like a Christian Faith movie in that way. Christian Faith movies are awful but they're awful because they don't care about anything other than sending the right message. The art of storytelling doesn't come into it. The only one that matters is the root story. That a team of men's washouts could dominate in women's sports. Ironically basketball is a poor choice for this because the gender differences aren't THAT big. And physical mass isn't everything like you see in the movie. Not when you're playing comparable teams. The women's teams are practiced active teams and our ladyballer are again some washouts who are hanging out just to do this. It's so casually done you never see them practice which is both a reflection of how much this isn't a sports movie and a reflection of what the movie thinks about female players. You see what it thinks at the end of the movie when it has grown bulked out basketball players playing with girl-children.

No one expects a vanity project to be perfect. But just because it's a vanity project doesn't mean you get to by pass every narrative concept. Me, You, Madness is awful. This is worse. But that one PRESENTS as a vanity project. This presents as a movie with something to tell through humor. It's not JUST lazy. It's not JUST offensive. It's not funny either. There's just scenes that you know the DW found funny. Scenes that they were dying laughing while they were writing it. But in the end on the movie are just... "ehh oh i see what they were trying to do".

Just as confusing as the first time I saw it only now I understand why I'm so confused. If foldableideas's Dan Olson ever gets back to film discussion I hope he talks about the editing in this movie. It's atrocious. Every time Lantern fights Hector. There's no motivation behind it. It's actually what breaks the movie. The movie is going along mostly well until Hal fights Hector the first time. It's not motivated. It's unclear why Hal is there. It's unclear how much Hal knows about what's going on.

I did think it was funny when Carol pointed out that as someone who knows Hal their entire life they recognize him in a mask. It's amusing but the mask identity is there for a reason narratively. People like to laugh at it but storywise it has a purpose and when you break that for a joke it does things like make HvH 1 feel stupid. If Carol can recognize him why can't Hector? Hector has spent his entire life wanting to be Hal, knowing Hal and yet when Hal puts on a mask .... Hector sees nothing.

Likewise it's never clear if Hal knows that Hector is the mutated creature. It's confusing and literally everything in the movie after this scene stops making sense. All the way to the post credit scene where Sinestro puts on the yellow ring. I remember being pumped for that but watching it again it doesn't make sense. WHY would Sinestro do it? We've seen nothing to motivate him. We see what motivates him to CREATE the ring but by the time he's wearing it.... why? Might as well ask why HvH 2 fight happens because that again is a scenario when Hal knows nothing, gained nothing and yet goes straight to a fight that was also a trap?

The biggest problem with the movie is the CGI. "CGI" ruins almost every movie that comes out now and it does the same here for the same reasons. All CGI scenes have to be dark. OA is a planet permanently 2 hours past dusk. Why? They have so much power and zero lighting. But what's special about Green Lantern is that rather than give him a suit to wear they put him in a CGI costume and THAT was the worst decision. Because they couldn't do it. Whether money or time it couldn't be done and what remains looks AWFUL. It's like every TV show that doesn't use squibs and instead they just color the film red where the bullethole is supposed to be. The mask looks like a slightly better version of that but it IS a version of that and you can tell. It's almost as distracting and almost never seeing a closeup of his full suit.

It's a shame to utterly junk Ryan Reynolds in a perfect made for him role. With better writing he could have been the Robert Downy Jr as Iron Man of casting. Almost. I mean you'll never find casting THAT good again for a superhero movie but Ryan as Hal could have been close.

The movie just spends too much effort on too much story. Hector Hammond doesn't serve any purpose. He would have been a great sequel antagonist with Sinestro or without him. Parallax doesn't have enough story meaning you don't know what it's motivation and goals are. The Lantern Corps could have used a touch more to do but honestly if it had looked better it wouldn't have mattered. I think Hal's drunk driving story would have been a better first shot. Really sink home the "responsibility" angle.

It says something about how bad act III is that all the way up until Hal busts in on Hector almost 75% of the way through the movie and I would have rated it above average. Probably just a six but still. But on top of the throughout issues everything that happens STARTING with the first HvH fight is just so awful and non stop floating dominoes that it drags the entire movie down to my current rating which is 3.

It wasn't bad. But honestly I'm very very disappointed this isn't a TV show. I misread the trailer and wasn't expecting a movie. I think this would have been amazing as TV show. It could have done what the True Lies tv show failed to do. It would have done what I expect the upcoming Mr and Mrs Smith show will fail to do. Kaley did a solid job as an action character. She's no Megan Fox in Rogue (2020) [awful movie but Fox was excellent] but she was solid. I'm not her biggest fan but I don't hate her and, respect where respect is due, her acting was more than okay. David however, like the plot, was under-fulfilled. I think he could have done more with his character of the straightman muggle husband. The script just didn't give any room for it. They did have more chemistry than I expected they would. I saw the trailer and in no way did I think I would buy them as a couple 100%, I was expecting maybe 60% buy in, but I kinda do.

Antagonists Bill Nighy and Connie Nielsen were enjoyably bad. Though Connie was under written. I didn't really get that slightly psychotic character from her the way the script seemed to want me to.

The tone of the movie was uneven. You're never really quite rocked out of the mood of the movie, but you've never sitting comfortable in it either. Mr. and Mrs. Smith the movie was very much a sexy spy "kill a bunch of guys" movie with likes of whiplash pans. True Lies the movie was very much an Arnold comedy with a bunch of one-liners and amusing growls. There are others that are more about the romance like say Mr Right or This Means War. Which are all very much comedic spy stuff with a heavy heavy dose of RomCom. The ingredients were there to make this the variation that focused on Romance with a capital R. I haven't seen one of those in a while and like I said they had the chemistry for it. But the movie wants to be an R-rated comedy so it tries to have it's cake and eat it too.

Almost every problem I had with this would have been resolved if it had been a full season length. Heck I might have even bonded with the kids. They could be given personalities and then maybe I'd care when their health is threatened.

Watching this movie for the umpteenth time I'm still impressed at how cool it is. It's a movie that just works on so many levels and still has the pinache to stay cool. One of the strangest things is the number of people commenting on how the first thing he should have done was make his supply permanent. I kinda think somehow one of the most accessible movies I've ever seen went over a lot of people's head because that was literally the point.

30 minutes into the movie which is 15 minutes after he takes the first pill. Eddie says "Suddenly I knew what I needed to do[...] but it would take money to get there". I find that a really clever bit of foreshadowing because THAT is when he leapfrogs the idea of getting more pills all the way to making the pills permanent.

Is Limitless really interesting? maybe not. Is it all that original? Maybe not. But it's fun. It's power fantasy done well in way that feels satisfying and not cheesy. It doesn't overstay it's welcome and get crazy with it's scope (like Lucy for instance).

Limitless was a gas. So good I was ready to reject the TV show adaption but even that turned out pretty nice.

I think there was a lot of potential in this. I think this movie took bad choices (as a film) but even with the choices they took there was potential. For instance I actually think it's kinda brilliant how they pull out of the time loop with a change in weather unexpectedly. I think it was performed WELL. I think it was kinda pointless but as a function of the story it works.

I was hoping that Michael would be redeemed. I think this could have been an interesting variation on the time loop genre where you're stuck in a time loop with someone you don't like. Not like an enemies to lovers situation which has been done to death but someone you actively don't like. It could have been fun it could have explored social responsibility. They could have taken this ostensibly evil character and turned him good using a morality that only applies to people who are functionally above the law.

But the movie didn't really do much. It didn't really SIT in the time loop. Like Groundhog Day for instance really saturates itself into the loop. Even fun goofy romps like Boss Level really luxuriate IN the loop really having a good time. Letting you feel the character in the loop. Here we don't spend much time exploring the loop. Maybe they want to argue we already understand the potential of the loop so we don't need to see it. Heck even the characters already understand the concept and jump two chapters ahead. Honestly they figure it out way too fast in my opinion.

But it could have been more. It could have been something special instead contrary to the description this is the story of one dude trapped in a loop with his love interest and his id manifest into a fellow addict.