Greg Enslen

VIP

6

“Women Talking” is a strange film. I can’t see why it was nominated for Best Picture unless it’s some kind of “token” all-woman movie to thrown into the mix. And while it’s a fine film, it left me wanting more — in fact, after the film, I sat in the parking lot at the theater and ordered the book behind the film.

And it’s about women talking — literally, that’s the entire movie. Some might find that tedious, but I found it interesting. These highly religious women, part of a colony, must decide on a group response to a series of horrific sexual assaults on the women of the community. Should they stay and suffer through more assaults, fight back, or leave the colony, striking out on their own? It makes for an interesting discussion. Rooney Mara is a wonder here as Ona, one of the younger women debating with seven others on how to respond. And because the women are illiterate, they invite a man, their colony schoolteacher, August (Ben Whishaw), into their company, but only to record the proceedings for future generations.

It’s difficult to be harsh with a movie that’s exploring such tragic subject matter, so I’ll just say that I wanted more information on their colony and it’s place in the outside world. In fact, it takes a while before the audience learns whether the film is set in modern times or two hundred years ago. An interesting film, certainly, but not Best Picture material. Although, hey, giving it a nomination got me to see it, so there’s that, right? There’s something to be said about raising a film’s profile. 6 out of 10.

Here’s my “Quick and Dirty Review” of “Triangle of Sadness.”

Nominated for Best Picture, there are so many things in this movie that I wanted to like but just could not. Self-sabotage isn’t a pretty thing to watch, but often, just when this film is about to make a point, the director chooses to HAMMER YOU OVER THE HEAD with his point instead of making it in a subtle fashion.

“Triangle” is not shy when trying to make a point. Hate rich people? Oh, you’re going to love this movies. Hate “influencers” and capitalists and people who take vacations on yachts? Do I have a movie for you! The plot revolves around Carl, a male model, and his girlfriend, Yaya, an “influencer.” I would say it’s about their relationship and making it work, which is a point belabored at length in the first thirty minutes of the film, but I’m not so sure. At times, it just feels like they’re the pretty, easy to look at couple that lets the filmmaker set up the hijinks to come later. “Watch these pretty people—I’m going to put them through hell because they’re rich and white.”

Great, go for it. They go on a vacation on a yacht and things go badly. That’s all I’ll say about the plot, which is very thin and only serves as the barest skeleton for the real meat of this film - social commentary. Step right up, folks, and listen to these zingers!!! “Rich people bad.” “Communism good.” “Capitalism bad.” Fashion lines treat their customers with disdain. There are things to like here but the film is not one of the top 10 films of the year. I liked the skewering of “influencers” and their endless narcissistic need for attention. At one point, a man takes a woman’s jewelry off—you’ll get it when you see it. And the flip at the end with Carl is a fun point to make, but it feels like it takes too long and it’s too on the nose. Somehow this movie has too little to say and takes too long saying it. Also I would be remiss in not mentioning the death of the lead actress, Charlbi Dean, who tragically passed away before the film was released. She was excellent in her role and we have been robbed of an actress with a long career ahead of her. She will be missed.

It meanders and preaches and can’t seem to get to the point. And then, when it does, it subverts it in an interesting way that had me sit up and pay attention. Wait, what? Are they trying to say something in the end about power and how it corrupts everyone, even when a poor person happens to find themselves in an advantageous situation? I understand “rich people bad,” but it also feels like they’re saying “poor people bad,” too? Is that possible? You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it. And, again, they have one of the endings that is left up to interpretation. It’s supposed to feel mysterious but just feels like a cheat. 4 out of 10, a real disappointment for me.

Here’s my “Quick and Dirty Review” of “Plane.”

It’s that time of the year when I’m racing to see all of the major Academy Award nominations. It might seem dumb to some people, but I’m a huge fan of cinema (yes, “Avatar” is still cinema) and like to know what is being nominated and WHY. To keep your finger on the pulse of Hollywood is to keep up with trends, recognize patterns, and shake your head at the latest “IP” to come along that somehow requires five sequels even though no one really enjoyed the original. Do we need another “Fantastic Beasts” movie, or another “Scream?” I don’t know. Someone seems to think so, although with that last “Beasts” movie I think Warner might have a tough row to hoe to get people to pay $12 to see the next one.

ANYWAY (sorry, I’m rambling) I’m catching up on movies, but I decided to do the old Soderburgh plan: “one for them, and one for me.” I watched “Triangle of Sadness” because I had to—it’s been inexplicably nominated for Best Picture — so now I get to watch something fun and entertaining: “Plane.”

“Plane” feels like a throw-back movie from the 1990s, when they just made good movies and no one spent the entire film preaching to you about whatever they feel like you are lacking. Right now, I’m watching “Tar” and got bored and came over here to work on this review. When did movie watching stop being about entertainment and become about education? I don’t want to be educated—and if you’re educating me, make it entertaining. The first ten minutes of “Tar” was a sit-down interview between two people in front of an audience. Scintillating, right?

“Plane” isn’t like that. In the first ten minutes, we meet most of the main characters and set up the entire plot of the film, which stars one of my favorite working actors, Gerard Butler, who seems to go out of his way to only make entertaining, violent, and awesome popcorn fare. No “Triangle of Sadness” for him, no sir. “Plane” is great — Butler plays an airline pilot whose plane goes down on a lawless island off the coast of the Philippines. That’s it. That’s the whole plot, but it’s so well done and so perfectly paced that the film is over before you know it.

There are bad guys (interestingly, they didn’t do subtitles or translation, so you really have to tip your hat to the actors who conveyed their entire character through body language and tone of voice) and there are good guys and every single standard trope you’re expecting is turned on its head.

That being said, this isn’t a movie for the ages. Although I still go back and enjoy “Olympus has Fallen,” I’m not sure this one will hold up as well. Maybe if the plot had been just been “slightly” more complicated, it would have made the film better. As for now, it’s predictable but satisfying.

“Plane” is a breath of fresh air compared to Tar and “All Quiet” and “Triangle of Sadness,” all of which are so busy trying to say something that they forget to speak to the audience. You keep your college courses on Mahler and trench warfare. I’ll be over here, watching Gerard Butler kill a guy with a stick and cheer when a takes out a bad guy at the perfect moment. 7 out of 10.

Here’s my “Quick and Dirty Review” of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

War is hell. As with most war movies, including “1917” and “Saving Private Ryan,” this film is about the insanity—and inanity—of armed conflict, which chews up and spits out both the innocent and the warfighter with equal, casual cruelty. The randomness of it all, the “rah rah” chest thumping of the politicians that will never venture anywhere near the front lines, the heartbreaking waste of human life are portrayed beautifully in this film, based on the 1929 book by Erich Remarque.

The best parts of the war are those simple moments between the falling shells and ricocheting bullets: reading heartfelt letters from home. One man meets a female refugee and she give him her scarf and the men of the company pass it around to smell it—it sounds gross but it’s cruel in its hopefulness and innocence. All these men want to do—and all of the soldiers are men, fodder for the war—is return home and make a home and family. It’s a dream that they all share but few will see come true.

Of course, the hopeful scenes are far outnumbered by the somber ones: massive graves full of the dead, mangled bodies in the mud, gas attacks. Dead bodies hang from the trees, and our soldiers find a room of 60 young soldiers, gassed to death. They run into machine gun fire and collect a seemingly endless number of dog tags to be sent to some distant bureaucrat for counting and to notify the next of kin. It makes me think about what’s happening in Ukraine right now and I wonder if we’ll ever learn.

Some of the juxtapositions are perfect, especially the cutting between soldiers fighting hand-to-hand in the mud while the politicians and career soldiers enjoy fine meals and wine in quiet manors far from the front lines. Doctors work to save the injured, and a friend of our main character tries to surrender to soldiers with flamethrowers to no avail.

Much of the cinematography was simply sublime, reminding me of “1917” but lacking that film’s rushing sense of dread created by “single shot” aspect of the film, which through trickery and technology made it appear as if the entire film consisted of one continuous shot. In the end, war is hell, and the victors in their cruel, retaliatory punishment, continue the cycle and ensure another war soon in the future.

Earlier movies based on this story were made in 1930 and 1979, with the later version starring Richard Thomas, pre-”Bilbo” Ian Holm, and Ernest Borgnine. The summary for that film tells you everything you need to know about the story: “A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror or World War I.“ I might have added something about the warrenlike trenches, half filled with rain and blood and bodies, but maybe they didn’t want to scare off their entire audience.

That being said, I’ve seen all of this before. War is cruel, and anyone who doesn’t believe that hasn’t ever spoken to a veteran or walked through a military graveyard. But this film really brings it home. Should be mandatory viewing for anyone enamored with war. I think the film would have been more affective if it were 30 minutes shorter, but other than that, I had few complaints. 8 out of 10.

Here’s my “Quick and Dirty Review” of “The Batman.” Wow. Great story, beautiful visuals, and some of the most haunting and melodic scoring I've heard in a long time. You know those folks that say "why can't they make good comic book movies? One's where you care about the good guys and hate the bad guys and it all seems to actually matter and it's not just some dumb exercise in grandstanding morons punching each other for two hours?" Show them this movie. It's haunting and thoughtful and moving. There's the absolute bare minimum of "modern day" tropes and groupthink -- instead, you get a vigilante detective trying to solve an escalating series of gruesome and public murders. Everyone is great in this: Kravitz, Paul Dano, Peter Sarsgaard, a completely unrecognizable Colin Ferrell and Turturro. Serkis as Alfred is haunted by his failure to protect Bruce Wayne's parents, while Jeffrey Wright's Lt. Gordon is apparently the only cop in town who's not on the payroll of some crime lord or syndicate. But my standout was Pattinson, formerly Mr. Shiny Vampire, who brings something new and vulnerable and a little unhinged to the Caped Crusader. Everything here feels fresh and new: a grungy but logical bat cave, a saucy and completely realistic batmobile, the way the Batman uses fear and his ability to be anywhere as tools in an attempt to keep a lid on the bubbling, simmering cesspool that is Gotham City. 9 out of 10, in my Top 5 for 2022.

Here’s my Quick and Dirty Review of Ready Player One

The movie was good, 6 out of 10 stars. Not great, not amazing, but good. Much of the "real life" parts felt phoned in, and there was so much going on in the digital parts that I'm thinking a lot of the detail is lost in the all the noise. Lots of fun and full of pop culture references, but it made me miss the book, which was better by far. It's a fun ride and dazzling--make sure you see it on the big screen. The bad guy comes off as a little goofy, and the challenges aren't as difficult as in the book, so not sure how book readers will feel about it. Almost feels like a whole different animal.

Of course, it did my heart good to see all the BTTF references--heck, the main character drives a souped up Delorean. Plus the soundtrack's by Alan Silvestri, who also did BTTF and Avengers. I told my wife Samantha she has to go see it with me so I can gauge how it plays with folks who didn't read the book and aren't completely obsessed with '80s pop culture. Best part? The Shining... 7 out of 10, mostly for the BTTF references. Darn you for not leaning more into the Rush like in the book!!!!

Here’s my “Quick and Dirty Review” of “Tomorrowland.”

I went into this movie expecting to hate it. Based on what I'd heard, I was planning for a clunker with bad effects. I'm happy to say I was pleasantly surprised. The visuals are amazing, and the plot is hopeful and interesting, centered mostly around a negative "self-fulfilling prophecy" playing out in our reality. Without getting into spoilers, there's a good reason for our current obsessions with negativity and dystopia and apocalyptic zombie movies. We're being told the world is going to hell, and we're buying into it.

I can understand some of the negative criticism. There are too many CGI robots, enough to make action scenes feel boring. A weird tonal shift happens early on, amping up the violence and throwing viewers for a loop. And many of the action scenes feel hurried and overworked. The ten-minute house invasion section was so rushed, a dozen nifty inventions are thrown at the viewer so quickly, they can't be appreciated. Plot holes and "wait, what?" moments abound, as they do in most big films nowadays. I hate being asked to not only suspend my disbelief but ignore things like physics. When a huge metal ball explodes over your head, you run away. When the film shows it crashing onto a platform where your character was standing, the viewer thinks: "oh, my, is she dead?" Of course not. She's fine, and it's not explained. People fall in water and are dry in the next moment. Humans are vaporized by mean robots and nobody cares or notices. It feels like a great fourth draft of a script that needed a little more polishing.

Unfortunately, the movie feels 20% too preachy, hitting us over the head with dangers like global warming and obesity and famine. But it takes a hopeful view, assuming that, if we work together, we can solve these problems and others. It's a hopeful message, something akin to the 1950s and 60s when the world was recovering from a devastating world war and anything seemed possible and we were landing people on the moon and making strides on social issues like civil rights and the prevention of global conflicts. Clooney and the other actors are good, although the lead actress seemed a little overwhelmed, and you can't base a huge movie like this on essentially four characters. They needed more people and more character arcs to make it have an impact.

But, in the end, this hopeful film asks us to believe that progress is a good thing, but only if that progress is in the service of good. This movie trades in a different message: hope, and hopefulness, and using our combined smarts to figure out solutions to problems. That's not something you hear a lot any more, and it was refreshing to see, especially in a big Hollywood blockbuster. It harkens back to that old Einstein saying, which is highlighted in once scene: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And that's not a bad thing.

Okay, here's my "film review" for The Banshees of Inisherin: Don't watch this movie. I'm not saying that in a "reverse psychology way" or some clever attempt to get you to watch this. I mean don't watch this movie. It's not one of the TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2022, despite what people are saying. Yes, it's shot beautifully and yes the actors are great and the location is great. No, don't see this movie because it's so freaking depressing, I had to go watch Schindler's List TWICE to cheer me up. Wow.

You know how people say "there's two hours I'll never get back" when they waste time watching a movie with no redeeming value? This is worse. Here's the plot: "In old timey Ireland, mean and depressing people do mean and depressing things to each other before things take a turn into horrible, please-erase-this-from-my-brain land." This movie isn't a waste of time--it's actively depressing, not something we need more of in our time. Things are depressing enough already without ACTIVELY seeking out things that will bring you down. For example, a friend of mine is always trying to get me to watch the Walking Dead series, and I tell him he's fecking crazy: "why would I want to see people being mean to each other on purpose for an endless number of hours without any redemption arc?" I mean, why are we all obsessed with these movies that preach how horrible life is? What am I supposed to take away from these stories? We're all worthless and nothing matters? Life is depressing? I can find that on Tik Tok.

Okay, I'm wrapping up this review with the following: you know how you felt after watching "Irreversible" or "Raw" or "Battlefield: Earth?" Here's what I said: "Wow, I wish I had never seen that because now I have these images in my mind I can't get rid of." That's what this movie is. If you want to ruin someone's day, recommend this movie and gush over the cinematography and the acting and how beautiful the landscapes are. Just don't be surprised if they call you up later and tell you off for recommending this depressing waste of film.

Nope, unwatchable. I got thirty minutes into this frenetic exercise in yelling, shouting, and people being horrible to each other, topped off by a too-loud music track that drowned out half of what Adam Sandler was saying. Maybe with better production values this would have been an okay film, but the dialogue must have been recorded on set and not ADR/looped in after, as is done in most modern films, because characters were talking over each other, making it nearly impossible to hear what the characters were saying. The directors also refused to use establishing shots or any character back-and-forths, so it was impossible to tell who was talking to whom. Things got better when I turned on the closed captions, but the stressful story didn't improve--it was just Sandler yelling at people or texting angrily. That's not a story. Finally I just started skipping ahead in ten-minute segments, hoping the story would improve. Spoiler--it doesn't. Oh, and that zooming in/zooming out of stuff was just gross. It happens at the start and again at the very end. You know what I'm talking about. The most interesting part? The first five minutes at the gem mine. One upside--this will be my new "barometer" movie. I'll use it to warn me off of movie lists--you know the ones--that start with something clever like "Ten Modern Film Masterpieces." When they list crapfests like this movie or "The Shape of Water" and "The Master" and snoozers like "Moonlight" and "Drive," then I'll know to move on. Yikes.

I loved the book and love Ewan Mcgregor and Rebecca Ferguson, but I have to say this film was a disappointment. The filmmakers tried to serve two masters: fans of the original "The Shining" and fans of Stephen King's works, and I have to say they failed on both parts. I know they were treading a thin line, so I give them credit for trying. But the massive, wholesale changes from the book will alienate the novel's fans, and folks who loved the movie might be confused about many of the things that are happening on-screen due to skipped explanations and attempts to "fix" the first movie, which didn't really need fixing. It was just a different take on the book, which I loved. And I loved the movie. Things can exist in different worlds and still be good. Loving the book, I understood most of what was happening, but found the lack of backstories and character development frustrating. Interesting characters were introduced and then never seen again, important characters from the book that you kept expecting to pop up again. The production values were excellent, to be sure, and it was a dream to revisit The Overlook, even if last year's "Ready Player One" stole their thunder by replicated the old hotel first. Rebecca Ferguson is a powerhouse in this--how is it that she doesn't have her own franchise of films yet? McGregor is great, as usual, but both of their characters felt watered down in comparison to the book. I liked the recreations of scenes from the first film, especially getting a kick out of certain office. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but yes, you are not crazy. It's a item-for-item recreation, down to the plant shelves and the open briefcase and the American flag. Well done. 6 out of 10.

Eh, not great. Watched this right after watching Despicable 1 and 2 and you can really see the difference in the screenplay--most of the jokes didn't land and things didn't make sense. My ten-year old was asking me questions I couldn't answer about the characters and motivations. I think someone watched the first two, said "hey let's make a Minions-only movie" and then tried to figure out why they were popular. I can tell you why they're popular--they talk funny and they get into funny situations. Can you make a whole movie out of that? I'd argue no. The animation was great and there is some inventive stuff in here, but I found my attention wandering. If felt like things were just "happening" to the minions, through no actions of their own, and the movie felt like an exercise in trying to spot connections to the "good" movies in the franchise. It's like going to Disney World and only searching for Hidden Mickeys on all the rides instead of having the rides themselves be good. Also, it's written for (and possibly by) six year olds, especially the ending that reminds you OVER AND OVER about the minions' connection to Gru. Not subtle, not funny. The last words describe their new boss as dastardly and "despicable," and my daughter said sarcastically "OH THAT'S GRU? WE HAD NO IDEA." Funnier than anything in the movie.

A great film for Beatles fans, and fun to see people discovering their songs for the first time, but the love story seemed too contrived and unearned. I'm not sure 20 years in the friend-zone can ever be overcome. Can it? And while I loved the "alternate-ness" of this reality, the film itself left me with too many unanswered questions about how this alternate reality came about. I wanted to know "why" no one remembers the Beatles or any of the other things that are missing in this reality. Haven't cigarettes been around forever? And Coca Cola started in the late 1800s--does that mean the power outage somehow affected things that happened decades ago? Centuries? Sorry, I'm th kind of viewer who wants answers. To me, there's no worse cop-out than when a writer or filmmaker leaves an ending "open to interpretation" or expects the viewer to "come up with his own answers." That's not how storytelling is supposed to work--when I write a book, I have an ending in mind. If I didn't, and left it ambiguous, my readers would howl and downvote me on Amazon. So pick and ending and support it with your arguments. Anyway, sorry about the rant. I wanted to like this film, but I kept waiting for the real Beatles to show up and claim their work. I wanted answers, but the way the filmmakers left things open-ended seemed less satisfying for me. Watch it for the music and Himesh Patel's amazing, heartfelt performance, and ignore the trite, unearned love story angle and Kate McKinnon's thirty-ninth over the top performance.

So far it's...fine. A weird clash of tones: one minute they're making silly jokes and the next it's all "whoa, here comes the scary apocalypse!" My wife and I have to keep pausing it to discuss the ins and outs of the plot, which takes interesting turns here and there but can't decide if it's scary or funny. I guess the best way to describe it is a "light-hearted take on the apocalypse." We'll keep watching, hoping it gets better. Random thoughts: I can't figure out why Crowley walks so funny? I guess the "Queen" songs are from the book. I liked the Garden of Eve and hate the Frances McDormand narration. I understand she's God, but everything is a joke to her, which just seems cruel to all the little people on the planet. The bone-dry humor might come through better if it were being read by someone with a more commanding voice, I'm thinking. Crowley says that went over like "a lead balloon" in the Garden of Eden long before lead or balloons have been invented. "Two demons lurk at the edge of the graveyard. They're pacing themselves, and can lurk for the rest of the night, if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for a final burst of lurking around dawn." Okay, this is a good example. It sounds scary but then has a funny joke at the end. The tonal shift is jarring and unexpected and happens all the time in this show and (presumably) the book as well. So are we laughing or scared or both? Not sure. It's like Seinfeld with an occasional bloody murder. So there are three babies? What happened to the third one? All we know is that he "probably wins prizes for his tropical fish." The President Bush impersonator was dead perfect. I liked the nun suggesting evil names. David Tennant as Mary Poppins was just ick. And wow was that devil dog CGI horrible?

I was only 38 minutes in and I went to check Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB to see if this movie was a stupid as it seems or if I was just missing something. You know you're in trouble when you're shouting back at the screen "no, that's not how that works." I paused the film and sighed, wondering if I should even finish it. It's too bad--I actually liked his "Iron Man 3" and "The Nice Guys." Maybe Shane Black just can't handle action. Also, using the "F" word in every sentence doesn't make a movie edgy. It's a big dumb movie that makes my brain hurt. And it feels like they wrote the script on set during filming. Few things are foreshadowed, things are set up and never paid off, and it's 1:40 minutes and even that feels padded.

The script feels like a rough first draft before anyone read it and said "um, okay. Nice effort. Now let's have this polished several times." It's all a weird mix of quips and dumb puns combined with relentless CGI action and blood spraying everywhere. It feels like a poor man's Deadpool without the heart or the humor. Buckets of blood combined with dumb jokes does not automatically create a masterpiece.

And the plot is incoherent, coincidences just happen because they're required to advance the plot, and dumb things happen over and over. Characters do things that don't make sense over and over. For example, in the opening spaceship crash, a sniper is observing a hostage situation. For no reason, he shoots one of the kidnappers but runs away before rescuing the hostages or taking out the other kidnappers. He runs into the woods to find the spaceship and yells loudly for his friends. If you're doing covert operations, you're not yelling. He finds some parts of the predator's suit (a helmet and arm thingy) and a friend joins him and he says "give me the backpack" and the guy happens to be carrying a big EMPTY backpack. The predator--who took the time to kill another human and string him up from a tree - don't ask--attacks and the sniper fights back, failing to hurt the predator until the predator's OWN arm thingy fires, hurting him and cutting the hanging human in half. His blood and guts drip all over the fallen predator and the human's intestines are all hanging out. Funny, right? That's just in the first ten minutes. If I were to make a list of all the logic problems in this "movie," I'd be here all day, but here are some of the major script fixes I would have made. SPOILERS.

3:40 - the ship isn't even going to crash near the sniper, so there's no reason for him to get up and run away, fall down a mountain, and find the crashed ship
5:20 - "Comms aren't working" isn't explained
5:25 - "give me the pack" who carries an empty backpack through the forest?
5:30 - "ain't nobody gonna believe this one" and "it's above our pay grade"
5:45 - clandestine military team shouting loudly into their radios
6:10 - predator is already there? The ship crashed in one location and his escape pod ejected WAY far away. He had time to cover all that ground AND kill a human AND string him up just to scare these folks?
7:00 - predator arm weapon hits predator, cuts human in half, dripping blood and entrails. Yummy!
8:25 - character mainlining Nicorette gum. Never mentioned again
8:45 - sniper clears out a bar by showing his gun to ONE old man. Everyone else just gets up and leaves without seeing the gun
9:05 - sniper uses alien marble to turn invisible to impress a Mexican bar owner. If you can turn invisible, why DRINK THE MARBLE in the next scene? Also I don't think you can do that.
8:50 - sniper actually asks the bar owner to mail the helmet and arm thingy TO HIS SON in the US. This is an actual plot point. Okay, so customs?
9:24 - sniper says "mail what's in the pack, not the backpack." Why does that matter? The bar owner's just going to throw it away and the backpack would help cushion the item in transport. Seems like an odd line to make it into the final script when there's no point
10:30 - autistic kid watches others play chess. Doesn't like loud sounds. Bullies come to beat him up, decide not to, knocks over chess pieces. Autistic kid REMEMBERS how the board was set up and puts the pieces back. WHOA. So cliched.
10:47 - bullies converstation: "looky, looky, loo," "I'm hungry for an ass-burger," "sounds delicious" and "A nice big juicy ass-burger." Sorkin-level dialogue this is not.
12:30 - creepy expository conversation about the autistic kid's father with a post office worker. Turns out the sniper is the kid's dad and he's got a package! The kid says "he kills people so you can be a mailman." Get the oscar for best screenplay ready!!
13:07 - Olivia Munn is Dr. Brackett. She's walking her dog when a government dude who looks like a generic version of Willem Defoe recruits her to investigate the alien. "
16:15 - The helmet is really-well packed when it arrives. The kid find it encased in bubble wrap and a dozen ziplock bags full of white rice. Maybe the bar owner should open a shipping store.
19:30 - clunky scene on the bus to introduce all the PTSD group members. Each gets a line and a thumbnail description
21:00 - "Is it just your imagination, or is this haunted room ACTUALLY stretching?" Okay, the first joke of the movie to actually make me laugh out loud. Too bad they got the line from The Haunted Mansion wrong and added in the word "haunted."
21:20 - second pleasant surprise - Jake Busey as a scientist. Funny
22:00 - oh, good, the Predator's alive. Couldn't tell from the earlier scene. Didn't he get shot? Looks fine now. Oh, and I can tell you right now those restraints aren't gonna hold him down.
22:30 - overly-explained back story for how Oliva Munn got recruited. People probably thought that was boring so, at the same time, she's taking off her clothes to be "decontaminated." Jake Busey's ALSO taking his clothes off to be "decontaminated" even though HE WORKS THERE and has presumably been there for weeks. Why is he getting naked too?
23:15 - Traeger, the main doctor, explains why they call it the Predator and Olivia Munn says he sounds more like a game hunter or "bass fisherman." Yup, that's in the script. Traeger replies that "we voted and Predator just sounds cooler." Right.
26:45 - Alien #2 arrives but the autistic kid, who's playing with the alien helmet, apparently has already figured out their language the second ship can turn invisible but the kid figures out how to turn it off. Kid is just doing random things but manages to help the military.
28:30 - Predator #1 breaks free. I told you those restraints wouldn't work. Edited scene happens too fast, no tension as things jump around and we don't see anything except random killing. Here's a thought: SHOW the Predator holding the knife BEFORE he throws it and kills a guy. It's easy. Set-up, pay-off. Guards start to shoot at the Predator, he grabs a woman and holds her up as a human shield. Set-up, pay-off. Take your time. This scene ends up feeling like it took no effort for the Predator to get loose versus him actually using the environment and the people around him to earn his escape. Jake Busey gets shot and we don't see what happens to him. Olivia Munn grabs a gun--she has a military background? Not mentioned beforehand. Stuff just happens, people run around, no tension. She grabs some kind of yellow goo in a test tube that hasn't been mentioned or explained before and runs away. Why did she grab that? What is it? Is it important? Does it matter?
29:15 - everyone else in the room gets killed. To escape, Olivia Munn has to pass through the "decontamination" area and get naked AGAIN. Predator finds her but doesn't kill her.
31:45 - oh, Jake Busey's NOT dead? Okay, good. "Don't let him get away." "Not my space animal," she says.
32:20 - busload of PTSD guys and our sniper see the alien. Good scene as they take control of the bus and chase the alien. Olivia Munn also chases the alien across the rooftop, then jumps on the bus. Sure. Then falls off the bus after SHOOTING HERSELF in the foot with a tranquilizer gun. So the random white gun she grabbed earlier and has been carrying this whole time was a tranq gun? Gotcha.
35:40 - Predator #2 fights human fighter planes. Human ejects from plane before plane is hit
36:20 - Dude sees a group of motorcycles to steal and yells "Get to the choppers!" Get it? It's a call-back to the first movie when Arnold says "get to the chopper." Get it? GET IT??????
37:30 - Predator #1 jumps into the back of a truck and kills everyone. Driver says "everything okay back there?" Predator holds up the severed arm of one soldier and GIVES THE DRIVER A THUMB'S UP with the arm. Driver says "You f-ing guys." SEE IT'S FUNNY RIGHT!! But how does the Predator know that a thumb's up means "Okay everything's fine?"
37:45 - the Predator has dogs! Sweet.

I got 38 minutes in and gave up tracking this by scenes. Here are the remaining highlights:

The wife knows EVERY detail of the sniper's record-wouldn't that all be classified?
The autistic kid wears the Predator stuff as a Halloween costume.
Random RV with a police radio that's a "reverse clown car."
Space dogs have dreadlocks too. Predator #2 is twice as big as Predator #1.
The high school has a sign that reads "Welcome Parents and STDS" - has anyone ever shortened "students" as STDs? A seven-year-old kid says "Sorry I didn't grow up the way you wanted."
Bad guys find good guys with no explanation. Space dog is suddenly friendly. They call the Predators "Thing #1" and "Thing #2."
All the aliens are visiting Earth because of climate change--good one. The Predators using the same "falling letters" screensaver as they do in the Matrix but it's in red.
Predator #2 uses child drawings TWICE to find the kid and a missing spaceship. Space dog rescues woman because the plot requires it.
Hiding from the bad guys when you have an orb that turns you invisible. Random translator machine that never worked before now translates Predator speech into English, who gives them a 7:31 minute head-start before he's going to hunt them all down.
Predator randomly "hacked the vehicles" so everyone has to flee on foot. (I swear to God it's like they made this plot up on set.) "You and me are gonna dance." "I got my shoes all picked out."
They lock the space dog in a van for no reason but he gets out. Bad CGI Predator bites a soldier's head off. Predator gun/vest shoots the head off the guy wearing it with no explanation and he's the MAIN BAD HUMAN. Shooting at the alien spaceship with three of your friends in the way. When he needs to communicate with this father, the kid suddenly has a phone. Force field forms slowly so they have time to avoid it.
Olivia Munn--and the dog--run miles through the forest in five minutes to attack the Predator. Sudden knowledge of how to use tech--and the space dog--lets them defeat Predator #2. Kid gets a job working with the Predator research teams.
Alien space pod was gift to humankind. Guess what it is? A Predator Killer. Oh SNAP! Another even bigger monster? No, it's a suit a human wears--to kill Predators. SEQUEL!!!!

Things I liked: stealing a news helicopter, "is this room stretching," Jake Busey, Keegan-Michael Key, the Greyjoy kid, "Don't look at the dead guy," space dogs with dreadlocks. I guess if you throw enough random crap at the screen, something will pay off, right?

I wanted to like this movie, but I found myself shouting at the screen so many times that, by the time the story wrapped up, I wasn't rooting for anyone. A dark take on the whole "bad seed" theme, Tilda Swinton plays the frustrated mother to a child with so many problems, it's hard to know where to start. And, while most of his aggression is aimed directly at her, I find it hard to believe that NO ONE else in his life (teachers, neighbors, grandparents, the other people in town, the police) noticed his disturbing behavior as a child. His father is clueless, always siding with the child even as he's defiant in front of the parents. "He's a boy...that's what boys do." Um, no. This kid clearly has psychological issues--anyone can see that.

But the filmmakers choose to ignore that and blame nearly everything on the mother. She tries and tries to connect with her son, and he's nothing but snide and manipulative, to the point where the movie drifts from being a twisted family tale into straight-up horror movie land. Whenever she notices him doing something wrong, he always looks up and her and smiles. ALWAYS, even when she's in the kitchen and he's outside and can't possibly know where she is or what she's thinking. It grows laughable near the end when she realizes what he's doing and looks up and he's staring at her and smiling in the creepiest way. You're reminded it's a movie and not real life, taking you out of the drama. It's all over the top guilt aimed squarely at the one person who's actually trying to fix the problem.

By the way, as a parent and member of the community, I find it hard to believe this kid's behavior would be tolerated. It starts at the beginning and just gets worse--but the mother doesn't seem to realize that her child is different. I can't believe she doesn't talk to other parents to get a sense of what kinds of behaviors are normal rebellion and which ones are clearly sociopathic. And after the "incident," I would have moved away. The only reason she would choose to stay in the same town is for the punishment, blaming herself for what happened. She's found her own personal hell, and she thinks what Kevin did was her fault--and she should pay the price. I found it unbelievable, though. All kids are special and different, but a kid like that needs professional help, not a new bow and arrow. Thanks Dad!

The filmmaker chose to skip around in time, showing events and then what led up to those events. It's an interesting choice but takes away most of the tension because the viewer knows what's coming. There is only one "surprise" moment in the film--but it is seriously creepy and comes out of left field to answer several questions. In the end, they don't "talk about Kevin," and that's the primary issue. Maybe if they had, things would have turned out differently. I liked that the filmmaker chose to show less violence than she could have, but I wonder why--the entire film sets up how evil this child is, but then, in the end, the filmmaker protects us from seeing the result of that evil. Again, it feels like an attempt to excuse or cover up his behavior. The film ends up just being a frustrating exercise in bad parenting, bad judgement, and blaming your kids for ruining the fun, tomato-themed life you had before they came along.

Wow, this was not as good as I was hoping. While the animation is beautiful in spots, the characters are paper thin and the plot drags. I found my attention wandering, despite the fact that this film includes dozens of those LOUD animation moments meant to keep the children's attention. Every character is OVER THE TOP excited about everything and hopping up and down and loud and exhausting. There are so many bad jokes and "witty" moments in this film, I don't know where to begin, but I assure you, your eyes will be rolling before the finale.

The plot revolves around three people: Manolo, Joaquin and Maria. The two boys both are in love with Maria. Joaquin is the jock and constantly looking for things to push over, while Manolo, the sensitive one, just wants to play music. Maria's character exists only for the two boys to have something to fight over--we learn nearly nothing about her as a person. Maria's sent away to grow up in Spain, and Joaquin and Manolo resolve to win her heart when she returns. Oh, and there's another plot on top of that--two gods who run different parts of the underworld/Day of the Dead have a bet going as to which boy will win Maria as a prize. Oh, and there's ANOTHER plot on top of that--this whole story is being told by a museum curator to a bunch of delinquent kids. Got it? Come on, keep up! I won't get into the ending or spoilers, but you'll be let down, believe me. Pointless plot turns, dumb characters, and flashy manic fights.

Comparisons to the far superior "Coco" abound, but this is a pale shadow of that film. And I need to address the rumors that this was done first and Coco was a copy: as far as my research shows, this film was announced in 2013 and released in 2014. "Coco" was officially kicked off in 2007 and revamped in 2012 after running into some controversy over Disney's attempts to copyright the concept of "Day of the Dead." And while there are many similarities between the plots, settings and characters, it's difficult to determine who "borrowed" from whom.

The animation style is both interesting and chaotic. Many of the main characters are designed to look like they've been carved out of wood (it ties back to the museum storyline), adding an interesting angle. But it all moves so quickly, it's very difficult to appreciate the amount of time and effort (and computing cycles) that went into creating these characters. If only they'd spent a fraction of that effort on improving the plot and characters.

The music is the largest disappointment: while espousing the Mexican culture, and championing the main character AS A MUSICIAN, there is almost no Mexican or latin-themed music in this film. The only orginal song was a very sappy number called "I Love You Too Much." Many of the other music choices were WAY too obvious, pop standards that will be recognized by the audience: the big montage in the middle, while the two boys grow up and wait for Maria to return, plays over a very weak version of Mumford & Sons "I Will Wait For You." As in "they will wait for her." Got it. Very subtle. The rest of the music is as cringeworthy, with latin-tinged versions of pop songs like Radiohead's "Creep," Elvis' "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You," Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" and Biz Markie's "You Got What I Need." They are so out of place in this children's latin-themed film, you'll actually laugh out loud. And these would be near the bottom of the list of songs I'd put in a kid's movie about Mexico and the Day of the Dead.

Surprisingly well done. It's exactly like the original book, except that in this version, England and the Bennet sisters are faced with a overwhelming threat: a plague of zombies inhabits the countryside. Those who don't fight back are destined to be turned into shuffling beasts in search of human brains. Some of it is quite silly, but it's fun to see the characters--and the actors--taking everything so seriously. Lily James and Sam Riley inhabit their lead roles without a hint of sarcasm or a knowing wink at the audience. The zombie threat and past conflicts with them are incorporated perfectly into the narrative, with a new angle: in this England, young woman are sent away to be trained in martial arts. Elizabeth and her sisters spend much time training with swords or flipping around, hacking off zombie heads. But there is real drama and romance among the characters--Mr. Darcy is a tool, Elizabeth is inexplicably drawn to him, Bingley and Jane Bennet make the perfect couple--but it seems they're constantly being interrupted by zombies at the gates. The writers did a great job of making it all feel fairly believable--London is under siege, ringed with battlements and a wide no-man's-land to protect the city. A limited number of bridges into the capital remain, guarded by the living. Each country manor home and stately castle is shown topped with new defenses and ringed with wicked, barbed fences and unbreachable gates. In the end, this movie is much better--and much better looking--than it has any right to be.

Ever see a movie and you suddenly realize your IQ is dropping? That's this movie. I seriously cannot believe this movie got made, or that anyone in charge of the budget signed off on it. It's horribly dull, just scene after scene of people dancing and partying. These four "ladies" go on "spraang braaaake" and bad stuff happens. I kept waiting for the point, but really, the movie has nothing to say other than "look at these ladies in their bikinis." I guess the "moral" is that you shouldn't do bad things or bad things might happen to you? Maybe?

My least favorite part was the constant repetition of lines. I feel like the "writers" couldn't come up with good dialogue, so when they found something they liked, they repeated it. At one point, the girls get arrested, and they keep saying "it wasn't supposed to be like this" over and over. I'm not kidding, I think they said it six or seven times. The film is visually stunning, if I'm being positive. They spent a LOT of money on neon lights and fake guns...and swimsuits. SO MANY swimsuits, and so many closeups of women in swimsuits. I kinda feel like the director graduated from "Girls Gone Wild" to artsy films, but this need more plot, character arcs, and less of James Franco's teeth. If you want to hear people say "spraang braaaake forevvvvvahhh" many MANY times, go for it.