wolfkin

Less than 25% of the way through the episode. We have a classic example of what in my opinion is how to do an episode of Elizabeth poorly. I realize this is no longer a legal show now that we're not the good wife. This is now a police procedure. But Elizabeth as a character is still a lawyer. She's a lawyer who due to her (coded autistic) brain notices things.

This is a great hook. It's a reasonable ask for the viewer to buy into your world. But then when you do stuff like this episode, it completely falls apart. I'm even willing to tolerate seeing the murder. How why? And when happened before Elizabeth even shows up. Generally speaking, I like a little mystery to my mystery show, but that isn't necessarily the problem here. The problem is that Blair Underwood who is wasted here, is a killer who talks like no one else has ever talked before in life. Immediately he starts phrasing things as if everyone knows he killed the victim. As if he's on trial defending himself. When no one knows he's even involved. But because he talks in the dumbest most guilty defense way possible, Elizabeth is somehow the only one to catch on. This isn't exactly what I was looking for when I expected her to notice things. Other episodes have been better than this. I don't think any have been worse

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.

A merely okay case this week. The narrative I think got pulled away from by the B and C plots. For a ... and yeah I'll say it, pandering episode at least it was done mostly well. IMO the most frustrating part of the episode (again for me) was so minor it's really not a big deal. I think Clara's little brother Micah being gay felt excessive. It's a community so conservative they don't educate women and the one male character affected is a boy who made a joke with a girl and that means he's gay. A kid who is eight years old grew up around the "cult" but enraptured when he finds out that big normal Lawrence married a man. But it does tie in effectively to the plot on both a narrative and thematic level and in a way that doesn't feel overly forced. And certainly I've ignored bigger coincidences so again it's not a big deal.

Would that Quantum Leap's pandering episode had been that effective and half as subtle. Heck The Rookie's BLM episode could have come down to this level.

I feel like we're really throwing Allison to the wolves narratively which is odd because she was one of my favorite characters. Lawrence is mostly fine for a third-tier character. I could care less about his gay existential crisis label rejection nonsense. I just don't see it as fitting his character. Which is why his monologue about not being gay felt confusing. That type of crisis I don't expect out of that gay character. I expect a different type of gay crisis. Looks like Margaret gets along well enough in the office when the story's plot doesn't literally revolve around her having to fire everyone. I hope there's a plan for plan for her an Allison. Because the characters certainly don't have a plan and both of them are just floating till the next plot point. Even Todd has a plan and goals. Stupid and silly and laughable as they are at least he's moving towards something.

"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.

Somewhat interesting case. I know people don't like Michael but the "Oh he's a Dad so he doesn't know how to get his kids ready in the morning and it's so goofy and wacky the girl-child will go to school wearing a hat" routine is just kinda ridiculous. To the point where it really should have been lampshaded. We've seen this literal scene beat for beat like 180 times. Down to the hat. Down to the "Uh.. uh I don't have lunch so take some money". Down to the female not mom coming in and the kids ignoring dad to greet her and then leave. It's like they pulled this scene from Fisher-Price My First Screenplay book.

I think it's gross that she went to mental rehab and didn't tell anyone but her sister. I mean I was setup for the she wants a divorce and feels guilty about sticking with a man she doesn't love. Drop him and live your life I get that. But she went to a medical facility and just ghosted on her entire family. That's stupid. Lucky the police weren't called in to track you down. There's no reason not to leave instructions for the sister to let them know what happened. All it does is just stretch out how long I thought she left him to start divorcing him.

Aunt Nancy: Sneering My sister is going through something serious she doesn't understand herself. Last thing she needs is you swooping in trying to have a hero moment

As a reminder his "hero moment" was being willing to have taken Gina his wife to the mental hospital himself. I'm not saying the dude desperate to not divorce his wife doesn't have problems. But this ain't it. He has no idea what's going on. His kids don't know what's going on. I mean honestly all things considered he took that news that she didn't want to be around him like. a. champ. He didn't fight it. He accepted it. He's literally "best case scenario"-ing right now. And then there's Nancy who the show is trying to tell us is in the morally superior position but saying things like this

Michael: [And so you're saying] It's way better to keep me and her kids in the dark thinking that something bad happened to her?
Aunt Nancy: Sneering This is bad.
Michael: You know what I mean Nancy

And again, Michael's right. Because in no way was he denigrating the struggle she's going through. He's been supportive since he found out (which was like 10 seconds ago). His only problem was that she disappeared and everyone refused to tell him why? What IS he supposed to tell the kids when she just doesn't show up for breakfast? Aunt Nancy is too busy tone policing him to consider reality. People get sick. People you depend on get sick and that's life but it'd be nice to know they got sick and not just have them disappear like they got murdered because those are two different types of reactions you're going to get.

I don't know where they get these killers. You find a guy who has murdered 8 people and was literally on his way to do number 9 and heaven forbid they get framed for RICO. They will take that personally. They will wait 20-30-45 years if necessary but they will NEVER let it go... but why? I mean this isn't the burgler who gets framed by murder. This isn't the white collar criminal who gets framed for treason. This isn't the massage prostitute accused of child touching. This is a bad dude who does bad things who got setup for bad things. Even his father is like "I know my son he doesn't do drugs". Yeah but your son IS a rapist serial killer. I'm not sure what mileage he plans to get out of the 'at least he doesn't do drugs' stance. Nothing in his plan makes sense either. He wants to get at Director Wagner but he does it stumbling into killing someone and lucking out that she took the blame. Happening to have stolen her keys ages ago... and then leaving the murder weapon in a basket.

That's almost as stupid as all the cops rooting for Dir Wagner and yet them seeing their statutory requirements of holding her gun and her bad as a personal offense.

ACAB

And there it is... ACAB comes for all the cop shows eventually. We're bring it back because this was egregious. In the ACAB corner I'll highlight all the ways the show tries to make cops look better than they are. This is not normally a reflection on the show or it's quality.

Let's break down all the stupid nonsense in this episode. It starts from the fact that someone so high up is accused of killing someone on the skimpiest of evidence. Oh she ran into the house and there was someone dead. She must have killed them. What??? I don't understand all factors involved why she was given the task to go into the front door by herself while Will and Faith went round the back. If anything Will or Faith should have taken the front door solo and the other take Amanda with them to go out the back. She's a target so bad they both want to protect her, until it's time to face actual danger then she's fine on her own? It's an example of how the writing in this scene is so awful. I literally didn't understand what was happening until I realized this was just the most complicated insane way to setup Director Amanda Wagner for crime she didn't commit. That doesn't even take into consideration that in the narrative of the show this whole murder was just a setup from the jump. How did this week's guest star plan to have her accused of murder when he couldn't know she would be left alone. But she was alone for 2 minutes MAXIMUM and that's a huge stretch. Even with editing no way it was more than one minute but even if you call it two the idea that everyone just assumed she slammed this man dead in two minutes is just insane. Plus she would have had to secret away the murder weapon which was a very heavy blunt object. Something we saw the man throw in his truck and something Wagner never had time to hide. I honestly expected Will to point that out and this episode to take a different direction. Just like Wagner going in alone I was just confused why everyone thought she killed a man in like 20 seconds until later I realized oh wait this whole episode is going to be about what if everyone thought she killed a man.

Then we have the APD investigation of GBI. This is the central premise of the whole show they have to do it "By the book" or... what? Have you seen a cop shooting in real life? They shot Tamir Rice from three feet away on camera and it got ruled justifiable. The idea that people would take this circumstantial case so seriously remains laughable. It's the sort of thing a police consultant on set would suggest. Because they always suggest it. This "By the book" episode just shows how hard cops have it. How they can't just DO THE WORK because "By the book" is stopping them and interfering with their ability to do the job. In real life, one cop team investigating another cop team is like asking a Lion to stop a Tiger from eating a rabbit. It's like asking a MGTOW and MRA to stop a PUA from hitting on a drunk girl. They literally are not capable of seeing what's wrong. It's a lose lose concept because if they do block Trent from the case it's just show how all the cop police are bad. If they don't block Trent it shows that cop police are pointless. You don't get points for going the second route Will Trent. It's literally just as bad. Honestly it just makes the storyline more confusing. The cop police (Angie and Michael) casually sidestep the entire purpose of a "By the Book" investigation by letting Will and Faith do literally whatever they want throughout the case. When Jenna Elfman's Captain Reynolds demands everyone not validate this case based on emotion but on hard evidence untainted by emotional ties. It's a respectable stance (once you swallow the hard hard pill that she's accused of murder) and Angie and Michael just poop all over it by completely ignoring her. Kinda disrespectful of law and order for the "good guys". But it's fine because they're the "good guys". Again this gets you the viewer used to the idea that cops should have the ability to do what they want

Will: Why are you impeding my-- this-- whoever's investigation
Reynolds: I'm am looking for facts and to maintain departmental oversight so that this case doesn't go to heck
I would like to point out that the "impeding" is Reynolds questioning evidence just as circumstantial as the case against Amanda. Oh a man ran from the house where someone was killed and cop is taking the blame but they're too honorable to assume the man was related to the case. Where are these cops? In real life we've seen cops approach someone at the wrong address looking for dark skinned dudes harassing light skinned dudes. Asking for Jason and arresting Derrick. Looking at suspect pictures with bald men and hassling dreadlocked brothers. But sure here the cops are asking "Did you see him exit the house? Then it's probably just a random "run away from cop"-er. :shakes fist impotently: If only Will was allowed to run this case and didn't have to follow oversight then he'd get the real criminals. Curse you oversight.

Then the APD interview someone who implicates Director Wagner and they basically cringe when he says her name. They were like: "eww sir could you just not say you think she did it. We're here to accuse your son. Focus on him please."

There's more church/state violation at Director Wagner's place and then we have cat and mouse with the real killer. And then complaining about procedure by "the good guys". Oh you have to wait for a warrant? That's so unfair. Maybe cops should have special ad-hoc post gratum warrants they can apply for afterwards so they don't have to wait? I mean it sounds laughable now but give it 10 more years of cop shows like this and a clever name and just the right amount of sympathetic victim or maybe just 10 billion from the right conservative billionaire and it'll happen. I mean technically it already happens. Cops backdate warrants and just lie. Who needs legal methodology when you can just cheat openly? After all you are the referee and you get to investigate yourself. You probably didn't cross any lines according to yourself so it's fine. Heck who needs all that when cops can just pretend they hear a baby crying and suddenly it's exigent circumstances. Heck if you follow bad cop news you know they don't even need to hear a baby crying. They'll make up whatever and call it exigent circumstances. A toaster pops and suddenly that's exigent circumstances. Who is going to question it? Internal Affairs? You mean other cops. Which is my point about this whole episode.

At this point we're just half way through the episode.

Then we get the backstory. Let's talk about what the backstory means and how the characters receive it. Because EVERYONE literally everyone without exception looks at Director Wagner with DISGUST when they find out what she did. She framed someone for a crime they didn't commit. Every one who finds out look at this like it's the most noxious nose twisting thing they've ever seen.

It's so weird considering the story. Which is that she was literally almost raped as a lesbian black female cop in the 90s. A demo so rare even her FAMILY told her not to bother telling anyone what happened and her family was in charge of the department. A reality so dark she immediately understood and didn't question it. Dude we can BARELY get a rape conviction 25+ years later. Imagine how hard it was in 95. But she got the information and setup a case anyway. It flopped so she framed him for something else.

Now keep in mind throughout this narrative it's never questioned that he deserved it. It's never suggested that it was unfair for him to get setup for dealing and note rape/murder. It's never suggested maybe he could have turned his life around if someone gave him a chance. He's the devil who got punished for slapping you with is left hand when in reality he slapped you with the right. And with that context the disgust that comes off Will Trent is disorienting. It doesn't make sense. There's a phrase in English that goes

.. and not a jury in the world would convict me

It's a reference to the concept of jury nullification. In the US the Jury is allowed to rule on the case for any reason. The purpose of the trial is to present the evidence and the argument and the corresponding laws for their consideration but at the end of the day the jury goes into their deliberation room and they get to decide. They don't have to follow the law. They can look at a case with compassion. They can look at a beaten women and find her innocent of murder in slicing off the dick of the husband who trapped her in a violent marriage. They can look at a mother who fired a warning shot at a dangerous ex boyfriend and find her innocent of all charges even though warning shots are literally against legal statute. The point at the end is that Director Wagner's situation here the quintessential example of a case where she could never get convicted. Who in the right mind would look at the evil and dangerous devil criminal and say Wagner should be found guilty. No one. ESPECIALLY not cops. ESPECIALLY not family and that's what Will is. Family.

Will: Yet you still sleep at night?
Wagner: I sleep knowing I kept him from raping any other women.

Again the dialog wants you to look at Will and say he's right but no. He's not. This whole segment is about copaganda and how police abuse their power to get justice in their eyes and STILL I'm saying Wagner was 100% right with no questions.

There's a conversation between Faith and Angie. It doesn't make any sense unless you have the most extreme copaganda glasses on. Why is Angie apologetic to Faith? She's been letting Faith literally do anything she wanted on this case. She brought a literal apology apple to open the conversation. Faith aside from the scuffle with unnamed cop #4 has been the literal voice of reason even in this episode. All this to say "Come cross the chinese firewall again today".

Speaking of apologies it's Will's turn to apologize and that went over like a YouTuber apology. He totally pulled a "Sorry if you were offended". Because he didn't apologize and then doubled down on the "How could you?" this time with puppy eyes. Again Director Wagner is 100% correct. None of these people will ever walk in her shoes. Saying you're not like other men doesn't make it any less true. Then the most hilarious scene where SWAT comes in to accuse a black women in jogging clothes of waving a semi-automatic gun at children in the park. Their description is "a women waving a semi-auto at children" so you attack the black women who clearly doesn't have a gun or anywhere to hide the gun? So pop quiz hot shot.. who called in the SWAT? It wasn't the devil criminal because she was hiding at Will's. I'm willing to maybe cede that she went to her same running path that she goes to every day.. which is stupid. And even then WHY? He's dedicated his life to framing her not just getting her killed by her own people.

Then Wagner finally caves and goes tell everyone what she did but Will responds that "You don't have to do this". What the character stance? He's been pushing her to take responsibility since the moment he found out and when she does he balks? So cops should ideally feel bad but not actually be forced out of the job because their mistakes and cheats are for the greater good. Cops know who their local dealers are if they're planting evidence it's probably better for everyone anyway.

Even as I review it, the situation is just so gross with Faith as it was with Will. Director Wagner it talking to her daughter about having dinner and talking it out

Faith: You know, I was halfway home when it dawned on me that I misspelled something on a witness statement. So I came back. That's how important this work is to me, the integrity of the work.

LIES. This whole episode she's been trampling all over the integrity of the work by doing a case against ethical procedure and direct orders. She has the nerve to suggest that she's now forced to keep a secret that's against her ethics against her will while at the same time complaining that she was never told a secret that was against her ethics. What is the logic here? You really have to pick ONE lane and stick with it. You can't literally complain about both sides of the coin landing up. I promise you if Wagner went to give her "I did it" speech anyway Faith would be the first person in front of Will telling her she didn't have to. All this over a dude so evil he literally came back 30 years later to kill her after almost raping and murdering her the first time in a situation that once again Faith will never understand not being a lesbian, not being a rare sight, not having been overpowered solo by a serial killer not having lived in the 95. At this point the show reminds me that Faith isn't Wagner's literal daughter and I'm too lazy to go through this and remove those references. Whatever. Maybe later.

And the final point about ACAB here is that this is a show that heavily features APD the Atlanta Police Department. This is a department that's currently using as much copaganda as possible to justify murdering protesters who want to stop Cop City a multi billion dollar money pit that's going to train cops to kill innocent people. In natural forest park. I like Will Trent as a character and lord knows I'm still gaga for Christensen but ACAB moments in this show are especially dangerous in the current climate which is saying something considering the white watching of the LAPD that happens on The Rookie. The cops in the APD have shot protestors in the back and gotten away with it, like they took the wrong coffee order. They'll do it again if they haven't already.

Stop Cop City.
https://stopcop.city/

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.

Fantastic show with a few dips. The opening has Luther basically as a rage-monster. But that's not what Luther is. It's how Luther appears. Looking back it feels out of character for him.

Most seasons of this show could be summed up as "Cop has to deal with a crisis at work while someone else is giving him a personal crisis at the same time and neither of them can wait". Most of Luther is pile-on. There's a killer AND someone's trying to blackmail Luther. Things happen and next season he has a reputation for being bent when he's anything but.

Idris even from the jump has a strong screen presence and a slightly awkward posture. One that becomes iconic. I wouldn't be surprised if people walk like Luther. Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) is a criminal I didn't expect to stick around. I thought she was almost interesting in her initial appearance but when Luther took the exceptionally interesting choice of befriending her to keep her under control that was wild. Their relationship isn't like a lot of the other cop-psycho relationships. She's not used as a source or a way to tap into the criminal element. Luther actually does a pretty good job of that himself. Idris gives you a Luther that's always tired, always compelling to do right even when it looks wrong, and never too concerned with what other people think of him. It's as admirable as it is sad how many people close to him end up dead. All over silly nonsense. Pettiness. The casualness with which a Luther-friend will get shot for basically no reason somehow never stops hurting. You feel for Luther having to add yet another tally to his board that he didn't want and wasn't able to stop and yet somehow will be blamed for.

The seasons are short but impactful. I'd want them to be longer but the show would have to restructure itself for that. Still it'd be nice to give Luther some breathing room for a minute.

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.

So security means basically nothing right? Because our hero is ripping through them like they're toddlers. I suppose we're meant to chalk that up to his father's forest training.

I don't care too much about the person he's locating and that's becoming a pattern. I suppose it's part and parcel since the episode structure means we don't know the person until he's found them. Marginal improvement on the first episode. Maybe. Ehh honestly it's structured better because we don't have to do all the intro stuff but the actual tracking is less interesting because he's found right away and this is about escape not tracking.

The convenient full volume surveillance system is as equally hilarious as our tracker taking down two security guards at once with guns. Who leaves audio at such full volume a passerby would think someone was literally inside. i mean why was it playing when no one was there? And if someone WAS there why was it so loud? Honestly that entire room doesn't seem to make any sense. Why is this random house surveilling people? It's supposed to be "Rebecca's house" where the insurance is sent to but why would Rebecca not live on the compound? She appears to live on the compound she doesn't appear to have special exit privileges so why is this house there and playing audio at house party levels.

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".

Okay. I'll give it this. Whatever my gripes with the series as a whole, it ended well. Let's talk about episodes 7 and 8. The final pairing.

Episode 7 starts with "Infidelity" and ends with the third strike and a separation between Jane and John. Michaela Coel has what is probably the best line of the series. Which is a shame because unlike say the best line in Ted Lasso it has nothing to do with the show. It's a throwaway line about how "We're not bonding you have a gun on me". It's brilliant. In a world where no one seems to care about telling anyone they are a spy, it makes it very confusing to care about things like when spies take people hostage. Oh sure this time she turned out to be a spy as well but in the next episode the same thing happens but not. The show very clearly doesn't have any conception of what a spy is. To the point where they get missions and pretend they have to keep a secret but then they ... don't. Ever. pretend or keep secrets. This was a solid episode where I liked the interplay between them because they had something to do while keeping up that interplay. Sort of like how YouTubers hold microphones no matter what type or style or situation because they need to do something with their hands. This show needs to do something with it's background plot or the interplay between the leads just feels weird and pointless.

Episode 8 Our finale of course is going to have a lot of big moments. You have your requisite dramatic irony as two character try to kill each other for the crime of trying to kill each other a crime neither committed. It goes on for way way way too long as an audience member but it's balanced well with all the action. It comes to a nice conclusion fight scene wise. We find out who was really pulling their strings as well as who was pulling THEIR strings. And then we have an excellent cliffhanger ending. Once again we have a spy taking someone to extreme levels of violence but this time it's not a spy posing as a civy it's an actual civy. In a show that played this sort of thing for laughs that could be funny but this show has a mise that's fairly serious but doesn't make sense. You can't do that. As a counter example I just watched Jason Statham's Beekeeper recently. That's a movie that's ostensibly about getting revenge on tech support scammers from someone who has never actually seen a tech support scam. What I actually think happened is because of the complexities of the optics and racism they needed to modify the villains so they made them into wall street traders. Which is fine because this is a fairly goofy movie. Contrast that to MMS where everything about it is goofy (Title, Concept, Synopsis, even the poster) except the actual episodes themselves. Those are played far too straight to take with humor. So when the FBI gets a case that involves oval office members and they tell the Secret Service to put it aside? I can take that in a movie where some dude gets strapped to a car and driven off a bridge. But when you hold a gun to a Sotheby's agent and threaten to kill them except "nah it's ok". That's a little harder to take. It's a good episode. Top 3 of the series even, but almost all of the good is due to finale shenanigans. Not literally all but almost all.

I'm perfectly willing to watch a second season. I naively believe now that we have a lot of the awkwardness out of the way there's no way the second season is going to have the same problems that plagued the first. We'll have a more focused story because there's not a lot of story floating. We have direct questions that need to be answered now. I actually need to rewatch the whole thing because I think there's a lot of ending interstitial I might have missed. The one in episode 7 foreshadows some of the discussion about Hihi in episode 8.

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.

Okay so let's talk about episodes 5 and 6.

Ron Pearlmen was an utter delight. I can't not say that. He always is. Just is. Even here in this lackluster role. That said the second half of the season is a noticeable upswing. I really like even this episode and what it's doing character-wise. Plot-wise it was nonsense but it's not like it's going anywhere anyway at least now I'm starting to enjoy the ride. The interplay between our leads is interesting even if the again the fact that they are spies is not. What I find fascinating is that there's more narrative flow and consistency in the titles and descriptions than there is in the show. It's like they prepared the show with the titles and synopsis long before they started filming. Because this

Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid) - Oh, John. Oh, Jane. Our pair have been oh so bad at sharing and caring. Time to call in help -- John and Jane, get ready for: COUPLES THERAPY, what a gas!

Is an entire different level than what even this episode is. This is fun and goofy and comical in a way that not even at it's best the show is. Maybe on a scene by scene basis you might find something worthy of the type of gassing in the title/synopsis but most of it is very different. It's lazier, more laid back, less invested. Which to say yet again I don't put on Maya and Donald. They're solid but the writing and directing just don't care. It's weird to look at this show and say "Well at least True Lies the TV Show tried." I mean the True Lies show bombed like 70-80% of it's run time but at least they were going for something. The jokes were sometimes dumb but they came (a little too) consistently.

As for episode 6? Well honestly it's my favorite episode so far. It's fun in a way that few episodes have been until now. Holy snap it just occurred to me. Part of it is the missing intrigue. As I've said before this is a show with zero guile. I mean they're spies but spies in this world is a gig job. Anyone signs up anyone gets in and the AI runs you like an uber app. It's dumb and boring and uninteresting. But here... here they have to lie. They have to explain translate and keep things up in front of a therapist who, imo, Sarah Paulson made utterly adorable "Yeah! Whatever DID happen to Mya?" I died. She was hilarious. It's amazing how just getting the formula right finally lets everything shine. The spycraft is minimized but it doesn't matter because I'm having a ball watching Maya and Donald rehash their relationship. A relationship I actually care about this episode. "The therapist episode" shows the potential of this series.