Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

What difference does it make why it happened?

What difference does it make what we call these terrorist attacks?

I see a trend.

It makes a huge difference. I wanna see this movie now.

Movie was very careful not to implicate her.  But it's there.  If you know the story, you know what she did. 

[Godfather]

Movie was very careful not to implicate her.  But it's there.  If you know the story, you know what she did.

Yeah fucking nothing, while Americans died....c u next tuesday.

[dallaswareagle]

What difference does it make why it happened?

What difference does it make what we call these terrorist attacks?

I see a trend.

It makes a huge difference. I wanna see this movie now.

I try and avoid military movies based on actual events. It's no fun being left in a situation where you count on others and no help arrives. I fear it would make want to kill that skanky hoe.

[Kaos]

Central Intelligence

Didn't have really high hopes for this one.  Expected something along the lines of a retread of the Ride Along films. 

Was pleasantly surprised.  It's not going to win any awards but it had its moments.  The Rock played a goofy former fat kid with Kevin Hart playing the high school success turned corporate drone.  The two teamed up for some covert operations. 

The movie did a good job of leaving you wondering who was telling the truth. It featured a handful of well-placed cameos.  It hid a few inside jokes/references  in for good measure, bitch. 

I enjoyed the uneasy chemistry between Hart and Rock. Enjoyed the meandering story. Enjoyed the silly action that harkened back to A-Team level "shooting at each other from ten paces and nobody gets killed" silliness. 

Enjoyable movie.  Not necessarily saying run to the theater but definitely give it a chance. 

[Kaos]

Purge: Election Year

Sadly this was not about removing Hillary Clinton from the presidential race.  I really wish it had been. I might have enjoyed it more. 

It was predictable, down to the obligatory death of one of the "heroes" and the final result. 

But it was stupid in so, so many ways.  Election Day is in May? Really?  And it's warm in DC in March?  Really?  And polling results from California will be in before those from Florida come through?  Really? 

So much dumb and so much overacting, particularly from the "bad ass" candy girls.  They were terrible.  Every scene was plagued with moronic decisions by people who should theoretically know better. 

There wasn't enough purging, there was too much exposition, there were too many D-level actors. When Mykelti Williamson looks like an Oscar winner compared to the rest of the cast, you've got a really godawful crew. 

Didn't much appreciate the not-so-subtle shots at the 1% (aka Republicans essentially). 

The first Purge (while not that good) was miles better than this tired third installment.

[Kaos]

Bill and Ted.... Err... Mike and Dave

Two destructive dumbasses destroy their sister's wedding and find love -- or at least ass-- in a four-man last act redemption.

Mildly funny. Not nearly as vulgar or offensive as I expected it to be. 

Some things to take away:

Aubrey Plaza's 15 minutes are over.  She was atrocious here.  I've seen better performances from heroin addled porn actresses. She just doesn't have it.

95% of the movie is in the various trailers. About the only thing you haven't seen is a massage featuring Dinesh from Silicon Valley and an ecstasy fueled horse emancipation. 

Adam DeVine is fair.   Efron and Kendrick look like they are drifting through a payday and making the best of it.  By the way? When Zac Efron is the best actor in the film by far? Yowch.

Nothing to really recommend this movie.  Wait for Netflix. 

[Kaos]

Secret Life of Pets

Animation over the last 25 years or so (beginning with Little Mermaid and continuing on through Lion King, Shrek, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc.) has really raised the bar.  Some of those films are as good or better than anything I've ever seen.  Lion King, for instance, is a masterpiece in nearly every respect. Visually stunning, intriguing story, fantastic music, amazing voice actors and full of lessons on the nature of life, love, jealousy and greed. Just a magnificent movie.

This one?  It might have seen the bar but it never got near it. 

The animation was okay, the voices were ehhhh, and the story was flat.   For animated films to work they have to do at least some of the following well:  Be visually captivating, have strong characters (which require strong character voices), have some inappropriate material that adults find funny but kids aren't sure what they're laughing at or tell a good story.  This did none of those things. 

I'm not sure kids will even find anything to keep their attention during this movie.  It had no shine. 

[CCTAU]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

First let me preface this by saying I'm a borderline obsessed batnerd.  Batman is by far my favorite comic character of all time. I've got a Batman comic collection that dates back now to the late 50s.  There's a small bat-sticker somewhere on every car I've ever owned.  I'm able to appreciate every bat incarnation on the big and small screen to a degree. Adam West, Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale and now Affleck all brought something different to the table with varying degrees of success.  At this point I think Keaton probably made the best Bruce Wayne and Bale (minus the stupid voice) probably makes the best Batman. But I'm not even sure about that. 

What I am sure about is that Affleck was not the best Batman, nor was he the best Bruce Wayne.  But he wasn't always the worst either.  I was so unnerved by his casting that I expected him to bomb in a big way. That he didn't is about the best I can say. 

And now the movie.  I'm sure many of you will like it.  I've now seen it and it wasn't horrible, but I have no interest in seeing it again.   It missed so many marks and cracked under it's own weight in innumerable places. 

What a plodding, ponderous, mangled mish mash of a handful of stories.  The director was so ham-handed, so mechanically driven that the heart of the story simply didn't exist. 

__________________________
Here there be spoilers......
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Among the myriad problems:

1) The run time.  The movie (with the 15 previews that came before it) started at 9:30 and let out at 12:18.  There just wasn't enough meat to carry the story for that length of time so it bogged down terribly in a number of places.  There were too many pointless threads that meandered nowhere.  The director really is a hack. By the time it got to the Batmanning and Supermanning, many in our crowd had mentally checked out.

2) Amy Adams was mind-numbingly horrible. Every second she was on the screen was an absolute waste.

3) As bad as Amy Adams was, Holly Hunter was exponentially worse.  Dreadful.  Her motives were never clear, her stances were left unexplained and her death was welcome. 

4) Eisenberg.  Maybe he'll grow into it in the future, but his frenetic bopping simply is NOT Lex Luthor.  And you'd think that a movie that ran close to three hours would have been able to rationally explain his Superman loathing.  But it didn't.  Complete fail. Oh, it hinted at it here and there, but the root of his animus was never successfully explored.

5) Batman.  Yes, I know the current trend is to portray him as a morose and brooding bitch, but that's not all he is (or should be).   There was the obligatory training scene where Affleck got to show off his muscles, but his Batman was unconvincing in the fight sequences. Not nimble or agile enough.  And guns, bullets, brands, murder... That's not Batman either.  The Bat is not a murderous brute, bulling through the city with tanks, rockets and machine guns.

6) Did I mention the director sucked?  Two (no, actually three) dream sequences that muddied the plot.  Fucking dream sequences.  Grrrr.

7) Location, location, location.  I've always envisioned Gotham as being New York and Metropolis as being Boston or Chicago or LA or something.  Or even vice versa.  This fucked up movie is trying to tell me that the two are fucking ACROSS A BAY FROM EACH OTHER?  And that the fucking Bat Signal can be SEEN FROM METROPOLIS?   No fucking way.  Bullshit. Idiotic.  That Batman and Superman exist on two peninsulas separated by a sliver of water?  And that Batman rarely strays into Metropolis to fuck up Luthor or any of Superman's problems and Superman never drifts across to help with Joker, Clayface, Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Twoface, etc. etc. etc?  That's lunacy.  If any one thing ruined this movie, that was it. 

8) Not enough exposition or explanation.  Again, three hours, but so much was left in a muddy mess.  Way too much was left just hanging out there for no reason.  Why? Why? Why?  If Superman can hear Lois fart from half a world away, how come he couldn't hear his mother screaming when she was kidnapped?  Was his Super bathtub boner getting in the way? 

9) Stupidity.  Example: So Batman and Superman fight and Batman's got this spear that he hides somewhere so he can use it in the end.  And they crash through block after block of buildings, rooftops, walls, and who knows fuck all.  But when he gets Superman down?  Why there's that fucking spear, right where he must have left it, within easy reach.  The fuck?  How could he possibly have planned to have the damn thing just sitting right there?  That was one.  I could list 50 more but won't. 

10) All of a sudden everybody knows who everybody is.  Well hey, Clark. What's up Bruce. Everybody in the world has it figured out. Like literally 20 people in this movie.   So why even fuck with the masks and fake jobs?  Jeez. 

11) Wonder Woman setup.  Oh, hey, look!  That's Chris Pine in the old photo of Wonder Woman!  I bet that would make a good origin movie!  Could they be ANY more clunk-fuckingly obvious? 

12) Doomsday. Eh.  Kid behind me wanted to know why King Kong was fighting Batman.  Just not well rendered.  The story could have been told so much better without that big explosion-laden distraction tacked on to the end. 

13) Oh hey!  There's Aquaman.  And Flash!  Ohhh! Cyborg!  All clumsily revealed.  And where's Green Lantern?  Oh, that's right. He's Deadpool now and mocking himself. 

14) Superman period.  It's hard to get the character right.  This guy does as good as anybody I guess, but I just don't care for him or his story at all.   He's the Captain America (which Marvel does better) to Batman's Tony Stark-Ironman (which Marvel also does exponentially better). 

15) No self awareness.  What I like about the Marvel movies is that they are almost completely self aware. They inject just enough humor to remind us that we are supposed to be having fun watching the most improbable bunch of freaks save the world in the most violent and explosive way.  Hell, even the first Transformers got that right.  Batman v Superman is a relentlessly dark movie. No fun allowed.  That makes it much harder to connect with the characters. Why should you care what happens to either of them, really?  And what's to fear from lightweight Jesse E?  The movie needed a better director.

16) The Dark Knight Returns.  Great comic series by Frank Miller that told the story of an older Batman coming out of a forced/negotiated retirement because the city was near out of control.  The government (a thinly veiled Ronald Reagan, actually) sends Superman to take him out.  Cue epic fight, some masterful bat trickery and a satisfying ending.   This movie borrowed pieces of that.  The bat suit for the showdown is almost a carbon copy of the one Miller drew up for the comic.  So, too is the bulkier batman frame, the fatter bat logo and the much shorter bat ears (believe it or not, ear length is a significant touchstone in bat history.  This alteration is a major change from the ears that had gotten longer and longer through Clooney).  But whoever did this story didn't take all of Miller's story.  Yeah, there was a kryponite weapon, but in the book Green Arrow had it.  And Batman did have his foot on Superman's throat.  But there wasn't the absolutely ASININE moment of ... "Wait, did you say Martha?  Oh hell, my mom's name is Martha too!  Dang bitch, I guess I should stop trying to kill your ass and we can just partner up and be all cool together.  Man, if you'd just told me her name was Martha, all this seething rage I've been building up for years would have gone away.  Martha.  Be damned. Her name, too, huh?"   My daughter actually blurted out "What the Faaahhhh" when he turned that fast for no good reason. 

17) Fishburne.  I'm still mad at that racist bastard from his work in Boyz in the Hood.  He can kiss my ass.

18) The score.  Teeth achingly bad, beat you over the head music.  Relentless, pointless pounding.  Absolutely worthless.

19) Terrible director.  Have I mentioned that? As he has the Justice League contract, I have no hope for that at all. It’s going to suck beyond all imagination and probably kill the super hero genre for the remainder of my natural life. 

20) No cohesive focus.  Why were Batman and Superman really pissed at each other?  Do we know?  Do we care?  Why jam in the electro monster?  And Wonder Woman?   The movie would have been so much if it had just taken two hours to compare and contrast the ways Batman and Superman effect their own brands of justice and then set up some legitimate beef between the two that demanded a violent resolution.  If it had told the story of each of their relationships with the public maybe.  Instead, we got this.   


So after all that, would I suggest that you go see the movie?  Sure.  I actually didn't hate it, but I want so much from a Batman movie that this just left me meh.  It wasn't great, it wasn't awful. I will never watch it again.  But now I'm definitely not enthused about any Justice League movie and I probably won't do Aquaman, Wonder Woman or Flash.  I probably won't even do CA: Civil War.  I'm sick of the trailers for that.

Was stuck on a plane from Doha, Qatar to ATL. Coming home from a glorious two weeks in Bangalore (sarcasm alert).

13.5 hour flight. Watched Jungle Book before I had only one newish movie left. You guessed it.

OMG. Your review is too kind. This was the most rambling incoherent shit I have ever seen. More flashbacks to already EXHAUSTED origins for both. And the thing that played Batman...

And then to kill off the MAN!

I guess WW intrigues me a bit. She was more badass than I remembered in the cartoon. But not top heavy enough as I remembered from my childhood TV show. But I digress. If there would have been an open hatch, I would have jumped.

[GH2001]

Secret Life of Pets

Animation over the last 25 years or so (beginning with Little Mermaid and continuing on through Lion King, Shrek, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc.) has really raised the bar.  Some of those films are as good or better than anything I've ever seen.  Lion King, for instance, is a masterpiece in nearly every respect. Visually stunning, intriguing story, fantastic music, amazing voice actors and full of lessons on the nature of life, love, jealousy and greed. Just a magnificent movie.

This one?  It might have seen the bar but it never got near it. 

The animation was okay, the voices were ehhhh, and the story was flat.   For animated films to work they have to do at least some of the following well:  Be visually captivating, have strong characters (which require strong character voices), have some inappropriate material that adults find funny but kids aren't sure what they're laughing at or tell a good story.  This did none of those things. 

I'm not sure kids will even find anything to keep their attention during this movie.  It had no shine.

Took my kids to it Saturday morning to a special screening (because of my white privilege). It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. Thought it was better than angry birds. It was just meh to me. Had its moments. I thought the plot was rambling. Louis ck did decent as the lead. The Bassett hound was pretty cool. And the bunny rabbit was funny. But the rest was just meh.

[Kaos]

Lights Out

Keep waiting for the next great horror movie.  Still waiting. 

This wasn't bad, per se.  A few jump scares here and there, and the most ridiculous story/plot I've seen lately. 

Basically there's a haint from the past who can only exist in the dark.  So lights mysteriously go out (which makes no sense because in order to turn out the light, the haint has to get in the light to do it). 

A lot of mumbo jumbo, some absurdly convenient discoveries -- absurdly convenient -- and a little bit of boo!  95% of the "scares" are in the trailer. 

Semi redeeming factor is the lead, Teresa Palmer.  She's very easy to look at.   She was in a movie called Restraint about eight years ago where she displayed one of the best looking backsides I've ever had the pleasure of seeing on screen.  So when this movie dragged -- and it did -- I thought of that. 

There has to be a good horror story out there.  Has to be.  I'm still waiting for it as I get buried by a parade of watered down PG-13 snoozers. 

[Kaos]

Eye In the Sky

Helen Mirren, Jesse Pinkman, Jorah Mormont, Hans Gruber, and one of the Somali Pirates from Captain Phillips in a tension-builder that sought to juxtapose the need to eliminate terrorists with the desire to minimize collateral damage. 

It was ok.  Made you think a little bit, but it exposed to me the clear difference in who we were and who we are. 

In WWII we (America) made the correct decision that civilian lives were part of the punishment.  We bombed towns.  We nuked entire cities.  We understood that the civilian pain would help bring the war to a more rapid close and in doing so prevent the loss of even more lives. 

Watching these people grapple, cry and stress over the life of one single innocent who was possibly in the line of fire illustrated just how far our "humanity" has removed us from the ability to use the big stick when conditions warrant. 

When you have the opportunity to take out five known terrorists, and you can take them out as they are strapping suicide vests on fanatics?  You do it.  If there's one innocent in the potential blast radius, you have to do it.  You can't wait. 

You can't wait on legal opinions. You can't wait on foreign secretaries to weigh in . You can't wait on the Secretary of State to stop playing ping pong.  You take the shot. 

We aren't barbaric enough any more to win the wars we're going to have to win.  This movie made that case definitively although I don't think that was its intent. 

[Kaos]

Hateful Eight

Not done watching this yet.  Typical Quentin.  Very verbose.  Violent and gross.  Lots of words that polite people don't say. 

I like his movies, but they require a level of concentration sometimes of which I'm incapable. 

There are levels.  Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills are masterpieces. Reservoir Dogs is right there with them.

From Dusk til Dawn and Django Unchained are just a small notch below.

Inglorious Basterds and Death Proof are several rungs down the ladder. 

I like this a little better than IB, but it's not up to Dusk til Dawn standards and it's way, way, way down the line from Pulp Fiction.  Not in the same world.

[Snaggletiger]

Hateful Eight

Not done watching this yet.  Typical Quentin.  Very verbose.  Violent and gross.  Lots of words that polite people don't say. 

I like his movies, but they require a level of concentration sometimes of which I'm incapable. 

There are levels.  Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills are masterpieces. Reservoir Dogs is right there with them.

From Dusk til Dawn and Django Unchained are just a small notch below.

Inglorious Basterds and Death Proof are several rungs down the ladder. 

I like this a little better than IB, but it's not up to Dusk til Dawn standards and it's way, way, way down the line from Pulp Fiction.  Not in the same world.

Loved this one.  Had to get past the 172 "N-Bombs" in the first 5 minutes, but overall, quite enjoyable.

[Saniflush]

Loved this one.  Had to get past the 172 "N-Bombs" in the first 5 minutes, but overall, quite enjoyable.

Why would you have to get past that?  I have no problem with naggers.

[Godfather]

Why would you have to get past that?  I have no problem with naggers.

He's a racist white man lawyer.

[Snaggletiger]

He's a racist white man lawyer.

I was advised of my white privilege the other day by one of my clients.

[dallaswareagle]

Loved this one.  Had to get past the 172 "N-Bombs" in the first 5 minutes, but overall, quite enjoyable.

You must have been sitting way up at the top.

[Saniflush]

I was advised of my white privilege the other day by one of my clients.

Have you brought action against yourself?

[Snaggletiger]

Have you brought action against yourself?

I owe myself reparations.

[Snaggletiger]

Star Trek Beyond

Mini and me decided to take in the latest offering this afternoon.  Meh X10.  Went out of the way to recreate all the original cast.  James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Scotty, UWhorea, Sulu, Checkov.  Not only that but many of the same lines from the original weekly series.  "Damn it, Jim.  I'm a Doctor."  I didn't read any write ups on it so I probably missed the reason.

Quite corny and they really missed a lot of opportunities for humor.  Nothing unique about the story line.  Typical and predictable.  And the battle scenes were nothing short of awful.  Impossible to follow.  Not giving anything away here because you see what the enemy weapon is 10 minutes in, which is a swarm of hundreds of thousands of tiny attack ships.  It made every battle scene jumbled and yes, like being inside a swarm of bees.

Going Kaos on this one.  Mini said he enjoyed it.  I was not entertained.  And it doesn't take much for me.