Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

The Incredible Hulk

I admit.  I'd never watched this movie.  Part of it was because Edward Norton annoys the shit out of me.  Part of it was because it came out about a month after Iron Man - which was so good and almost perfect that it dwarfed everything around it.  Part of it was because it was pretty quickly disavowed as Marvel canon and disappeared.  Part of it was because it drew less at the box office than Horton Hears a Who and Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Stumbled on it today, decided to watch.  I'd seen the Eric Bana version from about five years prior to this and the CGI on that was so laughingly awful that I was pleasantly surprised that this was much better. 

Other positives:
-- Liv Tyler.  She can't act a single lick, but there's something oozingly sexy about her, particularly the little bit of her body you get to see.
-- Like all Marvel films there were little details inserted that tied to other things.  I appreciated pretty greatly the inclusion of the TV Hulk theme, shots of Bill Bixby in his other primary television role (Eddie's Father), a cameo by Lou Ferrigno, a joke about giant purple pants and a few other asides.  (Even these were often ruined by Norton's reactions.  The guy's effort at human relatability come off lizard-like. He just can't do it.  It feels forced, fake and disingenuous).

That's about it. 

So what went wrong?
-- Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson.  I like two of the three.  All three were exceptionally poor casting choices and their inability to effectively fill their roles completely wrecked the entire exercise.
-- William Hurt. He can be a good actor, but (maybe he was already sick) he absolutely phoned this performance in.  Beyond his utterly ridiculous hairpiece, Hurt had trouble hitting his marks and was looking in the wrong direction often enough that it was noticeable. 
-- The story.  Nothing about it fits within the Marvel universe, even with a last second Tony Stark cameo tacked on in an effort to establish a tie-in. 
-- Did I mention Edward Norton?  I dislike Tony Romo or whoever the current guy doing Hulk is, but he's a good Hulk. If they'd stuck with Norton as part of the Avengers ensemble, he would have screwed every bit of that up.  Just a terrible fit.

I don't regret watching it, but the only reason I'd ever go back to it would be to fast forward to about 11 total seconds of Liv Tyler's bomb-ass legs.

[Kaos]

Umma

Sandra Oh. 

Poorly plotted. Poorly told.  Terrible effort at "horror." 

So much of what little action there was occurred in the dark. Couldn't tell what was going on.  Oh, Sandra, wait.  Nothing was. 

[Kaos]

Geostorm

If you are a globalist climate-change screamer grab a big jug of hand lotion and a box of tissues. Prepare to jerk your private regions in furious orgasmic spasms for an hour and a half.

If you're the kind of sad and lonely cat-owning woman who finds stroke-face Gerard Butler attractive and/or talented and who could believe that he is the smartest man on the planet? Do some finger exercises, get a tub of vaseline and get ready to pick that thing like Hendrix playing Woodstock.

If you're not a moron, pathetic and have five functioning brain cells, on the other hand, run (don't walk) away from this load of horse shit before the first word is spoken on screen. 

Everything about this movie from its 'we are the world' globalist preaching to its Democrats save the world stupidity to its asinine science, script, dialogue, CGI and other bullshit is absolutely terrible. 

Absolute garbage. 

[Kaos]

Honor Society

Movie for teens about a girl scheming to get out of her 'hellhole' small town and away from parents she sees as trapped and clueless.

Stars some schlub from Stranger Things (Gaten Matarazzo) and the chunky Asian guy's girlfriend from the newish Spiderman (Angourie Rice).

Rice's Honor Rose is angling for a recommendation for admission to Harvard from her skeevy school guidance counselor. As one of his final four, she develops and implements a plan to derail the chances of her competitors by distracting them to the point they tank midterms.

Along the way she plays and gets played by her friends and learns lessons about herself and the people around her.

It's not great cinema. It isn't anything stunningly new.  It's just another teen movie with a sentimental core and a lesson or two about human nature. The entire movie lives and dies on the strength of Angourie Rice -- and she absolutely owns it.  Without her? This is probably a dead fish, floating in a stagnant river that nobody would ever hear of.  With her? It's worth watching. 

She's absolutely adorable and crazy cute even as she manipulates her way through the GW Bush High School student body in an effort to get what she wants. Even when you know you shouldn't support her carefully crafted plot, you can't help it. 

She's not Gal Gadot in WonderWoman mesmerizing, but she shows an ability to carry a film and elevate everyone around her that I never would have expected from anything else she's ever done.  The rest of the cast is pretty much plug and play, non-descript, instantly forgettable (including the Stranger Things blob of goo). Rice absolutely drags them along for her ride. 

She's a baby - only 21 - and it remains to be seen if she can carry over the adorability on display here to something deeper and more adult but she's really good. 

Even if the movie isn't great, it's got a sweetness about it (despite the obligatory gay stuff), and girl is damned enjoyable to watch.

 

[GH2001]

Honor Society

Would ^^

[Kaos]

Me Time
Wahlberg and Kevin Hart.  Buddy movie.  Netflix.

They’re supposed to be lifelong best friends who’ve grown apart.  Spent their youth in reckless adventures. As Hart settled down into the role of house husband to his ultra successful wife (calling bullshit on this part) Wahlberg stayed on the path of exuberant excess.

It was a fair movie. With some pretty funny parts. But it also contained some unnecessary components.  For instance: a completely nude marky mark did nothing to advance or enhance the plot. 

The chemistry between mark and Kev just didn’t feel authentic either. 

Not buying sassy loud ass as an amazing architect. That just didn’t fly.  But most of it was ok.   

It tried to say something about the nature of families and friendships but it didn’t have enough comic or emotional depth to say it well. 

I did really like seeing a guy I honestly thought was dead again.  And hearing him say “baby” in the way only he could ever say it was a nice touch. 

Not a bad movie.  Just an improbable series of events strung together with a little humor and a dollop of schmaltz.  If a John Hughes movie was a Mountain Dew this would be like a Diet Mountain Lightning. 

[GH2001]

Me Time
Wahlberg and Kevin Hart.  Buddy movie.  Netflix.

They’re supposed to be lifelong best friends who’ve grown apart.  Spent their youth in reckless adventures. As Hart settled down into the role of house husband to his ultra successful wife (calling bullshit on this part) Wahlberg stayed on the path of exuberant excess.

It was a fair movie. With some pretty funny parts. But it also contained some unnecessary components.  For instance: a completely nude marky mark did nothing to advance or enhance the plot. 

The chemistry between mark and Kev just didn’t feel authentic either. 

Not buying sassy loud ass as an amazing architect. That just didn’t fly.  But most of it was ok.   

It tried to say something about the nature of families and friendships but it didn’t have enough comic or emotional depth to say it well. 

I did really like seeing a guy I honestly thought was dead again.  And hearing him say “baby” in the way only he could ever say it was a nice touch. 

Not a bad movie.  Just an improbable series of events strung together with a little humor and a dollop of schmaltz.  If a John Hughes movie was a Mountain Dew this would be like a Diet Mountain Lightning. 

disagree on one part there. The nude Marky Mark scene. Women still adore the guy. When he is cast they know this. That was candy for the ladies, nothing more nothing less. But it had a purpose.

[Kaos]

Samaritan

Stallone as an aged super hero. 

It’s not bad but it would have been so much better 20 years ago. 

Good lord he’s old.  Painfully old. 

[Kaos]

Thor: Love and Thunder

Don’t really understand why anybody would bash this movie. 

Yeah it was silly in places.  Yeah it was sappy in others.

But it was utterly entertaining.  It was vibrant and full of color. 

Thor (1&2) were some of my least favorite Marvel films.  But Ragingrocks and this one?  Love them both.  Movies I can and will watch more than once. 

It’s not quite Raggedcock. It’s a little weaker, but it’s still a really good ride. 

I could do without the gay rocks, that was absurd. It’s hard to find much other fault.

Damned good film.

[Kaos]

The Munsters
Rob Zombie's paean to the 60s television series. 

It is abysmally, unwatchably bad.  Took me three different sittings to get through it. 

I don't have enough words to describe just how terrible it is.  So I won't waste any more.

[Kaos]

Blonde
Ana de Armas as Marilyn. 

I'm sure the reviewers will jerk each other off spasmodically over how great and brave and edgy and daring and visionary and riveting and mermerizing this film is.  I'm sure they'll start whispering Ana's name as an Oscar front-runner. 

Just shows how pretentious and moronic the entire industry has become. 

This movie is absolute fucking TRASH.  It's not even worth suffering it long enough to see de Armas' exposed titties (or the absurd camera angle inside her twat). 

The movie is so bad, you'll feel sorry for those tits and twats.  And you won't care about seeing them at all. 

I never saw the twat cam.  I didn't make it to the extended scene where she's sucking off JFK.  I lasted exactly 14 minutes before I turned this load of garbage off.  Coincidentally, I could make sweet, sweet love to de Armas three separate times in that span.  Unless I was forced to watch this shitfest of a movie in its entirety, at which point I'm not sure I could manage even once.

There are too many problems to list, not the least of which is de Armas inability to cull the Cuban from her speech.  She was clearly trying to mimic Marilyn's vocal patterns, but her Cuban accent is so strong she could never completely leave it behind.  Marilyn wasn't from fucking Cuba and the Little Mermaid ain't black. 

This is a horrible movie.

[Kaos]

Orphan: First Kill

Prequel to the barely memorable Orphan - which I'm pretty sure is reviewed here but I didn't find it.

I'll give it this.  About a third of a way in the movie shifts in a direction that was completely unexpected.   Problem is?  The acting is just so flat and monotone, it doesn't really cover the thin and implausible storyline. 

It's not bad, but it doesn't rise to the level of what it could have been. 

Julia Stiles is part of the problem.  She has zero emotional range.  The orphan is pretty decent but the rest of the cast of unknowns doesn't add much. 

[Kaos]

13 Fanboy

One of the actresses in the Friday the 13th movie series directed this self-referential film.  It brings back many of the characters who lived and died through the movie's life cycle including:

Lar Park Lincoln - New Blood (Part 7)
Tracie Savage - Part 3, blue bikini
Judie Aronson - Final Chapter
Jennifer Banko - New Blood
Cory Feldman - Final Chapter
CJ Graham - Part 6
Ron Sloan - New Beginning
Kane Hodder - Jason in five movies
-and-
the aptly named Deborah Voorhees - New Beginning, the clubhouse leader in absolute best titties in a horror franchise.  If you haven't seen them in New Beginning, they're real and they're SPEC-TAC-ULAR.

Voorhees directed this film which is really short on budget.  It's a kind of great concept, actually.  An obsessed fan of the franchise is stalking the actresses from the films because they ignored him as a child when he wrote fan letters to them. 

It was kind of sad seeing these people now and remembering how they used to look.  Voorhees and Savage were really worse for wear.  Judie Aronson is the exception. She's hotter now than she was back then if that's possible. Way hotter, actually.  If you don't remember her from Friday 13th, she was also in Weird Science.

It was also easy to see why most of these people had no career beyond these one-note horror franchises. They're terrible at the craft. 

The movie suffers from the lack of stars that made the franchise.  I would have loved to see Amy Steel and Dana Kimmel in particular.  It also suffers from the lead, a butter faced Haley Greenbauer, who is a terrible actress, worse than any in any real Friday the 13th film.  Body is good, but that's the extent of it. 

It is what it is.  Fan fiction, basically.  Dee Wallace Stone is in it slumming for the $8 paycheck but she doesn't add a whole lot other than a small smidge of actual acting talent.

Would like to see something like this in capable hands.  Loved those Vorhees knockers - even at 62, I bet they aren't bad -  but they cannot direct a movie. 

[Kaos]

Significant Other

New horror-ish movie on one of the streaming services.  Guy takes girlfriend on a camping trip with the intent of proposing.  Things go sideways because she isn't ready.  Then they go waaaay more sideways. 

It's not a great movie.  But I give credit where it's due. 

Cinematography, camera angles, visuals -- all extremely good.  The way it frames the forest, in particular, is fantastic. Far, far better than what you normally see. 

Liked the fact that when you think you know where it's going, it skids in a different direction.  When a movie veers onto an unexpected path, it impresses me.  This one did. 

The near end is a little hokey - almost like the Star Trek episode where Kirk disables the androids holding him hostage using the Liar's Paradox - but it could have been worse. 

Like any good horror-ish movie, it has a somewhat open-ended final act.  Or maybe not.  I also think it might have been trying to say something profound about the nature of humans and our capacity for love and hurt, but I didn't really care enough to heed that.

It's hard for two actors to carry most of a film, particularly when the majority of it is just those two and the woods.  They pull it off really well.  Their chemistry was natural even in disagreement. 

Jake Lacy (Pete, AKA New Jim, AKA Plop from The Office) and Maika Monroe (a Jan Brady-looking woman who also headlines another movie out now called Watcher) are both good in the roles of the Significant Others. 

It's not a must watch, tell everybody film but it is effective, well shot, well (enough) acted and decently plotted.  I've seen things a million times worse. 

[Kaos]

Firestarter

After the success of Carrie in the 70s, moviemakers dove into the Stephen King catalog looking for the next big horror hit. When The Shining scored big, the chase intensified.  Cujo (really good), The Dead Zone (ehh....) and Christine (so badly acted) came out in 1983. Part of the problem with '83 is that it was a fantastic year for movies.  Return of the Jedi, Flashdance, Trading Places, War Games, Risky Business, Vacation, 48 Hours, E.T., The Verdict, Big Chill, Scarface, Terms of Endearment, The Outsiders, A Christmas Story, Officer and a Gentleman, and Valley Girl are just a few of the movies that hit screens that year.  Cujo finished 35th in domestic box office.  Dead Zone was 38th. Christine was 66th.  Movies based on King novels proved hard to adapt and harde to cast.  Christine was really bad cast-wise.  As a result King adaptations started to gravitate toward schlock.

Still, 1984 brought Children of the Corn and then Firestarter.  That film starred David Keith, fresh off a well-received effort in Officer and a Gentleman and a baby Drew Barrymore who'd captured the nation's attention with an adorable performance in E.T.  And it wasn't good.  It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was good. Like far too many King films, it's wooden, stilted and feels completely phony. Keith proved that his big dumb Okie act in OandG wasn't an act, it's just who he was.  Barrymore wasn't given much to do.  George C. Scott was an Indian -- yes, an Indian! -- with a ponytail.  Every decision made in the development, casting, filming and direction of this movie was the wrong one. 

Fast-forward to 2022.  Let's remake it!  With Zac Efron!  Believe it or not?  As flat and lifeless as the 1984 version was?  This is even worse.  It's a lot worse.  Not a single believable note is struck.  It's bad on an epic scale.  It's terrible.

That's two swings and misses at what is a fairly compelling novel, one I haven't read in years but plan to go back and read again now ... just to get the bad taste of this boring film out of my mind. 

[AUTiger1]

Gonna need someone to tell me if watching the new Halloween is worth the watch or did they fuck it up like they usually do with franchise movies?

[The Six]

Gonna need someone to tell me if watching the new Halloween is worth the watch or did they fuck it up like they usually do with franchise movies?

http://www.tigersx.com/index.php/topic,35671.0.html

Full length podcast coming Monday FilmStripPodcast.com

[GH2001]

Gonna need someone to tell me if watching the new Halloween is worth the watch or did they fuck it up like they usually do with franchise movies?

If you want something on the level of quality as the previous "true" versions with Jamie Lee? No.

If you want to see how the whole arc ends? Yes.

Im not quite as bearish on it as Six, although we usually agree on movies for the most part - hes right in that it is not good and there are a lot of unnecessary characters and plot lines in this one. They needed to get from point A to point B - which was about 50 feet. Instead, they left point A, went around the block, took a detour, went over a bridge, through the woods, over a mountain, through some mud, and then circled back around to getting to Point B, and went about 2.5 miles in the process. I would have rather them just tack that extra 50 feet needed onto the end of the last movie and call it a day. That would have been good.

80% of this one was just uneccessary to me. I know the director THOUGHT he had some good ideas and was perhaps trying to make a more broad point about humans and inherent evil and how it manifests....but it fell flat IMHO.

[Kaos]

Halloween Ends

Tried to ignore what others said and make up my own mind.  I did. 

Whenever you think Halloween 6 with Paul Rudd is the worst entry in the Halloween saga?  Remember that Halloween Ends exists. 

Whenever you get the idea that Halloween 5, which gave us a baby Danielle Harris, is the worst of the Halloween catalog? Keep in mind that Halloween Ends exists.

When you're ranking all the films in the Michael Myers pantheon and start to debate whether Resurrection (with Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks and Katee Sackhoff) or Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 or H2O (the first return of Jamie Lee Curtis) scrape the bottom of the barrel? Don't forget that Halloween Ends was made.

When you're dismissing the only film in the series that doesn't feature Michael, the unfairly maligned, daring creative choice that was Halloween III - Season of the Witch?  Stop and recall that Halloween Ends is a thing. 

This was the worst of them all.

It channeled Halloween 5 with the psychic connection angle. It embraced Season of the Witch by not really being about Michael at all. Every other film in the entire spectrum offered something (except maybe Resurrection) of value to the overall storyline.  Except this one.  It was less a Halloween movie than a film that sort of existed in the same universe but took a left turn at Albuquerque. Stupid. Hackneyed. Unrelated. Unnecessary. Ridiculous.

Everything about this film was wrong.  All of it.  It missed the mark in so many ways there isn't space to fit it here.

Not since lumberjack Dexter stared back into the abyss have I felt a series flubbed its finale any worse than this. 

[GH2001]

Halloween Ends

Tried to ignore what others said and make up my own mind.  I did. 

Whenever you think Halloween 6 with Paul Rudd is the worst entry in the Halloween saga?  Remember that Halloween Ends exists. 

Whenever you get the idea that Halloween 5, which gave us a baby Danielle Harris, is the worst of the Halloween catalog? Keep in mind that Halloween Ends exists.

When you're ranking all the films in the Michael Myers pantheon and start to debate whether Resurrection (with Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks and Katee Sackhoff) or Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 or H2O (the first return of Jamie Lee Curtis) scrape the bottom of the barrel? Don't forget that Halloween Ends was made.

When you're dismissing the only film in the series that doesn't feature Michael, the unfairly maligned, daring creative choice that was Halloween III - Season of the Witch?  Stop and recall that Halloween Ends is a thing. 

This was the worst of them all.

It channeled Halloween 5 with the psychic connection angle. It embraced Season of the Witch by not really being about Michael at all. Every other film in the entire spectrum offered something (except maybe Resurrection) of value to the overall storyline.  Except this one.  It was less a Halloween movie than a film that sort of existed in the same universe but took a left turn at Albuquerque. Stupid. Hackneyed. Unrelated. Unnecessary. Ridiculous.

Everything about this film was wrong.  All of it.  It missed the mark in so many ways there isn't space to fit it here.

Not since lumberjack Dexter stared back into the abyss have I felt a series flubbed its finale any worse than this.

Other than the first 5-10 mins. And the last 10 mins? It felt like a really bad indy college film project. Where the people making it were so full of themselves and their own ideas. They thought they had brilliance. I seriously think they had a huge amount of hubris in their own story writing. When in reality, it was complete garbage.