Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

The Flash

This movie should have been epic.  Cameos by: Wonder Woman (the one and only Gal Gadot). Ben Affleck Batman riding a Christian Bale Batcycle. General Zod again. George Reeves Superman. Adam West Batman. Nic Cage Superman. Helen Slater Supergirl. Chris Reeve Superman. Drunk Aquaman. A final act surprise.

Most of all, though, the film featured the return of Michael Keaton Batman in a role much larger than the trailers led one to believe. No cameo here.

It was a complete 1989 nostalgia infusion. The suit. The music. The Joker's laugh bag. Iconic lines repurposed. The Batmobile. The Batplane - taking it so far as a throwback silhouette against the moon. That alone should have carried this movie to massive box office. There is still a great deal of love and appreciation for that particular character.

So what went wrong?

The first and primary failure was the sicko playing Flash. His personal life, the "zir, zhe, zim, it, they" proclamations, other mental health issues, and bizarre behaviors turned people away from projects the actor was involved in and cast a pall over this film that could not be overcome.  The superhero-viewing public was really not invested in the character to begin with and invested even less so in the actor.

Even beyond the personal aversion, Ezra Miller's performance was an annoyingly, gratingly bad disappointment which was multiplied because in this multiverse-spinning tale there were typically two of him (zim, zey, zho, dese) on screen any time one was there. One was bad enough. Two?  Failure overload. I don't know who made the casting decision initially, but Miller was a bad choice from the jump. Completely wrong for the part. I think the director and Miller thought his almost-autistic, ridiculous quirkiness was endearing. Well, they were wrong.  May have ruined the character for DC film eternity (if there even is such a thing at this point).

Failure 2? CGI. Marvel's is so much better.  Early in this film there's a scene where Flash rearranges a bunch of falling objects (including a plethora of babies even more fake than the doll in American Sniper). It was reminiscent to me of a scene in X-Men where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) rearranges a kitchen to evade gun-toting security guards. Comparing the two clearly shows the superiority of Marvel - which as a DC guy makes me sad. An even bigger problem is the director (whoever it was) was so enamored of the falling-baby scene that it was briefly repurposed for the end credits.

Failure 3? A disjointed, reality-hopping storyline that wanted to think it was tying everything together but at the end, really didn't.

Failure 4? No Superman, but a poorly cast super woman, which really served no purpose.

Honestly? If they'd named this movie "Batman Rises" and made Flash a secondary character (and let anyone else, even Nicolas Cage play the Flash role)?  If they'd marketed it as the revival of the 1989 Batman?  If the trailer had focused on the return of Keaton? And finally, if they'd inflated the role of Keaton's Batman just a little bit more?  I think the movie could have been a major box office hit and perhaps given the flagging DC franchise a splash of new life. 

It wasn't as bad as Blue Beetle. It wasn't as bad as either ATROCIOUS Aquaman film. It still wasn't as good as some of the worst Marvel films. It was, I have to say, better than the dismal Black Panther probably. On the same level as Ant Man Quantum-maniac perhaps? But in a DC Universe that was already weighted down by monumental failures like Dung Beetle, Aquaman 1 and 2, Dawn of Justice, Justice League, WW 1984, Shazam 2, Birds of Prey, and Black Adam?  It was just another anchor dragging the entire franchise to the bottom of the abyss.

[Kaos]

Killing Boksoon

Korean film that mixed a healthy dose of Kill Bill and a blend of John Wick with a dash of Guy Ritchie's trademark slo-mo flash-forward fighting scenes where the protagonist considers all possible angles and outcomes to determine a plan of attack. 

Boksoon is a killer for hire. The best killer on the market with a 100% success rate.  In this film, murder has been incorporated and has a set of rules. Killers are hired for their skills and their ability to provide a "show."  Some of that was a little murky to me because I didn't understand the show aspect. 

Boksoon, a woman, works for the main murder company in South Korea. She's a single mom with a 17-year old daughter and is at the end of her contract with her murder group MK Enterprises.  Her boss, the boss of all murder companies, has a long-standing crush on her and wants her to remain. She's more inclined to let the contract expire to spend more time with her daughter, who is unaware of what she does for a living.

Her world spins into chaos when, perhaps prompted by her confused/confusing relationship with her own daughter, Boksoon decides to bail on a show for the first time in her life.  She can't make herself do what she's tasked with doing.

Once a contract is accepted, killers are honor bound to follow through. That's the rule. Failure is not an option. There are deadly consequences for breaking the rule, particularly when the sister of the head of MK Enterprises, already has her in her sights due to her bizarre fixation on her brother.

There's a lot of fighting action, most of it with knives.  When the movie slides into the scenes that feature stylized violence and the now well-worn trope of a single person fighting off a horde of attackers, it's not bad. The fact that some of the broad fight scenes incorporate some comedic aspects is welcome.

The lead actress is reasonably convincing as a killer-for-hire worn down mentally by her non-communicative, anger-fueled teenage offspring.

Where it loses direction (and interest) is when it dives into Boksoon's home life where her angst-ridden daughter is struggling with her newly discovered possible lesbian tendencies. It's a completely unnecessary storyline and one that adds absolutely nothing to the film.  I didn't feel any connection to the daughter or her plight. Those scenes could have been cut or trimmed which would have greatly helped the movie's overlong two-plus hour run time. 

I enjoy Korean fare. This not as much as some others, but it's still probably better than most of what Hollywood retches out these days. 

[Kaos]

Viral

In this 2016 film, a California town deals with the threat posed by a viral - parasite driven - virus infecting the country.

It's so weird seeing these movies that pre-dated the Covid scam predict the ways in which the "here to help" government would curtail daily activities and the draconian measures they'd use. There are tons of similar films (The Crazies, and Contagion come to mind). There are better efforts, too.

This movie was kept alive only by the soft and easy performance of the lead actress - played by Sofia Black-D'Elia. A 25 year old (at the time) convincingly portaying a 16-year old, Sofia was nice to look at and carried herself well. She, and she alone, provided whatever redemption this film contained.

The story was muddled in a lot of ways. There was a briefly touched on mind-hive aspect that was never fully realized.  There was a tacked on "Daddy was cheating on mom" contrivance used only to give the dad a reason to leave Sofia and her sister alone as the virus took control.

Biggest problem was the girl recognizing from a high school lesson (taught by her dad) that a piece of shipping tape could remove the offending worm from its host (at least temporarily, although that part was never fleshed out either).

Then the movie just kind of abruptly ended.   

I liked Sofia enough to see if I could find more of her work. Turns out she was the student-humping art teacher in Bryan Cranston's Your Honor series.  She was bedding Cranston's high school son. I remember thinking "no way somebody who looks like that would be interested in a dweeb like him" on first watch.

Is Viral worth watching?  Probably not, but Sofia certainly is (at least to me). I hope she's got more projects coming up soon.

[Kaos]

Sick

Horror/suspense film that uses the idiocy of the so-called "pandemic" as the basis for and crux of the plot.

Two college girls in Colorado leave campus behind to "quarantine" at the vacation home of one of the pair. It's a really swanky, secluded, rich person's log cabin style abode.

One of the two is a mask-obsessed freak who stresses over the plandemic, down to constant masking, hosing the air with lysol and even wiping down the (very few) groceries they bring with disinfectant wipes. 

The other is mask averse, has a very cavalier attitude toward the whole plandemic overreaction.  She has to be forced to put on the ridiculous, worthless, ineffective face diaper and sheds it as soon as possible in every situation.

I liked the mask-averse girl. She wasn't like the typical horror/thriller central girl. She wasn't perfectly made up, impeccably dressed (or really even stylish). She was short. She had a few pounds on her. She was, essentially, a girl you could actually possibly know. I found that refreshing and appealing. I also liked her physical manifestations of rage. She was great with that.

The other one, a heavy-set black girl, I didn't care for as much. Her mask whining got on my nerves pretty badly. She wasn't nearly as effective at the rage or physicality. In a movie like this where there are essentially two "final girls" they need to be evenly matched and I didn't find that to be the case here.

Basic storyline.  After girls flee to cabin for their quarantine party, a rejected boyfriend of the girl I liked shows up after dark. She isn't inclined to provide the snootch despite his pleas so he agrees to leave the next day. 

Masked marauders make that impossible.

The rationale for their home invasion is unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally?) hilarious and ties back into the whole "why aren't you wearing a mask" theme.

The girls and the dude battle the invaders in some very-well choreographed and brutal fight scenes. Blood is spilled. People don't make it out. 

It struck me as funny because of the whole Covid masks thing - which we all now know (well, almost all I think there might still be one denier lurking around here) was a complete scam.  It reminded me of just how stupid, fascist, and controlling that period of time was, and how sheepishly moronic far too much of the population was as it followed along with the draconian (and completely made up) rules. 

One odd note?  If you're a Frasier fan, you'll see a much older Mel (Niles' short-term spouse) as one of the mask loons. I don't know that she's done anything since Frasier, but there she was.

[Kaos]

Unfrosted

The return of Jerry Seinfeld in a film that lampoons the great toaster pastry war of 1963.  Post and Kelloggs raced to market with a shelf-stable heatable pastry and in the end Kelloggs won the war. Not because theirs was necessarily better. In fact, the two were essentially identical. Post's entry flopped because their marketing department landed on the name "Country Squares" which didn't resonate.

This film reminded me a lot of something Mike Judge would do and I spent much of the movie wishing Judge had actually done it. Would have been so much better.

This wasn't a good vehicle for Seinfeld. It just wasn't.  It was also very disappointing that he kowtowed to basically every low-rent, unfunny hack in Hollywood. There were so many people (most of them detestable) stuffed into this film it's practically impossible to list them all.  Amy Schumer (who unbelievably wasn't the worst part of the movie), Fatty McPhee...umm... Melissa McCarthy, Hugh Grant (as Thurl Ravenscroft who sang the Grinch song and voiced Tony the Tiger), James Marsden, Christian Slater, Tyrion Lannister, Jim Gaffigan, John Slattery/Jon Hamm (reprising Mad Men roles), Dean (Hank from Breaking Bad) Norris as Kruschev, Tony Hale, Felix (Ozark) Solis as a cuban sugar dealer, and a BUNCH of second or third tier SNL vets - the unfunny ones like:  Mikey Day, Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Bobby Moynihan, and Fred Armisen.

The best parts were Bill Burr as JFK, Darryl Hammond as Ed McMahon, Kyle Dunnigan as Johnny Carson, and Dunnigan again as Walter Cronkite.

It tried so hard to be funny that it was kind of painful and cringey in places. The January 6 spoof wasn't nearly as humorous as they intended it to be.

Overall it was kind of ridiculous. Seinfeld - and I love his show - really wasn't the right person to bring this story to the (breakfast) table. It suffered at his hand. 

[Kaos]

Arkansas

Clark Duke was one of the worst parts of the death spiral of The Office. He's a half-note character at best. He was the weakest part of Hot Tub Time Machine (by a lot). Let's just be honest: He's the weak link in almost everything he's ever been in, playing that same barely baked, one dimensional partial character: Doofus, smart mouth schlub.

So here's a GREAT idea! Let him direct and star in his own movie!  That's how we end up with Arkansas, a film purportedly about the Dixie Mafia -- something that is real, but nothing like the undefined caricatures this clown created.

He managed to snag some decent surrounding talent, but had no idea what to do with it. John Malcovich barely phoned in his performance as a dixie mafioso masquerading as a park ranger. Vince Vaughn was utterly convincing (sarcasm spiked high) as a southern mob boss - because southerners typically go on jersey-sounding verbal speed-talking rambles. Vivica Fox was wasted in a role that required so little of her it was shameful. Same of Michael Williams (aka Chalky White, aka Omar Little).  The other Hemsworth (the non-Thor one) struggled mightily to fit into his taciturn, emotionless redneck killer role - and never got close.

This was Clark's movie, though. His completely out of place character was front and center. And he bombed in a spectacular manner. Dress, appearance, speech, performance, were all universally horrific. That he set himself up as the romantic lead with a girl who (while barely a 5) was still so far out of his wormy league rendered the entire exercise even more ridiculous.  His asinine moustache and idiotic hair bun were outlandishly bad choices.

As a director? Every choice he made was wrong.  Lighting? Pacing? Cuts? Dialogue? Focus? Continuity? Arc? Script? Character development? All wrong. Every bit of it. The guy got absolutely nothing right in this dismal, dreary, un-interesting, slog through a few months in the life of a handful of characters nobody would give a single fart in a hurricane about.  Tragically bad.

Why did I keep watching until the end? Because the moron filmed "Arkansas" primarily within a ten-mile radius of my house. 

Eastern Shore Motel over on Hwy 98? Shelton Fireworks on I-10? Daphne City Hall? Glazed Donuts next to my dentist's office? All allegedly Arkansas. Nope, all Daphne, Fairhope, or Loxley Alabama. All along the way, there were other places I recognized in the background of various scenes. That amused me enough to keep me trudging along until it ended with a pathetic whimper.

Clark must have photos of hollywood executives with live goats or something. I can't think of anyone - other than maybe Adam Sandler - who has survived in that business for that long with so little talent whatsoever.  The guy literally has none. Every second he's on the screen, in anything he's ever been in, he drains the life from the moment. He's not funny. He's not charming.  He apparently earnestly believes he's both of those things. And if you thought you hated him on-screen?  Just wait until he's behind the camera.  You'll hate him even more.

[Kaos]

Madame Web

Proof that Marvel might be as bad as DC now.

This movie is stunningly bad.  Dakota Johnson is horrendous. Nice ass but that’s all she brings to this.  Sydney Sweeney has one attribute (two actually) and they’re hidden.

Story? It’s basically like Final Destination but if it was made by a moron.

Remember that time we blew up a helicopter with a bottle rocket? Yeah. And that time a guy who’d been hit by like five cars died after falling about 10 feet?  That was cool.

Plot: F.
Performances: F - - -


Just watch Final Destination.  Don’t waste time with this load of nonsense.

[Kaos]

Aquadude 2: Nobody Asked for This

Jason Moomoo was an outrageously bad choice to play this character.  We are now two standalone movies, a justice league disaster, and at least one post credit scene with this big buffoon bro-ing, boozing, and booring through every scene.

Playing Aquaman as the oceanic equivalent of Bluto from Animal House was an unrecoverable choice. It was major factor in the ruination of the DCU.

How bad is this movie? I first considered bailing on it four minutes in.  I gave up at the 14 minute mark. 

That’s four pretty awful hero movies in a row.  Madame Webb, Flash, Blue  Beetle, and this.  All horrible.

[Kaos]

The Iron Claw

My life as a wrestling fan was admittedly pretty short. I came in just before the beginning of the Attitude Era. Was there for the ascension of Stone Cold, the emergence of The Rock, the chaos of D-Generation X. Trish Stratus (yum) and Lita (double yum), the Hardy Boys, Kane, Undertaker, the Dudleys, Rashiki, Christian, Godfather, Val Venis, Ken Shamrock, Stephanie McMahon (yum yet again), Big Show, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and more than any other Mankind/Mick Foley. 

When those guys started to vanish, so too did my interest. I didn't care about Randy Orton (at all). Batista didn't interest me.  No fan of Lesner, or Nash, or Flair, or Van Dam, or Steiner. Even Cena did nothing for me. The product changed and I moved on mentally. I don't remember choosing to stop watching, I just did.

I didn't know anything about this family - the Von Erichs - profiled in this film.  Maybe I should have, but I just didn't. Never heard of them before.

Lots of supposed talent on display. Bulked up (and ridiculous looking, honestly) Zac Efron. Bulked up Jeremy Allen 'Shameless Bear' White. Old-looking Maura Tierney (wasted in this). Snarling "you've seen him before but probably can't remember where" Holt McCallany, and Lily "Trying too hard with the accent" James.

The wrestling family tried to claw their way to the top of the ring world. Daddy (McCallany) came close but never made it even though he had a signature "Claw" move. He pushed his sons to get there. They kind of did. One of them beat Ric Flair once for some kind of title.

The family was plagued by stupid decisions and multiple suicides.

I never saw the point of this film. What was the arc?  They suffered from bad luck, apparent mental weakness, and the single-minded obsession of the dad, who lived vicariously through the accomplishments of his kids. There was nobody to root for, no real hero. They were all flawed, stupid, weak, and obsessed over something completely inconsequential. And then most of them stupidly killed themselves.

Not every life is a story worthy of being immortalized on film. This is one, to me, that really didn't have anything worthwhile to say - unless you're just interested in being mired in depression and nothingness.


Since the movie was soda pressing, here's a photo of Trish and Lita, 25 years after they rocked the ring and looked spectacular doing it....

[Kaos]

Insidious: Behind the Black, Very Black, Deep Black Door of Darkness

Blumhouse, of course.

Zero scares. Lots of creepy-ish music that swirls around things that aren't even mildly frightening. Plus of course, the big Blumhouse calling card:  All "action" takes place in a palette so dark that it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. There's a black girl in it and as awful as it is to say?  During the action sequences she appears in the overlay is so inky black the only thing you can make out is the whites of her eyes and her teeth. 

You can't hide bad horror in a total blackwash, but goodness knows the Blums certainly try.  This is bad horror made worse by the jet blackness that envelops every scene. If it was good horror? It's not, but if it was? You'd never know it because everything that may or may not occur takes place in such deep darkness you have no idea what's happening. I got a headache from squinting at the screen trying to figure out if anyone or anything was there. 

The only thing worth seeing in this movie at all are a few scenes that include Rose Byrne.  She's not nudie or anything, but her face is pretty. 

Insidious needs to change its name to Insipid. 

Upon further consideration, this entire film could have simply been ended in a single Rolling Stones lyric:  "I see a red door and I want it painted black."  End.

[Kaos]

Hooper

It’s been a long time since I watched this movie. Burt Reynolds was at his wise-cracking, gum snapping, self aware best. Sally Field was at the top of her redneck hotness. 

It wasn’t a movie that made some kind of social statement.  It didn’t expose some deeper truth. 

Burt and his friends just had fun romping through scene after scene. 

This movie came out after he’d passed on (or been passed over for) roles in Godfather, James Bond, Star Wars, and Cuckoo’s Nest (he’d famously pass on Pretty Woman later).

No, it wasn’t a cinematic masterpiece. But I got the impression Reynolds was having fun every moment he was on the screen.  Maybe that’s what matters.  He made it enjoyable to watch.

I think he could have been one of the greatest actors of all time. He had that capacity.  He chose instead to enjoy himself and laugh that ridiculous laugh all the way to the bank.

I like this one more than Bandit.

EDIT TO ADD: I forgot this was the one filmed a good bit in Tuscaloosa.  I was a kid but remember seeing it and Burt from a distance.

[Kaos]

Prey
Predator prequel
 
Slow, unathletic, clumsy girl believes herself to be a great Indian hunter on the Plains in the 1700s.

She is a terrible hunter. Flinches and fails at every opportunity.  But girl power anyway!

Crosses paths with a Predator who is out doing its own hunting. For inexplicable reasons it leaves her alive when it should have killed her time and time again. 

Runs into French trappers who hunt the predator.

I don’t care any more. Done with it.  Won’t finish.

The lead girl is insufferable.  This movie insults Arnold, Danny Glover, and even Olivia Munn. 

[The Six]

Prey
Predator prequel
 
Slow, unathletic, clumsy girl believes herself to be a great Indian hunter on the Plains in the 1700s.

She is a terrible hunter. Flinches and fails at every opportunity.  But girl power anyway!

Crosses paths with a Predator who is out doing its own hunting. For inexplicable reasons it leaves her alive when it should have killed her time and time again. 

Runs into French trappers who hunt the predator.

I don’t care any more. Done with it.  Won’t finish.

The lead girl is insufferable.  This movie insults Arnold, Danny Glover, and even Olivia Munn.

Completely disagree. This was a breath of fresh air for a mediocre franchise (the first one is an action classic and Shane Black's 2018 movie is dumb fun). This is exactly what they should do with the Predator; put it in different time frames. And if you're mad because a girl beat it (gasp! pearls clutched!), watch the end credits. It's not a long-lived victory.

[Kaos]

The First Omen

We already knew that the child brought home by American Diplomat Robert Thorn was not his biological child. The child of Thorn and his wife Katherine supposedly died in childbirth in Rome and Catholic priests/nuns convinced the grieving Thorn to substitute an orphan child born at the same time.  We KNEW this if we watched The Omen.

We also knew that Thorn's child was killed and buried near its mother - a jackal - in a forbidding cemetery near Rome. We knew that because we watched Thorn open the caskets before dogs drove him from the plot in the original Omen.

This prequel turned that on its head a little. There was no jackal, only some demon and a girl.

This movie crawls slowly through standard tropes of evil-driven nuns and priests, mysterious priestly rituals, and foreboding music without ever advancing the story - what little there was- at all. In the universe of unnecessary films (and there are many) this ranks near the top of the least necessary, least impactful, worst efforts of all.

Zero scares. A couple of gross birthing scenes. A completely out-of-place "Star Wars" 'there is another' useless sideline.

The Omen is a classic film. It and The Exorcist created a new standard for horror.

This?  Just a paint-by-numbers snoozefest.

[Kaos]

Completely disagree. This was a breath of fresh air for a mediocre franchise (the first one is an action classic and Shane Black's 2018 movie is dumb fun). This is exactly what they should do with the Predator; put it in different time frames. And if you're mad because a girl beat it (gasp! pearls clutched!), watch the end credits. It's not a long-lived victory.

No problem putting Predator in different settings or time frames. Have no problem with it being set on the Plains or having Indians fight it.

Don't care that a girl beat it.  Do care that THIS worthless character beat it. Figured she would, because that would be the stupidest possible ending to the film and I had no interest in seeing THAT at all.

Got tired of watching her yammer about what a great hunter she was and then her self-made bow falls apart.  Or she can't take the shot when she should. Or she puts other people in danger/gets them killed because she's so stupid and out of touch with her own worth that she keeps blundering into places she should never be.  I despised her character and declined to watch her "redemption" arc.  Screw her. 

[Kaos]

Godzilla - Minus One

This is the Godzilla I remember from the afternoon movies. Thoroughly Japanese, rooted in WW2, leveling Japanese cities.

It destroys things because it can. It isn't the savior or protector of humanity. It's an enormous, destructive beast. Its motivation, other than the enjoyment of wrecking things, is unknown.

Good story, good acting, quality CGI.  This is an old-school monster tale done the right way. 

Highly recommend, but just a warning: This isn't a Godzilla you're supposed to root for. 

[Snakebite]

Godzilla - Minus One

This is the Godzilla I remember from the afternoon movies. Thoroughly Japanese, rooted in WW2, leveling Japanese cities.

It destroys things because it can. It isn't the savior or protector of humanity. It's an enormous, destructive beast. Its motivation, other than the enjoyment of wrecking things, is unknown.

Good story, good acting, quality CGI.  This is an old-school monster tale done the right way. 

Highly recommend, but just a warning: This isn't a Godzilla you're supposed to root for.

Gave this one a watch over the weekend and agree with your assessment. Really well done.

[Kaos]

Hitman

Prime movie about a fake hit man who runs stings for the NO police department. 

No huge laughs. But the chameleon hit man character was done really well by the lead. His girlfriend is also extremely attractive. 

Won’t set new horizons, just ambles along to a preposterous conclusion.  But in terms of Prime produced films it’s better than most.

[GH2001]

Hitman

Prime movie about a fake hit man who runs stings for the NO police department. 

No huge laughs. But the chameleon hit man character was done really well by the lead. His girlfriend is also extremely attractive. 

Won’t set new horizons, just ambles along to a preposterous conclusion.  But in terms of Prime produced films it’s better than most.

Glen Powell....the new thing for the ladies now apparently.

He was the "hero" in Top Gun: Maverick. Sort of the Tom Cruise of the newer version 2 years ago. Hotshot, badass, etc.

[The Six]

Godzilla - Minus One

This is the Godzilla I remember from the afternoon movies. Thoroughly Japanese, rooted in WW2, leveling Japanese cities.

It destroys things because it can. It isn't the savior or protector of humanity. It's an enormous, destructive beast. Its motivation, other than the enjoyment of wrecking things, is unknown.

Good story, good acting, quality CGI.  This is an old-school monster tale done the right way. 

Highly recommend, but just a warning: This isn't a Godzilla you're supposed to root for.

Concur. This was a really good watch. Made for $10-$12 million. Amazing.