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Hoodlum (1997)
Legendary Gang War in Harlem
"Hoodlum" is set during The Great Depression in 1934, in Harlem, New York City, where the black gangsters shot first, and the Italian Mafia faced a gang war between them. It's an account of the three gangsters that defined the era. Bumpy Johnson (Laurence Fishburne), Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth,) and Mafia head Lucky Luciano (Andy Garci.) The illegal number racket is the only way to put food on the table for many, and in an era of poverty, Madame Queen (Cecily Tyson) runs the racket so everyone can win a ticket. Johnston initiates the war when Shultz tries to take over the racket, defying Lucanio. How much of the movie is fiction, I do not know, but Bill Duke executes a violent story that is well-made and entertaining to watch even if some of the movie is fictional.
Bumpy is a violent gangster and I think he was a lot more violent than he is portrayed as by Fishburne who plays him with confidence and style. When the movie opens, he is in Sing Sing Prison, and the warden tells him "Johnston, you're different than all the other coloureds in here. You read books. You write poetry. But I don't believe you have any remorse for taking a man's life."
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
Demented Mayhem
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation" is a horrid excuse for demented mayhem, and It's either a remake or a partial sequel that makes no sense. I don't even, think the filmmakers know what this was supposed to be. People are hung on meathooks, screamed at, and tortured. Add a dumb story about the Illuminate, I think, that's loosely shoved into the film and a slew of characters that have zero intelligence. Even worse, they make Leatherface, look like some sort of scardy cat weirdo, that screams, hollers, and looks like an over-the-top transvestite. This geek show is the fourth chapter of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," apparently, and not only is it an excuse to keep the series going, but it gets worse as the movie goes along, and you should never see this movie.
Originally, this movie was supposed to be released in 1994, but it was recut after its limited release, and after watching it, I can't imagine why. Recut as "The Next Generation," a stupid title with nothing to do with the movie, Kim Heinkel is the director of this installment and was the producer on the original film with Tobe Hooper. It acts as a remake of the original in a lot of key scenes, and the rest is completely demented scenes with people being smacked, loud crying and screaming like idiots in an attempt to create chaos, but it's embarrassing.
0/10.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
The Rise of Skywalker
"Star Wars Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" takes us back to a galaxy far far away and sees the rise of young Pawadwan Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and the Jedi Master that trained him, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson.) This is the first story in the chronology and the characters never feel less compelling. We see C-3PO and R2-D2, Yoda and the Jedi Counsel consisting of Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson.) A new Sith Lord causes the Trade Federation to upset the order when they attack a planet called Naboo, and Supreme Chancellor Valorum dispatches the two Jedis to negotiate.
Obi-Wan trains under Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn who feels he is not ready to be a Jedi Master. When the negotiations fail, they escape to Naboo where Quin-Gon rescues a talking head called Jar Jar Binks. "Mesa Jar Jar Binks." He is a Gungan and an annoying mouthermouth. He's the attempted comic relief for kids to laugh at when the lightsabers are swinging, and he cowardly tries to run away.
She's So Lovely (1997)
Sid & Nancy and Elmer Fudd in the late 90's
"She So Lovely" was written by the late director and screenwriter John Cassavetes, and to understand who the characters are in this movie, you need to know what John wrote about, which was strange characters who were alcoholics, psychos, and crazy lovers, and there was always a sense of danger or weirdness around them; three characters at the heart of this incoherent junk are everyone one of those but executed with such disdain.
It's one of the most flawed and ridiculously boneheaded movies I have ever seen, with an ending so vile, and revolting it made me sick. Its fascination with impossible psychological development never becomes anything because every character is disturbing and horrid. How does one film that is executed like a junkie running through the street exist by breaking artistic values at a rudimentary level and have the decency to try and tell a story so repulsive.
Unruly Maureen (Robyn Wright Penn) is a drunk, a neurotic brat, and unlikeable to the point of nausea. She smokes like a chimney and has a dumb habit of tripping in the rain. Her husband, Eddie Quinn (Sean Penn,) is also unlikeable, neutronic and unhinged. He leaves Maureen looking like she is in a drug-fueled haze when he disappears for days on end, and she is pregnant.
John's son, Nick Cassavetes, directs this, and his bottom-of-the-barrel effort shows when It opens with Maureen living in a transient hotel with Eddie. He's been missing for three days, and Maureen acts like she is on Heroin. Is she a recovering drug addict? It would appear. She looks for Eddie in a dive bar and finds him a few scenes later, In true braindead abnormality fashion, sitting in the same bar after she has wandered around aimlessly.
Maureen is a party girl with almost zero intelligence. While her tramp-like status doesn't help her, she adores Eddie, and we're supposed to see this destruction as "eternal love." While the ending certainly tries to justify that, It shamefully doesn't work because these characters are horrible people you can't get behind and don't want to know. Harry Dean Stanton shows up in a thankless role as "somebody" along with Dezi Mazer, who do nothing in the movie but sit in the bar and show up when the screenplay doesn't need them.
While looking for Eddie, she parties with her neighbour, Keifer (James Gandolfini,) who ends up assaulting her, and she tries to keep it from him until she lets it slip. "Why are you lying to me." He goes insane in a volatile way, grabs a gun and brings a whole new meaning to mental illness. Out-of-the-blue psychosis brought on by violence and characterized by inexplicable sadness and incoherent babbling. Maureen calls ERT, and when they show up at the bar to take Eddie in, he shoots one of them and ends up in a white straight jacket.
The Implausibility of the screenplay becomes a stunning issue when Eddie gets released from the loony bin where he has languished for ten years. In the last thirty minutes, Travolta shows up, and it dives headfirst into a bad sitcom routine that turns out to be a s******w.
Maureen is clean and sober, but underneath the suburban haircut, her husband, Joey (John Travolta,) can't seem to understand why she wants anything to do with Eddie, and neither can we. She tells Joey she married him to pass the time, as she has been waiting for Eddie to get released, and she still loves him. Maureen has three kids with Joey - one of them being Eddie's kid, Jeanie, and they mean nothing to her because she is still the same brainless, demented trash she was before.
How this all modulates into a revolting ending is absurd. Maureen tells Joey that she is going to leave him, and Travolta can't hold back from the soap opera routine with F-bombs around the kids. Joey is pissed and confused as to why he even married her, but it's not like he's any less demented. He takes Eddie's kid, Jeanie, to meet her father and delivers a speech in the car to the girl about how much he loves her, and it's a crock. His real reason for being there is to tell Eddie off. He carries the scene with some dignity but not enough, like some weird alternative to the film's nihilist approach to everything.
"She's So Lovely" is offensive in its stupidity, along with these characters and the demoralizing events where the film celebrates the ugliness of both the characters and the story. It exists for superficial reasons, and everything gets trivialized when Travolta gives a nine-year-old, his daughter, a beer and says, "Shut up and drink your beer," in the middle of a violent atmosphere, to the wayward ending that shows either how sleazy scumbags like Eddie are or how demented Maurren is but, there is no point to any of it when Maureen drives away with Eddie never to see her kids again and, it's as inept as the movie is.
0/10.
Picture Perfect (1997)
Aniston Misfire
There is a good movie, somewhere, in "Picture Perfect." It's a semi-intelligent story, bogged down by flat characters, smart dialogue, and a plot that spins out of control in typical rom-com fashion. Jennifer Aniston stars as a struggling advertising executive In New York City who gets passed up for a promotion, so her best friend Darcy (Illeana Douglas) cooks up a story that Kate is engaged to a guy from Boston to get her the promotion. Nick (Jay Mohr) is that guy stuck in the ruse. He's a videographer and a sweet guy who likes Kate, whom any self-respecting man would run away from.
Kate works for Mercer Advertising, and her boss, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn,) discovers that she has no husband, house, or car, so if he promotes her, nothing is stopping her from leaving his company because she lives like she is in college. Kate is good at what she does but, she is so self-absorbed, and when everything seems to work for her, the screenplay hits that autopilot, and we know how everything will turn out.
Nick comes into the picture when Kate meets him at a wedding she does not want to be at. He videotapes her, and we see her through the POV of his camera lens, hints that he likes her. Nick, who videotapes weddings for a living, just met her, and she blows him off, only for the screenplay to need him to further the plot in the second act. Nick is the straight-laced guy, and Jay Mohr plays him well, even when he gets stuck in situations where she is either walking all over him, using him or simply there just for the ruse. He wants to be more and courts her throughout the movie, only for her to rebuff him because it's all a ruse.
She constantly rebuffs him, yet the screenplay can't play it smart because the "idiot plot" has to play out so she can be the selfish executive who doesn't see what's in front of her, only to see it at the end. Kate offers Nick $1,000 to come to New York for a weekend, pose as her boyfriend and break up publicly when Mr. Mercer invites her, Darcy and Nick to attend a high-class dinner. He declines the money, and the plot takes a stupid turn when she has an affair with Sam, (Kevin Bacon) Mercer's assistant. Sam's the typical bad-boy-looking hunk that these rom-coms always come with. Kate has a thing for Sam, but he rebuffs her until she is "engaged," and then, he has a thing for Kate, and she rebuffs him only to sleep with him throughout the movie.
What got me more than the movie itself was the dialogue. Why is the dialogue smart and the characters useless? Darcy justifies to Kate, "We're in advertising, Kate. I didn't lie--I sold.'' Nick also explains to Mercer at the dinner why he videotapes weddings, the privilege to videotape important moments in his client's lives. There is some genuine heart here, but Aniston ruins it by stomping on his foot because she wants to "fight" and make the split look good in front of her boss and his wife.
Some interesting moments attempt to feel genuine, but they are nothing but scenes to further the monotonous plot. Nick constantly tries to woo Kate, and there is a scene where she is in her bed, and he is on the couch. They talk back and forth about moments from their past, but it goes nowhere. Another scene has Kate disregarding Nick when he shows up at her office to woo her one final time, and Kate acts as though everything is fine. She got what she wanted until she gets an epiphany. Why does she have to come off as an implausible stuck-up moron? Because the screenplay wants her to be that way.
Strangely, the only character that does work is the good-natured boss, Mr Mercer. Kevin Dunn brings a charm to him, and he's smart, but he's there to further the plot until the eventual revelation. It's a shame that the plot is so contrived because there is a story that wants to be told, let down by a screenplay that has all the rom-com tropes, and refuses to rise above it. Characters come in and out as if they are there for cameos, and the "love story" feels like an afterthought.
"Picture Perfect" doesn't want to be anything more than a typical romance-comedy, with zero laughs, that feels flat. Aniston can't save the movie because she is at the helm and plays right into it, hoping she will be enough to make the movie. No! Aniston can't save it with her charms, so all we're left with is an unconvincing rom-com with no bite and a character that you can hardly sympathize with when she is rude and crass throughout most of the movie, and the funky dresses she wears seem like advertising companies couldn't wait to get out there chequebooks for this misfire.
4/10.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Christmas Fun
"A Christmas Story" is set in the 1950's and this picture shows that, at the time, Christmas was very conservative. It's based on the memoirs of Jean Shepard, who wrote a lot of books about growing up in the 1940's. One piece, in particular, was about him wanting a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas. "Porky's" was a raunchy piece of junk that was so mean-spirited and stupid. Bob Clark redeems himself and finally directs a good comedy that the entire family can enjoy.
It's about a nine-year-old boy, Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) who dreams of owning a Red Ryder Carbine air rifle for Christmas. Ralphie's wish is rejected by his mother, Mrs. Parker (Melinda Dillion), his father, The Old Man (Darren McGavin) and his school teacher, Miss Shields (Tedde Moore). Will Ralphie get his wish? There are many great moments in the film. You ever get your mouth washed out with soap for using bad language,? Ralphie does. Apparently soap cures bad language. This was something that was utilized a lot in the 1950's by parents who had children with salty mouths. It's one of the many humorous scenes in the film when Ralphie blames a curse word on another kid.
Ralphie's life revolves around getting the BB gun he wants for Christmas. Despite everyone telling him, "you'll shoot your eye out." I guess no one wants him to have his Christmas present. However, the film is not about BB guns, it's about childhood and being innocent. He plays with his friends, goes to school and gets picked on by the school bully, Scutt Farkuis (Zack Ward). Scutt is the mean-spirited kid and "villain" of the film but he is just as innocent as all the kids, we learn this in the second act. Ralphie's little brother gets stuffed into a tight snowsuit and looks like a penguin and the funniest character of the picture is Ralphie's Dad, The Old Man who likes to assault the broken furnace in the basement.
Have you ever seen a lamp in the shape of a woman's leg? Ralphie's dad wins a "major award" and to the families shock, it's not what they expected but the Old Man becomes determined to put in the living room window anyway. I liked the film for what is but I was left feeling uncomfortable after Ralphie visits a department store Santa Clause, whose helpers scare and thrown kids down a slide after they have been thrown on Santa's lap.
I think the purpose was missed here and the Santa looks like a drunken wreck with a mean spirit and I didn't find this entertaining or funny. However, one of Ralphie's friends is Triple-Dog-Dared to stick his tongue to a frozen lamp post and the fire department has to be called to rescue him.
Bob Clark finally gives us a great comedy that will be watched over and over again and become a traditional comedy classic at Christmas time. There are many moments when "A Christmas Story" feels right and the finale of the picture is in the true spirit of Christmas when the family shares a turkey too many humorous laughs. But it begs you to ask questions: Will Ralphie get his BB Gun for Christmas,? Will the Old Man finally fix the busted furnace? And will Ralphie discover the true meaning of Christmas?
8/10.
Basket Case (1982)
Cheap Bloody Case
"Basket Case" is a gore-fest from beginning to end, giving us nothing special but ripped limbs and bloody remains. Everything here has blood stained all over it, and the over-the-top humour isn't funny; this film is disgusting.
Before we get into this, this movie was wack. Gory and stupid with a villain that won't hold up. There seems to be a weird attempt at humour throughout the film that doesn't work either. It comes off as a horror comedy, but this is a bloody movie that doesn't quite work.
Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) arrives in New York City with a wicker basket in his hands. He checks into a cheap hotel and sets out the real plan for his visit. Inside the basket lives his deformed Siamese twin brother, Belial. Years before, the brothers were surgically separated at birth, against their will, and now they seek revenge on the doctors that performed the surgery. Well, the Basket brother does.
For one thing, this picture is a dark and eerie film that features a lot of characters that we don't care about, and it follows too close to "structure" for other horror movies, similar to a stupid story used as an excuse to showcase bloody violence with people being maimed and slaughtered. None of the characters are written for any effect and serve as bait along with a jumbled mess of a story.
So what is the villain of this picture? It's a head with mangled teeth and two arms that hops around on a floor once he gets out of the basket in the second act. When we first see him, he is hanging off a wall, and a light comes on, and we are supposed to be scared of this thing. It is the scariest scene in the movie because of the setup. That's about it. They use stop motion to move him, and it looks awful.
He is a violent and vindictive creature. Strangely enough, he has some interest as he is designed weirdly for a chalky horror film like this, but we never see anything beyond violence and gore, so it doesn't matter.
One of the characters is a ridiculous tool named Sharon (Terri Susan Smith), who is about as dumb as you can get. She befriends Duane early into the picture, and it never takes off from this setting. They tried to put a romantic aspect into the picture and failed even further.
Besides being dark (almost unable to see anything) and cheesy, there is something I couldn't figure out, not that I cared, but it makes no sense. The ending to this garbage is depressing when a character is killed, and Belial does something disturbing to her to end this garbage. The question is, how? Besides that, it's one of the most disgusting sequences in a horror film; it's also stupid and leaves the picture ending on a cliffhanger.
Granted, this is a low-budget picture, but it features a terrible screenplay, and there is a sequence where police officers inspect the hotel room they stay in. After finding nothing, somehow Belial removes himself from a toilet. It's almost like the director, Frank Henenlotter, didn't even try with this picture, and it's a sad excuse that hurt my eyes watching it. Most will have difficulty getting through this picture due to the extreme violence and disturbing scenes, which they are better off avoiding altogether.
1/10.
Airplane! (1980)
Fly High
"Airplane" is a spoof comedy of the disaster genre and it shows that great writers like Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker can write material that is actually funny. Slapstick and surreal humor are the focus of the picture but it's the characters that are a laugh riot and the movie will have you spilling over in your seat laughing.
Peter Graves - Captain Clarence Oveur : "Surely you can't be serious." Leslie Nielson - Doctor Rumack: "I am serious and don't call me Shirley" This is one of the funniest gags in the whole picture.
It's about an Ex-fighter pilot turned taxi driver, Ted Striker (Robert Hays) who has a hard time keeping a job because of a fear of flying. His longtime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) is a flight attendant and leaves him. Striker grudgingly boards her plane to Chicago and hopes to win her back. Shortly after the plane takes off, dinner is served and the passengers succumb to food poisoning. Ted must get his act together to win Elaine back, save the passengers and land the plane safely.
"Airplane" has two characters that made me laugh just as hard as Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn in "Foul Play:" Captain Oveur and Doctor Rumack but the main characters are Ted Striker whose experiences in an unnamed war have made him scared to fly. Elaine plays a stewardess and he must overcome his fear if he is to keep her. The film jumps back and forth with Ted telling the story to random people of how they met, not before they kill themselves in a comical matter because they are bored. The funniest scene is the flashback sequence that shows how they met in a Casablanca-style bar.
There is a sequence in the first act where Ted purchases a ticket for the plane and he is asked "Smoking, or Non-smoking? To which he replies "Smoking." The lady at the desk proceeds to hand him a smoking ticket. These are the kind of jokes the pictures holds your attention with. In the second act, it's one joke and gag after another when everyone succumbs to food poisoning and the passengers freak out. From here we are introduced to Otto the Autopilot, an inflatable pilot who keeps the plane level. Lloyd Bridges plays tower supervisor who always choose "a bad day to quit smoking cigarettes, drinking or smoking crack." and The Doctor who attempts to keep everyone alive with humorous results. Oh, I almost forget about the guitar-playing nun and the two black gentlemen who speak "Jive."
The picture is incredibly dumb but it's meant to be dumb and the payoff is the most rewarding part of the film. All the romance scenes are spoofed from early pictures and it has no problem begging and borrowing from early pictures like "Casablanca,"Saturday Night Fever" and "Airport 1975" and the opening credits are done with music from "Jaws" so you can expect to be in for a funny ride.
10/10.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Python Funny Farce
I like it when a good cast works so great together and this picture has a fun cast that will make you laugh. Comedy and Caper are always great and this might be solely personal interest but Jamie Lee Curtis is to die for. "A Fish Called Wanda" is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time.
George Thomason (Tom Georgeson), a gangster in London and his assistant Ken Pile (Michael Palin,) plan a jewel heist. To help them, they bring in con artist/femme fatale, Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Otto West (Kelvin Kline), a loudmouth who thinks he's always right. When the heist goes according to plan and they get away with a large sum of diamonds, George is betrayed and thrown in jail only for Wanda and Otto to discover the loot is missing as George has hidden it elsewhere. With time ticking away, Wanda puts a plan in motion to seduce George's Barrister, Archie Leach (John Cleese) and find the jewels before everyone else.
I haven't laughed this hard for a while and this picture had me howling from the beginning to the end. I have never seen Jamie Lee Curtis with a mean spirit but it's a mean spirit that works because no one is getting seriously hurt in the process. Now mind you, all the characters in the picture are full of themselves and trying to outsmart each other to no end. Michael Palin, whom you may remember as Biggus Dickus from "Monty Python's Life of Brian" is in love with a tank of tropical fish, one fish he names Wanda. One might think the title is about the fish, but it's not.
Jamie Lee Curtis is central to the plot as she tries to outsmart everyone so she can discover the whereabouts of the jewels. Kelvin Kline is humorous as an Anglophobia "weapons expert" who hates being called stupid. In one scene he desperately tries to find a key that he hid in a fish tank. Someone has taken it and he tries to make Palin talk by sticking French Fries up his nose and then proceeds to eat his fish one by one until he talks. John Cleese (another Monty Python member) plays the Barrister who is unhappily married and falls under Curtis's charms. He has a vindictive wife, Wendy (Maria Aitken) and a spoiled daughter, Portia (Cynthia Cleese). Unknowingly, he gets sucked into the unfolding plot.
Michael Palin is the funniest character in the whole movie. He has a stutter and sounds like a jackhammer. His mission is to try to incite an old lady, who happens to be a prosecution witness, into a heart attack by attempting to drop a safe on her dogs. It only takes him three attempts and this sounds awful but the idea is so ridiculously stupid that someone would use a massive safe to make anything appear to be an accident, you can't help but laugh at the idea. As I said before, the picture has a mean spirit throughout but this is a comedy where everyone is against each other and the mean spirit works.
What doesn't work is the finale. We have laughed our heads off and everyone has been beaten up, pushed around, attacked or threatened. At this point I'm thinking, Wanda, is going to get caught. Well, I was a little surprised by how it ended. It's not a bad ending but I don't like it when evil/bad wins. I also don't like it when we get a film as good as this and we have sat through only to get a floppy end. It is the biggest rip-off any movie could do, and this picture, unfortunately, does that.
8/10.
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Gibson's Nightmare
"Conspiracy Theory'' has all the elements of a suspenseful thriller and an engaging story about a man who is a conspiracy theorist. Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) drives a cab in New York City while bantering on about theories of the JFK assassination, and the more we learn from him about who he is, the more you can see there is something about them that seems off. There is a reason why he is the way he is, and he is a well-developed character by the end of the movie, thanks to screenwriter Brian Helgeland. Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) is the U. S. Justice Department lawyer whom Jerry has a thing for and, she gets roped into his world when a group of shadowy figures try to catch him in "Conspiracy Theory," the new film from "Lethal Weapon" director Richard Donner and it has his frenetic style all over the movie.
Jerry has a history with Alice because he saved her from muggers. He confines to her by barging into her work, and she begrudgingly talks to him. She is trying to solve the mysterious murder of her father. Meanwhile, after she pushes Jerry out, he is down on the streets and spots two CIA guys. He knows who they are by the way they move. He follows them, and they capture him.
Jerry escapes from a hospital of horrors and winds up handcuffed to a hospital bed, forced into a drug-induced coma. Alice visits him, and Jerry begs her to switch his chart with the criminal across for him before he falls asleep, or he will be dead in the morning. Alice returns to the hospital the next morning to find the criminal is dead, and she starts to believe that Jerry might not be crazy. Maybe he has something to do with what happened to her father.
Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart) is the nazi-like doctor responsible for everything going on with Jerry. He and Alice run from spies, CIA, and FBI agents who shoot up every corner and, even more boring, when FBI agents, or whatever they are, rappel down on ropes from Helicopters hovering over a street in New York City. Jerry takes Alice to his apartment, and the bond between them becomes apparent that a love story is going to come out of this, and it does, with contrivances that try to derail the plot. Since it's an action thriller, it's expected, but it doesn't mean it always works.
Some of the quieter moments are when Alice and Jerry escape into a saferoom when his apartment, which is basically a hatch trap, goes up in flames. Turns out Jerry designed his own apartment. Alice discovers a mural on the wall of her sitting on her horse and a building with three smoke stakes somewhere in New York. She is at first upset and wonders who Jerry is. They go to her apartment, where Jerry accidentally reveals he has been watching her, and she demands to know why, but he doesn't know. These moments further the plot, and they don't feel forced.
Where the film derails toward the end when it feels like the producers knew the love story was unconvincing, so they set up a different ending than what was intended, because, not only does the movie come to a close, and everything seems resolved, but it feels like they left it open for a sequel. I won't spoil the ending, but it feels like rewrites took place, and I'm curious to see what the original ending was because this one ends as you would expect with, Alice saving the day, and the government assassins are no longer after them.
I have to say, if they did make a "Conspiracy Theory 2," there might be an idea. Jerry is an interesting character, and the movie does have a trilogy feel to it, but it also feels like a very self-contained story, meaning we don't need a sequel. But, if they could get it right, It might be worth revisiting these characters. Possibly, married and exposing conspiracy theories. Let's hope they don't do that.
"Conspiracy Theory" is an intriguing thriller with genuine suspense, thrills and an energetic concept that they use as a plot device rather than execute the story with ideas of conspiracy theories. Gibson pulls off a bombastic performance, and Roberts comes off as a strong woman only to fall into the "love interest" role. Unfortunately, alot of the movie is buried under cliches, and the love story is unconvincing, but it's an entertaining thriller with some ideas that don't always work, although Gibson's performance is enough to see the movie.
7/10.
Money Talks (1997)
Annoying Tucker
Comedian Chris Tucker jams his foot in his mouth and is annoying, at times, unbearable, in his new movie "Money Talks," and Charlie Sheen doesn't do much else either. He looks like he doesn't want to be there, and his role is that of the typical idiot news reporter who wants a scoop and is getting married to a woman who knows nothing about him. Add an action plot with guns firing and people running. All the usual suspects of formula action comedy are here.
Tucker plays con man Franklin Hatchett, a fast-talking motormouth who runs a small-time car wash and is a ticket scalper. He owes money to a local mobster and has caught the attention of investigating news reporter James Russel (Charlie Sheen,) who has Hatchett arrested. French criminal Raymond Villard (Gerard Ismael) is the film's villain, and he is too vicious for a comedy that comes off as lighthearted. Not surprisingly, the prison transport gets intercepted by mercenaries, and Villard escapes with Hatchett handcuffed to him. No one thought of the possibility that Villard could've blown up? It's strange to me that only Hatchett and Villard survive the assault.
Hatchett manages to escape and is now wanted for the murder of several police officers and escaping custody. Sound familiar? It should. It's straight out of the buddy-comedy formula handbook. Sometimes, the performances can make the movie with a standard story, such as "Lethal Weapon." No! There is nothing new here. The plot is so dumb, with Villard trying to retrieve a stash of diamonds and Hatchett trying to get them before the criminals do. As a result, it becomes an excuse for Tucker to do his comedy routine and act like an idiot.
You may remember Tucker from "The Fifth Element" a few months ago. He plays the same annoying character here as he did in that movie. Except this time, he seems to be trying to act because he has more of a character to develop, which he doesn't. He uses improvisation by mostly threatening to knock everyone out in a rant style. "Who do you think you messing with?" Only to get punched, and he says, "Alright, you win." "Alright. I'm a stop."
Russell gets fired from Channel 12, and Hatchett is fingered as the mastermind for the prison break. Anyone with eyes could see that Hatchett doesn't have the skill to pull off the escape. Yet, the news mentions the terrorist who escaped. You think he might have had something to do with it? No, because a manhunt ensures for Hatchett, and he turns to Sheen for protection.
Seeing an opportunity to get his job back during "sweeps week," Russell hides out Hatchett at his girlfriend's parent's house when his name gets on the news as a wanted fugitive. Grace's dad, Guy ( Paul Sorvino,) is so dumb he thinks Hatchett is Vic Damone Jr. Her mother (Veronica Cartwright) is an alcoholic and the most thankless role in the movie. James's fiance, Grace (Heather Locklear,) is a daddy's girl, nothing more, and of course, it doesn't feel like anything because there is no chemistry between James and Grace.
Where the movie does pick up some steam is towards the end. It's a full-blown shootout on a Football field where a dirty detective is revealed, and it's no surprise because you see it coming early in the film when he first appears. You're not left with anything but sparks flying and endless banter. However, Hatchett's friend Aaron (Michael Wright) sits in the stands, with his hulking henchman and shoots at everybody. They even have fun, humorlessly blowing the place up with an RPG. Why could he be in the film more?
If you are expecting a twist ending, stop thinking so hard because it's exactly what you've come to expect. Sheen and Tucker are friends after an hour and a half, and the movie has left us with stupid comedy gags, useless prop characters, flat writing, and a stock standard action comedy story we have seen countless times with the black and the white guy. Only this time, Sheen looks like he wants to jump in the river for most of the movie and never moves past the pissed-off guy with a scowl.
"Money Talks" is useless in every aspect, from Sheen to Tucker to the story. Tucker can't help himself when he goes on verbal rants and has the thankless task of trying to be taken seriously. It's the kind of stupidity that begs for laughs, and none of it is funny. You can see the intelligence in Tucker when he shuts up for a moment, and that cheesy smile is enough to pull you in, but what he is capable of, I'm not too sure what that is yet.
4/10.
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Lethal Riggs
"Lethal Weapon 2" is a sequel that doesn't feel forced and, in some ways, is better than the original masterpiece. "Lethal Weapon" was a friendship between two very different people, and played on the fact that they were both in Vietnam, changed their lives, and Martian Riggs (Mel Gibson) was a killer who had to come to terms with the horrors in his head, It was about their friendship, and it felt like two torn men finding a new meaning to exist and trust among one another.
It opens with Murtaugh and Riggs in a shootout, chasing after a car. Murtaugh is driving his wife's new station wagon, and his constant fear of his wife is hilarious, fearing she'll catch him doing something stupid. Captain Murphy (Steve Kahan) listens in on the car chase at the station, and the officers start placing bets when they find out about the station wagon. Aside from the violent tone, the film is funny.
Of course, Riggs gets in the driver's seat, and the car gets smashed to hell. When the side mirrors come off, the look on Murtaugh's face is humourlessly fantastic. The car gets severely damaged throughout the movie and is a constant source of humour even when it loses the back door. Riggs discovers the getaway car's trunk is full of Krugerrands (South African money.)
Riggs lives in his trailer near the beach, and Murtaugh is still the family man. His kids are older and tease him about getting older, something he begins to feel, and, he starts thinking about retirement. Captain Murphy assigns them to babysit a pipsqueak informant Leo Getz, (Joe Pesci,) who never shuts up and, is going to turn state evidence. Riggs and Murtaugh, find themselves up against a ruthless gang of South African Diplomats, who are dealing illegal gold when they stumble onto the scheme with Leo's help.
Mr. Rudd (Joss Ackland) is not happy about the money, being seized, and orders his hitman, Vorstedt (Derrick O'Connor,) to send Murtaugh a warning. Leo was an accountant for Rudd, and he figured out a way to launder half a billion dollars in illegal drug money and, even more, found a way to cheat the system and get tax deductions. When the cops go to apprehend him, Rudd invokes Dimpolmatic immunity to hide, and they are told to leave the case alone.
Riggs is the main focus of the movie when he catches the eye of Rika (Patsy Kensit) and begins to harass Rudd with humorous results. Rika hates her boss and doesn't follow his views on race. Riggs has Murtaugh create a scene at the consulate so he can sneak in, and it's hilarious in a way only Glover can pull off. Leo asks "Alfonse" if he wants to go to South Africa during Apartheid, and, oh my, is it ever funny.
While the comedy hits in the right moments, there is a dark tone like the original film, and the villains steal the show and cause tension. Vorstedt murders all the officers investigating them, Rigg and Murtaugh's friends, and they declare war on the LAPD, while Rudd attempts to ship the money from his money laundering scheme from the United States to Cape Town, South Africa.
The darkest scene in the movie, and I won't spoil it, will have you on the edge. Riggs finds something out, and it sets an unnerving tone because they have a connection to him, "I'm the one who changed the course of your life mate." Riggs discovers why they are after him, and it's riveting when something gets revealed and tragedy strikes. Riggs becomes an animal, and Gibson smashes the performance.
Riggs and Murtaugh, expectedly, crash the gateway on Rudd's boat, and Riggs finds himself in front of someone with a violent score to settle. Screenwriter Shane Black, who wrote the original, knows where to go with these characters, and Director Richard Donner knows what to do with them. Effectively, he knows how to use them in elaborate action sequences and, how to draw them right in the center of the story, and this avoids a re-trend when Black knows how to write a story that ties to the original.
"Lethal Weapon 2" balances the comedy and the action while retraining its violent tone. Peschi adds a charming element, but when the cops start getting killed, it adds a sense of danger to the movie that carries throughout the last half, and it doesn't let up until the sparks fly. It also shows the side of Riggs we have seen before, but It shows Murtaugh finally understanding why Riggs can be so violent.
9/10.
Mimic (1997)
Aggressively Scary and Unnerving - Best of 1997
Kids in New York City, are dying from Stickler disease, and cockroaches spreading the disease are the cause. Dr. Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino,) uses genetics and creates a new breed of bugs called "Judas," a hybrid between a mantis, and a termite that can mimic cockroaches and, the opening establishes that the bugs are meant to die off in a few months. The effective atmosphere, from visionary director Guillermo Del Toro, adds a disturbing texture that makes everything stylish in "Mimic," one of the most aggressively scary and best films of the year.
It opens with Dr. Peter Mann's (Jeremy Northam,) deputy director of the CDC hiring, Susan, to combat the bug problem. She designs the new bug, and, it's effective in New York City wiping out the disease. The opening is a bit flimsy, but established enough that we have an idea of the movie we're in for. Three years pass, and Susan, an Entomologist, is sold a box by two local boys with a "weird bug" inside. She discovers the bug has DNA from the "Judas," which alarms her because the bugs she released were all female since they were supposed to die, which would have ensured they wouldn't live another generation.
Turns out, the bugs evolved. A priest is dragged underground, and a little boy, Chuy (Alexander Goodwin,) witnesses the ordeal. He has a set of spoons that he uses to Mimic the screech that the bugs make. He refers to the attacker as "Mr. Funny Shoes." His guardian, Manny (Giancarlo Giannini,) a subway shoe shiner, disbelieves him. Before she can examine the specimen further, it's stolen from her lab.
Del Toro creates an abandoned Subway Station as the centrepiece of the film and, it is spooky with flickering lights and claustrophobic hallways. While looking for more bugs in the subway, the two boys are killed by the same assistant when they find an egg sack and try to escape. Chuy is soon kidnapped, and Susan discovers something standing, in a trench coat with a human-looking face. She realizes it's the Mantis-like "Judas Bug," that hauls her off, and she gets captured and disappears down the lower levels of the subway station. These scenes are the suspenseful moments that build throughout the film, leading to effective payoffs.
Down in the dark, She discovers the "Judas" bugs are alive and that screwing with genetics was probably not the best option. Dr. Peter, his assistant Josh (Josh Brolin) and MTA Officer Leonard (Charles S. Dutton) unknowingly, venture down into the subway to look for clues. They get stuck, down in the tunnels, and the sense of danger is thrilling. These bugs are your typical villains that "feel dangerous," they are. Yes, they are a genetic experiment, but they come off as violent when they try to smash a train cart that becomes a safe haven where most of the movie plays out.
Dr. Susan explains that she accelerated the "Judas Breed," metabolism allowing them to reproduce at an accelerated rate, causing them to evolve over thousands of generations, and they have developed the ability to mimic their human prey. The bugs have lungs, and Peter, explains "Biology 101. Insects don't have lungs." The dialogue is thrilling, and it ramps up the suspense when they deduce that their experiment, will try anyway to kill them, and Del Toro has the audience right where he wants them.
Susan gets the idea to fire up the subway cart to escape, and Del Toro uses their fear to raise the tension, and Manny shows up looking for his kid. Susan pulls out two pictures and realizes that when, they're put together, they makes the quasi-face of a human-sized roach. Del Toro pulls the camera back, and we feel the loneliness everyone gets stuck in.
Where the tension ramps to its fullest is, when Peter decides to stop the bugs, and he sends Susan up an elevator while she screams at him. He finds himself trapped in a room where one single noise will get him killed. The explosions start, and the "villain" appears, and we do not see much of him, but it's fine, because we've seen the Roaches enough. It's the chaotic scenes that lead to his appearance behind someone, that holds the tension high towards the end of the film.
"Mimic" takes what might be an old concept and breathes new life into it. Del Toro is a director with a visual style that has a way of drawing the audience into the world he creates. Mira Sorvino is fantastic as Susan, and she and Peter have to get creative if they're going to live, and the danger feels real. Every shot is suspenseful, and Del Toro, relying on the darkness to create fear, is brilliant.
10/10.
Air Bud (1997)
No Game
"Air Bud" is supposed to be a family-friendly movie, but it has one of the cruellest openings I have ever seen. A golden retriever is in the back of a truck, and Norm (Michael Jetter,) dressed like a clown, makes an ass out of himself at a kid's birthday party. He looks like he just got released from prison. His truck bellows smoke and backfires. He is an idiot, and his idiocy is supposed to be a point of laughter when he rips his truck door off and jumps on it like a kid, but how do you laugh at this idiot when he is abusive towards the animal?
Josh (Kevin Zegers) is depressed because his father recently passed away, so he moves with his mother Jackie (Wendy Makkena) and sister Andrea (Mather Twins) to a small town where he becomes the outcast at the local school. He lacks the confidence to try out for the school basketball team, but the school janitor Arthur Chaney (Bill Cobbs,) who used to be a player for the New York Knicks in the 1950s) takes on the typical role of someone who inspires the depressed kid.
Josh starts shooting hoops at an old abandoned church when he discovers the golden retriever. He names the dog Buddy and hides him in his mother's house. Of course, Wendy discovers the animal and allows him to keep it if he puts up missing flyers. Josh discovers Buddy can bunt basketball, and the underdog team will become the hero team, in the end. Buddy can somehow enter Josh's 2nd-floor bedroom window, walk across the roof, and nobody sees him. On the court, he turns out to be a star when he never misses a shot and bunts the ball into the net every time.
Norm is barely in the movie, and that's a good thing. He is not someone kids should be seeing, as an abusive grumpy alcoholic who physically abuses the dog, and I find it absurd that the director would show this in a family-friendly movie with themes of abuse strong even to make adults shutter. Director Charles Martin Smith doesn't seem to know how to balance the two elements because you see the couch aggressively throwing balls at a student to the point when the child looks stunningly abused. The principal intervenes, and you hear he was fired, but why, do we have to see this? Norm Sneverly is enough. It's an excuse for Bill Cobbs to come back on screen and couch the team. How he goes from a famous Basketball player to a janitor is never explored.
Cobbs tries to teach the boys skills and confidence, and the kid of the Elmer Fud father throws a tartan, and Fud movies his kid, the school bully, to another team in two states over. What? Okay, so Josh becomes the team manager, and the dog is, by his side. It's preposterous, but since this is a kid's movie about loss and companionship, seeing the dog, is what is supposed to bring the smiles.
Norm eventually returns when he discovers the dog is a star and wants him back. He comes off as a creep when he leans up behind Wnedy and asks for the dog. The dog growls at him, and you see him dragging the animal by the collar in an abusive manner, and the cops aren't called? Everyone in the neighbourhood shuts their blinds? Again, why do kids need to see this?
Surprisingly, it has a serious tone that doesn't work because it gives the film a dreary sense due to how psychotic Norm is. When he discovers the dog being rescued, he chases after Josh and Buddy and tries to run them down. His truck falling apart is supposed to be funny, and, it is, but, he smashes through monuments, destroying property, and no cops appear? When the wheel pops off, he floors it into the lake. These are funny slapstick moments, but the unbalanced tone stops the movie from being funny.
The last fifteen minutes of the movie, are absurd when Norm decides to take everyone to court over ownership of the dog. He waltzes into the courtroom dressed as a clown, spouts garbage, and the judge says, "You look like an idiot." The judge, played by Eric Christmas, is reduced to a snivelling cameo where he can't put two sentences together. Every time he bangs the gavel, the dog barks, and, this is supposed to be funny.
There are moments where the dog and the kid bond, and it's cute, but it doesn't take away the fact that "Air Bud" has a mean spirit, and a gloom over it that kids may find unnerving. The scenes with the dog wearing shoes and playing ball are cute, but the depressing, and alarming tone is not something kids should see in a family movie.
1/10.
Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997)
No Rescue Needed!
"Free Willy 3: The Rescue," is a pointless sequel that retreads the original with Willy being in danger. "The Rescue" in the title is exactly what it is, with Willy needing Jessie to save him, and It feels underwhelming. At the heart of the movie is Max (Vincent Berry,) a grade school kid who, feels like Jesse from the original film; a lonely and lost kid, but it's not taken very far. His father, John (Patrick Kilpatrick,) is a whaler, and when Max gets to go out on his father's boat, he becomes sad when he discovers his father illegally hunts whales.
Jessie (James James Rictor) is sixteen, now and works as a researcher on Noah, a research boat, with Randolph (August Schellenberg. Oceanographer Drew (Annie Corley) takes a liking to Jessie. He signs on for a summer internship where he plays harmonic whale noises to bring Willy to him. It brings the whalers, who do a good job of hiding what they are doing, and Jesse in the usual scenario where he needs to find evidence, and he'll get himself into preposterous trouble trying to bring them in.
John doesn't have any chemistry with Max, and he says "I'll teach you everything I know." He explains to Max that he misses the days when hunting whales meant bringing light to the world." with oil lamps. He gets $200 a pound, for whale meat. He explains that he comes from a long line of whalers, and he, wants Max to follow him but doesn't seem to see that Max is distraught throughout the movie. There is no meaning between any of them. John is focused on one thing, and Max is an afterthought until the screenplay says, "Put them together in this scene."
Meanwhile, Jessie tags Orcas, while whalers lock on to the signal and use it to bring the whales to them. Max falls overboard and has a magical moment with Willy underwater where he decides what his dad is doing is wrong, and John refuses to listen. None of it feels cohesive, and feels like it's thrown together, with bland and garbage photography, because the producers had to release another movie.
When the whalers attack, we are supposed to feel the tension, but it's garbage because this is a family-friendly movie, and John misses it every time. Of course, he does! There is no sense of danger throughout the movie if there is supposed to be. We don't see much from Jesse or Max, but neither character feels like they are here for a purpose other than to tell another story nobody asked for.
Jesse tries to convince Max that what his dad is doing is wrong, and Max knows this but won't say anything until Jesse takes him out to meet Willy. He never even mentions that he fell in the water and saw him. Of course, when John finds out his son doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, he becomes hard-pressed to defend what he does, telling him it's put a roof over his head. Of course, there is going to be a resolve, and it's a bland conversation about mortality that Max doesn't seem to understand because he is a kid.
Jesse sneaks aboard John's boat, in an attempt, to find evidence, while Randolph tries to get funny in a bar. I thought Jesse was, going to get caught, but no, he doesn't. Instead, Max finds him and decides it's time to stop his dad after being quiet for most of the movie before Willy magically appears to get shot at for the final scenes of the movie.
There is no doubt kids will like "Free Willy 3: The Rescue," the squeak of Willy is enough to make them smile, but the movie, itself, doesn't tell a strong enough story and falls apart when the characters do nothing, and everything feels like an afterthought when the story is a campaign ad for "Save the Whales," instead, of putting heart behind It. There is nothing smart because screenwriter, John Mattson didn't care. Yet, he wrote the last movie so I'm confused! The oil spill in "Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home," was much smarter and gave the movie a sense of danger, not this time around, and it's a disappointing conclusion to the trilogy.
4/10.
G.I. Jane (1997)
Meet Lt. Jordan O'Neil
While sitting in a bathtub, Lt. Jordan O'Neil (Demi Morre) tells her husband, Lieutenant Commander Harper (Jason Beghe,) "I'm not interested in being a poster girl for women's rights." He says to her, "They will eat cornflakes out of your skull." She is a Naval intelligence officer chosen, to become a U. S. Navy SEAL, a training so brutal that 60% of most men don't make it.
A Senate Arms Committee led by Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft) wants to understand why the U. S. military is not gender-neutral and women, are treated differently. "I'm deeply unconcerned about the future of women in the Military." She grills the Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Hayes (Daniel von Bargen,) over comments made about a female Sailor. He agrees to DeHaven's request: If women live up to the men in a series of test cases, the Military will fully integrate women in six years. Haye's committee chooses SEAL training, "I don't care how tough you are. No woman will last a week," one of the commanders says.
Jordan O'Neil is a tough, and fierce woman who works at Navel Intelligence in Washington D. C. She wants to see change because she was not allowed in the Gulf War, but her husband was, and he is wearing more ribbons. She drives to Senator DeHaven's house when she, is briefed on the candidacy. Behind the scenes, nobody wants to see her succeed. Only her husband, but he becomes worried.
Captain Salem (Scott Wilson) speaks to the trainees before it begins and makes it clear that most men do not make this course. He is another character who doesn't want a woman on his training base and despises the idea. However, he does show her respect when she says she wants to be like everyone else, "Just treat me the same, no better, no less."
O'Niel joins a group of trainees where some don't care, and some seem to want to make sure, she doesn't succeed because she is a woman. I didn't understand this, but the ending balances it out as it doesn't let the movie make O'Neil "the woman." It very much allows us to see O'Neil without feeling forced. She shivers in cold water, soaking wet and eating out of a garbage can, pushes ship fenders up giant beach dunes, and writes essays while dead tired. All under the brutal direction of unmerciful Commander Master Chief John James Urgaylel (Viggo Mortenson.) as she starts hell week. "Pain is your friend, your ally, it lets you know you're not dead yet," he tells them.
O'Neil runs 20-hour days of tasks designed to break down the recruits. Instructor Johns (David Warshofsky) and Instructor Pyro (Kevin Cage,) Urgaylels, second in command, run most of the drills. Particularly one where O'Neil runs an obstacle course, and one of the trainees Cortez (David Vadim,) drops near a wall, and something happens that further hinders the men against her. She discovers she was given a 30-second headstart called "gender norming." and she gets pissed off. Even though she outranks Urgayle, on the beach, he is in charge of the training.
In the middle of the sandbar, is a bell that signals you quit when rang. "I always like to get one quitter on the first day, and until I do, that first day does not end." Urgayle is interesting because he sees something in O'Neil but won't let himself say so. He has depth and integrity to him. On trainee snickers when we meet him, and he quickly walks over to him, takes his sunglasses off and, says "The ebb and flow of the tide, the sun, these are just a few things that I control in my world." If they piss him off, it will be hell to pay.
Most of the movie consists of O'Neil in training sequences, and director Ridley Scott brings affirmative attention to the direction that focuses on Jordan without focusing on the fact that she is a woman in a "man's world." Moore proves that she is focused and effective, and proves she can make it work by not portraying her as sexually charged or a feminist out to prove a point. Her co-trainees warm up to her and, is expected. But it's how Jordon earns their respect that makes the movie exciting.
Jordan gets to the point in training where the Military starts to get wind that she is succeeding, and they become nervous at the fact. Secretary Hayes can't seem to wrap his arrogant head around how Jordan has gotten as far as she has, and the real villain of the film, yes, there is a villain, rears her face, and you see another side of Jordan when she refuses to give in. I won't reveal the ending of the movie, but it chooses courage and survival over the inspired politics and corruption when the plot demands that Jordan fail.
Demi Moore portrays O'Neil in "G. I. Jane" with courage, strength and fierce determination. A woman's ambition must be, taken into context when it comes to combat, besides trying to prove that a woman coming home in a body bag is just as important as a man. DeHaven tells Jordan, "No politician can allow women to come home in body bags. Especially me." Jordan says, "What are you saying? That a woman's death is more hurtful than a man's?" The movie answers that question through O'Neil.
8/10.
Life (1999)
Cornbread - Best of 1999
Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence stars are wrongfully convicted men in "Life," a blissfully funny and surprisingly serious comedy that opens in 1932. Ray (Murphy) and Claude (Lawrence) are two New Yorkers who spend their adult lives on a Mississippi prison farm for a crime they didn't commit. What makes the movie funny is how they deal with the situation among a gaggle of black prisoners on the farm including Jangle Leg (Bernie Mac) and Goldmouth (Michael Taliferro,) who likes cornbread.
Ray is a thief who runs afoul of club owner Spanky (Rick James,) and straight-laced Claude is about to start a new job as a bank teller when Ray pickpockets Claude leaving him with an unpaid tab in Spanky's club. They are taken by Spanky and Claude is humorously dunked. Ray makes a deal with Spanky to smuggle hooch from Mississippi and they find themselves in some very bad luck.
On the way to get the hooch, Ray is the mouthpiece, and Claude is the cautious one, knowing they live in a segregated world when they walk into a diner for pie, and the waitress pulls a shotgun on them because it's a whites-only diner. When they get the liquor, Ray loses all his money in the local bar to a cheat Hancock (Clarence Williams III.) He loses his dad's watch, and when he goes to confront the cheat, a racist white cop shoots the schemer dead, and they are found near the body. Ray and Claude are framed for the racist crime and given life sentences.
Although the movie is funny, the serious tone plays on the heartstrings of the painful existence these men are faced with, and through director Ted Demme's excellent direction to Eddie Murphy's lead, it makes the prison setting surprisingly pleasant where the humour shines in the right moments but also tests the friendship of these two men who know if one thing didn't happen, they wouldn't be there, but Ray refuses to take responsibly for all of his actions, leading to humourous consequences. It's how these men need each other and deal with the sorrows of the situation, they are in.
Most of the movie takes place at the prison where Sargeant Dillard (Nick Cassavetes) runs the show with his trigger-happy gun nut, "Hoppin" Bob (Brent Jennings.) Cassavetes smashes the role of someone sympathetic to the prisoner's woes but also lays down the law; in a civil way. Life settles down in the prison, and the prisoners play baseball, and talent shows and have BBQ. Bokkem Woodbine plays "Can Get Right," a retarted prisoner who smashes homers every time he plays baseball and takes a keen interest in the superintendent's daughter, which leads to hilarious results. Ray and Claude become his managers hoping to get a pardon when he is recruited by the Negro league, but it backfires, and you see the two men still suffering for a crime they didn't commit.
As time goes on and the "real" world begins to fade, the prisoners these two men have spent time with since 1944 slowly, begin to fade away, showing the passage of time. It's one of the more heartfelt scenes in the film and unexpected to see, but uplifting because it shows these men weren't just throw-away characters. In 1972, Claude gets to drive the Warden (Ned Beatty) into the nearby city, much to the chagrin of Ray, who hasn't changed. Claude sees the world in the 1970s, from Hippie Afros to boomboxes playing music, and he doesn't understand it.
Through the wonders of makeup, Ray and Claude gradually age, but they still dream of escaping while acting like they don't get along, although they have grown close and are all each other has had for forty years. But, what would they do after being in prison for so long? That prison life has its consolations, and it's what built their friendship, even if it was under nefarious circumstances. That there is still a chance for freedom? These are the questions the movie asks, and some are answered, and some are not, but it doesn't matter because Murphy and Lawrence are brilliant in the roles and, it is enough to carry the movie along.
"Life" is about friendship and how circumstances keep that friendship together, not the social issues of the White South. It shows an era where the black man was unfairly treated, and it does it honestly and heartbreakingly. You see how reverse history became as the years went on, but its main focus is these two men and what they go through, and by the end, they are sitting eating hotdogs with only time left.
10/10.
Event Horizon (1997)
Extremely Violent Geek Show
"Event Horizon" is an "extremely violent geek show" where a high-tech spacecraft called "The Event Horizon" reappears in 2047 near Neptune after disappearing seven years before. Where did it go? Even the rescue crew dispatched to retrieve it doesn't know. Dr. Weir (Sam Neil) is the one who designed the ship, and he joins the rescue crew to retrieve it from the vat of space. As the rescue ship, Lewis and Clark, gets closer, its sensors go haywire, indicating the temperature is very cold, and there are no signs of human life but signs of another form of life on board.
On board, Lewis & Clark is Captian Miller (Laurence Fishburne,) Communication expert Starck (Joey Richardson,) Medical Technician (Kathleen Quinlan,) Rescue Technician Cooper (Rochard T. Jones, Engineer Justin (Jack Noseworthy, Doctor D. J. (Jason Isaacs) and Pilot Smitty (Peter Marinker.) When the Lewis and Clark approach the Event Horizon through the stormy atmospheres of Neptune, it is a sight to behold with the winds and lighting, but when Starck scans for life forms and picks up whatever form of life from wherever the ship travelled to, we're left to assume because it's never told or resolved.
Dr. Weir explains to them that the Event Horizon has a gravity drive, something he designed to fold space and time. One of the crew members approaches the gravity drive while liquid mercury floats in zero gravity. He gets sucked into the drive, and when he returns, he babbles, "It shows you things--horrible things. I won't go back there!'' He convulses and becomes catatonic. So, is it a gateway directly to hell? Perhaps! Perhaps Dr Weir has the answers because he becomes disoriented, with either the drive or whatever life force is on board.
Dr. Weir seems to know what happened to the ship but constantly tells Captain Miller, "I don't know." He explains to them that he believes the gravity drive, which looks like a metal globe with three rings spinning around it and lights up like a spaceship, created a black hole, and the ship slipped through it and went to hell. When it returned, it brought back a life force that has now taken over the research vessel.
Dr. Weir explains to them with the expository, "This is what's going on," scene by taking a piece of paper and showing them how far from one edge to, another then he folds it in half so the two edges touch. If you don't get what that means, the crew doesn't either. I guess quantum theory was not a part of the script. The crew doesn't seem to know what he is explaining because "Event Horizon" is not a movie that answers any questions and is all style and special effects with composite shots that are too obvious in the editing.
When the crew begins experiencing hallucinations of what seems to be their worst fears, Miller sees a crew member he was forced to abandon who burned to death, Peters sees her son covered in blisters on his legs, and Dr. Weir sees his wife with her eyes gouged out. Even more grotesque, they discover a video of the original crew in various positions, with barbed wire and mutilation, shortly after they engaged the gravity drive. Peters becomes distorted when she realizes her son is not on the medical table and wonders what the hell just happened. The movie uses moments like these to induce shock and false alarms.
It becomes a race against time to repair the Lewis and Clark when the mysterious unknown force tries to blow it up and sends the crew into wack situations with gore galore. Cooper repairs the ship from the outside, and the visuals are wonderful. He attempts to repair the hull, and I won't give the ending away, but someone becomes the "villain," of the film, and it never explains why. He appears disturbingly mutilated at one point, and it makes you wonder what his motive was all along.
"Event Horizon" opts for shocking and gruesome violence instead of telling a coherent story. Its message seems to be about venturing into the unknown and the consequences of exploring deep space. The gravity drive is the plot device that's supposed to make the film stand on its own two feet, but none of the characters know what's going on or figure out what's going on. We don't learn anything about the life force. But visuals of characters being killed one by one in increasingly violent ways, including one character being flayed open, seemed to be more important
3/10.
Cop Land (1997)
NYPD in Jersey
Sylvester Stallone leads an all-star-studded cast in one of his best leads in a long time in "Cop Land," a crime thriller with neon-noir elements, where a small cadre of cops turn out to be corrupt and live in the small town of Garrison, New Jersey under the watchful eye of Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) who looks the other way at their crimes. Strangely, he is the only character developed while the rest circle around their corruption.
Harvey Keitel is Ray Donlan, head of the cop's unit, who is connected and runs the show. Due to the cops taking on jobs as Transit authority, they get around the requirements in the city but are NYPD in Jersey. How this comes about is interesting, but the screenplay is unbalanced, the characters are all over the place, and the movie becomes unclear about what it wants to do.
It opens with Officer "Superboy" Babitch (Michael Rapaport,) a rookie driving drunk. Two black men drive by, and he thinks he sees a rifle, so he fires and kills the two kids, but the gun is gone. When one of Ray's men, Officer Rucker (Robert Patrick,) tries to plant a machine gun, is caught and gets into a fight with a white paramedic, Ray convinces Babitch to fake his suicide and yells, "Omg, he jumped." But no body is found. Working with Freddy is Cindy (Janeane Garofolo,) who pulls Ray over, and he talks down to her. Freddy lets him go, but not before he sees a cop in the backseat that everyone thinks is dead.
Freddy looks the other way at their crimes, and we never learn why. He wants to be a cop, but he can't get on the force because of an incident where he damaged one of his ears and is half deaf. Ray and his cohorts don't take him seriously and treat him like garbage whenever Freddy tries to do his job. Freddy idolizes Ray and looks out for him until he realizes, he is not a "real cop" in their eyes, and it takes him three-quarters of the movie to see it.
Early in the film, through flashbacks, Freddy dove into the water to save Liz (Annabella Sciorra) when he was younger, and now she is married to one of the bad cops, Randone (Peter Berg.) Freddy frequently visits her, but their storyline goes nowhere. Because he saved Liz and went half deaf, is why, he is stuck as the small-town sheriff settling domestic disturbances. Cathy Moriarty plays a typical role as the sleezebag wife, Rose. Randone is cheating on his wife with her, and she plays a small role in the plot.
One of the biggest problems is De Niro's character, Moe Tilden, who is an IAB officer, and he knows Ray is dirty and wants to put him away. Another cop, Figgis (Ray Liotta,) holds a grudge against Ray because he knows Ray is a killer and will kill his own if the game is coming undone. These storylines go back and forth with these guys for three-quarters of the movie. De Niro has a total of three scenes, and none of it goes anywhere other than this cop did this, and this other cop is pissed off.
Stallone gets drunk in the opening and smashes up a squad car. It's never mentioned again that maybe he has an alcohol problem, except when they ask him what happened to his nose due to a bandage. Instead, he wishes he married Liz and sulks about it. Nothing further is developed between them. However, he is the closest thing in the movie that is stable. Everyone else becomes a who's who, and by the end, I couldn't remember who Robert Patrick played or why. Nothing is convincing, and the romance between Freddy and Liz is unconvincing.
At the heart of the film is Ray making the rookie cop disappear, and everything spinning out of control. Keitel is a powerhouse but seems to play off the idea that he is untouchable, which leads to stupid decisions. Everyone is either looking for the rookie cop or thinks he is dead, and Ray has the kid alive at a house, partying, so an X number of people can see he is still alive. What is the movie, and what are we supposed to care about? The kid hides out in the city, and the corrupt cops begin to tear themselves apart, and the story about the rookie cop becomes a plot device for another character that I didn't see coming.
"Cop Land" is an engaging thriller with strong performances, but it doesn't come off as anything special. It starts to feel like Harvey Keitel is that corrupt character we have seen before, and we get the idea where the movie is going, because of him, but It's too bad the film couldn't focus on one story. Instead, it has to be three stories in one, and they can't seem to come together long enough, and the result is stellar performances in a movie with too much going on.
5/10.
George of the Jungle (1997)
George and Ursula
"George of the Jungle" is built on pratfalls, slapstick and stupidity, but one thing kids will find funny is George slamming into trees. George (Brandon Fraser) is a Tarzan child raised in the Jungle by a sapient Ape named Ape (voiced by John Cleese.) His wildlife friends include his pet Elephant Shep, who fetches sticks and acts like a dog. Tookie is his Toucan bird, and they live in a tree house in the African Jungle. This spoof of Tarzan is a movie dumbed down for kids with sound effects and bonks on the head that kids may find funny in the jungle scenes. City scenes, not so much.
While touring through the jungle, Ursula (Leslie Mann) and tour guide Kwame (Richard Roundtree) encounter her rich and spoiled finance Lyle (Thomas Haden Church,) and the tour guide porters make fun of him for being spoiled and stupid. The two take a walk into the jungle and, are attacked by a Lion. Lyle knocks himself out, and Ursula is saved by George, when he swings down from his vine, but not before smashing into another tree. Ursula is taken to the tree house and, she begins to fall in love with what the Porters call "The White Ape Man," a local legend about a superhuman primate that lives on Ape Mountain.
Ape, named Ape, is the main draw of the movie. He acts like a British Butler to George, and his voice is so poorly dubbed, that it feels out of place. He looks down with his glasses at people and educates George about Ursula when he sees things on her he has never seen before. This revelation is worth a bit of a chuckle because they throw adult humour that kids will not pick up on in a movie that has an elephant pissing on people three times and George tripping over his own feet to make kids laugh with the most annoying bonks and squeaks. "George, not feel good," George, swing from tree," George, of Jungle, have Dog fetch stick."
Fraser has fun with the role of George and is sometimes pretty funny. He is bulked up and shiny and wears a loincloth accordingly. He doesn't seem to have any IQ, but he knows the Jungle. Lyle is an annoying idiot and self-absorbed. He does something stupid and winds up in an African jail so Ursula can romance George, and she takes him to California. These scenes don't quite connect, and it becomes a fish out of water story with George standing nude in front of Ursula and her friend, Betsy (Kelly Miller,) because he doesn't know what clothes are, and her friends seem to bite her lip.
Since it's based on a cartoon character from the animated TV show from 1967, the movie is live-action but structured as a cartoon with ding noises, pratfalls with Lyle falling in an elephant dump, and the porters creating the scene, "Wait for it." The three come into the frame and throw their heads back, laughing, while the narrator, Keith Scott, sounds like he is five years old. "Nobody dies in this story, they just get really big booboos."
Ursala's overbearing and hysterical mother, Beatrice (Holland Taylor,) shows her face. Her self-absorbed nature demands to know where Lyle is because he is rich and she is shallow. She almost sinks the entire movie as she is loud, demanding and annoying. Most of the characters in the movie, undercut it because they are nothing but props. She attempts to imitate George to go back to the Jungle, leaving Ursala alone. George doesn't know anything about women, and she adds a mean spirit to the movie when she sees him as a "Jungle Man." Even her husband, Arthur (John Bennet Perry,) calls her a pain in the ass. George finds out that Ape, who is kidnapped by two idiots and runs off into the jungle to save him while Ape farts to make them run away, and that is the epitome of the movie. It's more embarrassing than it is pathetic.
"George of the Jungle" was made specifically for kids, and some adults might laugh at the humour Fraser brings to the character, and he is not a complete waste. The fact that they made the movie Cartoony with live action gives it a mixed feeling where you care for George, but he is stuck in a stupid movie, and you want to care for Ursula, but she brings nothing to care about and is a prop. Ultimately, the movie is a letdown because it resorts to crude humour, and, sadly, that is what kids are going to laugh at, instead of a movie, that is funny and smart.
3/10.
Hercules (1997)
Pain and Panic - Best of 1997
Disney's "Hercules" is a bright and colourful film for the whole family. It's a musical masterpiece that sees the origins of the titular character done with Disney's style of colourful animation, clever direction and fun characters. Disney outdoes itself with this movie, and it's wildly entertaining from beginning to end with a story about finding yourself. Its musical ques are from 4 gospel singers, The Muses, who narrate the movie through song. I did not expect a black female gospel group, but they add so much to the movie, and you know it's going to be good when you hear them sing the songs as the film opens.
Zeus (voiced by Rip Torn) rules Mount Olympus with his wife Hera (voiced by Samantha Eggar.) Together, they have a baby boy, and he becomes their pride and joy. The villain is blue-haired Hades (superbly voiced by James Wood,) who wants to take over Mount Olympus and free the captured Titans. Hades has his two minions, scheming Pain (voiced by Bob Goldthwait) and Panic (voiced by Matt Frewer,) turn Hercules mortal with a potion he must drink to the last drop. They comically fail, kidnap Hercules from the clouds of Olympus and hide him on Earth, hoping to hide their failure from Hades. Since Hercules becomes mortal, he has to learn how to become a hero to earn his way back to Olympus.
Hercules seeks out Phil, (voiced by Danny Devito,) "The trainer of heroes." He's a cranky old Satyr who seems to have worked with Zeus at some point. It makes you wonder how old Phil is. Devito has a blast with the role, and he nails it. Phil does become annoying at times, but to a kid, he's an old goat who is hyperactive and the comic foil for Pegasus's funny antics, Hercules's unicorn who will make them laugh. He teaches Hercules, who constantly tests his patients, and it's amusing.
Playing on Hades's team is Megara (voiced by Susan Egan,) who is tasked with seducing Hercules but falls in love with him. He saves her from Nessus, "The River Guardian" (voiced by Jim Cummings,) a centaur in a comical scene where Hercules tries to prove himself to attract Meg's attention. It' 's a big ruse from Hades, who hears a name that sends him over the falls. "Wait a minute, wasn't Hercules the name of the kid..." Both of them, yell "Oh god!"
You see the spirit in Meg with her bodacious curves and sharp attitude, but It's hard not to look at her as a bad guy. She tries to fool Hercules, and since he comes off as a muscle dummy more than anything, it seems easy. There is a reason for what she is doing, although, it's not a good one. The inevitable scenes where she realizes she made stupid mistakes and needs to fix what she has done is expected for a Disney movie.
Hercules's actions towards the end of the movie show his evolution as a character. Some of the earlier scenes in the movie, where he says, "I'm an action figure," to Zeus and squeaks a toy, show he has to learn who he is and, It's fun watching Hercules becoming a hero in a criminal-like city where a Hydra attacks (my favourite scenes in the movie) and when Hercules has to save the day when Hades attacks.
Some of the scenes in Hades's Underworld lair might be a bit too much for younger kids, and the animation makes it look like a feral dungeon where serial killers live. Hades is comical throughout the movie, and he lightens up some of the scenes but, towards the end, it gets intense. Hades unleashes the Titans, and a Cyclops with the intelligence of a wrench smashes through the city. Hercules has to find a way to stop the one-eyed monster, save the gods and send Hades where he belongs.
I had to stop and think throughout the movie, about how children will react to the subject matter. The mythology is so colourful, I think the scenes with Hades might make them quiver, but they will also find it amusing because Hades comes off as a big kid with anger issues. Wherever he gets mad, his flames turn red. Meg has a strange fate that is also questionable, but there is a fun story here that keeps the pace, of the film fine and shows kids what being a superhero is all about without being superficial. Disney's "Hercules" does not disappoint for a moment. How could it with Pain and Panic?
8/10.
Wild America (1997)
Inflated Adventure
"Wild America" is supposed to be a family-friendly movie set in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the summer of 1967, and it becomes an exercise in futility with an unanchored story when one of them gets the hair-brained idea to leave home to shoot wildlife videos. Based on the life of the Stouffer family, I doubt anything in this movie actually happened. The teenage trio Marshall (Johnathon Taylor Thomas,) Mark (Devon Sawa,) and Marty (Scott Bairstow) convince their strict father, Marty Sr. (James Sheridan,) and opportunistic Mother, Agnes (Francis Fisher), to let them set out, on an adventure that takes through one slogging stupid scene after another.
Johnathon Taylor Thomas narrates the story of life on a farm in their town where adventure seems to be limitless. Their father is a carburetor salesman, who has a strict hold over his sons and their mum, takes in animals and fights to have her say. Marty doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps, and his father sees his son's ideas as "not paying the bills." Of course, he's going to be proven wrong in the end, but the problem is that we are not because it feels like a scripted story that we are supposed to believe happened, and it becomes clear that it didn't when Taylor Thomas rides on the antlers of a Moose.
Their days consist of putting their younger brother, Marshall through, increasingly dangerous stunts involving chairs and a pool of water so they can capture what they see as cutting-edge danger. Marty convinces Mark to go on the adventure when they discover a movie camera in the shop where they get their film developed. Their father staunchly says, "It's not happening!" and, no surprise, he relents in the next scene, and they set off in a 1957 GMC suburban, with Marshall stowing away.
They set off on their adventure, with their endgame being to find a cave of hibernating Grizzly Bears. The series of events they go through to get there is an excuse for attempts to set up dumb and dangerous scenarios that are unbelievable, including the one with the Moose. Their mother finds out Marshall is with them and seems to be okay with the fact that her fifteen-year-old son, is going to put himself in dangerous situations as long as his brothers take care of him. Think about that!
They find themselves in a swamp and in an attempt for director William Dear to create suspense with a spooky atmosphere, which works. What doesn't work, is the preposterous attempt to retrieve something from a tree, and one of the brothers comes face to face with an alligator. These are the dangerous situations that make the movie bogus because we know these teenagers are not going to get eaten, and whatever danger they find themselves in, they will get out of it because the script says so.
One of the stupidest scenes occurs when they drive onto a US bomb site, by accident, because they, are told it's "The Devil's Playground," and begin filming a wolf. A series of F-4 Phantoms fly over, spot the boys and start firing missiles at them, leading to a series of explosions in an attempt for the director to heighten the tension. A herd of wild Horses comes charging towards them. They make it to the truck, of course, they do, just in time to get the camera rolling even though, they almost got blown up and trampled. These teenagers don't see the danger in what they put themselves in, and I didn't buy it.
Danny Glover appears in the film as a strange man who saves Marshall from a waterfall after a Moose carries him off, and he tells the brothers they are getting closer to the cave, never to be seen again. On the way, they meet a woman whose husband was killed by the Bears. She tries to tell them it's a bad idea but, they don't listen, and they find the cave set up like something out of a horror movie complete with rattlesnakes guarding the entrance. The bears look like giant stuffed animals, and it's hard to take seriously when the movie explains they are in the "high country," which explains why there is snow on the ground, and the bears, are awoken from their slumber in the summertime to snarl and try to attack them.
"Wild America" means well and has some interesting shots of wildlife footage, and the three leads do an okay job. But the story is so phony, with them in preposterous danger. One of the dumbest scenes involves one of the boys breaking his leg, and in the next scene, he is hobbling on a crutch into the cave. Taylor Thomas flies a plane in the movie's final scenes. What does that tell you? Everything comes up short for an inflated adventure that doesn't feel real at any given time.
3/10.
Contact (1997)
Foster's Search for SETI
"Contact," is a film based on a book by Carl Sagan, that aims to prove to us that Aliens exist, and it's a beautifully looking science-fiction gem. Jodie Foster leads the cast as Dr. Ellie Arroway, of Astro Science, who works for SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial l Intelligence.) We get to see this character evolve from a little girl who loved staring up at the stars to Foster's portrayal of Ellie, and it's nothing short of spectacular. A character who loves what she does, and Foster pulls it off flawlessly. The other key element of the film is Faith when Jake Busey shows up with long blonde hair and looks like Jesus. Director Robert Zemeckis creates an atmosphere of suspense and intelligent drama as Earth tries to make "First Contact" with an Alien race.
Dr. Ellie works at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and it's a sight to behold. Big arrays and satellites are incredible in their execution, attempting to find signs of life beyond Earth. Ellie started out listening with Ham radio, and her father (David Morse) was her biggest supporter until he, passes away when she is young. She listens for signals and sounds, any signs of Extraterrestrial Life, and she is confident she will find it.
As usual, there has to be an opposing force in the film. David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt) is an a*****e, cuts Ellie's funding off and takes all the credit for her work. Ellie finds funding elsewhere from S. R. Hadden (John Hurt) so, she can keep searching. Foster's performance is nothing short of focused, and we want to see her succeed.
Ellie forms a cautious relationship with a priest, Joss Palmer (Matthew McConaughey,) and, it's interesting how the sparks fly. The key Senior cast is played to the fullest, with brilliant minds clashing against narrow vision. James Woods is the National Security Advisor who wants to be smart but has trouble and fears for armageddon, and Security counsel Richard Rank (Rob Lowe) does nothing of interest. Faith is brought into the ordeal when the transmission goes public, they try to justify their politics about Science and National Defense, and it's to be expected, in a movie like this.
Where the movie takes a turn, is when the encrypted file is opened, and it contains plans for a machine, a spacecraft to send a single person to meet with an Alien on a planet called Vega. When Ellie attends congressional hearings where she is a candidate, she sees it as a life-changing opportunity. She wants to complete what she started, but it will come with a choice.
Despite her disbelief about the afterlife, she has always wanted to meet her mother, who died in childbirth and is, perhaps, what made her look up at the stars every night. Later, she was honoured as an Academic student and reaches Harvard to work with SETI, which is the catalyst of the movie. There is so much information about the SETI program, that begs to be talked about because of how important it actually is. The film challenges your ability to believe that science exists for a reason.
Matthew McConaughey has written books about Science and God, and this, somehow, allows him to turn up at random times throughout the movie and even surprise Ellie. He is invited to every high-level security meeting and asks Ellie questions about her faith and how much of that can be an influence on Science. Jake Busey shows up at random times as an Evangelist Christian with hidden motives that somehow manage to breach even the highest levels of Government security, but, he does serve a small purpose, even if it's just to be an opposition, met with a grim fate.
I was sucked into Ellie's world and Palmer, the Atheist and the believer, the conversations they have that don't feel forced but human, and it's a breath of freshness to hear these two talk about God and Science. They even go to bed once, which felt out of place, but it's short when she realizes that if she travels at the speed of light, no one will be alive when she returns, including Palmer.
I won't spoil what happens before and after Ellie goes through a wormhole, but it feels like an ending intended to impose questions when something unexpected happens, but there is some evidence to support her. She's met with skepticism, but 18 hours of static provides her with evidence that demands an answer, and the more you think about it, you get the idea that maybe the government knows Aliens exist and they will do anything to keep it covered up.
Jodie Foster takes on a role that defines her career as the most creative, and she explains the purpose of Science is to explain the truth about matters most don't understand, but her intelligence is key to figuring it out. She also knows that maybe some of the answers, out there are ones we don't want to know because of the dangers that may lie. However, that is the suspense of Science-Fiction and "Contact" gets it right with a thrilling story, and It's the intriguing idea behind one of the best films of the year.
8/10.
A Simple Wish (1997)
Stupid Magic
"A Simple Wish" is a family-friendly comedy about a young girl, Annabel (Mara Wilson,) who wishes for a Fairy Godmother to help her father, Oliver (Robert Pastroelli,) a New York City Carriage driver, win the lead role in a broadway musical "The Tales of Two Cities." Robert is wonderful in the movie for the little time he is on screen before he becomes a bronze statue in Central Park. How does this happen? Martin Short plays an incompetent Male Fairy Godmother named Murray, who answers Annabel's wish, and acts like a bumbling idiot attempting to make kids laugh, including causing the statue debacle, and none of it is funny.
Annabel tries to convince her brother, Charlie (Francis Capra,) fairy godmothers exist, but he is a dismissive jerk to his sister until the plot needs him to save the day. Capra was the kid from last year's horrid "Kazaam." the movie about Shaq as a rapping genie. If you don't remember, that's a good thing, but Capra plays the same character in this movie, right down to the same clothes, and he has a few scenes, but none of it matters.
Murray is treated with overlook because he is a male in a female-dominated world, and the film lays subtle hints at this but never fully embraces the concept because it's too busy with Murray spewing cheesy magic everything. When Murray casts a spell, he waves his arms around like an idiot, and kids won't find this funny. When he crashes into a wall or becomes flat as a pancake due to his stupidity, they might, but I doubt it because Short can't keep the role together for three-quarters of the movie. Only towards the end does the character have some seriousness, but it's beyond the point.
Murray leaves his wand behind when he appears behind a closet door in Annabel's bedroom because her wish has come true and, she attempts to get it back to him, but not before her brother breaks it, and she fuses it back together with popsicle sticks. What kid wouldn't? Annabel asks Murray to grant her a wish, and the broken wand winds them up in Nebraska when he tries to cast a travel spell. To fix the statue ordeal, he has to ask the head of the Fairy Godmother Association, Hortence (Ruby Dee,) for help.
Is Murray a Fairy Godmother? The movie can't make up its mind because he seems to have no idea what he is doing, and given the shenanigans at the beginning of the movie, it would make sense, but that aspect is gone near the end because he seems to have no problem with magic, and it feels contrived.
Annabel must break Murray's spell by midnight, or Oliver will be a statue forever, and the film villain arrives on cue. Claudia (Kathleen Turner) in a thankless role, and her assistant Boots (Amanda Plummer) crawling on the floor and acting like a dog. Claudia is trying to acquire every wand. She is a witch or something, who was cast out of the organization, not because she is evil, but because she is an idiot with a narrow-minded plot device whose subplot is out-of-place.
What I can't wrap my head around is that the film doesn't focus on the plot, which is the Broadway play Annabel wants her dad to be a part of. "A Simple Wish" is a kid's movie on autopilot, and you can figure out the ending because we need that happy one. It's the contrived nature of the film, that feels like nobody cared, and was thrown together for a few dollars with Short being a moron throughout, It's a shame when the lead role is Mara Wilson, and she is adorable but let down by a cheesy magic, bad VFX-infused movie that kids won't remember the next day.
2/10.
Nothing to Lose (1997)
Freaky Jason
"Nothing to Lose" is an absurd and contrived comedy about consequences and mistaken identity, and none of it is funny. Strangely, it has a serious tone that doesn't work because the film is bogged down by plot devices, attempting, to get a desperate laugh. Nick Beam (Tim Robbins) is a corporate executive who is about to have a bad when he comes home early to find his wife, Ann (Kelly Preston,) in bed with someone who we don't see. He finds a pair of cufflinks on the kitchen counter and assumes it's his boss. He puts on a frown, he becomes quiet, and T-Paul (Martian Lawrence) attempts to carjack him, but it doesn't go so well.
Angered about discovering someone in bed with his wife, Nick drives off into traffic, where he looks like he is going to do something stupid. He is unlikely carjacked when T-Paul puts a gun to his face and spells comedy routines by acting like Helen Kellar when Nick won't answer him. T-Paul is unemployed and trying to provide for his family. Later in the film, we see he is not a criminal. He's somewhat developed, but, it's through stupidity that we begin to see who T-Paul is. Nick is just the guy who is rethinking everything and looks as if he wants to lose it or he is so distraught, he doesn't know what to do.
Nick tells T-Paul, "You picked the wrong guy today," floors the gas and smashes his face into the dashboard. He takes T-Paul to a diner before throwing his wallet out the window. They find themselves in the middle of the Arizona desert, so the screenplay can turn into a road trip movie where Lawrence can create chaos by doing stupid things like robbing a gas station and having the cashier blow Nick's windows out with a shotgun while having conversations about each other's lives.
T-Paul tells him that he can get a job because he is a black man and America is racist, and Nick's life is built on being a corporate dummy, forgetting what matters, leaving the real world behind and T-Paul is the real world that Nick starts to see when he meets T-Paul's family. He has a girlfriend who is tired of his criminal garbage, and he has three kids and comes off as a great dad. Everything that Nick is missing, and the two form an unlikely friendship, but it feels so thrown together.
Giancarlo Esposito and John C. McGinley play two gas station robbers who conveniently show up to introduce villains, who trail Nick and T-Paul trying to rob them, and their manufactured scenes make the movie more ridiculous. Coincidentally, Nick decides to rob his boss as revenge with T-Paul and the two scrounge around the building attempting to get to his boss's safe, and the two criminals pop up whenever the screenplay needs them to. While investigating a noise, a security guard unleashes his disco spirit to flashing alarm lasers, and It feels out of place like someone thought it would be funny to stick the scene in there.
Nick decides to call his wife and confront her about the affair, and, of course, it's not what he thought. Overcome with remorse for all the stupid things he has done, he returns to T-Paul to find him in trouble because of the two criminals. The scene attempts to create suspense, but it doesn't work because It's supposed to be a comedy and a chair hanging over a balcony is an example of a plot centred around one situation where we know everything that will happen in the end.
Kelly Preston's character appears a few times throughout the movie, and when Nick returns home, she is a sweet lady we learn nothing about because she is a device to further the plot. She sees his truck busted to pieces, and Nick looks like he has been through hell. She asks Nick, "What happened?" His answer is dumb, and instead of feeling stupid, Nick puts a smile on his face because he is an idiot, with all his issues seemingly gone, only after he had been shot at and beaten up and threatened, burglaries and became friends with a not-so-scary criminal that tried to rob him.
"Nothing to Lose" loses itself in Its stupidity instead of focusing on the characters and who they are. It depends on an unconvincing misunderstanding that we know will work itself out in the end. Lawrence's hyperactive ranting makes the movie unbearable at times because he doesn't have a connection with Robbins other than attempting to be funny by being a volatile idiot. It makes us want to see a better movie with a screenplay that's not stitched together for the movie's sake.
4/10.