Tag: 0 out of 4

Wish Upon

Sometimes it is really hard to remember all the genre specific films that come out in a year. Especially 2017 and horror.

When did Wish Upon come out? I don’t remember. I might have gotten an invite, but I don’t remember. Did I choose to not go, or was there something better to watch? Who fucking knows!

But at the end of the year, Wish Upon was already out, and I gave it a check because of the name and I knew that some shitty horror films had to be out there as well. And our star was not used to the leading role, but she was used to some horror films, so there was potential.

Chickfight
I bet the word viral is used in this movie at least twice.

Clare Shannon (Joey King) is your typical high school outcast. Small group of friends (Sydney Park, Shannon Purser), into some weird hobbies, sort of poor, normal stuff. Here mom (Elisabeth Röhm) committed suicide when she was younger, which haunts her occasionally. Her dad (Ryan Phillippe) has an embarrassing trait where he likes to dumpster dive for treasure for friends, but really it just makes him a hoarder and their house is a disaster.

And then one day, he finds a Chinese box that looks cool and leaves it in her room. She only dabbles in the language, and can see that it has wish on it, so for the lolz, she wishes this bully girl at school (Josephine Langford) will just rot away. And lo and behold! She gets a disease on her face and doesn’t return to school. Hooray!

However, this wish box has a deadly side. Every time it grants a wish, an entity the wisher knows will die. And if the wishes ever get used up, their own soul will be taken as well. But she doesn’t know Chinese, let alone ancient! And her old friend (Ki Hong Lee) can only help her so much, especially if she doesn’t listen. Time to wish for stupid stuff, consequences be damned!

Also starring Mitchell Slaggert.

Box
Behold, foreign mysticism as your villainous holder of items!

A horror movies where wishes don’t go as expected? That isn’t new at all. But these wishes basically work out well, except for the whole dead friends or neighbors or family members part. However, it takes way too long for the lead to realize the wishes are real, happening, and the box is the culprit.

By the time she for sure knows, she also knows she has seven max. She has done four of seven, and knows that she is running out, and that it brings danger to people. And she fucking wishes her fifth wish for school popularity.

It is so goddamn stupid. That is the sort of wish you can imagine in the first three, maybe, especially when testing to see if it worked. But at this point in the film, it is already clear the writers had lost their goddamn minds.

Wish Upon takes a regular story and tries to add some Final Destination elements to it. Because they quickly start playing up the deaths, so we can sort of guess and see how they will die. Or even WHO will die, as they show multiple characters in potentially deadly circumstances. But they feel cheesy and not scary, unlike the FD franchise.

And really, the ending is horseshit as well. This is a horror film about a girl of below intelligence, who thinks she is above average intelligence, and then some people die.

0 out of 4.

Song to Song

I have put off watching Song to Song as much as possible. At this point in my career, I am more likely to check out the director before watching an unknown movie for only one reason. To see if Terrence Malick was secretly the director.

Because if he is, I need to go into the movie with a completely different mindset than literally any other film.

I need to have hawk eyes to figure out just what the main plot of the film is going to be, especially when the narrators decide to switch on me, or even be from characters I never paid attention to.

No one else makes me waste my time like Malick. And I just need to know before seeing if a movie how mad I will be five minutes into it.

Lighs
Yeah, get that bitch some Christmas lights…

What do Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Val Kimer, and Bérénice Marlohe have in common?

They are all in this series of maybe related scenes “film,” and have been tricked into working with Malick!

Dynamic
Look at all these dynamic camera shots!

2017 was a year of change for me. I gave up watching the Sharknado movies, because heck, they didn’t need my review saying they were shit on top of the pile of reviews saying they were shit, as it did nothing. Everyone agreed they were shit and I realized I can stop. I also gave up on the Transformers films, because fool me four times, then fuck me over.

I think…I think I might have to do it for Terrence Malick films. Which is a significant director still in the film community, so it is not something that I can say lightly. Or maybe I will never see them in theaters again, and only at home…where I can distract myself with my phone.

At this point when it comes to directors, I am still willing to watch things that Luc Besson has dealt with, even if I generally hate it all, whereas I feel like I will just burn into painful flames if I have to watch a complete Malick film.

They are all now just feeling the same at this point. I can’t imagine saying new stuff for the next film, I didn’t even really say new stuff for this film.

Song to Song is just home made movie trash.

0 out of 4.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure

What a promising film franchise to fall from grace so quickly. I quite enjoyed the first Maze Runner film, and I was excited for where it was going. I was also excited because they said the final book would only be one film, not broken up like other bad franchises.

Except the sequel, The Scorch Trials, was awful and repetitive. I have been told it deviated far from the book, unlike film number one, and it shows given it seemed to lack any direction or reason for existing.

And on to the final film, The Death Cure! Which was supposed to come out last year, but the star got hurt early into filming. He was hurt in March, 2016, and from his injuries, recovery time, and other commitments, the filming didn’t continue until March, 2017. A whole year delay! And now we are given a January release, where you know they don’t really give a shit about what they are dropping.

Oh, young adult dystopian book gods. This is the final piece of the final film to finish, as the others along the way either ended with a whimper or ended before they could end. Or in The Fifth Wave’s case, it was dead on arrival.

No matter what, remember that after it, it will all be over for at least two years before something else tries to recreate the Twilight and Hunger Games crowd.

Gun
Before Newt can shoot, he turns into a Final Fantasy character.

This third and final film is set sometimes after the second, months even. The resistance arm has been destroyed for the most part by WKCD, with several people getting taken including Minho (Ki Hong Lee), thanks to Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) switching sides, again. But don’t worry, if the Right Arm wants to do anything, it wants to destroy WCKD, run away to safety, and save Minho. Just Minho. Literally who gives a shit about the rest, if they get saved and aren’t Minho then they are not done.

So Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Brenda (Rosa Salazar), Frypan (Dexter Darden), and even Vince (Barry Pepper) and Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) try to save Minho. They don’t, they save 40 other kids, whoops. But doing so they find out they are headed to the Last City, somehow protected from the Cranks and the infection, where WKCD has their headquarters. A final showdown, to save Minho? Sure, why not.

Of course, while in the city they find out that there are other resistance groups around, one led by a Lawrence (Walton Goggins) who is super close to turning into a Crank, but has a serum supply. And oh, hey look, there is Gally (Will Poultier)! Long time no see, dick buddy. Anyways, there new goal is to break into an unbreakable city, get their boy Minho back, then escape into the wind to be immune on a beach somewhere. Whether or not Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson) and Janson (Aidan Gillen) get dealt with would just be bonus.

CIty
Ah yes, those buildings are currently in tact, so I declare it a city!

For those who don’t want to be spoiled, let this paragraph be the last thing you read. Basically, this film is the bee’s anus. Some characters do actions with zero motivation or reason to these actions. The heroes literally care about only saving one person for the most part. The heroes are a bunch of jerks and are generally wrong. There are many sacrifices that are unnecessary. And it is so goddamn long and disappointing.

But while watching this movie, I knew I needed to be specific. I knew I needed to talk about certain things that pissed me off and they constitute spoilers. So here we go, SPOILERS AHEAD.

Let’s start with the baddest bad guy, Janson, who really wants to kill Thomas but is still charismatic and calm. Except for at the end when he decides to shoot and kill Ava Paige for no reason. Literally, they were still on the same side with the same goal, to get the cure from Thomas, and Janson kills her. She and him are friends. But he is sooooo bad that he kills her, only to make the ending more chaotic and stupid.

And really, in terms of bad guy actions, that is the only real super bad guy action. Because it turns out that WKCD was right all along. They wanted to get a cure from the immune people. They knew it could be done, they just needed the right people. In the second film they clearly went about it the wrong way, but Teresa, still a good guy (?) just wanted to make sure all the Cranks could be saved and everyone else. And guess what! She totally could make a real cure from Thomas’ blood, who had special blood because he was lucky, and he didn’t have to get tortured or anything for it to be made.

But who gives a shit about that. Nope, WKCD gets destroyed. Teresa dies sacrificing herself for Thomas, when there was no reason for her to sacrifice herself. And all for what? For Thomas and the good guys to run off to a beach and start their own community…while the rest of the world becomes Cranks and die off? Holy fuck. Thomas is a character who gives no fucks about saving the world, just himself, and the community act like this is a great thing that they did in the end. When the other option was to HELP THE WORLD they HELPED THEMSELVES instead.

Speaking of good bad guys and selfish heroes, the death count in this and the last film are pretty big, especially when a war is raged in the city. The city is the WKCD headquarters, but it is also a lot of other regular people just doing their own thing. So all of these people get fucked over in this giant fight, when only one place should be the real target. And none of it had to happen if Thomas just sort of realized and done the right thing.

On that note, if his blood really was special and had the cure, how the fuck did WKCD not know it before hand? He literally worked for them before he went into the maze, with Teresa. If they suspected immunity, they should have had him undergo tests, and the whole film series really doesn’t make sense at that point. They would have had the cure early enough to get it various places, save even more lives, and Thomas would have been glad to do it.

But no. Beach. Safe. Fuck the world. End of film. I am glad to know that the second film is very different from the book, because it means it must be true of the third film and third book as well. I want to read the series just to see how much worse these films ended up being in retrospect.

0 out of 4.

The Book of Henry

Many months ago, when this film was still wanting to come out and exist, I saw a teaser trailer for The Book of Henry and I was intrigued.

Whatever that trailer showed me, it showed me a potentially very cool story. I remembered absolutely nothing about the plot, just that it was maybe cool. And yet, I missed the screener for a different film. Apparently I dodged a bullet though, as this film was then blasted to so many directions.

I didn’t read or hear specifics, just words like bad getting thrown around. Which is enough for me to know I had to watch it eventually.

Eccentric
Just like how we know eventually that plunger had poop touching it.

Susan Carpenter (Naomi Watts) is a single mom, struggling to get by on her own with her two sons: Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) and Peter (Jacob Tremblay). Even though she struggles, she really shouldn’t, because Henry gets to be a super genius level kid at 11 or so. He is taking care of their funds, their bills, everything. She just needs to work and be a mother.

And sure, that is weird. But hey, whatever works. Speaking about “whatever works,” their neighbor (Dean Norris) is the head of the police force also, with a stepdaughter, Christina (Maddie Ziegler), in his custody, for whatever reason. Henry is super sure that she is getting beat up by her stepfather, but people won’t listen to him, for the lack of proof thing. Fucking A.

Long story short, Henry gets a fast moving cancer, totally dies, and has left behind a big book of instructions for his mom to kill their neighbor.

Also starring Sarah Silverman, Lee Pace, and Tonya Pinkins.

Gun
Oh. Well. Um.

The Book of Henry started out very okay, without a lot of bad or good things really going on. Just a story, intelligent and nice kid trying to do good. The death switch up? That was sad and a bit strange. The book? Well, that is when the movie quickly nose dived into stupid, stupid, stupid territory.

In general, I often have problems in movies for the character who is so goddamn smart that he has predicted things from real people eight actions in advance. The master planner, even in superhero things, usually makes me sort of glare at the screen and find it disbelieving, unless they also had an actual psychic ability.

And we get all of this in this film, but it is actually supposed to be realistic, and it is a goddamn kid. Because in this book, with tape recorders, he has so many instructions for his mom to listen to while walking around. While this is happening, the mom character will talk back, make snide remarks, whatever, which Henry totally predicted and he will respond thusly.

Oh my goodness, it is so terribly dumb to watch. On top of that, the plot is stupid from the get go at that point, and the ending is a few steps worse.

The Book of Henry might have had a good concept, but it was then thrown away and instead we were given this turd burgler of a film. Nothing deep and philosophical to see here, folks.

0 out of 4.

Kidnap

A few years ago, we got a movie starring Halle Berry where she played a 9-1-1 call operator. It was called The Call. You may remember it? It was bad. In it, she was haunted by a past mistake and vowed to not make anymore again. And eventually, we got a kidnapped girl, where she was on the line, and she was going to help her anyway way possible.

Even if it meant leaving her post, tracking her herself, and killing the guy who took her, because holy shit what?

That came out in 2013. In early 2015, this film Kidnap was supposed to come out. It was already finished, but the company had financial troubles, then bankruptcy, as it kept getting pushed and pushed. Some will say its for money reasons, others will naturally assume it is because it looked so much like The Call 2 that they wanted to distance themselves. But alas, here it is now, over two years after the original date, and we won’t even be able to tell the movie is dated.

Car
A third movie will come out probably where Berry herself is the kidnapper.

When a parent loses a child, it is very sad. No matter the circumstances, it is sad and I would cry over a lot of movies on that subject. For the movie Kidnap, you know that her child is going to get grabbed, and that is the whole dang plot of the movie. A kid gone, a mom angry and a race against time and apparently traffic to save that kid.

Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) is a single mom, divorced, and living a job as a waitress. Not a rich existence. Speaking of rich existence, her ex and his new wife are pretty dang rich, so life with them would be swell. But her young son at six years old, Frankie (Sage Correa), seems to love being with her too.

And they go to a park, a fair, and sure enough, Karla gets distracted. Her divorce lawyer on the phone letting her know that the dad is actually going to go for full custody, and will have the money to probably get it. Oh no, but she is so poor! And yes, this leads to someone grabbing her kid while on the phone about this, and of course, running off with him.

Thankfully she sees him in the parking lot, so she can run and chase after them, and in her car! She loses her cell phone almost immediately, so she just has to barrel down the highway after this vehicle, where her son his being held. And then a lot of things happen in this chase down. Destruction, death, injuries, and more! All because a lady won’t just give up hope.

Featuring Chris McGinn and Lew Temple as the bad people.

Rub'
Good to know we get at least some seat switching in this car fest of a film.

I don’t really know what the target audience is for Kidnap. Parents who are afraid of the worst? People who think Berry is an action star of some sort? Or people who just have bad taste in films.

Just like The Call, this one is just bad from start to finish. Regular person goes on a justified (maybe) vigilante chase taht lasts over an hour. Along the way, tons of car damage to regular innocent people. Also some people get killed, like at least one cop and friendly helper person, along side regular people just living their life. So many people get hurt.

And literally. Literally. I cannot imagine a situation where the kidnapper wouldn’t have just threw the child out of their car within the first five or so minutes. For whatever reason, our bad guys were soooooo determined to get and keep this kid, you’d think there was some giant special prize behind the whole thing. Like a reason that the kid was special. Like something involving the dad, hiring some people for a million dollars to make her look bad. That is what I could only maybe hope and assume. Except it was just random.

A random kidnapping. And an extremely determined couple for no reason. And a lady who just makes a lot of spur of the moment, crazy decisions, no matter who gets hurt along the way.

It isn’t an entertaining movie at all. I was just staring at it, wondering what the hell were they all thinking. And the ending? They decide to sweep all of the problems magically under a rug, because fuck good movies.

0 out of 4.

The Star

As of writing this introduction to The Star, there is only one mainstream / mainstream movie I have yet to see for the year, and at this point I can say that 2017 just overall sucked.

So many sequels of films that didn’t need them, offering nothing new. We have stories that are based on books and don’t rise up to their level. We have original works that don’t focus on the smaller elements. We have two fucking LEGO movies.

And then we have The Star. The cherry on top of the year. I haven’t released all the reviews I just mentioned, because at least one or two films were actually good, but I will let them happen eventually through the rest of this month and January. But it should be obvious I was not looking forward to The Star in any level.

Donkey
No film has starred a donkey successfully since Shrek.

The film starts off at “9 months B.C” because they need to make it obvious. This angel talks to Mary (Gina Rodriguez) that God is about to give her that baby, and she is like yes!

Now, months later we can focus on the real hero, Bo (Steven Yeun)! Bo is a donkey, a mill donkey, who spends most of his day walking in a circle, moving the mill. Hard labor. He has big dreams though. He wants to get out of the mill and carry around important people, like royalty, like the horses. Oh yeah, that would be the life. Eventually he does get to break out and finds himself in the barn of Mary and Joseph (Zachary Levi). You see, they just got married, and Joseph is of course worried about her baby bump. But she says it is from God, and he prayed so it must be okay.

What is not okay is some animals have spread the story of the angel and the future king, which has gotten to the ears of the current King. The new King doesn’t like that and sends people out to look for and kill this dude. Also, they are having a Census, so everyone has to travel to Bethlehem, or else! I don’t know what the or else is, but no matter the condition they must go.

So Mary and Joseph are traveling when she is about to pop, with a Donkey and a bird (Keegan-Michael Key) and a lamb (Aidy Bryant), and along the way they get into many shenanigans.

Either way, this story is pretty common, so you know where we are going with it and the whole thing is basically spoiled.

There are so many goddamn people who they grabbed to get presumably tiny quick paychecks. Because the more famous people you cram into a film, the more people will come to see it. Just ask Movie 43. We have as animals or the occasional other human: Christopher Plummer, Ving Rhames, Gabriel Iglesias, Kelly Clarkson, Anthony Anderson, Patricia Heaton, Kris Kristofferson, Kristin Chenoweth, Mariah Carey, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Tracy Morgan, Delilah (from the Radio), Joel McCrary, Phil Morris, and Joel Fuck The Poor Osteen.

Camel
Winfrey, Jordan, and Perry are camels. Seems…racist.

Just like I have mentioned in previous films about mythology, I don’t care if they change aspects from the original stories, because who cares, they are made up stories as well. I didn’t care with The Rock’s Hercules, I didn’t care with Percy Jackson, and I don’t care with the Star.

But if I was Christian, I would be insulted by this film. To take one of the hallmarks of your religion and turn it into a big awkward joke. To have Mary and Joseph worry so much about the donkey and bird hanging out with them, making light of some king dude, and basically implying everything worked out well due to some animals.

Shit, the manger scene before it was set up had the horses basically making meta jokes about how convient it was for there to be this space, this manger, and a big awkward shining light on it that had been bugging them for weeks.

However even worse, I am going to quote the end of the film. This is Oprah as a camel, talking about the ending (spoilers?). Seriously, real words here, it took me awhile to get it all down: “You know, I think people are gonna remember this night. What happened here around this manger will be celebrated for thousands of years. Families will come together and exchange presents and sing carols, all to remember the grace of this moment that we are witnessing right now.”

That isn’t even funny at this point, as they basically stare at the camera to update us on what sometimes happens around Christmas.

The plot is full of mostly filler material, a lot of non exciting chase scenes, a very gullible husband, a very confident wife, and a shit ton of actors earning some money. But hey, at least the colors of Mary/Joseph were attempted to be correct.

0 out of 4.

Unforgettable

Perhaps the hardest part about this job is finding time to get to everything you want to get to, without neglecting other work, family, loved ones, hobbies, etc. An even harder part of this job is getting to the things you also don’t care to get to, because your website made a creed a long time ago and you want to stick to it.

Watching Shitty Movies, So You Don’t Have To.

That means catching up on those January/February releases sometimes really late in the year because in actual January you are watching all the indie/bizarre Oscar nominated films, while also starting on 2018’s new works. It means more articles about the best and the worst.

So yeah, the review for Unforgettable is late, but it is clearly a bad film from a quick glance. If you are going to make a film called Unforgettable, you can’t also make it shitty. That just leads to the easiest jokes ever. For shame.

Spy
Look at that bitch. Tucking her kid into bed. What a skank.

Julia Banks (Rosario Dawson) is fucked. She is being interrogated by the police, because her ex (Simon Kassianides) was found dead in her home. She used to have a restraining order on him, but as soon as it expired after two years, she started to send him messages, enticing him to visit, including some sexy pictures and actual lingerie. But is that what really happened?

Flash back to a few months, where Julia is leaving her job, to move away to her fiance´s place. David (Geoff Stults) is living a good life and they are going to get married very soon, so why not move together? He has a daughter, Lily (Isabella Kai Rice) who is relatively young, in dance and other things. Oh, and of course he was once married as well, to Tessa (Katherine Heigl) a seemingly perfect human being who is organized, confident, and loving.

Shit, Tessa has everything down great. Including Lily´s best interests. Tessa doesn´t like that she now only gets weekends with her own daughter, especially if she is losing her to Julia, a new woman, a woman who doesn´t get Lily like she does.

So Tessa really only has one option available to her. Ruin the marriage, ruin Julia, and she can have her husband and daughter back. It makes sense, really.

Also starring Alex Quijano, Sarah Burns, and Cheryl Ladd.

Fight
At least we can assume the picture frame is there for a reason.

Has there ever been a sexual thriller that is also a good film? I mean, good from a standpoint that is not a 11 year old male discovering his own genitalia? I say if you are going to make a sexual thriller, at least go hard on those keywords there. These one or two a year films are being bogged down by famous celebrities who may be sexy or thrilling, but are tamed by the normally PG-13 movie rating given to them.

But wait! This one is rated R. Yeah, but for no reason. You get a butt and side boob in one awkwardly long getting ready for a bath scene, while people are being creepy. And most of the rest of it is just really, really, poor thriller. There is no mystery, outside of the opening scene. We are told what is going to happen thanks to starting it before the film takes place in a police department. And they show us Heigl’s character starts to do the bad things.

Literally no actual level of suspense. I guess the only surprise is what happens after the police department, but it goes as you’d expect. These really don’t end differently. They glorify taking matters into your own hands, extreme violence, and saying fuck the police.

The acting is poor, the plot line is really dumb, and I in no way feel sexually thrilled.

0 out of 4.

The Only Living Boy in New York

First of all, you are welcome, because I almost started this review with a Rihanna reference, so I saved you from this joke.

Secondly, this movie came out months ago. And after my screening, on August 22, I totally forgot I had seen it. It was a replacement screening that night, I meant to see Good Time but it got moved around. And later that week, we had a hurricane hit my city, which put my site into a flux for awhile, with some reviews taking forever to get published.

As of 2-3 weeks ago, I thought I had finally already caught up with all the missed reviews, but holy crap, I missed this one. So sure, I am writing it over three months after watching it. And I have fallen asleep while setting up this review. What I am getting at is that I definitely did not enjoy this film, and the whole experience behind just getting it on this website has been a trainwreck.

Friend
Kind of like falling in love with a friend for five years. A bad idea that only sometimes works in movies.

Thomas Webb (Callum Turner) is a boy, living in New York, and he is trying to make it on his own as a writer. Well, maybe writing, maybe something else. But he is going to do it on his own, not with the help of his rich parents. His dad (Pierce Brosnan) is a straight up publisher, his mom (Cynthia Nixon) mostly just stay at home depressed at this point.

Webb is secretly in love with his book loving friend (Kiersey Clemons), but she has a boyfriend. He also lives in a tiny crummy apartment, where he gets a new neighbor (Jeff Bridges) who is extremely nosy and a bit of a drunk. Who the hell talks to their neighbors? He reluctantly talks to the stranger, because hey, why not, he has someone new to vent to and talk about his problems with.

A some point, change actually starts to happen in his life. He finds out his dad is having an affair, with a coworker. A younger woman (Kate Beckinsale). Time to get all obsessed and stalkery without having a plan on what to do with this new information, Thomas!

Also starring Tate Donovan and Wallace Shawn.

Hot step mom
Maybe if he pushes her she will realize she is being a total butthole.

It is really hard to put into words just why The Only Living Boy in New York is so bad. Partially, I am sure, thanks to writing a review months after watching the movie.

Let’s start with the actors. The lead we are given is an incredibly whiny and privileged boy, and for him to feel like he is the center of the world (With another character encouraging this thought process) is incredibly unexciting. Your main character doesn’t have to be likable in order for a film to be good, but to watch a rich white 20 something complain so much, despite having everything given to him on a platter is exhausting and a bit painful. Bridges and Brosnan give very little to this film and mostly feel like phoned in performances. Beckinsale is the only main performer who feels like she gives a damn about a good performance, but the plot and story make her character behave completely erratically so it is hard to tell.

Story wise it is also poor. Main character complains, tries to use the friend zone, s someone, and then changes a lot of people’s lives seemingly accidentally. I am not sure how much he learns by the end of it, in terms of actual character growth. The side characters are bland, are not believable, and technically, nor is the lead. It is just like watching rich paint dry.

The Only Living Boy in New York is a film that is not as good as it thinks it is. Sure, it is not as delusional as something like The Room, as there are actually well done locations, camera work, and editing. But this is still an inexcusable mess of a story that no one should have to put up with at this point in time from professionals.

0 out of 4.

Fist Fight

Fist Fight is an interesting term, because well, most people when they think of the word “fight” they assume fists were already involved. Fists are the default in a fight. That is why we have to specify other types of fights, like gun fights, sword fights, or cat fights. So fist fight doesn’t even need to exist as a term, a little bit of an unnecessary word play here.

Although, at the same time, would you watch a movie called just Fight? Would you assume a movie called Fight is actually a comedy film? No way a film just called Fight could work. After all, we already had the movie Fighting and it didn’t work either.

Either way, in this movie we get two main things. We get Charlie Day getting some leading man role time, which just…never happens. And we have Ice Cube, trying to get rid of the family friendly nature that has come upon him and turn himself more into a badass again.

Point
Oh shit, did Cube turn his fist into a gun? What kind of fight is this again? Man, what a badass.

Mr. Campbell (Day) is an English teacher at a school in Los Angeles and the students are pretty damn wild. He teaches seniors, it is the last day, and no fucks are given. The kids rarely respect their teachers in this school, especially not today. The only teacher they sort of respect is Mr. Strickland (Cube), but because they are afraid of him. But even today some kids want to mess with him.

While Campbell is in his classroom to fix an issue, Strickland ends up threatening a student with an Ax, destroying his desk, due to his prank. That is a big deal, even at this school. Turns out the school is also looking to take cuts out of every department due to low scores. Campbell has a wife and kid (JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Alexa Nisenson), and the wife is pregnant with number two. Even if his job sucks, he cannot lose it right now. So when pressured by the principal (Dean Norris), Campbell caves and admits that Strickland did the deed. This angers Strickland. So Strickland says he is going to kick Campbell’s ass. He is going to challenge him to a fight after school that day, and they are going to throw down. He spreads the word. He is pissed at the world and he doesn’t care about his actions.

Now Campbell has to spend the rest of his day worried. He was already panicking over his wife close to birth, and the possibility of losing his job. Now he also might get his ass kicked? I guess he has to try and fix all these issues during the course of a school day, or else he might die of a heart attack before it is through.

Also starring Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks, Kumail Nanjiani, and Dennis Haysbert.

Bat
Shit. Now there is a bat involved. Just what kind of fight is this!?

Fist Fight is one of those films that doesn’t make sense to have been made in this day and age. It is just so slapstick in a bad way, negative, and bland it is a wonder it got made. Well, it is obvious how it got made. It would have been cheap as fuck to make, outside of actor salaries. Probably didn’t even take many days to shoot.

A quick no risk comedy film, that can earn its money back at least through the DVD sales.

The whole time I am wondering “Well, will this film end in a fight?” Because if it just ends in a fight, then it just feels childish. I hate that with animated or kids films, and there really isn’t a reason for this film not really in the action genre. But on the other hand, what if there is no fist fight? Then this movie is titled poorly and it would anger people.

So there has to be a fight, but a movie psyched up over a fictional brawl in a parking lot? Hard pass. It isn’t funny, it isn’t original, and it isn’t worthy of your time.

0 out of 4.