Tag: 1 out of 4

Storks came out in September of this year and as far as I can tell was immediately forgotten. The theme was original, this year was flooded with animal animate films, and I only remembered it existed thanks to it coming out on DVD in early December. Feels fast, just 2 and a half months, which means they wanted to rush it to attempt to get some holiday sale loving.

I am only watching it to be a competionist, with no actual knowledge of the plot before hand or even how it did in theaters. I literally just forgot it existed. And it is about birds, babies, and I dunno, adults?

There is an adult! Or at least a teenager.

Storks used to deliver babies, everyone knows that right? But they got out of that game, and now they just deliver packages under the name cornerstore.com! And business is successful. They stopped delivering babies because one stork, Jasper (Danny Trejo), went insane with a baby, breaking her beacon (so they couldn’t find out where she belonged), and sort of ruining their reputation. Once again, they just deliver packages now, and that baby, Tulip (Katie Crown) has just been awkwardly growing up in their work place.

Junior (Andy Samberg) is one of their best delivery storks and has just completed his 1,000,000th package. So the boss, Hunter (Kelsey Grammer), calls him up to tell him the news. Hunter is getting promoted, and Junior will take his place as the boss, but only if Junior will “fire” Tulip from their warehouse. She has turned 18 today, so she is no longer their responsibility. She has been causing problems though, and bringing down profits, so she has to go.

But Junior can’t fire her, so he puts her in a room alone, the letter division, to process incoming mail. This isn’t in use anymore, it was for baby requests. But one kid, Nate (Anton Starkman), wants a baby brother with ninja skills, and his parents (Ty Burrell, Jennifer Aniston) don’t want one really. Tulip receives the letter, processes it, and boom, a baby is created, and now there is a big problem.

Now Junior has new problems. He has to deliver the baby so the big bosses don’t see it, while hiding Tulip and taking her to the planet below. But his wing is broken and he can’t fly. Shit. What’s this? An adventure in the making?

Also featuring Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Stephen Kramer Glickman, and Christopher Nicholas Smith.

Some very strange scenes also with the baby and other animals.

Storks basically went how I expected. Literally almost every single element. Sure, you wouldn’t know every detail about why wolves are involved. But the sorts of struggles involved in getting the baby to its home, who the bad people are, and how the film will probably end? Yeah, entirely as expected.

In the entirety of the film, I really only enjoyed two moments. The absurdity of the wolf pack working together, and the “silent fight” near the end in order to ensure that the baby would stay asleep. Those few moment save the movie from the zero rating, because everything else just felt dull, unfunny, and unoriginal. Another positive note from this film is that not every major role was from a famous celebrity, but actually voice actors. That is rarer nowadays, so it get a few props for that.

Not even my current love of babies could make me enjoy this film. And practically every damn movie with a baby (especially a girl) can instantly affect my emotions. Let that be a lesson to you films, make them good first, then add in the kid for me to care. I’m looking at you, The Boss Baby.

After I saw the first Ice Age movie, I avoided the rest. It was okay, I just didn’t have any interest in future films.

But then I became a movie reviewer, and in 2012 Ice Age 4: Continental Drift came out, so I had to watch several movies in a short span and my brain became fried. Every film got less and less scientifically accurate.

After a few years I figured we were safe, but no, since Blue Sky Studios has practically no other films coming out, we were given Ice Age: Collision Course, involving outer space. Another frontier for science to be destroyed in.

So many god damn characters now.

Look at all the people I get to talk about. Our original Ice Age crew is still around. Manny (Ray Romano), the mammoth. Sid (John Leguizamo), the ground sloth. Diego (Denis Leary), the saber toothed tiger. And by this time most of them have lovers and extra friends. Manny has Ellie (Queen Latifah), and her two opossum brothers, Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott, Josh Peck). Diego has Shira (Jennifer Lopez) and they are only briefly thinking about kids. Oh and Sid is all alone, technically.

But Manny and Ellie’s daughter, Peaches (Keke Palmer)? She has found a long term boyfriend as well now. Julian (Adam Devine), a mammoth who wants to marry Peaches and move her far away from the family. That sucks for the parents, but it would be great for the movie, because this cast of characters is already too large.

Scrat and his nut help cause a series of events that begins to hurtle a giant asteroid towards the Earth, putting a damper on their parties. The giant crew quickly runs into a weasel, Buck (Simon Pegg), who is some sort of extreme adventurer and smart entity, who has been living in an underground paradise. He believes the asteroid is being attracted to the Earth at a certain spot and that if they get there, they can stop it. But with him also comes a group of evil winged dinosaurs (Nick Offerman, Max Greenfield, Stephanie Beatriz), who also escaped extinction. They want the asteroid hit so that the mammals will die out and maybe they can rule again.

There you go! I think I got the basic plot in there.

Also featuring voice work from Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jessie J, Wanda Sykes, and Michael Strahan.

Ah, Simon Pegg, always the light in the darkness.

The pattern seems to continue. Check mate, science. Once again, every further Ice Age film in the franchise decides to take a big poop on science, despite starting off strong. I will say that some of the past discretions are more egregious, most notably being off on Pangaea splitting up by 155~ million years or so. This time, we are being threatened by a meteor, going to destroy the planet. One that is going to hit the same place that killed the dinosaurs, and a previous mass extinction event. The MAJOR plot point is literally just to bring up a real event, and repeat it to give it an old ancient past feel, I guess.

Not only that, but they then go on to imply that events in this film would be responsible for Mars becoming a desert, life less planet RIGHT AFTER saying it would have happened billions of years ago, completely vandalizing our poor time line.

One isn’t supposed to get bent out of shape when faced with inaccuracies in a forgettable animated film, but when the film series used to be accurate and is still trying to showcase science, it gets quite annoying. What hurts me even more so is that Neil deGrasse Tyson not only lends his voice to narrate a few aspects, but they even make a character that is a flash in the pan to look like him for a couple more lines. Damn it Tyson, this movie is not helping get people smarter.

Outside of the science issues, this cast is way too large. No one gets killed off, everyone stays alive, and no one is leaving. So it started too big and then it grew further into the movie. It is beyond manageable and no one can really shine or matter. Not even the original trio. Okay okay, the new guy Buck shines a fuck ton in this film, and they thankfully make him interesting, but it is certainly not enough to save the movie in any way.

And yet, this is not the worst animated film of the year. This isn’t even the worst animated film of the year to imply coldness. Ice Age is lucky Norm of the North exists to give us more context.

I love me some Mockumentaries. I do, I really do. Yeah, sure, most of the ones I have seen in my life were made by Christopher Guest. This Is Spinal Tap! (Technically Rob Reiner, whatever) and A Mighty Wind are my jams. But thankfully we did get Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping this year to continue the trend a bit further.

So I was excited about Mascots. And no, I didn’t know it was another film directed by Christopher Guest until about twenty minutes in, when the same cast of characters in a lot of his films appeared. It had the same style, same type of humor.

Let’s be clear, this is his first Mockumentary in a decade! Big news, because someone has to make them, damn it.

And why not explore Mascots hoping they did not break their funny bone.

Mascots are a big deal. They get the party started, they get people excited about sports and performances, and they can have zany costumes.

And in this documentary, it is showcasing several totally real mascots as they prepare for the World Mascot Association to try and win the Golden Fluffy award for the best mascot. Now a lot of random mascots enter and send in tapes to be chosen to compete, but only the best and maybe the vaguest can really win.

Of course we have a very eccentric and weird cast. There is Zook (Chris O’Dowd), who plays The Fist, a hockey mascot in Canada, known for getting into fights, and yes, he is a giant fist. Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) comes from a long line of mascots, playing a squirrel I believe. His dad (Jim Paddock) is still coaching him and his wife (Kerry Godliman) just hopes he doesn’t die.

Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey) is this absurd horse girl thing. Phil Mayhew
(Christopher Moynihan) is a Plumber mascot, and has a big routine with a toilet and a turd. Mike (Zach Woods) and Mindy Murray (Sarah Baker) are a couple act, but also going through a divorce thanks to infidelity, but still hoping to work together for the competition.

And we got more people for a variety of reasons, Jane Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., Susan Yeagley, John Michael Higgins, and Michael Hitchcock.

And I didn’t even get into the Amish and the Worm pair.

Mascots ends up being very similar to Christopher Guest’s other mockumentaries. The people are weird, but realistic, and the humor comes from relatively normal interactions. And surprisingly outside of a few moments, I found myself rather bored.

I haven’t seen a lot his previous work. I never fully watched Best In Show, but I want to. I didn’t even know he had about two others. So why would I absolutely love A Mighty Wind and not this one?

Well, shit. It might actually be the music factor. I love quirky people and musicals, so it is a perfect storm for me. This one has quirky people without all of the payoff I was hoping for. Some people seemed to exist just for one joke or one long set up and until it happened, I was just waiting.

The mascot performances were all pretty good I guess, but not enough to warrant rewatching in the future. People are weird, situations are zany, but it is all too few and far in between for me.

I wasn’t always scowling at Suicide Squad. When they first announced it, well, I guess I had to google it just to find out what it was. Villains having to save the day. Sure, alright, cool.

What really made me excited is that Tom Hardy was signed on to play a role in the film! It was stoked. Then he left. Oh, okay. But then they got Jake Gyllenhaal to replace him! Oh shit, yeah! Good going! And then he turned it down as well. Fuck. What in the. Okay okay, then they got Joel Kinnaman, which does nothing for me. But I didn’t get annoyed at the film yet.

No, what really killed me is that during filming there were almost daily “leaks” from the set, or quick glimpses from a random persons twitter, or whatever. Too much hype can really bring down a ship, and I hate a constant bombardment of advertisements. Not only that, but of course we have Jared Leto as his edgy Joker, maybe as the villain, maybe on the team, I have no clue. I just know that he was “method acting” and kept giving all of his cast mates shit, playing pranks and what not, to get into character. Honestly, he sounded like he was being an asshole.

That is what made me frown and choose to ignore the pre-screening. That is why I didn’t want to wait hours just to see it. I knew it would wait. I don’t care how good the trailers for it were, because Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman both had amazing trailers and yet they were disappointments. So that is where I am coming from for this film.

So here is a non asshole character and a non asshole actress, giving someone a new asshole.

The US Government is starting to get scared. What if another Superman shows up, but this time, he isn’t friendly? They need to have a task force to bring them down, preferably some of their own strong people who are under their control. Well, they don’t have any, or at least they don’t have any that they can force to work for them. So Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), vague government official, decides that their team will be made up of criminal metahumans, who they have leverage over and who they can kill without too much of a worry.

So she gathers her team. Like Deadshot (Will Smith), who never misses. Like Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who…looks like a human crocodile for some reason. There is El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a former gang member who can control and make fire, but has since atoned for his crimes. Someone named Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) who can…throw a boomerang really good and piss people off? And Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who has actually no powers at all and really shouldn’t fit this metahuman role they are crafting.

But that is just one prison. She has the mystical heart of the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), an ancient being trapped in an archaeologist’s body who has to obey her commands. Her main field officer, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) is in love with her as well. And there is Slipknot (Adam Beach), who can apparently climb anything, where his climbing is metahuman levels or something. Finally, there is Katana (Karen Fukuhara), who wields a sword that captures the soul of those it kills. She isn’t even a baddie, she is just helping out while occasionally avenging her husband’s death.

Either way. Shit quickly goes down right after forming the team, good timing. And they are forced to help out of course to clean up a mess that is basically started thanks to the team forming in the first place. Hooray!

And yeah, Ike Barinholtz plays a dick guard, David Harbour a random government official, and some Jared Leto Joker nonsense.

And drinking on the job, I guess that is Boomerang’s other power.

Suicide Squad ended up being a mess of a movie, from beginning to end. The characters, the plot, the pacing, all come together beautifully to make this disaster of a film.

They explain that the Suicide Squad is set up to stop a Superman like being from dominating the world and battling him with other superhumans. Sure, fine. Now explain why Harley Quinn, described entirely as a wild card, on the team? Why is Captain Boomerang? The only ones that seem to have any amount of actual power and ability are the Enchantress, whom yes, is the main villain, and El Diablo, who barely uses his powers. Deadshot and Katana have some sort of powers or gadgets that make them above average, and Killer Croc is basically a mutant, but they are all just really good fighters. And what in the fuck, Slipknot? Can climb anything? Not even power based, but using gadgets? A complete waste of a character and has no purpose in this film (and the filmmakers must have known that).

Harley Quinn is actually in this film just so we can have a Joker connection. When I say “for whatever reason,” the reason ends up being so the writers can move the plot forward without thinking things through. She is there just to be chaos and her character has no point. Sure she is a scene stealer, because they give her the camera time and the personality. And she magically has a cell phone so that the Joker can intervene as well, how helpful.

Katana is an interesting character. The Enchantress should have been an interesting character. El Diablo was an interesting as fuck character. Captain Boomerang was very amusing and should have been able to do something in this movie to not feel so pointless. But these characters are not expanded upon enough, because it is not actually an ensemble film. It is all Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Amanda Waller.

I picked these three as my pictures as the more interesting characters who didn’t have a lot of time to be important.

So the pacing is also whack. Bad things start happening in Midway City (certainly not New York City). Big portals, scary stuff, mass death. And we find out before they get to the big baddie that it has been three days since it has started. Three days! So little fucks given from anyone in the world, including The Flash and Batman, which are established characters in this film and movie universe.

When they show up and finally confront our villain, oh hey, their spell had just finished and now the world can be destroyed. Your timing is terrible, unless they decided to just wait to finish it until their loved ones were all dead first.

There could have been a good movie in Suicide Squad. It needed to not have earth ending events though, given the people we know who could have saved the day. It needed small scale disasters that actually made sense for the team to accomplish. It needed to not have such a messy plot and so many unnecessary flash backs. And it certainly didn’t need repeat what BvS ended up doing. Killing off a character and ending it with a just kidding. Two films in a row in the same universe? That is far worse than Marvel.

SquareEnix has made questionable decisions regarding the Final Fantasy series since SquareEnix became SquareEnix. Square Soft was good, SquareEnix is bad. Having a Final Fantasy X-2, prequel games, MMOs (which have been at least somewhat successful), and turning their games into something that is no longer enjoyable. Final Fantasy XIII wasn’t a good game and was a bad Final Fantasy game. Having two sequels was even more confusing.

This leads us to Final Fantasy XV, which I am pretty sure was supposed to be a game called Final Fantasy Versus, which I first heard was supposed to be like Kingdom Hearts, but without Disney. Fantastic. Anyways, lot of delays, and we have the game now. But for some reason, they wanted to go all out with this release. They have a prequel, special demos, a VR game, and more. But also a goddamn movie. A movie! A movie that takes place at the same time as the game, about different events, with real Hollywood actors getting released in theaters.

I was shocked when I heard about Kingsglaive. I figured I would just not bother with Final Fantasy XV at all, too many parts, too complicated. And surprisingly they thought their movie was good enough to give to critics. Huh. I did not see that coming. Look, I love Advent Children, but most of that comes from FF7 Nostalgia and without it one might not like it. So, I am skeptical going in, but impressed with their confidence.

And of course impressed with their level of CGI detail.

This film takes on the planet of Eos which has a lot of nations that each used to have a powerful crystal, but now only one remains. The kingdom of Lucis has a crystal and they have used it to create a powerful barrier to protect the city and citizens. Another kingdom, Niflheim, has been warring the countryside and attempting to take down Lucas to get the crystal and become the top kingdom.

Final Fantasy XV is about a Prince of Lucis named Noctis, who is not in this movie. He apparently leaves the kingdom to do a video game’s worth of quests. Instead, Kingsglaive is about the King Regis Lucis Caelum (Sean Bean), and his personal body guard of soldiers. These soldiers are all outsiders not from the kingdom and have been granted magical powers to help defend the crystal and yes, they are called the Kingsglaive.

The best soldier is Nyx Ulric (Aaron Paul), a guy who protects his teammates and defies orders to do what is right. He is awesome at killing the Niflheimers (might not be the right term) and the monsters that also attack the city. But because they are still losing, the King is going to sign a peace treaty and give up some territory to protect the main city. But, but but…that territory is where these soldiers come from! Ugh!

Also involved is a princess, Lunafreya (Lena Headey), from Niflheim, who is meant to marry Noctis as part of the peace agreement. Of course, Noctis isn’t here, so she does other things in the movie. Anyways, war, fighting, death, more death, and politics. Featuring the voice work also of Liam Mulvey, Andrea Tivadar, Greg Blackford, Edward Saxby, and Adrian Bouchet.

It was surprisingly hard to find good fight scene pictures, so here is a boring one of the princess sitting down.

After playing the special FFXV demo, I sort of lost interest in playing the game. It wasn’t fun, it was weird, and it didn’t feel like Final Fantasy. With Kingsglaive, we get a movie set in a beautiful, but extremely unappealing world. The mix of fantasy and technology in here is dreadfully boring and unoriginal. It feels like just a futuristic society that anyone can think of, with like, 5% fantasy elements. It is extraordinarily unimaginative and it lacks excitement. Add in the extremely realistic modern day cars and one wonders what the hell were these world designers thinking.

The CGI is wonderful, sure. The motion capture was well done. The action scenes were a delight to see, very entertaining, and for some reason the images they released to highlight the film are mostly just close ups of characters.

This film is extremely WEAK in plot. First you have to be able to figure out what the hell is going on. With such elaborate character names, similar looking characters, and a lot of backstory thrown at you in the intro, it is easy to get lost and stay lost. Reading the plot outlines on wikipedia and a final fantasy pedia after the fact still really didn’t do me a lot of help.

The creators of course say that this movie can be enjoyed without the game and vice versa, but holy shit, I really have no idea what I watched. For the average movie goer, they will be scratching their head in confusion throughout. Sure, it looks well made, but it is unintelligible. Sure, the CGI is great, but the world isn’t even pretty or full of magic and wonder.

SquareEnix still has no idea what they are doing. Their games get less and less fantasy and this movie is a colossal waste of time. I mean, unless I have played the game, then it might seem better.

I have never seen a DC animated movie before I watched Batman: The Killing Joke. Sure, I have heard a lot of good things about them, but I never really made time for them. They are supposed to be decently animated, well voiced, and of course, tell great plot filled stories, better than the current live action films.

I figured it was the best time to finally get on the train. The hype for The Killing Joke was insane. The graphic novel itself is incredibly well known and respected as one of the best Batman stories ever. This is the first R-rated DC animated film ever made. And of course they decided to release it in theaters for Fathom Events. It sold out. So they made a second showing for the one day only event. Then they added two more the next day. And some theaters had multiple screens each night at the same time.

I. Had. To. See. This.

And I have never been so disappointed to get so dang hyped for something I had little experience for.

King? That’s not the card that is super relevant, damn it!

The Killing Joke is a story about Batman (Kevin Conroy) realizing that one day, either he might end up killing The Joker (Mark Hamill) or vice versa. And Batman doesn’t want to do that. He wants to try to talk with The Joker. But The Joker has escaped again.

And The Joker wants to get revenge, harsh revenge. Mainly on Commissioner Gordon (Ray Wise) and his daughter, Barbara/Batgirl (Tara Strong). He wants to break Gordon and break Batman in the process, just like he was broken a long time ago. Yes, we get Joker backstory.

Oh, and also, there is a 30 minute intro or something completely unrelated, about Batgirl and Batman having a relationship and a sociopath gangster named Paris (Maury Sterling) who abuses Batgirl. John DiMaggio is also here for gangster voice work and Brian George as Alfred.

Life. Life is the real joke. HA HA HA HA!

Let’s ignore the story for a bit. Let’s just talk about the animation, a crucial part of any animated movie. It is hard to describe in any other way other than shit. It feels so cheaply done. When characters walk it feels sometimes rushed, sometimes blocky. It is a buzzkill to watch. If they were going for a comic book feel, I cannot tell. In addition to that, for whatever creative reason, the vehicles in the movie are very different visually and a lot more 3D feeling than the rest of the 2D film. It again just feels lazy, like they had to use a different program just to get the film out in time.

The prologue of this film is a big what the fuck. First, it is almost half the movie. I haven’t seen a prologue that long since Digimon: The Movie. They apparently added in this story, not attached to the comic, in order to build up Batgirl a bit more. In The Killing Joke she is seen as a prop just to get hurt and abused and it has its fair share of controversy. So they give her a bigger role with this aspect. It is meant to draw parallels between her feelings towards Batman and this new villain, with Batman’s own feelings towards her and the Joker.

And it fails. The random gangster objectifies her at every turn and basically always has the upper hand. Batman is seen as a huge dick in the prologue, void of any emotion, and a very out of place love scene. It also comes with a stereotypical gay character out of the 90’s! The prologue is meant to give the Batgirl more material to work with, but in all honesty just turns her into a sex object for a longer period of time. Yeesh.

As for The Killing Joke portion, it is still only okay. The voice acting is decent, the animation is poor, the backstory is interesting. But again, this portion of the film feels rushed. Joker’s plan to drive Gordon insane has only two or so components and clearly not enough to break him. The film has the R rating for subject matter, but so much of it is still implied. Show me animated dong, damn it. It felt censored.

This is not something you should have seen in theaters, but by the time this review is up, it is already out. They made their money, it is a financial success, and now people might buy it for their homes. But it is not worth owning or really watching. In all accounts, your money would be better spent just on the graphic novel itself most likely. Rent this one if you must.

The Bourne series of films are not my overall cup of tea. The original trilogy got worse with each additional movie for me, with less realism, and overall just less interest. They got really close to Luc Besson Euro-Trash level of films.

But The Bourne Legacy I did enjoy, most since Identity, because it at least gave me something different. I was mostly alone with these thoughts and people were angry at Jeremy Renner and wanted their Matt Damon on. In fact, they never even considered having Renner involved. Pretty crazy.

So now we have Jason Bourne. A return to Jason Bourne the character. Apparently we know his name. Apparently this is what we want and need. And yes, I hate the title of this, the fifth film. Makes it feel like a reboot.

I honestly can’t hype up shirtless Matt Damon like I can other actors.

In this time line, Jason (Damon) is minding his own business, kicking ass in gambling fighting rings and keeping to himself. But you know who isn’t keeping to herself? Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a member of their same program who also has gone rogue. But she is a hacker or something, so she goes to Reykjavík to access the CIA database and steal a lot of files. The CIA of course finds out and tries to tack her. But not before Nicky can contact Jason to let him know that he NEEDS to know more.

Like that Jason’s dad (Gregg Henry) is involved in all of this, or was, back in the day. That he may have been considered for the program before he volunteered to sign up. That he could have been watched for a long time. Oh no! Time to get some classic Bourne revenge. Once he can get out of Athens and the political riots existing for reasons. Probably the economy. Dunno.

His revenge is going to be against CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), who has been there for awhile even though this is the first time you have heard about him. He has a new head of technology or something, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who is going to use her sweet computer skills to find Bourne and Parsons. There is also a CIA agent who we only know as Asset (Vincent Cassel) who would love to get some Bourne revenge and Riz Ahmed playing the creator of some sort of website/social networking thing that people really love for not spying on its users.

Also starring Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd, and Bill Camp.

There has to be a way for this still to not make everyone look like uncomfortable mannequins.

Bourne Bourne Bourne. I might be doing some revisionist history here, but I feel like what I remember about The Bourne Identity is that it helped kill James Bond and also introduced us to shaky-cam for action movies. It added some realism to the fights making them more chaotic. I don’t remember them being that bad, but it has also been many years since I saw that film.

Jason Bourne goes to some EXTREMES with the shaky cam aspect. It goes to more extremes than Billy Joel. And it isn’t just shaky cams. We get quick cuts all over the place, and the camera zooming in quickly into peoples faces. Zooming in, cut, cut, shake, zoom. The hacking scenes early on felt EXTREMELY HECTIC and it just never stopped. We had shaky cam for people just walking into hotels and restaurants, completely chill situations, but there is no time to relax.

About a third of the way through the movie, I had a headache, and yes, it stuck with me for the rest of the film. At least with Hardcore Henry I barely got a headache and it offered something original. In this movie, it is Bourne finds out new secret information about the government program some how and gets revenge. Like every Bourne film before that (I think, I forget).

The ending has an extremely long and disaster filled car chase, but it is so over the top, any level of previous realism the franchise had is just thrown out of the window. It wasn’t enjoyable, it just dragged. Not to mention understanding just what is happening during it is a battle in itself. You know why. The constant cuts and shakes. It wasn’t Getaway bad, but it was damn near close.

For Jason Bourne, the stakes just aren’t there. The Asset is an interesting character at least, someone who Bourne did screw over. So I could not find myself cheering his eventual demise because of other plot reasons. This film wants to launch more Bourne films, it leaves it way too open with more secrets to find out. And they will be made but I will not be happy to see them if they keep up this repetitive plot line and refuse to change it up for once. Or maybe, just maybe, make the damn thing watchable.

Anna Kendrick is in six movies this year. Six! That is a crap ton for a single year.

Yes, one of them is animated, so just voice work for Trolls. And two of them I don’t know a thing about. And a wide release comedy. But then there were two films that had extremely limited release, basically straight to DVD.

Mr. Right, of course, and Get A Job. Now going into Mr. Right, I am super biased against it, because I accidentally watched the trailer and basically cringed through out it. Had I not known anything, I might have been a bit more optimistic. But factors working against it include a cringey trailer, a lame title, and a very big age gap between our two romantic leads. Arguably that last point should be put under cringey though.

At least the fashion is bangin’.

Oh, Martha McKay (Anna Kendrick), why do you like such assholes? She is ready to surprised her boyfriend at his place, and he shows up with another lady. Great. So now she is drunk and sad and going to be miserable for ever. Not even playing with kittens seems to help.

Then she runs into Francis (Sam Rockwell). Literally. He does something impressive and invites her out on a date. Right then and there, not knowing anything about her, and she says sure. And aww, it is nice. He might be the one. Sure, she doesn’t know his name, but she will find it out eventually.

Francis also used to be a very high paid assassin. However, he grew some morals and didn’t want to do it anymore. Instead, he would go back and kill the people who paid him to kill someone else. Obviously the morals are shaky and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So people are out to get him now, as he pissed off many groups of people. Hopper (Tim Roth) used to be a co-worker and is the main antagonist here.

Francis likes Martha and Martha likes Francis. And technically he doesn’t like to her when he says he just killed a person, but she thinks it is a joke. However, eventually she finds out, conflict, some action stuff, and then some more romance. Typical, you know?

Also featuring, as mostly bad people and hitmen, RZA, Michael Eklund, James Ransone, Jaiden Kaine, and Anson Mount.

Gotta have a killing trademark, I guess.

Mr. Right was written by Max Landis, that guy who did American Ultra and other writing things that people love. He is super active in Hollywood right now (not Anna Kendrick active, but high for a writer). American Ultra was weird and unique but still landed to be just okay. Mr. Right is average, kind of dumb, with the occassional great moments. That is not a good sign for Mr. Right.

Again, there are some amusing moments. Kendrick goes super adorkable at points, babbling, making funny noises, sure. But that is not a complete movie. Rockwell doesn’t feel charismatic and the couple together never feel great. I can’t see why Martha becomes so smitten by him so quickly. The only real reason we have is just because the writers say so, but they don’t show it in the film well.

As a comedy it is subpar. As a romance it is almost non-existant. And as an action, well, the action is okay. But it is romcom action, not straight up epic action that purely action movies provide. It is mostly just some hand to hand combat fight scenes with a few Rockwell and RZA jokes thrown in.

They should have made some element really stand out. And Rockwell talking to people in a fight is not enough. Mr. Right is overall very forgettable.

Okay okay, I know I said this last time. But finally I am reviewing a Disney Channel Original movie that ISN’T a musical. I thought I had that covered when I was watching Descendants last year, but damn, that was a musical too. I had no idea.

But for real, this time, not a musical. Just a remake of an 80’s film. “Oh no!” The people scream. A remake!

Let’s be clear here. The original film, Adventures in Babysitting, was not a masterpiece movie. It literally came out almost 30 years and having a made for TV remake, to modernize it and change the plot completely, doesn’t change the nostalgic past of your memories.

So I chose to review another made for TV movie, Adventures in Babysitting, because it garnered enough negative reaction on the internet for silly reasons.

And despite not being a musical, I wait patiently just to see the song scene.

We don’t have one babysitter in this movie, we have TWO. Jenny Parker (Sabrina Carpenter) is your typical do-nothing-wrong high school student. She is perfect, smart, nice, going to college, and a great babysitter. She is also up for a prestigious photography internship, which would be sweet before she goes to college. That is where she bumps into Lola Perez (Sofia Carson), a radical person, college be damned, but the other runner up for the internship. And thanks to a silly misstep, their phones get switched.

Well, Lola suddenly gets a ticket for illegal parking from a hottie police officer (Max Lloyd-Jones), so she needs to come up with cash to pay for it. She answers Jenny’s phone, finds out that there is a parent desperate and willing to pay double, so she pretends to be Jenny and recommends herself. Sweet and easy, no crime done.

Lola has to watch to Anderson kids: AJ (Madison Horcher), who likes roller derby, Bobby (Jet Jurgensmeyer), who likes to cook, and Trey (Max Gecowets), who is older and has a crush on Jenny. Jenny has to watch the Cooper kids: Katy (Mallory James Mahoney), who is obsessed with dressing up and balls, and Emily (Nikki Hahn), who is now counter culture and scene and shit.

Of course, the two groups are brought together when Trey sneaks out to go to the CITY at NIGHT for a concert! And then bad thing after bad thing happens until the group can work together, everyone getting their unique moment to shine, and friendships can be bonded. We also have Kevin G. Quinn as a boy Jenny likes. He is important, I guess.

Oh girl, that hat, you are so OUT OF CONTROL!

Don’t hate Adventures in Babysitting because it is a remake of something you probably haven’t seen in 20 years. Hate it because it isn’t a great movie and is almost embarassing as a result.

A few years ago, we had to see The Sitter, a movie that was supposed to be a homage or something to Adventures in Babysitting, but instead it was just overly crude and not funny. This went the other way. It is too nice and safe and thus, boring.

Our two “against the grain” characters are still goody two-shoes. The dangers in the city are basically non-existent. Oh, they are chased by bad people? Yeah, because they took a photo they need to delete and they refuse to talk to the people to find out why they are mad. The kids have no idea why they are now being chased, but they run, all because they wouldn’t talk to them and all they wanted was a deleted picture. Ugh.

Of course there is another antagonist. Just time in general. They have to get the kids back, fix every single issue they cause just by being out, and of course clean up a house, before the parents get back.

The entire thing is just so safe. But what annoys me the most is the plotline about Jenny’s crush. Lola answers Jenny’s phone, talks to the crush, and turns down a concert invite from him and says concerts are stupid. So during the movie, Jenny eventually finds out, says she totally would have accepted the invite, meaning they have to break into the concert for her to meet him and get their eventual dating on.

Bitch, you have to babysit tonight and it is a big night that needs many babysitters. You were not going to last minute cancel on a friend and client for the concert and you know it. Stop lying.

Again, this film is safe and boring and I should probably stop reviewing Disney Original Channel movies. But a Descendants 2 is going to happen eventually, so that is probably when I will return to the fray.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Welcome to July 4th! And because Independence Day: Resurgence had to go and come out super early and of course not be good, I have to review something else today instead. And I had nothing. Nothing in my to watch queue fit the theme of the day and my mind was completely blank.

So sure. Netflix to the rescue? I first searched for the word America (and American), but none of the movies really felt patriotic. Or the ones with America in the title weren’t new enough for me to want to review them.

Okay, fine. So I went for the next best word to describe today. Straight up Freedom, and a movie called just Freedom is what I got. And it had to do with American civil war stuff! Great! I just had one of those also, Free State of Jones, but it also didn’t come out July 4 weekend so…yeah, we already talked about that.

A mostly random film that I know nothing about, just for July 4th review.

Although with a civil war theme, I wasn’t expecting this guy to be a main character.

Samuel (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is a slave and he doesn’t to be a slave. He is on a plantation with his mom (Phyllis Bash), wife, Vanessa, (Sharon Leal), kid (Aaron Bantum), and other people. The group of them and someone nicknamed Big Hand (Phillip Boykin) want to escape and finally try it, but the plantation owners find out really quick. Big Hand distracts the dogs so the family can escape though.

This pisses off the owner, Monroe (David Rasche). He really liked Vanessa, like sometimes slave owners did. He gets his old friend, Plimpton (William Sadler) to get out of retirement and hunt the slaves down with a small team. He used to be really great at it too.

Ahem, sorry, back to Samuel. Samuel doesn’t like singing. What the fuck right? He also doesn’t believe in God, or at least the “white man’s god” that would make them slaves and hurt them so. Yet he is alone in this regard. His family thinks he is ridiculous for not going on with their masters religion. Which is why his mom starts telling the story of a guy, a hundred years ago, who knew his great grandpa or something, who also made the song Amazing Grace.

Yep, we have a side story, of John Newton (Bernhard Forcher), a British dude who had to sail a ship as the captain. He just had to go pick up slaves, take them to America, and come home. His fiance (Anna Sims) would be waiting for him. Hell, he wouldn’t have to interact with the slaves. That is what his first mate (Jubilant Sykes) was for, also a slave. Fun!

And so we get the stories of the Samuel family escaping to Canada, and this British guy getting sad about slavery while taking them to the US. Also featuring Michael Goodwin as Garrett.

Yep, this is what I expected with the civil war theme.

At the end of the movie, I was shocked to find out that a few characters in this film were supposed to be real. This Garrett fellow apparently helped get 2,500 slaves over many years to freedom. Cool dude. And of course, John Newton, a British guy who actually did make the song Amazing Grace. This film was partially a biography to him, or at least why he was inspired.

Ah. Cool I guess? The story itself though had very little to do with Samuel’s story. And the “connection” to the story was unfortunately forced and silly, because Samuel isn’t a real person, just Newton is.

Instead, Samuel and his family get to be the slavery representation of thousands of people who had similar trips. They just wanted to also talk about Newton for whatever reason. The struggles shown for the family are relatively small on their hundreds of miles of journey though. In fact, most of it went pretty smoothly.

No, the crux of this movie is people being mad at Samuel despite Samuel having a perfectly reasonable attitude towards life. Slaves were forced to like Jesus and Samuel never really caring for that fact makes a lot of sense.

But no, by the end he figures out that Jesus is still awesome, despite his own personal struggles. So he finally sings a song when he is free, and then the movie ends.

The reason I gave this a 1 is because there is a surprisingly large number of songs in this movie. And yes, all of them are Gospel in nature but I happen to like that. Most of them didn’t really feel realistic as they tended to have that “produced” quality to them, but hey, it helped break up the monotony that was this dull, possibly offensive story.