Tag: Dave Franco

I have talked recently on some of my Netflix reviews about how they seem to have a big release of a week and go over hype with their advertisements about the film. You know, so people can watch it. Because they rarely have commercials for their movies.

But they also are now releasing a ton of films without all of the fanfare, and just letting those niche groups find them on their niche recommendation slides.

I think that is the type of idea they had for the movie 6 Balloons. A very simple film, with like two big names in it, neither of which are the “lead”, and a drama.

If it isn’t flash sci-fi action or comedy, they don’t get the big treatment. And that is why I am hear to talk about the film.

Where the fuck are the balloons at?

Katie (Abbi Jacobson) has a plan and she is going to make it work. No matter what, she has a plan. Her current plan? To throw a kick ass surprise party for her boyfriend, Jack (Dawan Owens)! He is returning from something or another. She is a perfectionist or something. Everything must be right. She can’t trust all of her friends with the basic tasks, because they might do it wrong. Her parents (Jane Kaczmarek, Tim Matheson) are there and bickering, but they wont get in her way.

But there is her brother, Seth (Dave Franco). She heads out to pick him and his daughter (Charlotte and Madeline Carel, twins for legal reasons I guess) up. He is divorced, and has issues, and the current issue is he is high on heroin when getting picked up by Abbi. Drugs are not part of her plan and a big distraction. She is going to have to put him in a rehab place immediately so she can continue with her plans.

Even if the daughter has to see it. Even if he might lose custody. Even if his insurance isn’t going to accept the close place. What? It doesn’t? Shit. That is actually not okay. That is a problem. And she has a party to fix. Fuckin’ brothers, right?

Oh hay, homeless crack addicts. What a surprise party!

6 Balloons is not going to win awards. It is not going to be sought after in most circles. Super fans of Dave Franco are not frothing at the mouth to see him in this movie (although honestly, he plays it really well. I blame it on his naturally high looking face). But in all honestly, it is a really solid movie.

At times I wasn’t sure where it was going, and at times I thought it didn’t have a real end goal. Well, I had one idea, but that was me being a movie pessimist and hoping for the worst possible case scenario.

6 Balloons felt like a movie about real people dealing with all too common issues. Not just the addiction problems, but the insurance problems, the having too much on their plate, and just extreme anxieties associated with dealing with your family. Can you just sell out your family to the cops? How much emotional abuse would it take for you to snap? And really, who is to blame for the addiction? Could over bearing parents cause many of these problems in their kids?

It is not a funny movie, but it isn’t fully sad either. If anything, 6 Balloons is just a small idea for a plot, and acted very well by the two leads of Jacobson and Franco. There are worse ways to spend 70 minutes of your time.

3 out of 4.

I had absolutely no intentions of watching The LEGO Ninjago Movie earlier in the year. When this and The LEGO Batman Movie were announced, I honestly wasn’t too fond of either idea, but this idea less so because I don’t know what the fuck a Ninjago is. It is one of their brands, but never anything I touched, so who cares.

I just wanted a real sequel to The LEGO Movie more than anything, so these off shoot films were very “whatever” on my radar.

And then I ended up being so disappointed in the Batman film and animated films in general that I needed to give Ninjago a chance. I needed to check every crook and nanny to see if all the animated films were bad. And you know what? I think this one was hated right out of the gate, with people who had very similar thoughts to mind.

No one wanted to give Ninjago a chance, which is why there hasn’t been a lot of hype for the film. And yet it, in my mind, is the better LEGO film of 2017.

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Featuring so many members of Silicon Valley also had to be intentional.

In the city of Ninjago, normal city things occur, bakers, bread buyers, bread eaters, you name it. There is a giant volcano near by across the bay, and in it lives Garmadon (Justin Theroux), a four armed evil ninja mad man who wants to take over the city, become its mayor, and rule it with his man evil fists. He is a big pain, always destroying things, bu he never wins thanks to a group of young teenagers with attitude.

You see, there is a protective ninja force in town! They have Mechs that can help them stop Garmadon every time. They all have cool elements too: The Fire Ninja (Michael Peña), The Lightning Ninja (Kumail Nanjiani), The Water Ninja (Abbi Jacobson), The Ice Ninja (Zach Woods), The Earth Ninja (Fred Armisen), and The Green Ninja (Dave Franco). Yes, the power of Green. Sucks even more for The Green Ninja, besides his lame element, because his dad actually is Garmadon.

Despite Garmadon being out of his and his mom’s (Olivia Munn) life since he was a baby, everyone knows he is the son of Garmadon and teases him non stop, because his Ninja identity is a secret. This enrages him of course, along with his anger at his dad and the fact that they never truly win. Despite the warnings of their master (Jackie Chan), the Green Ninja tries to use the ultimate weapon against Garmadon, which ends up putting the city at an even bigger risk without hurting Garmadon.

Fuck.

Now the Ninjas are going to have to find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, and discover how to be real ninjas without relying on Mech technology, in order to save the city, defeat Garmadon, and you know, be better people.

The story about his extra pair of arms is actually a funny one, you see….

Does the Ninjago movie have a lot of ninja stereotypes? You betcha. Does it focus on only one main plot point of the lost father/son relationship? Of course. Does it rely heavily on jokes about this relationship, bringing them up again and again? That’s another affirmative.

I believe those would be the reasons it is getting some pretty sad reviews overall. And yes, relying on one line of jokes through the majority of the film is a problem. But the good news is, it is more than just that line of jokes, they are just mostly pushed to the side or hidden in the background. In all of these LEGO movies there is a shit ton going on at all times, including quips from various characters, some without real names. And they carried the film for me.

I could have done without what felt like a long montage about learning how to throw. But the conversation about not knowing how to throw early on was amazing. And so on and so on. I found a lot of the characters to be quite amusing and thought they did well as a martial arts parody film.

But more importantly, the size and scale of this movie was appreciated. This movie is probably better to me because of comparing it to Batman. But Batman was too big. It had its own world that was unfortunately overstuffed, intentionally, so much that the had to bring in 20 or more characters to make the joke. But in Ninjago we have a handful of important characters dealing with issues in their city and not relying on outside pop culture references to tell this story.

In fact, this is one of the few reviews where I didn’t have to end my middle section with “Also starring!” and a huge list of people I couldn’t easily fit in to the plot description. It is a nice, self contained story, that amused me over the small run time. And that is why I can put it above so many other animated films this year.

3 out of 4.

When you claim to watch bad movies so others don’t have to, you often get asked if you have seen certain bad movies. I would say the film I have been asked about the most by a landslide would be Cube. Because I like shit like that, and math. Didn’t see that coming did you? Well I’ve seen Cube now and the first sequel.

The movie most requested after that would easily be The Room, something I didn’t rush out to see. I saw the “best scenes” compilation on YouTube and just put that in a “one day” bucket. Then The Disaster Artist has to go and not only come out but receive awards nominations. shit. That meant I HAD to watch The Room finally. I couldn’t go in blind. What’s the point?

So I saw it still slightly reluctantly. Powered through. I get the appeal but I still won’t see it again. And hey now I can watch others talk about it!

Just not in the goddamn theater, that’d be rude.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) was a struggling young adult. He thought about being a famous actor one day, and he was even taking acting lessons. He just wasn’t any good. At all. At. All. Nothing helped, he didn’t display any emotion, it was a lost cause. But in those same classes, he found a dark and mysterious man named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Now this is a man who knew how to channel his emotions and really bring that raw talent to the stage.

So Greg wanted to work with Tommy, and Tommy agreed. He was a bit weird, but he really brought it out of Greg and Greg started to feel confident. After years of friendship, they moved to LA, with Tommy financing everything, to become real actors. After it didn’t work out well, especially not for Tommy, Tommy started to write and figure out his own movie. This piece became The Room, a film that is iconic today, and the rest of this movie is how it was made, the trials they faced, and the hurdles that were overcome. Also how Greg began to move on by getting a girlfriend (Alison Brie) and trying to separate from the Tommy umbrella.

And only some talk about being a vampire.

Given the people who made this, it is no surprise how many famous actors are in this film: Seth Rogen, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Charlyne Yi, Bob Odenkirk, Hannibal Buress, Joe Mande, Nathan Fielder, Andrew Santino, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, June Diane Raphael, Jackie Weaver and Ari Graynor. I could have also swore a minor character was Margot Robbie, but the credits won’t let me confirm that.

As we learned in The Room there is never a bad time for football.

I wonder how much your perceptions of this film changes based on your opinions of The Room. If you have seen The Room many times since it came out, were totally in that cult movie aspect, I think you will enjoy The Disaster Artist a whole lot more than someone new to the topic. Obviously this is a film where you sort of need to see The Room before seeing it to really get it at all, but there is a huge difference between me watching it a week before The Disaster Artist and years prior.

Because hey, The Disaster Artist is a pretty funny film. The Francos do a good job of setting the stage, building up the Wiseau mythos and so on. And sure, I can agree that James acted well, only because we obviously have a real person/character to compare him to. But if this was just a movie about a bad production, this is the type of thing that would be panned for unnecessarily ridiculous director guy.

So it is a very hard thing to judge. Was it actually well acted only because he acted like Wiseau accurately? Or does well acted need to be something more than accuracy to a subject? It is a hard subject to answer, and not one that I will go into real detail here. But it is something on my mind and something that certainly would tell me that it certainly shouldn’t be winning awards for its acting.

The Disaster Artist was a film that made me laugh and remind me of a shitty film at the same time. It is a very strange genre of movie, very meta, and it will gain its own cult status I am sure. Double features for the next 20 years! However, in reality, I really just want to read the book to get the full story and won’t bother too much with the film version many times in the future.

3 out of 4.

Finally the talk of the summer is here. People have had 7/7/17 circled on their calendar, just waiting for the movie that everyone everywhere has wanted.

No not goddamn Spider-man. I’m talking about The Little Hours?

Oh you haven’t heard about The Little Hours? My bad! Surprisingly very little advertising, but it was directed by Jeff Baena who gave us Life After Beth. Which was decent, and also had very little advertising. Guess that is his indie theme.

Either way, the number of people you would recognize in this film is actually quite staggering, so that alone one would have warranted an advertising budget, but what do I know.

Oh, and I know every single girl in this picture too.

Picture this! A nice quaint nunnery, the medieval ages, pious and chaste women just doing their thing, trying to love Jesus.

This nunnery is run by Father Tommasso (John C. Reilly) and the head nun is Sister Marea (Molly Shannon). At this point, this nunnery might seem a bit more odd already.

Our main nuns that we are looking at are all relatively young and unsure about their lives. Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie) is just there temporarily, waiting for her father to set her up with a husband, and she does cross stitch to help make some cash for the convent. Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza) is quick to temper and often misses events looking for animals that keep breaking out. Sister Genevra (Kate Micucci) wants to be a good nun, but is getting caught up in other nun-anigans and also questioning her sexuality.

And they are all mean to this one poor gardener. So eventually, he is fed up and leaves, putting the convent in a pickle. But no worries, a young chap Massetto (Dave Franco) is on the run from his kingdom, for being a little shithead, and he can take the place. He just has to pretend to be deaf and mute so he doesn’t get on the nerves of the nuns.

But he is young and cute and that causes even more issues.

Also starring Lauren Weedman, Nick Offerman, Jemima Kirke, Fred Armisen, and Adam Pally.

Yelling “Hey Fuckface!” at deaf people is the only way to know if they are really deaf.

I had no idea what to expect of this movie going into it. I wondered if it would be a serious film, with comedic actors, just to be weird. But as soon as Plaza started laying down the f-bombs, it became obvious that this was just going to be a very odd period piece film. I quickly then switched my mind to Your Highness, which was mostly improv and also quite strange.

And then something else happened. It got sexy. Not sexy like Natalie Portman in a medieval thong, but sexy erotic. Because those girls are young and curious, Franco is young and desperate, and there is a lot of sexual activity in the movie. Like, a whole lot. And the scenes aren’t super quick jokes, they kind of go on for a bit, and include sexy music.

What I am saying is, this movie sort of turns into a softcore porno. Or at least a skinamax-esque picture. And it came out of nowhere and kept happening. Add on the very naked ending bit, with lots of floppy bits, this is just a surprise from start to finish.

And most of the points come from being a surprise. I laughed a few times, but it was never a film that really captured my interest. It was also intentionally slow (and brooding?), but at least it is original. And for some people out there, this might be the type of film they have been waiting for, for a long time.

2 out of 4.

Nerve is another of those films that I have thankfully been able to avoid any real information about.

On a first glance of the plot, it seemed to be some sort of combination of the Indie Horror Cheap Thrills and the Underwhelming Block Buster Gamer.

But it features the youthful cast of the future! Like Emma Roberts, straight out of Scream Queens! And Dave Franco, straight out of, I dunno, Neighbors and some James Franco pet project probably.

Sex Sells!

Nerve is a real life, 24 hour game that is invite only, super popular, but also secretive. It takes place in a big city and people can sign up in the city to be a Player or a Watcher. Also people outside of the city can be a watcher as well. It costs a fee to be a watcher, but then you can watch the players compete dares over a 24 hour period, earning cash prizes, doing stunts, getting sexy and who knows what else. The Player has to record the dares with their phones for them to count, and if they bail or fail a dare in the time limit, they are out of the competition.

After 24 hours, the two highest players in terms of viewers get to go to the finals and the winner will become super famous and decently wealthy. It is also completely anonymous for the watchers and no real one person is in control. And now the game has hit New York City.

Vee (Emma Roberts) is not an outgoing individual. She takes pictures and hides in the background. But when her best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade) embarrasses her in front of a crush (Brian Marc), she decides to finally live a little and screw it, time to be a player.

So she does one dare. And she brings along Tommy (Miles Heizer), her guy friend who clearly crushes hardcore on her. She just has to prove herself. But then she meets Ian (Dave Franco), someone who ends up being another player. And the dares get them closer together, so sure, why not, he is cute, why not hang out with him and earn some more money. Strangers aren’t really scary in real life.

Juliette Lewis plays Vee’s mom, Machine Gun Kelly another player, and Kimiko Glenn and Marc John Jefferies as two more friends of Sydney.

Don’t worry, they get to kiss before they take their clothes off.

Nerve was directed by the people who did Catfish and a couple terrible Paranormal Activity Films. So they have both experience with creepy things and technology, so in this film they wanted to bring it a bit together.

Early in the film, it felt a lot like Unfriended as our entire point of view if Vee’s computer screen, which lasts only a few minutes. And a lot of recent films that incorporate texting and technology into the movie to show the always connected parts of life have tended to feel tacky, but it really works in this movie. It feels unique with its cinematography and for the most part throughout the film it was a nice ride to be on.

The biggest problem with the movie just was the ending to me. It felt like a cop out, the plan was a bit silly and everything seemed to work out to well. The entire film ramps up quickly near the end, getting far too ahead of itself. Before the end, I thought this would make a decent franchise with a lot of potential, but the ending ruins even that for me. Also, for whatever reason, halfway through we find out that if they ever fail or bail on a dare, they lose all the money they earned. Which uhh, makes the fact that they earn money for tasks seem kind of pointless and makes absolutely no sense.

On another note, which will totally date this review in the future, it reminded me of Pokemon Go. At the time of writing, the game is only three weeks old. It became a phenomenon and now everywhere you can see people out and about, glued to their phone and playing it. And in the movie, there are tons of watchers, racing around NYC, with their phones out to film the players on their dares and see them in person. Before Pokemon Go it would have seemed silly and made the whole movie feel unbelievable. But now, hell, it is really easy to see this type of thing blow up and get popular. Nerve picked a really fucking good time come out, go figur.

Nerve is interesting, has a disappointing finale, and yet, I still kind of want some more.

2 out of 4.

Right off the bat, there is a big problem with Now You See Me 2. The big problem is that it is called Now You See Me 2.

How in the hell do you have a movie named Now You See Me, and then fail to call the sequel Now You Don’t? It is a really popular phrase, everyone knows it, and you give us this even more generic sequel name. It is like they aren’t trying to be cool.

I didn’t expect there to even be a sequel to the first film. Yes, I gave it a 2 out of 4, but it had one of the worst twist endings of all time. They picked a character that would produce the most confusion and failed to make a movie that made sense. They also blurred the line between real magic and explaining the tricks, because the writers had no idea what to do. They went for cool and splashy and couldn’t pick a side. The only reason I probably gave it an average rating is because it came out the same day as After Earth.

Now, sure, a lot of movies are coming out on this day as well. That is why I saw this one weeks in advance to make sure I had a clear mind before writing the sequel’s review.

Ass shots for everyone, not just the lady, hooray!

Set a year after the events in the first film, The Horsemen have gone missing. Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) is still looking for them, just badly to cover it all up. This angers his boss (Sanaa Lathan) and coworker (David Warshofsky) who think he is a bumbling fool almost. This is all a ploy though, in order to finally bring them back out at a big phone tech reveal.

This Octo company, led by Owen (Ben Lamb) is unleashing some super sexy phone tech, however it will also steal all information from the users and sell the data on the black market. So The Eye has told Dylan to get The Horsemen together to crash the event. You know, Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Wilder (Dave Franco), and Lula (Lizzy Caplan). Wait a minute! She wasn’t a horseman! She is a replacement for Henley, who in the movie wanted out in the year in isolation, so they replaced her. I think the studio was hoping you wouldn’t realize it.

However, bad things happen during their surprise show and the group find themselves now in Macau, China (basically their Las Vegas with a big Magic scene), in the clutches of some rich dude named Walter (Daniel Radcliffe). There is more behind the Octo tech, Walter wants his hands on it and wants The Horsemen to steal it! Oh the layers!

And then, you know, shenanigans.

Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine return, along with Jay Chou and Henry Lloyd-Hughes.

GET IT? He is Harry Potter! In a different magic movie! DO YOU GET IT!?

Now You See Me 2 tried to answer some questions its predecessor failed to do so. The key word being tried. Good. The first one explained how The Horsemen did the first trick and didn’t really explain anything else after that. This time they put a lot more effort into explaining how things work, at the bare minimum some tech terms and concepts, to show hey, this isn’t real magic, it is just tricks.

Except, you know, some of the bigger tricks like Atlas falling backwards into a puddle and disappearing completely except for his clothes. They don’t try to explain that, because the writers put it in because it is cool and have no idea how to actually make it work. This is an example of a movie pretending to be a super smart heist movie, but when they get to complicated matters, they shrug their shoulders, say magic and move on.

So everything is just special effects in real life, unless it is actually magic. You know, like speed hypnotism or whatever, which is used constantly in the film. They refuse to make up their mind.

This film has a big twist near the end too, all about who belongs to the mysterious Eye organization and what their purpose is. Well, the reveal isn’t actually a big surprise, it is a let down, but at least it makes more sense. In fact, it is the type of reveal that would have been better at the end of the first film, not the end of a sequel no one wanted.

Here is a positive. Yes, it was awkward that Caplan was suddenly in this film, but her character was the best and funniest with the most personality to boot. If they decide to punish our life more with a third film, it should be called Now You Three Me and star her with completely new cast besides her.

1 out of 4.

Comedy sequels have gotten a bad rep lately. Like Zoolander 2 and Dumb and Dumber To. Okay, those had many years between sequels, but like…The Hangover Part III and Horrible Bosses 2.

So I went into Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising with a skeptical face. I enjoyed Neighbors and rewatched it the morning of the screening, still holds up decently.

But the problem with comedy sequels is the direction you take it. Do you give them more of the same? If so, then it isn’t original any more. If you give them something completely unrelated, then why even make it a sequel and not an original movie?

Neighbors 2 might just be Neighbors with more women.

But you know, regular, chill, want to kill you women.

After Neighbors, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) returned quiet to their neighborhood. But now, Kelly is pregnant again, so they want to move to a new house with more rooms and with less neighbors. They put an offer on a house and they were accepted! However, their current home isn’t sold yet. It is on escrow. So the buying couple has 30 days to check it out and do tests and can back out at any time.

And at that moment is of course when some new people move in. Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), Beth (Kiersey Clemons), and Nora (Beanie Feldstein) want to start their own sorority, that can party and smoke weed and promote their own feminist values of sisterhood. They just have issues getting enough money to rent the place for their dreams to come true.

That is where Teddy (Zac Efron) comes in. He is feeling pretty pathetic, everyone in his life is becoming successful except for him. And Pete (Dave Franco) is now totally gay and about to get married to Darren (John Early), which means Teddy needs a place to stay. He decides to become a sort of sorority consultant to the girls in order to find value, and maybe screw over the people who gave him a criminal record and all.

Woo, prank wars!

Some smaller roles are played by Selena Gomez, Clara Mamet, and someone called Awkwafina. Also returning, albeit briefly include Hannibal Buress, Chistopher Mintz-Plasse, Jerrod Carmichael and the best friends Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo.

This is how I dress up when I want to look young.

Neighbors 2 actually does a good balance of keeping things original with appropriate call backs. The picture used right above ended up being one of the funniest scenes in the film and was entirely new and fresh material. My second and third favorite moments were both call backs to airbags. There are several great humorous scenes that really carry the film and overall make this film a good time while watching it.

But when comparing it to its predecessor, it doesn’t hold up as well. My main faults lie with the chemistry between Moretz, Clemons, and Feldstein, the leaders of the new sorority. It is practically non-existence. Yes, before the events of the film, they didn’t know each other, but most of their comedic scenes together never really feel too funny. Their logic and reasoning for wanting to create their own sorority is actually a good one. The film delivers a real message about sorority culture and the need for change. They just failed to make it funny.

Most of our humor is reserved for our old people roles and Efron, while the sorority side remains mostly serious in their own goals. It is a strange dichotomy in this movie.

And honestly, the ending tried to tie everything in a nice bow, but the solutions that were found don’t make a lot of sense when you examine it for just a few seconds.

Again, some great funny scenes in this movie, and strangely enough, some character growth, but they are unable to deliver their message while maintaining the funny throughout.

2 out of 4.

When Unfinished Business hit theaters, it committed Seppuku on itself almost immediately? Why? Well, it is a comedy, and it has some famous people in it, AND it was released in theaters, it just didn’t do any screenings for anyone.

I can understand why a movie like Step Up: All In might not do screeners. It is for a very specific group or audience, who will see it, critics be damned. And if you aren’t into dancing, you won’t like it.

I can see why a low budget indie movie with no famous people would also hold no screeners. They are art house films and want awards, not money. (This is a lie, everyone wants money).

But what is supposed to be an A-Level comedy? They are saying they have literally no confidence in this movie at all and are just releasing it while hoping no one will really notice. It is not a good thing to know going into a film and really makes you wonder how bad it could be before you even see anything.

I mean, it has Vince Vaughn and beer, how could this not appeal to the majority of Americans at this point?

Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn), before having an unfortunate name, is also about to leave his work. He is in sales, selling things, but the what is not important. He feels like he is getting screwed out of his pay check, because his boss, Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller) (what the fuck is that name?) wants to renegotiate how much he is getting for a new sale. So he decides to walk out. And much like Jerry Maguire, he was left basically alone and sad.

Wait, there are two people with him! Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who has a mandatory age of retirement or something, but doesn’t really want to stop working, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), someone who was applying for a job but is willing to work for Dan! Yeah! They will start their own business selling…things!

A year later, life sucks. They aren’t doing great, they don’t have an office. Dan has troubles at home. His son (Britton Sear) is getting bullied, his girl (Ella Anderson) is needing him to work on a project about his unsuccessful life, and his wife (June Diane Raphael) wants to put the boy in private school, but Dan can’t talk about their financial woes.

Either way, they finally are going to close on a deal. Just need to shake hands with a Jim (James Marsden) and they will have money to fix all the things! Well, then there is fucking Chuck, suddenly in the races and they have a lot more work to do. And also Nick Frost is hanging out.

They just have to do the things to maybe get the deal! The things! The things!

Pancake is probably one of the greatest last names in movie history.

You know, this is probably 2013’s fault. In that year we had The Internship (which I actually liked) and Delivery Man (a scene for scene remake of a French Canadian film), both of which basically bombed and were groaned at by critics. All with Vince at the helm! Since then he had nothing in 2014, a cameo in Anchorman 2, and that is it. Literally, a string of bad movies might have killed his career. After all, this movie began its shoots in October 2013, and a year later had to do reshoots. I guess the studio really did have no faith at all. Nor did the public, giving this the lowest grossing film opening of his career.

And it is sad to say that all of it is entirely warranted. This is a comedy in the sense that occasionally an amusing scene may happen. In no way does it ever give the minute after minute of laughter that you are hoping for with this movie. No, and it doesn’t help that this film has entirely too many serious moments in it, serious moments that don’t end up affecting the viewer on an emotional level. The movie isn’t just stale, but the entire time you are watching you are waiting to figure out just what the point of the whole film is.

The drama, the plot, the comedy, the acting for the most part is all terrible in this film. The pacing is all over the place and it honestly feels like everyone is super passive. Vaughn’s character is passive, the bad guys are passive. 90 minutes of people standing around and talking about doing great things, and of course, not.

The only reason I am giving it the 1 and not a 0 is, surprisingly, Dave Franco. He basically plays someone who is literally retarded. It was very strange and yet, it was very different for little Franco. His character was able to bring a smile to my face through his simplicity and his discoveries through this film journey. If we could have a spin-off movie of him traveling the world, that would be ideal.

The good news for Vince is that he is about to star in True Detective season 2. He is hoping to have some sort of Vaughn-Respawn for his career, just like the recent McConaissance.

1 out of 4.

Finally, a movie that can relate to almost anyone. Neighbors. Hey, I have had neighbors most of my life! Some people live on farms in the middle of no where with no real neighbors. Those people aren’t the target audience for this movie though. I doubt they are anyone’s target audience really.

Also it is the first big comedy of the summer. Last year we got This Is The End as our first big movie (because I am just making shit up now and ignoring other films, like The Hangover 3. Let me make up this imaginary point, jeez), and that one set a bar too high for most other comedies to follow.

Can Neighbors do the same?

Not with these squares trying to act cool. Nope nope nope.

Mac (Seth Rogen) and, Kelly (Rose Byrne) are adults! They have finally done it! They created a human from their love and they have a house!

But then they got…grr…neighbors! They thought it would be a lovely gay couple. No, it was a frat house. How’d they get a house in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Who knows. But they are stoked, because it is time to party. Their president, THE Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) and a VP of Pete (Dave Franco).

Mac and Kelly try and be cool about it all. Sure they have a baby, but as long as they are cool, the frat will probably try to keep it down. The frat is willing to be friendly with them, as long as they don’t call the cops ever, just them first.

Well, they call the cops eventually after a party that won’t end and won’t get quiet. That makes the frat angry. They decide to rage war on their neighbors, as they have messed with the wrong frat. Then shenanigans happen. Shenanigans!

We also get Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jerrod Carmichael as frat guys. And Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo as friends of Mac and Kelly. And Hannibal Buress as a cop! But his role is limited.

When there are multiple De Niros, you will never know who is talking to who.

I have long talked about how great Zac Efron is in past reviews, and it is still true here, so I won’t talk about it more here. Seth Rogen is very much like his normal self, so I won’t talk about that more here.

Instead, I will talk about Rose Byrne, who was absolutely hilarious in the movie along with the rest of the cast. I realize I rarely praise the female in a comedy, but she really held her own against some of these other professionals of comedy. She doesn’t do comedy much, outside of Bridesmaids I really can’t remember anything, so it really came as a big surprise to me.

The film definitely has its moments. The one De Niro scene had me in stitches, and reminded me a bit of the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It was a good show from an all-star-ish cast with hardly any downtime in between laughs.

3 out of 4.

The first time I saw the trailer for Now You See Me, I got all sorts of excited. A movie with magic and illusions? Heck yeah! It has been seven years since we really had movies on the subject, when we were blessed with The Prestige and The Illusionist, both of which were quite enjoyable.

Oh. I meant good movies about magicians. Sorry. I tend to forget about The Incredible Burt Wonderstone already (and that was in March!).

Look at this gaggle of fucks right here. Basically every star in this movie! Wait…

To start the film, we are introduced to four different street magicians. Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), the fast talking kind of a dick magician, McKinney (Woody Harrelson), the formerly big mentalist, Henley (Isla Fisher), the former assistant turned pro, and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), the thieving tricky magician. They are all invited to a secret gathering, where they find blue prints to pull off great magical feats. A year later, they are calling themselves The Four Horsemen and headlining in Las Vegas and around the world!

Their new benefactor is Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), a big big millionaire, and they just used a magic trick to rob a bank in Paris. Huh? What?

Yep. But the FBI and lead detective Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) are in a pickle. Can they arrest them for a magic trick, with no real evidence? Well, no evidence unless they assume magic is real. The answer is no. Even with Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), an ex-magician who has a web-series explaining and spoiling other magician’s secrets, they don’t have enough to actually put them away.

Rhodes and his new partner from Interpol (Melanie Laurent) have to follow the four horsemen across America, as their tricks get more and more daring, and steal from more and more powerful sources. But are they doing these tricks alone, or is there a Fifth Horsemen secretly pulling the strings? Also featuring Michael Kelly as an FBI agent. I feel bad for not including him.

In a previous version of this review, I used famous character names instead of actor names for the plot description (like Mark Zuckerberg, or The Hulk) but Dave Franco kind of ruined that. No one really knows who he is.

Why are you so befuddled Ruffalo? Surprised I decided to leave Eisenberg out of the pictures?The more I think about the ending to Now You See Me, the more I get angry at inconsistencies. That is what I get for thinking about a movie afterwards I guess. But alas, my burden to carry as a reviewer.

In a movie like this, there will be red herrings, because they know you are trying to guess the ending the entire time. After all, clearly the fifth horseman will be someone in the movie, not some random stranger popping up at the end! But when the reveal happens it just doesn’t seem to make much since the harder you look at the film.

The movie spends a decent amount of time focusing on explaining the tricks, thanks to Freeman’s character, but at the same time, there are things done only toby the power of CGI that kind of take the mysticism out of it. We are left wondering if magic is actually real in this movie, or if it is all explainable like the normal real world. Honestly, by the end, I am still not sure.

At the same time, it still was a bit entertaining. I think Woody Harrelson was my favorite player in the movie, by far. Which is great, because I finally saw Rampart recently and didn’t have a good time doing it. As the mentalist, he was pretty funny. Ruffalo was okay as the main cop character, but definitely not the type of role he is used to. After all, aside from The Avengers and this film, every role he has had has basically been in an indie movie.

Now You See Me did a good job of playing with our mind, giving every possible misdirection in the book. But it in no way will stand up to the previous mentioned magic films in a year or two. However, it is still at least a little bit cool.

2 out of 4