Gorgon Reviews

Good news! The Marvel Cinematic Universe is finally taking bigger risks with its movies! No longer now is each film headlined by a big and famous cartoon character.

Sure, I thought their first risk would actually be Ant-Man, but who knows if that will ever happen now.

With Guardians of the Galaxy, we are given a franchise that will make a lot of casual comic fans go “Huh?” They are definitely not the biggest or baddest property Marvel still has, which is why it is surprising they are making this movie.

Unfortunately, that risk has come at a terrible price. Backed by Disney, they had a lot of money to throw around. All of this money went into advertisements. Since before Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out (of which I only saw two trailers for), I think I have seen a GotG trailer at least once a week for new releases. They advertised the fuck out of this movie. I kind of got sick of it.

It wasn’t just trailers though. TV spots, giveaways, extended looks. They even had one of the biggest bullshit things I had ever heard, showing 17 minutes of the movie, and advertising it like a special pre-screening. Who the fuck wants to watch 17 minutes of a movie?

They are over saturating the market to help ensure their risky gamble doesn’t fail. Which just pisses me off more. I am still excited for the movie, but honestly I also feel like I am more excited to stop seeing advertisements for it soon.

Except for the poster of this scene. It is hanging above my toilet.

Space. Like, Seriously deep space. Like far from Earth so don’t even pretend that we are dealing with any space shit you are aware of.

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka Starlord, aka an Earthling thought is totally far away from Earth. He was picked up from the planet when he was just a boy, just randomly. And now he is a space pirate! Well, just a junk yard ravager more like it, but also pseudo outlaw-ish. But after going after a mysterious space ball, Peter has found himself in quite a stick situation. A lot of people want this ball and he is hiding it hard to sell.

For instance, Ronan (Lee Pace), the Kree warrior madman wants the ball for some reason, probably to destroy a planet he has some serious ancient beefs with. Gamora (Zoe Saldana), adopted daughter of Thanos is sent to retrieve the ball. Because Peter decided to abandon his ravager crew, the leader Yondu (Michael Rooker) puts a 40,000 bounty on his head. This causes Rocket (Bradley Cooper), totally not a raccoon but a raccoon, and his tree companion Groot (Vin Diesel) to seek him down for that sweet money.

Well, these four get caught up in shenanigans, and they are eventually introduced to Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), who would like to kill Ronan for killing his wife and daughter.

Oh swell! A group of rag tag anti-heroes who, through eventually working together, might have to do the right things.

Also featuring Karen Gillan as Nebula, another Thanos daughter, Djimon Hounsou, a high ranking general for Ronan, Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, Glenn Close as the head of NovaCorp and John C. Reilly as a Nova captain.

I’m a Groot, he’s a Groot, she’s a Groot, we’re all Groots, hey!

Ahhhh, excitement!

There is a lot that really works in this movie and combined, all of the elements make this one of the funniest Marvel movies yet. Let’s talk about individual characters. Starlord? Pratt knocked it out of the house. Felt like a real pseudo-leader and had some emotional moments as well. Gamora? Probably my favorite role that Zoe Saldana has done, felt a lot more believable than most of her characters. Rocket? Hell yes Rocket. Who wouldn’t like Rocket? I couldn’t even recognize Cooper’s voice. Groot? Everyone will also love Groot. He is powerful, sweet, and awesome. And Drax? I knew the least about Drax going in, as each regular trailer didn’t really do much for him outside of showing him as a big strong guy who likes to kill. But his character has a lot of depth and a lot of funnier moments, so he was the biggest surprise for me. Really loved Drax.

So all the characters are good? Great! Nice supporting people too. Unfortunately, my biggest issue with the film is the main man, Ronan, Lee Pace. He had…just no personality. He felt extremely one dimensional, and until over halfway through the movie, he was just all talk. They talked a lot about how evil and the bad stuff he had done, but they didn’t do a good way of showcasing it until closer til the end. The big baddie was a disappointment.

The Collector was also a bit wasted in this film to me.

But the graphics? The laughs? The plot? The soundtrack? The synergy? All of it worked so well together. The scenes with the main guardians just talking were some of the better conversational pieces I have heard all year.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a great movie, just not the best Marvel movie that has come out of their studios. I have a hard time believing anyone could leave the theater feeling disappointed.

Sigh.

Look. Accepting alternative realities for movies is easy. Accepting a fantasy movie is great, as long as it follows the rules it set out for itself in the movie. Accepting a movie on Earth is easy too, even if there are non-Earth things like superheroes on it.

But with Lucy? The trailer seemed to highlight, and thus I assume it is a big part of a movie, that it is based on a complete misconception. Humans do not only use 10% of their brain.

Having an incorrect fact in a movie isn’t an issue. It is just that it is based on such a well known misconception. It feels like they are ignoring that fact, telling us to go fuck ourselves, and make the movie anyways. The issue is that most likely, a movie like this could be made with out the misconception at all.

But they’d rather further dumb down America.

That is all the ranting I will do about that dumb ass plot hook, I swear, and all of this intro comes before seeing the movie.

References to the Matrix are still fair game, however.

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a mid-twenties student, studying over in Taiwan. She loves to party, but also loves to study. I think. Well, her boyfriend of one week Richard (Pilou Asbæk) is into some shady things. He delivers packages for large fees, no questions, just dangerous men. For whatever reason he is afraid to deliver this next package for $1,000, so he forces Lucy to do it instead. Well, shenanigans!

Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi) is very interested in that package, which contains four bags of a blue, totally not Breaking Bad meth, drugs. And she is forced to become a drug mule for them along with three others, each carrying a bag in their stomach to take to their home cities where it will be removed and spread around to get people addicted. It’s new and it is ready to party.

Well, en route to the plane, the bag gets damaged and leaks into Lucy’s body. This has very strange effects, the extreme large amounts of the drug and it starts to unlock her brains capacity. With this unlocking comes even more powers and ability, including telepathy and time travel. But. But what if she gets 100%?

Morgan Freeman is a brain professor in Paris, Amr Waked a police captain, and Analeigh Tipton has a small role as Lucy’s roommate.

X-Ray vision? Fuck that. She has X-Ray touch.

Fuck Luc Besson. Yeah. I said it. I am going to say that there is not enough hate for him as a director/writer, as he is putting out more useless crap than Michael Bay. He hasn’t directed all of these recent movies, but he was involved with The Family, 3 Days To Kill, Brick Mansions, Taken 2, and Lockout. What do they all have in common? Being terrible. That is literally only 2.5 years of movies. He is not The Fifth Element director anymore.

Unfortunately, the 10% myth wasn’t just a minor part of the movie. It was the entire driving force of Lucy trying to hit 100% brain capacity and the effects of it along the away. They even flashed percentages across the screen as it went along just in case you forgot, so you knew where she was at to. It was very very focused around that, and Freeman’s characters only purpose was to add fake credibility to it all.

Spliced throughout the movie are other scenes, of animals, places, and events, and they are just all completely awkward and detracting. They feel like filler for a movie that isn’t even 90 minutes long.

I will split the film into three parts. Pre Drugs, Yay Drugs, Very Many Drugs.

Pre Drugs is probably the best part of the film, with Scarlett playing a scared woman and freaking out. It is super high energy still and kind of awkward, but it feels like there is some acting.

Yay Drugs starts off cool, but I quickly become annoyed by it. She quickly ascends into some god like entity, and thus, all sorts of drama or fear are taken out of it. She also becomes an asshole. A lot of innocent people get killed or hurt or damaged in this movie as she ignores them going from one task to the next.

The Very Many Drugs section is just a mess. Zero tension, yet a long gun fight, where again, good people die all because Lucy doesn’t do anything. There is no threat though, because of what we saw she could do earlier and it feels completely pointless. During the Very Many Drugs phase, Lucy doesn’t do a whole lot and then the movie ends.

So there you go. A bad science Sci-Fi movie, probably because Luc Besson sucks. The film could have been a lot better if they embraced some of the elements and actually tried to be intellectual about it, instead of fake intellectual. Saying a few philosophy phrases don’t make a film smart. Smartness does.

How exciting. In this documentary, I am not looking at anything controversial, mind blowing, or society changing. I am just looking into the lives of three(/four) people. The lives of a few Indie Gamers.

In Indie Game: The Movie, we discuss three games in particular. Fez, Super Meat Boy, and Braid, which is exciting, given that I actually own all three of these games. And have played two of them. And have beaten one of them!

All big names in their own right in the indie game industry, I got these games through various Humble Bundles in the past and they are all pretty damn unique. They were all also in different stages of the process.

Braid during filming was one of the first really big critically acclaimed indie games and sort of set the bar for indie games to pass in the future. Super Meat Boy in this documentary is working on finishing up the game and goes through their release on Steam and XBox and the nerve wracking wait to see how they did.

And Fez. Oh Fez. Fez who in 2008 won an award for best game design based on a demo, and then spent years in development hell, always tweaking and fixing. Fez wasn’t released when the movie was, so with Fez we got to see part of the development process and what it can do to a single person with all this pressure.

Thankfully they work in an environment where pants are optional.

I was actually impressed that I found this documentary interesting. I thought it would involve a lot more technical elements and show coding and how things were done. That worried me a bit. But no, it was all about the people behind their games and their genuine reactions to the events unfolding around them.

The creator of Braid was known to search the web for message boards where they talked about his game, responding to people. He was upset that people didn’t see what he saw when talking about the best features and the meaning of his game.

The creator of Fez almost had a nervous breakdown on camera it looked like, as he talked about a business deal with an ex partner that could ruin the chances of his game being released.

The two creators of Super Meat Boy lead me down a nostalgic past and seeing their success with their friends and loved ones was awesome.

Basically, it is a feel good documentary, and even better for people who know of those games or have played them. It delves into some theory (just a bit) about some hypocrisy in the gaming industry, and what really will make an indie game unique (and how to design a level, sort of), so it isn’t just human interest stuff.

It tells a nice story, but if anything, it lacked the other side of the coin. Someone who failed at making a game, either financially or through just making a bad game. It would have been nice to have a more “complete story.”

Hell, by the time this review is published, I will have hopefully played Fez.

I vaguely remember seeing the trailers for Splice many years ago. I remember it looked weird, would probably be a bad science horror, and quickly then forgot about it.

So now, why am I watching Splice? Well, I needed an emergency filler film to review today and I happened to own it.

Why do I own it? Not sure. I probably picked it up when the local Blockbuster closed, probably bought the Blu-Ray for only a $1-2. A price so small that I could put it on my shelf and risk watching it sometime in the future.

And here we are! Roughly 2.5 years after buying it, a review on Splice!

This was originally planned to be an awkward sequel to Jurassic Park, I think.

Science is crazy! It can literally do anything, as long as there is a will and way and some smart people with money backing them.

Which is what is happening at the NERD research group. Dr. Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) and Dr. Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) are science partners and real life sexy time partners. They are also making animal hybrids, creating new species. It isn’t a pretty sight, as you can see above. But once they successfully got a weird male species and a weird female species, both that they created, to mate? That is when they felt pretty great.

Clearly the next step is getting some sort of human hybrid too. The possibilities of their research are limitless. It can be used for…well, growing spare body parts I guess. Or other weird gene shit. But guess what?! Their funding is getting shut down by the guys upstairs (Simona Maicanescu, David Hewlett). Da fuq!

Well, as any scientist knows, they just have to show them the results to get the funding back. So, just a test, just to see, they do it anyways. They spliced together human and animal DNA. Then begin a series of steps that lead to the formation of Dren (Delphine Chaneac), an animal human hybrid. Which animal? Eh, just vague assortment of other animal characteristics. Lets get crow a tail, some wings, some tentacle thing, some gills. You know, everything you might need to be a successful hybrid in the world.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Brandon McGibbon is also in this movie as the brother of Clive and he also is a scientist on their team. Everyone is super close!

But when dealing with Dren, make sure there is enough space for Jesus.

Ah, bad science movies. To be fair, there isn’t a lot of actual science in this movie. To me it felt like someone was coughing during the important moments of a presentation, so the how or why gets kind of lost but the talk keeps going. They don’t even try, is the real point I am making. Zoom in on some beakers, and some pictures of chromosomes, add in some science talk and move on.

Of course, not only is the science depicted badly, but everyone in the movie is a scientist or runs/funds a science lab. All of them are terrible at their jobs too. We assume these people got advanced degrees and they are bumbling around like idiots!

So for the most part, all of that is bad. What about the good?

Well, eventually in the movie, the plot became a bit more interesting when we had the adult form of Dren. A lot more cooler things could be done, including quite a few uncomfortable scenes. I was pleased that this was more of a thriller than a horror film. I remember the trailer basically taking place all in a small lab room, which made it seem like a small cast survival horror and just seemed ridiculous. But they are able to try and flesh out their characters a bit and give some reasoning for their actions. At least a few.

It had some tense moments, and a lot of bad ones, but overall told an okay story. Not one that is really scary in any way, just uncomfortable at times.

Under The Skin is a movie that was on a lot of people’s radars. Why? Well, because a lot of people are perverts.

Because the main star of the movie is naked in this movie, and arguably a lot of people have wanted to see that. First time ever, and to those who wanted to see it just for the titties, here is some advice: Don’t.

Under The Skin is a very artistic and carefully planned film. It is eerie, and a bit bizarre, almost in attempt to punish those who would watch this movie for that one reason. The nakedness is definitely in most ways non-sexual. You will have to get your jimmies off some other way.

Although that nondescript black liquid is kind of arousing.

Somewhere in Great Britain, let’s say Scotland, some shit is going down. An Alien is on our planet.

That alien is in the form of Scarlett Johansson. Not actually the actress, just a random female in Scotland. This alien feels they are the epitome of beauty.

And now she is on earth. To study.

And uhh, yeah, that’s all I can really say. I can’t even tag really any other characters, because no one has a name, not even Scarlett. There are other characters too, some quite mysterious, but it is really hard to describe the movie other than that.

Oh yeah. And everyone is blurry. That is a fact.

Did I mention this movie was artsy? There isn’t actually a ton of dialogue in this movie, just once in awhile. Sure, people converse, don’t worry, but there is a lot of silence and music instead of interactions. After all, a lot of the time people are also alone. Talking to themselves would be weird

This movie is also incredibly uncomfortable. There are some twisted scenes that happen in this movie. Things that I wouldn’t want to describe, least the desired effect is ruined on you.

It is definitely a smart movie in that it doesn’t feel the need to explain, well, anything really. A lot of it could be open to interpretation and some of it is a bit beyond my own scope.

It is also, despite a well crafted indie movie that conveyed the messages the director wanted to convey, a movie I never want to watch again. Ever, really. It had some disturbing elements, but that is not the main reason I want to see it never again. I also think that knowing everything that happens in the film might take away from future experiences.

So to me this film is a one and done type of affair. Should you watch it? Probably, eventually, when you think you are ready. I just don’t think there’d be a reason for me to buy it because it would never get opened after the fact. Shrug. Oh well, I just need a few more explosions I guess (that’s a joke).

I FUCKING LOVE RICHARD LINKLATER.

It is a real love too. A similar love is only felt like that by me towards my future wife, my cat, and my movie collection. I cannot thank him enough for the Before trilogy. Another recent movie was Bernie. This man is a genius director, for sure.

So when I heard about Boyhood? I dang near shat my pantaloons. There are a lot of films about male adolescence and the pains of growing up. But never before has a movie like this been attempted. The movie took TWELVE years to film. TWELVE. The boy in question was 5 at the beginning, and finished with him becoming an adult at 18. It isn’t a documentary that shows his life or anything like that, he is an actor. But the story is based around the kids own experiences, cutting no corners as we see him in every grade before college.

If your mind isn’t blown by the shear magnitude of this movie, then you might enjoy Planes.

This movie has more family fun, because it has families, and they have fun.

Mason (Ellar Coltrane). Mother fucking boy wonder. Five years old, he could be anything he wants. His whole life is in front of him. He has an older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) by one or two years, is a brat and smarter than him.

He’s got a mom (Patricia Arquette), single and trying to raise two kids. Her ex husband, his dad (Ethan Hawke) is working in Alaska, away from their lives and late on child support. But he wants to come back into it, because he likes the kids, but hates the mother.

12 Years is a long time and a lot of things change. There are friendships that come and go and loved ones that come and go. Heck, there are step brothers/sisters too at one point. The mom wants to go back to school and make a career, but it is really hard with kids and no support, so some other lovers come into the scene (Marco Perella, Elijah Smith (That may be the wrong person. Trying to figure out his name, no imdb picture.)). They also have at least one grandma (Libby Villari) to help.

And Mason is kind of just along for the ride.

Through his twelve years you will see him gain and lose relatioships, struggle and excel at school, deal with the assholes that his mom brings into their lives, deal with his dad changing through the years and never always being there when he needs them. And you know, other growing up experiences like college, graduations, birthdays, first jobs, first cars.

Young Ethan Hawke. We don’t miss you that much.

Shitty plot descriptions aside, Boyhood was everything I could have hoped and more. I mean, how do I describe watching a kid grow up and make it seem exciting.

Well, IT IS. Knowing that it was pieced out and planned in such a way does enhance it as well, as we get snapshots of a life through 12 years. But the movie is not merely a nostalgia trip (although it does a good job of that, making sure the music is set to the right year with other events/cultural references being relevant in the filming). It has something almost anyone who is over 18 can find a connection with. Not just boys either. For a long period of time, the sister is also in the movie with him, so while not the overall focus, there are relatable characteristics in her as well.

The movie also doesn’t go to enormous lengths to create additional drama. It shows us what we need to see, but not excessively, especially in the later chapters. There are quite a few tense moments when the audience collectively gasped, thinking a few bad things were about to happen. But you know what? In real life, bad things like that don’t happen as much, except for in the movies. It knows what we would expect, and it sometimes delivers, sometimes does not. In that regard, it made it incredibly realistic, and amusing after the fact that when “Oh yeah, that would be silly, wouldn’t it?” thoughts ran through our head.

It is hard to convey my emotions about this movie. Especially in that it wasn’t one that made me cry a lot. I only almost came to tears once. But it was still quite emotional throughout the entire journey.

I mean. Shit. We got to know these characters for a long period of time in our lives. We got to see 12 years ago Ethan Hawke, who looked notably younger. It almost creeped me out.

Whether this is the movie of the year or decade, it is hard to tell. But it tells such a wonderful story that people can relate to, without any excessive Hollywood shenanigans, allowing for a realistic portrayal of life and getting older.

Sex and comedy go together like cheese and my mouth. Sure, not everyone will agree with the statement, but those who do tend to laugh more at life.

Sex Tape is thus, a comedy movie about sex. Staring some people who have been in funny things in the past, and about a subject America loves to pretend to hate, it should be successful. I mean, it is about sex and actually rated R?

Well. I guess it being funny also has to happen too. I guess.

This isn’t how the scene actually looks. The white shirt is way more see through in the film.
Not a joke. Just a factual observation.

Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) used to have a lot of sex. When they first had sex, they both loved it so much, they did it constantly, everywhere, in every position. But then. Then they got married. Then they had two kids. Then Jay saw a baby come out of Annie’s vagina. Then the kids made them busy and tired, and Jay’s job kept him late at night and well. Sex went away.

But Annie, a successful blogger about to sell her website for mommies everywhere, wants to ignite the sex back. After a night of failed attempts, they decide to make a sex tape showcasing all the different moves in a sex book, and film it. Well, it works, they have sex, feel the love, and fall asleep. The next day, the iPad syncs with all of his other devices, as he has set it to do. But Jay has a lot of devices, looking for a radio station, and he gave them to many friends and family members to enjoy his shared content music lists. And you see where this is going.

So Jay and Annie spend a night trying to clear it from everyone’s device, and along the way get blackmailed, get into many fights, do cocaine, get terroized by dogs, and owe people lots of money.

Also, starring Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper, Rob Lowe, Nat Faxon, and Nancy Lenehan.

Kids destroy sex, not from making adults tired, but seeing the crowning.

I have to admit something. First of all, the theater wasn’t too full. There were like, eight other people, and they all sat on the right side of the theater. So I sat by myself on the left side, glad no one would disrupt me with their phones or talking. Now, sometimes a movie is so boring and dull and I get tired. Sometimes a scene might make me fall asleep for a minute or 30 seconds, and I might fight that feeling for awhile. But this time? When they were destroying computer equipment servers as seen in the trailer? That is the last thing I remember seeing.

I woke up with the theater light on, and a cleaning lady making noise so that I’d wake up. The theater was empty. I don’t know if anyone even noticed, because they all would have used the other exit and I was alone. But man. Embarassing. This is the first time a movie has been so dull and unfunny that I fell asleep for a long period of time. I mean. The entire credits. At least 10-15 minutes of movie (I’d hope). I have never walked out of a movie for being bad, but I guess this is about the same result.

Thankfully, I don’t see that as a fail. I quickly had the ending told to me by people who saw it, realized I missed not a thing, and went on with my life. In fact, my falling asleep is more telling. See, I was just going to give this a 1 out of 5 for being not funny. But with a reaction like that, in the middle of the day, after a nice night of sleep? No excuse. No excuse at all.

Yawn. Some cameos had some funny moments, but most of the jokes fell extremely flat. The entire situation was ridiculous, and they even noted in the film how easy it would have been to fix most of their problems after they found out about them. Bigger yawn. Move on. Worse summer comedy by far.

Well then.

This documentary is brought to us by Netflix, where apparently there are documentaries called Are All Men Pedophiles?

That’s a title if I ever saw one. Just kind of, goes out and asks a bold question. It doesn’t make the claim, just asks the question. But it is still a very very eye catching title, so in that aspect it is doing the job it meant to do.

Are All Men Pedophiles? is only about 70 minutes long, so if it is going to answer that question it had to move quickly. But before it could answer that question, it had to delve into what the actual definition of a pedophile even is. My personal definition comes out of Great Britain, with the Paedofinder General (here and here). Ah, what great amazing satire.

You didn’t think I’d actually search the movie title on google for images did you?
I don’t want to be put on a list.

Well, the short answer to the question is no. Of course not. How could all men be pedophiles? That would be ridiculous. It did however imply that all men are ephebophiles though. What is that? Sexual attraction to mid to late adolescents, basically 14 year olds and highers. Aka people who have reached biological sexual maturity, but are not classified as adults in whatever country you live in.

There was a lot of evidence for this too. It went into the fashion industry, media, history, pre-history, biology and other science to help explain this all. To be honest, it all also checks out and seems pretty truthful. I found points it made hard to argue.

The end went interesting places as well, sort of defending pedophiles as its own mental condition. They don’t think anyone should be having sex with pre-pubescent children, no. But they do think that someone who is a non acting pedophile shouldn’t be looked down upon by society, given the fact that it isn’t a choice to love a certain person or gender or type. It’s all biology.

However, this is one of the worst put together documentaries I have ever seen. It repeats information constantly, not in a helpful way, but literally as if they never said it. The use of actual news footage was pretty awkward the way it was presented. All of the guest scientists/talkers felt awkward as well, no one really having any sort of charisma. It faded to black and used title cards. It was just seriously a piece of shit.

Which is sad, because it has great information in it. It points out the double standards in society and the absurd sexual offender list. The information, unfortunately, is just put together in a basket made of shit.

Behaving Badly is not a movie I was rushing out to see. Not really a movie I heard of ever, actually. But I grabbed it and a few others, purely as fillers when I needed something else for a week and wanted something random.

Literally, the only reason I grabbed these movies was to make sure my reviews weren’t just the well known new movies. I need those straight to DVD randoms. Especially if they have an interesting cast.

After all, those unheard of films that look terrible? If they end up good, that is the greatest feeling of all.

Yes, even greater than that.

Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff) is not your average teenager. His family is dysfunctional in many ways. His mother (Mary-Louise Parker) is on a lot of booze and pills. The dad (Cary Elwes) is never around, they hate each other, but he says he doesn’t want to divorce to lose money.

His sister (Ashley Rickards) is a stripper, getting money to go to college and his brother (Mitch Hewer) is very angry, stupid, and not coming out of the closet.

But they aren’t the cause of all of his problems. That is all because of Mrs. Bender (Elisabeth Shue), the mother of his best friend Billy (Lachlan Buchanan). For whatever reason, she likes Rick and sexual relationships happened. This changed his life greatly, leading to two weeks with some dead bodies, people in jail, mobsters, suicide attempts, and lots and lots of boobies. However, he just wants to impress a smart girl in his class Nina (Selena Gomez). Oh boy Rick, you done fucked up by fucking that lady.

It is also full of celebrity cameos. Gary Busey is a police chief, Heather Graham a lawyer, Patrick Warburton the principal, Jason Lee a priest, and Dylan McDermott as the strip club owner.

Generic Creepy Teenage Male Fantasy: The Movie!

Behaving Badly was a weird movie. It was definitely not made amazingly well, that is for sure. It has an incredibly low budget feel, a lot of it is half-assed. It definitely isn’t great.

But I still almost gave it a 3 out of 4 on originality alone. This movie felt like it was created for an ADHD generation, and since the story is the main character retelling most of the events, you can say that is why everything seems so hectic. It is all from the teenage boy perspective.

There were just so many awkward moments, that I had to give it some props. I loved seeing all of the celebrities making quick quips. It actually lived up to the teen sex comedy genre, although also not being of fantastic quality.

I am at a point where this film in most cases would deserve that 1, and definitely not deserve a 3 or higher, but there was a charm to it that just took me in. I didn’t know what I was getting in to, and well, it surprised me.

Alright, let’s pretend for an instant that I can give this movie any fair chance. You know it, I know it, I really can’t. I gave the Planes the most zero of zeroes I could give it. It was a strange review, in which I just went over all the scummy ways this movie was released, turned from straight to DVD bullshit to a cash cow thanks to advertisements.

But I digress. After I saw the movie, I realized it was still a 0 and deserved my scorn.

Now we have the sequel. Planes: Fire & Rescue. This should have less bullshit qualities, technically. The third film hasn’t been officially announced, but let’s assume next year too since they can churn these out pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, no other animated movies appear to be coming out soon, so this one will make decent box office as well. Hell, two weeks before it came out it probably already broke even with toys alone.

The sequel with mostly new characters instead of the old ones for obvious reasons.

Set sometime after the events of the first POS, Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) is now a big star. He is winning more races, people like him, and everything is going well. But during a routine manuver, something goes wrong! His gearbox is worn down, and he has to keep the vague torque dial below the red zone or else his engine will stop and he will die. [Note. I think they said his torque could go up to 140, but the dial showed 65. The “doctor” said 80% was his max, which was definitely not “112 Torque”.]

What does that mean? That means Dusty can’t race. His dreams that he spent forever getting in the last movie, literally changing out almost every plane part (including a gear box I bet), to do it, are now ruined. So he sulks off like a little bitch, and a fire happens due to his shitty gear box. This is almost a disaster, but it is solved. Too bad the fire inspector deems the fire truck as inept and old, so they shut down their run way. This is bad news when their corn fest (?) is in one week and expecting a big turn out thanks to Dusty.

So Dusty does what he has to do, I guess. He goes to get certified as a fire fighter. This causes him to go to totally not Yellowstone park, to train under Blade Ranger (Ed Harris) and his crew. A girl plane Lil’ Dipper (Julie Bowen), who as the only real female character in the movie is a stalker to Dusty, an older helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi), who is an incredibly racist caricature of a Naive American, and a bunch of tiny Honka looking bulldozers meant to sell toys.

Anyways, days of training and other bullshit happen. The “plot” comes from the fact that some luxury car (John Michael Higgins) opened up a new lodge in the area and is a dick. Nothing he does makes a lot of sense, but he is our cheap villain/not a villain character. After several days of bullshit training, like a week, CAN DUSTY SAVE THE DAY WHEN FIRE HAPPENS?

A few other voices I recognized included Curtis Armstrong, Hal Holbrook, Jerry Stiller, and Fred Willard.

Just. Just Fuck.

Just a kids movie. World building. Continuity. Bullshit.

I think that is the four ways I’d break down this analysis.

“But it’s just a kids movie!” I don’t know how much I have talked about that before, but that is one of the dummbest things anyone can say. Saying it is just a kids movie, or just a summer flick, is literally like being that kid on the playground who said his made up fighter character had a magical invisible cape that would reflect spells last minute. Bitch, everyone knows that is lie, and does not protect you. Just like a movie being geared towards kids. How can we even say that anymore when we have had dozens of nice “kids” movies that everyone can enjoy and get things out of over the last decade? It literally should have killed that excuse, yet somehow it goes on.

It is the reason we get low budget, cheap CGI, rushed crap, just to sell toys. If you forgot, Planes was last minute pulled from straight-to-DVD status and given a new guy to do the main voice and that was it. This was being made before that even happened. Cheap. Shit. Saying just a kids movies just lets them keep producing this filth.

This movie only creates more problems with the world building of this cars/planes universe crap that they are building. We already knew it was Earth. Sure. This is definitely set in America, with references to California and other states. It is very awkward. They, however, amplified the cars aspect of it all with all the animals being cars as well. In particular, John Deere equipment roamed the forests. What? The fuck?

But that isn’t it. I have talked before how it is all odd that 1) clearly they are made entities and cannot breed out more cars/planes, or 2) are made by other preexisting cars/planes in a factory or something. But the faulty gear box amps it up. The driving factor of the plot. Why not replace it like everything else? Because of course, that gear box is out of production and there is literally nothing they can do. The mechanics can’t fix it because it is complicated and needs factory precision.

So in their world, they have cars/planes making cars/planes parts somehow, and they can stop them knowing full well they are potentially killing hundreds/thousands who rely on that part? That is pretty damn fucked up.

Why do they even need a few people to put out forest fires? I can’t imagine forests having a huge need in a planet without humans. They should just let the mother burn.

Re: rushed project/CGI. There were many fire scenes. All of them were terribly ugly.

In terms of continuity, it is the simple basics they just didn’t care about. Early on we find out that the corn festival is in one week. He then spends almost a whole week in the fire training camp. Then? Then after events, he is knocked out for five days. After that? Yay time for the corn festival. How many fucking days are in a week again?

These minor things add up, showing that the people who wrote it were just pulling shit out of a hat and animating it. Coherence is for suckers. Didn’t Dusty have a girlfriend? She wasn’t in this movie at all.

Bullshit. So much bullshit. The film starts off saying it is dedicating the movie to all the firefighters out there. Aka the people who aren’t in the movie at all, and instead all of the emphasis is placed on their equipment not the men who drive the vehicles. At one point, Dusty worries about going into a cave because they might suffocate. Shit, planes need oxygen now?

The characters are all stereotypes. Including the terrible Windlifter. The plot is taken from 80s action movies without any of the fear. The only issue is his gear box, of which he keeps a secret despite it clearly affecting him quite often. Once it does get brought up, he is told to just get over it. Then he gets over it. Moral? You might have a failing heart, but fuck it, just ignore it.

I watched this movie in a packed theater. The only times the audience laughed in a big unit was during the two fart jokes. Everything else? A few giggles, but mostly silence.

Just think. A third movie is definitely happening. Maybe in the third one, Dusty will get bored of racing and decide he wants to be a frog next?