Gorgon Reviews

No one knows how to Guy Ritchie like Guy Ritchie. He likes to go to the extremes, have some fast talkers, and go super British. But he has apparently mostly left his original line of work and decided to focus on remakes and cultural icons.

Sherlock Holmes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and now his take on King Arthur.

Sure, I am excited, the knights of the round table are interesting, tons of lore, and tons of cool sorcery could be afoot. But I really just want some more of his original stories, more than anything. Hopefully this doesn’t use up more of his time with another franchise.

Honestly, this looks like he just swung his sword at a rock instead.

Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) is more than a man with a badass name, he is the ruler of Camelot! And he is being attacked and raided by warlocks and mages. Uther is able to take out the threat, but his brother, Vortigern (Jude Law) betrays him and his family, summoning a demon to take the throne. But Pendragon’s baby son escapes, classic Moses manuver.

This son is found by prostitutes in another land and named Arthur (Charlie Hunnam). This is where he was born and raised, not knowing of his noble heritage. That’s right, he is from the STREETS. Now we have Guy Ritchie movie, loving those streets, even if they are over a thousand years ago.

Oh and uhh, then a lot of stuff happened with a sword, magic, wars, tons of fighting, and big group of friends.

Also starring Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Craig McGinlay, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Neil Maskell, Tom Wu, Annabelle Wallis, Freddie Fox, and Aidan Gillen.

Arthur walking around, fists out, with that “fight me” look on his face. Classic Guy Ritchie.

Another fun confession time: My movie synopsis was quite short, yeah? It is like I have no fucking clue what happened during the movie, which is true. I don’t. First of all, the theater I was in had two issues: One, the bulb was almost dead, and two, something with the polarizer was wrong too, so the 3D screening I went to was incredibly dark. SUPER DARK. I watched a trailer after the film surprised at the darkness, wondering where the hell the white sky had gone in my viewing.

The darkness, and the overuse of CGI, seemingly terrible 3D, and ugly color scheme, put me straight to sleep. I didn’t sleep throughout the whole film, I woke up quite a lot. But every time I woke up, it still seemed uninteresting and I could not keep my eyes open. And that is terrible. I do know that a huge reason I passed out was thanks to the bad cameras, but I wonder how much of the story actually put me to sleep as well.

And I am never going probably go out of my way to see this movie again. Seeing it in theaters, I sat through trailers spent hours of my life on it. As a reviewer I have to watch a lot, so giving something a second or third viewing is usually restored to things that I actually like. Sure, when it is out on DVD, there is a chance. Maybe someone else will make me watch it with them.

But the experience did not work for me, and normally “slept through the whole thing” would be a 0, but I have to give it some benefit of doubt.

What can I say as a prelude about Paris Can Wait besides…no, fuck that, I wan’t Paris now. But I am not rich, so I guess I will definitely be waiting.

The film is directed by Eleanor Coppola, yes, that Coppola. A woman more famous for being the wife of Francis Ford Coppola, and the mother of Sofia Coppola. This is a woman who has been knee deep in films for a large portion of her life, but surprisingly, this is her first time directing a non documentary. At this point of her life though, Eleanor basically has no reason not to go for it.

Paris Can Wait is a semi-autobiographical film, loosely based on a trip she went on a long time ago. Eleanor is adamant that a lot of this film is made up, but the spirit and story is true and one she has always wanted to tell in film.

And yes, that does mean Alec is playing a fictional Francis.

This is a story about Anne (Diane Lane) and Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin). Michael is a big time film producer or director, they are extremely wealthy, and Anne is mostly along for the ride. Their daughter is now on college, and Anne’s clothing shop had closed down recently, so she doesn’t have a lot going on in her life.

She is on a vacation with Michael, right after the Cannes film festival. They have to head to a city for a shoot crisis first, but then they will head to Paris to continue with their vacation, assuming Michael doesn’t get too distracted. But before they get on the plane, Anne says she would rather not go with him for the next leg. She has a splitting ear ache and knows she won’t get to hang out with him until Paris, so why not just meet him there?

Well, their French confidant and helper, Jacques (Arnaud Viard) apparently has to head up to Paris for some meetings and is willing to just give Anne a ride. Michael and Anne reluctantly agree. It is only about an 8 hour drive, so she should be in Paris by dinner and can just wait in their apartment for him.

And then they stop for a fancy lunch and he says they will need to make hotel reservations. Apparently Jacques is more the scenic route type of guy, wanting to show Anne all of the wonderful countryside that France has to offer. And food. Fucking food. So much food. The 8 hour trip turns into a 2 and a half day roam, with Jacques wanting to take it all slow and Anne rushing to Paris for…For what, really? Just an empty apartment and a missing husband.

One of the many stops just to eat.

It has been six years since we had Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, six years! That was back when my reviews were extremely shitty, not just shitty.

And yet, I still like the original film. The second film pissed me off so much that I didn’t watch the third film. And hey, in these six years, I still have not “gotten around to it”. Fuck the second film.

But again, new people, new pirates, some more Jack Sparrow, and Dead Men Tell No Tales is ONLY a little bit over 2 hours, not a complete marathon like the rest of them. Fine. You have piqued my interest once again, what can you give me? Something good, I hope?

Shit, this just looks like the first movie now…

Before the movie can truly begin, you have to be treated to some weird ass flashback, with a boy named Henry looking for a lost ship. That ship? The Flying Dutchman. On that ship? Apparently an older and crusty looking Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). And this boy is his son, from Elizabeth (Kiera Knightley). I have been told all of this is explained in the third film, but you will be confused as fuck without that knowledge.

Then we get a film really beginning, with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and some crew (Kevin McNally, Adam Brown, Martin Klebba) robbing a bank! Also in this same town is an older Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), recently arrested for being the only surviving member of his crew. He claims a ghost ship led by a Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) took them out, and he wants to get Sparrow. Also on this island is a “Witch”, aka a girl who knows some science, Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), who wants to find Neptune’s Trident thinking it is her destiny thanks to some orphan shit. Oh hey, Henry also wants the trident to free his daddy. And Sparrow wants to not die to a ghost pirate looking thing, great! Team work! Fun!

On that note, I put most of the plot in that one paragraph!

But I left off Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who is basically a pirate King at this point, rich, glorious, no problems in the world. Until that Salazar gets to him and is about to take him out, until he agrees to help him find Sparrow. Turns out Salazar is not a ghost pirate like one would assume, but instead a pirate hunter who was bested by a young Jack Sparrow!

And yeah, Neptune’s trident, that is the goal this time.

Remember, he is not a pirate ghost, he is a pirate hunting ghost.

The last two pirate movies must have started the same way: “Hey, people liked Turner and Swann, let’s bring them back but with younger actors and the same old Jack Sparrow!” Because hey, we got a young guy that looks like Turner, and a girl in a corset dress, so all the same demographics can be met. These films all feel like the same damn thing now. After they introduced tentacle face as a bad guy in number two, it seems like we need a weird and terrifying supernatural villain for anything to work.

And honestly, this movie was putting me to sleep. Dabbed around the movie were a few interesting scenes and shots, but it was an effects driven film with really poor pacing issues and a lackluster plot. If you are not familiar with the third film too well, the beginning will be quite terrible. I mean, I figured it out quickly, but it still started the film on a slow point. The bank heist scene was very similar to Fast Five, with a more comedic twist.

But the villain was, for the most part, pointless. A stitched together plot as a way of giving us a Jack Sparrow origin, which no one is asking for. What’s worst? Their decision to tell of Salazar’s backstory with Sparrow was just SO. POORLY. PLACED. And interlaced with poor Bardem having to awkwardly growl out his lines as a camera moves around his face, while everyone else is on a boat just probably thinking “what the fuck, why are you doing this right now?” He was monologuing to one person, who also gave no fucks.

And finally, when it comes to poor plot, they just had to make everyone related to someone else it seems. Except for poor Sparrow, who just had to be related to whatever actor they got to play his younger self for a few minutes.

As for the Sparrow character, he really sucked in this movie. I cannot tell if he has always been this bad, but in the first film I thought he was a jerk, but charming and really confident in himself. In this movie, he just felt like a drunk fool the entire time.

Okay graphics, bad plot, bad pacing, bad film. I also have realized that this movie is coming out the same weekend that we got Alice Through The Looking Glass last year. That was bad, this is just not good. But they both have a Depp in common.

Dog films are all the rage now. Just look at the last two reviews on my website. But in reality, despite this mini awkward dog theme, actual dog movies are NOT popular like they were in the 1990’s and 2000’s. They pop up every once in awhile and usually try to kill a dog by the end of it in order to get all pet owners to cry and feel nostalgic about past pets and current pets.

It is easy money. A Dog’s Purpose is based on a book that a lot of people liked and read, so it should have made money. Then it had a silly controversy a whole week before it came out, people decided not to see it, and here I am today, hoping it is terrible because it came out in January.

But really, I want to note that the idea behind the movie is brilliant. If dying pets makes people love the movie, buy it on DVD and give the movie money, then why not have the main dog more than once? Why not a whole handful of times?

There is tear jerking, and there is tear sucking out of you with an industrial vacuum.

I think an alternative title for this movie might have been Doghood.

The movie has dogs, people, and a lot of both. If you are the type of person who gets sad over the death of pets, you are goign to get really fucking sad in this movie.

Because our main dog (Josh Gad) who goes by many names, so I will just call him Dog, is going to die over and over again. This Dog is wondering what his purpose in life is. He likes to play and have fun he guesses, and there are humans that tell him to do things, but what is he here for?

So he hangs out with a kid who grows up into an adult. He hangs out with a lady in school. He is in an abusive home. He is a dog for a cop! He does so much more, but really, he just wants that stomach scratched.

Featuring a hot mess of people though, so here we go: Britt Robertson, Bryce Gheisar, Dennis Quaid, John Ortiz, Juliet Rylance, K.J. Apa, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Logan Miller, Luke Kirby, and Peggy Lipton.

I wonder how many humans die in this movie? More than dogs?

A Dog’s Purpose is a waste of time. For dog lovers, cat lovers, and human lovers alike. Now, I have never made a movie before, but I have to imagine that making the audience care about a pet has got to be pretty easy. I imagine it is one of the easiest tasks ever to make someone cry in a theater by having the pet go bye bye, second only to a relative.

And yet, after watching A Dog’s Purpose, which had at least five dogs, I think, I found myself unable to make a connection with most of them. In fact, some of them, the deaths came sort of out of nowhere. And not in a “Oh no, tragedy, death!” shocking sort of way. Just a “Oh, this is the end of this plot line I guess, let’s move on” sort of way. They just did a poor job of making me care.

Maybe a big element to get someone to care about the pet is time with the pet, but a common narrator sound just isn’t good enough. I wasn’t feeling the stories, I wasn’t feeling the other humans, I just didn’t care.

And a dog movie, where the dog dies so many ties, that fails to make me cry? Just feels a bit shallow and rushed. No emotional connection, means not a good drama film.

2017 is the year of the animated disappointments so far, and yes, I still have not seen The LEGO Batman Movie, get over it. It might be funny, I just don’t care too much, as Batman was what I disliked the most about The LEGO Movie.

And I figured I would be skipping Rock Dog, it was an animated film released almost a whole year prior in China. You know, because they made it. And I know America isn’t number one at everything anymore, but I know we are still number one at animated CGI films. Yes, some anime notwithstanding, we do CGI cutting edge and well, so foreign films just seem behind.

And also the title, Rock Dog. Sigh. Come on animated films, be better.

I wonder which one is the rock and which one is the dog.

Way way far away, in a land called Snow Mountain (which is, guess what… a snow mountain!), there lives a young Tibetan Mastiff named Bodi (Luke Wilson). Bet you thought his name would be Rock Dog. Nah, not yet.

A long time ago, a bunch of wolves led by Linnux (Lewis Black) were driven out of their town by Bodi’s father, Khampa (J.K. Simmons). Khampa is pretty sure the wolves will eventually come back, so he is training up the local sheep and his son to protect it again once they come back. There is also some magic stuff about finding his inner fire to help defeat things, but uhh, that is weird.

Turns out Bodi just wants to rock, once he discovers what music and rock music actually is. It is all he thinks about, it is his new dream and passion, and he is a bit of savant. But his dad disapproves, so he one day just goes out on his own to prove him wrong.

After getting to the city, he heads to a place called Rock and Roll Park in order to find a band and make a big name for himself, like the legendary rocker Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). But the wolves are out, the people are mean, and Bodi might just have to make it on the music biz on his own.

Also featurign the voice work of Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman, Jorge Garcia, Matt Dillon, and Sam Elliott.

The snow or rain or whatever is happening is indistinguishable from that yak’s beard in the background.

Rock Dog is another animated film that ushers out a line of celebrities to do their voice work instead of real voice work, because names sell. Names like Eddie Izzard. Thankfully, two of those names are J.K. Simmons and Sam Elliott, who have unique voices and add something to the film. Too bad their characters are in Snow Mountain, so only at the beginning and the end of the film, really.

The premise of Rock Dog is mostly shit. Anthropomorphized badly explained worlds are all over the place, and this does nothing to rise above a Pre-K TV program on Disney. It doesn’t feel fully fleshed out and it is a super simple story. A lot of it about a dog who just wants to play music in a world that doesn’t rewward newcomers.

But despite its lack of originality, great CGI, or anything new to offer the genres, it is still an average movie.

I mean, I am not going to go out of my way to make sure my kids see it, but if they do see it, I won’t be annoyed at their mind being poisoned by drivel. It is just a bit dull for those of us who have been there, done it, when it comes to these types of movies.

The movie Max had a sequel. Max was a middle of the year release a few years ago, a movie about a boy and a trained dog, and it sucked. They just messed it all up, and it was a stinker.

I am surprised I actually gave it a 1 star, to be honest. Thought I hated it more.

And with this review you are finding out that yes, that film somehow got a sequel. Max 2: White House Hero, because hey, movies at the White House are fun. This movie was released straight to DVD thought, with a new cast and a new story. Apparently the “Max” brand name was strong enough that it warranted using it for the sequel, and not just a stand alone story.

Also, I realize some of you may have forgotten that Max even existed, so I apologize for bringing it back up.

Now that Trump is president, why not have Lochlyn Munro give it a shot?

TJ Bennett (Zane Austin) is the son of the president, and he hates it. He has a security detail at all times, the kids at his school hate him for it, and he is just lonely really. One of the only people who seems to get to know him is Chef Coop (Bradley Stryker), who makes a mean grilled cheese sandwich.

But his dad (Lochlyn Munro) and mom (Carrie Genzel) say he has to help entertain a new guest, the Russian President Bragov (Andrew Kavadas) and his child Alex. They are coming for an important visit for both countries. He reluctantly agrees of course, because he really has no choice. But wait, Alex is a girl (Francesca Capaldi)!

Well things are weird now, and when they get to Camp David, they will have to find ways to keep themselves busy, the stake of the world is on it!

Ohhhhhhhh. And yeah, Max, the same one from the first movie, is in this one. He is loan to the Secret Service to help with the mission, because their normal dog had puppies. And Max befriends TJ and listens to him, so TJ finally has a friend closer to his age.

Also starring Reese Alexander, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, and Bruce Blain.

WILL MAX SAVE THE DAY?

Oh, spoilers.

Max 2 features everything you’d want in a movie. Assuming that movie premiered for the first time on the Disney Channel, because that is how it feels. The only thing missing from my experience was 40 minutes of commercial breaks as well.

It wasn’t entirely shit, but I was indeed bored throughout it. It featured jokes and excitement that only a child could enjoy, unable to make it a family movie that everyone could want to see it. Strangely enough the only character who felt good in their roll was little Francesca Capaldi, playing a Russian president’s very young daughter. She got that accent down and gave that harsh level of authority we are now used to from Russia.

Dog stunts, kids running around, adults not listening to kids, just normal things in a film of this nature. It doesn’t offer really anything new or exciting, nor does it really have its moments. It is just a time filler.

The show Chuck had a magnificent run of five seasons. It is incredible, because it had piss poor live ratings, despite a thriving fan community. It was a nerdy action comedy, a genre that doesn’t get a whole lot of love, especially on the TV.

I am glad it didn’t end too soon, but it is good to see it finally getting a movie as an add on.

Oh wait, shit. This movie, Chuck, is about something completely unrelated. And it was originally called The Bleeder. Well fuck, that sounds like a better title, and a title that wont get me super pumped up on Zachary Levi first. And it is a true story.

Well, I assume whoever this Chuck guy is, he better not secretly also be a spy.

I wonder why it might have been called The Bleeder.

Chuck Wepner (Liev Schreiber) from Bayonne, New Jersey, was a boxer, but it didn’t pay the bills. He had odd jobs, and selling liquor. But he was still a boxer first, he was known for surviving a long time in fights. He could really take a punch to the head. He was also nicknamed the Bayonne Bleeder, on account of how easy it was for his head to bleed, but he hated that nickname. He had fought against George Foreman and other notables, but he was finally getting on a hot streak.

Another person getting on a hot streak was Muhammad Ali (Pooch Hall), who just won the heavyweight champion title against the odds. And against even more odds, Don King wanted Ali to fight a white man, and Wepner was the highest ranked white heavyweight white man, so he got the gig. He was getting paid a lot less than Ali, but it was a lot of money from a bloke from Jersey, and he finally got to train full time.

But his bout with Ali was just the beginning. After that, he became a pseudo celebrity. And he even had a movie made about him. You may have heard about it? It was called Rocky, don’t cha know.

Ron Perlman played his manager/trainer, Elisabeth Moss was Wepner’s wife, Jim Gaffigan was his best friend, and Naomi Watts was his life. Also Jason Jones as another friend and Morgan Spector as young Sylvester Stallone.

“Eeyyy yo, Chuckie! I made some money!”

Chuck Wepner seems like a really interesting person. You gotta be built a certain way to just take a lot of punches and he used that to his advantage. He has a good story, and the story we were given broke the mold a bit. Because this is a boxing movie with arguably, not a lot of boxing. The fight with Ali was done with about 2/3 of the movie left to go, and the fight wasn’t done to showcase the excitement of boxing. It was just another part of the film.

No the real story of the movie is his life before and after the fight. And it got a little bit meta feeling, which I understand is the wrong word, when Rocky came out and how that changed Wepner’s life. I mean, we had a guy playing Stallone in this film, the production of Rocky 2 and more. We got to see his hard times, his bad personal life, and more. So it was bio drama first, then boxing movie second.

The first third of the movie was great, if not pretty standard. I will note after the Ali fight the film seemed to drag a bit more and I had no idea where it was going throughout it. Some okay moments, but they harped on a few of them just way too long. But the acting was fine, and they did a good job of trying to make everyone uglier to better represent New Jersey.

And overall, seeing Schreiber in this role felt really good. But what this movie really made me wonder is when the fuck will Goon: Last of the Enforcers come to America?

Soft reboots are hard. And usually they involve comic book heroes.

But for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, we have replaced every single character with new characters! Sure the last one of these was five years ago and people get older, but why not keep the parents?

I have reviews of the original films, the first, the second, and the third. And the last one was the worst one, so maybe they decided the cast was washed up and they needed fresh talent.

Whatever the reason is, this one is a movie I have to judge off the previous films. Or, what I barely remember off the previous films. I mostly remember really enjoying the older brother. And the main kid was probably annoying.

The initials of the main book series is DOAWK, or DO AWK. And this boy is sure doing awk.

The wimpy kid has a name, and that name is Greg (Jason Drucker). You may also know him as Diaper Hands, thanks to an unfortunate event at a family buffet where a few actions of his went viral on the internet. Oh great, this poor kid of undisclosed age is now going to get it from everyone.

But he can’t do anything to fix it, because his family is going on a road trip. They have to go visit their MeeMaw’s 90th birthday and it is about 48 hours of driving. Despite having a mother (Alicia Silverstone) and a father (Tom Everett Scott), two highly functioning people, they are going to take four days just to get there because they need to both sleep in a hotel at night, I guess. He also has his older brother Rodrick (Charlie Wright) and a like, 2-3 year old brother. It is a kid who is definitely too old for a pacifier.

Oh, and the mom has instituted a ban of technology on the road trip. No cell phones for anyone, including the dad who apparently has to secretly do his job while also road tripping.

No phone means Greg cannot restore his internet identity. However, he has a plan. Near where his MeeMaw lives will be a gaming convention, and his idol, Mac Digby (Joshua Hoover, basically PewDiePie like person) will be there. If he can meet him and be on one of his videos, he will be famous in a new way and kill his diaper hands code name. He just has to get there and survive the road.

Oh, and there is also Chris Coppola playing a bearded family nemesis and Owen Asztalos as Rowley for a little bit of screen time.

In this frame, our mom almost looks younger than the older brother.

I struggled just finding what rating I would end up giving this film and my mind went back and forth, just back and forth between a 1 and 2. In no way is this film objectively good, outside of some camera work maybe. I haven’t seen a DOAWK film in five years or so, but I think most of the characters are a downgrade. I really can’t remember much about Greg, but the older brother isn’t as believable in this one, that dad is more boring, and the best friend is barely in it to compare. The baby kid was clearly way too old, having the ability to have full conversations, but also barely counting? And pacifiers?

Out of improvements, this one is probably better with Silverstone, who seemed to master this heartful nagging tone throughout the movie. What the fuck? And just 20 years she was so clueless at everything.

This film tried to stand on its own feet by amplifying everything. All the bad things that occurred on the trip just seemed to go straight to 11. The family should have died so many times on the road based on what happened while driving (and not pulling over to just deal with it). The entire Berdo family plot line was terrible, with each escalation never really making much sense. I felt bad for Beardo more than anything, really.

Greg’s plan was shit, but I can’t fault the movie for that. Because kids make shit ideas. What I can fault this movie for is having so much destruction and spending that it just never becomes relatable. This family, despite one working parent (who might get fired on this trip?) is apparently rich as fuck, based on how much they have to spend during it to fix their issues. And yes, money fixes most of their issues. I ain’t got time for these rich people problems.

But the “baby kid” plot lines were still cute despite everything. And there ended up being a pig eventually, I loved that pig plot. The pig plot was cute, along with a few other cute moments that didn’t make the movie completely suck, just mostly suck.

Buster’s Mal Heart is by far one of the most interesting seeming movies I have ever been excited to see thanks to the trailers. That’s right, trailers, I saw more than one.

The first one I saw, it was short, full of intriguing scenes and I had no fucking clue what it was about. The second one I saw, it was longer, a completely different tone from the first, newer scenes and I still had no fucking clue what it was about.

So that is great! Trailers that don’t spoil the film and only make me need to see it even harder.

And you know what is even better? The title! On it’s own, it too, is mysterious. It sort of reminds me of Fight Club, the “I am Jack’s Complete Lack of Surprise” additions and all. I am Buster’s Mal Heart.

I am Buster’s Dirty Beard.

Jonah (Rami Malek) is a man working an overnight shift at a hotel near a resort town. He has a wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) and a small baby girl, but he cannot see them a lot because of his shift schedule, making him extremely tired while they are awake. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

Sometimes, sometimes though he is Buster. Buster is a man living in the mountains, who is known for staying in vacation homes while the owners are away, eating their food, using their showers, and giving not a fuck. The cops are looking out for him.

And even sometimes after that? Sometimes he is a dude on the boat, seemingly on a vast endless ocean.

Buster/Jonah is a lot of things, and often at the same time. But one thing for sure is that a mysterious man (DJ Qualls) keeps visiting him at night, wanting to pay with cash to stay in rooms, talking about a tech uprising, living life off of the grid, and how the government fucking sucks.

Life is hard for Jonah. Life is unique for Buster. And life is who knows what the fuck for the guy on that ocean.

Holy shit, is he also sometimes Lurch from The Addams Family?

Buster’s Mal Heart is a mysterious whirlwind that seemingly goes back and forth through time about some guy who is clearly having a breakdown. A very long, life changing, breakdown.

Malek is so damn perfect in this role, and honestly, I know very little about him as an actor. He has had many forgettable roles in his past, but his recent claim to fame has been Mr. Robot. I only got a few episodes in to the series before I knew it was something that wasn’t for me, but that same detached from reality feeling is all over this movie, almost as if this role was specifically made for him.

Despite the shenanigans and the twists, I do think this film was was a bit ambitious with its overarching plot, where I will admit I ended up reading the Wikipedia plot description to see if it would help. It did. It also make me shrug, kind of mumble to myself “okay” and just accept it, although I didn’t really necessarily get the same reaction out of it. It would be one thing if I interpreted the film in a different direction and had something to debate about. But instead the issue is I didn’t interpret it in ANY direction and really just needed help figuring out what the heck it is I just watched.

Buster’s Mal Heart is an artsy film. It explores some weird shit. It has some great lead acting by Rami Malek. But at the end of the day, I could barely tell someone what it was about.

2017 is the year of the wall.

Jokes about the president, blah blah. But we already got The Great Wall earlier this year. And now we have The Wall? I guess this wall isn’t as awesome as the previous wall. But The Great Wall was just an okay movie. If this movie has a lesser sized wall, will that mean the movie is also not as okay?

I don’t know. But I hope there is a movie even later in the year just called Wall. Or maybe The Wa. I could go either way with my dreams.

Not picture: Any goddamn wall.

Set in 2007, we are in Iraq, after the war was “won” with a dead Saddam Hussein and all. But we still have troops there, to help clean things up, transition, whatever.

And we have Sergeant Allen Issac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews (John Cena) who are a sniper pair. They have been watching a site for about 22 hours now where an ambush took place. Well, maybe an ambush, maybe an enemy sniper. But there are a few dead bodies, a broken wall and some trucks. But after 22 hours, they have to assume whoever or whatever did all of this has gone by now as they have seen no movement.

So they decide to call it. Matthews heads down to investigate knowing that they are safe, with Issac watching from above, still playing it safe. And then, Matthews gets shot.

Fuck. There is an enemy sniper here. A real professional. And now they are caught in his trap, with a small tiny wall protecting them. He is even on their radio frequency (voiced by Laith Nakli). And he wants to talk.

Wall so small, not in this picture either.

Doug Liman is the director of The Wall and he is an interesting dude. From Swingers and Go, to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, he has been all over the map. If you look at his producing credits, he has a ton more action movies. But from what I can tell, he isn’t super heavy on the horror/thriller aspects, which is sort of how this movie plays out.

It is a short movie, about 80 minutes, and it plays out entirely in one location. It is more dramatic/thriller than horror, but it really could have gone either way based on the sniper character. Since they were able to communicate with radio, they could have made him down right horror villain. Thankfully they went the smarter, more realistic way, and made the sniper a compelling person with his own reasons for doing what he did.

Now, I will admit, they did make him a bit too powerful. Our soldiers 100% believed they were in the clear for good reason. But this guy is super human. He is a super soldier and he hits his mark, apparently. I would have liked it if they made him a bit more believable in those aspects.

But The Wall was tense, and the whole thing basically rested on the arms of of Taylor-Johnson giving an impressive and physical performance, which he did. Not a bad way to spend under 90 minutes and another film that talks about the real tolls of war without glorifying anything.