Now I’m going to tell you right off the bat that I’m not the biggest fan of Julia Roberts and that (other than Erin Brockovich and Steel Magnolias) I think she is a pretty one dimensional actress. So when I say that I really enjoyed BEN IS BACK and I think that it is her best performance in quite a long time and it might even be my favorite performance of hers, you know that I’m telling the truth. Ben Is Back is what Beautiful Boy should have been. A cautionary tale about drugs that actually elicits emotions from the audience, emotions that are well written, earned, and acted. And that fact that everything takes place during Christmas was just the cherry on top.

Ben Is Back is about a son (played by the incredible Lucas Hedges) that comes home to see his family after spending months in a rehab center. His sister and stepfather think it is way too soon, his half siblings are just glad to see him, but his mother (played by Julia Roberts) is so thrilled to see him that she doesn’t start questioning things until other family members tell her she should. What is he doing home so soon? Does he have ulterior motives? What is going to happen if he relapses at the house? What happens if someone sees that is back that shouldn’t? All good questions. Instead of taking him back to rehab, they let him stay 24 hours during Christmas, going back to rehab the same time the next day. Will they regret their decision? What I like about the film that even though it takes place all in the span of about 24 hours, everything that happens feels natural, and it doesn’t take it to over the top places that any other schlocky film could take it. I very was surprised on how tame the whole movie was. I was expecting each twist and turn to evolve into something completely outlandish, and it didn’t. It subverted my expectations, and everything had more of a “well, I could actually see this happening in this situation” type feel, and that is what I appreciated most.

I also love how the film didn’t have all these revelations about Ben, and how most of his shady past is merely hinted at. Sure, there are a couple of revelations, but even those are still limited to broader information, with the specifics and really terrible shit left for the audience’s imagination. Sure, there might be a moment or two that are set up conveniently to reveal a little info on the origin of Ben’s drug habits, for example how Hedges and Roberts run into his old doctor in the mall, but those couple of things are easily forgivable with the other tidbits of information we get. The movie also does a great job of playing with Ben’s intentions during the whole film. You think he’s doing one thing, but just several minutes later the movie subverts that theory a bit, and it just keeps going back and forth. You will literally be guessing what happens and being wrong up until the very end.

The performances in this are amazing, everyone does a great job, but the standouts are obviously Roberts and Hedges, and any other year, Hedges would get an Oscar nomination. The movie is written and directed by Peter Hedges, who wrote films you may know such as both the novel and screenplay to What is Eating Gilbert Grape, co-writer on About A Boy, Dan in Real Life, and did some script doctoring on Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. I do like What Is Eating Gilbert Grape, but I think this is easily his finest work. And yes, he is Lucas Hedges father. Sometimes spouse or sibling or parental collaborations can easily crash and burn, but here it totally works. It seems like Peter let Lucas just do his thing, and the performance is that much better for it.

Anyway, I said earlier that this taking place during Christmas puts the cherry on top of the whole thing and it really does. The setting completely works here. If it is ever Christmas time and you happen to feel like a drug cautionary tale, but also want to watch a Christmas movie, this would easily fit the bill. The atmosphere of Christmas is all over the place, such as going to the mall with this mom, church festivities, and the cold and the snow play big parts in the film. The scene in the graveyard with Hedges and Roberts where she asks him where does he want her to bury him when he’s gone, the snow on the grave stones, the imagery is fantastic here and just elevates the whole scene. This review is getting too long, so as a Christmas present to you all, I’ll just end it by saying I really really liked this film, and it will probably be in my top 20 list when I finalize it soon.

I forget which exact episode of Friends it is, but there is a scene where Ross, Chandler, and Joey are having a Die Hard Marathon in Ross’s new apartment, and they just finished Die Hard and it’s time to put in the sequel. Here is the exact dialogue as follows:

Chandler: Die Hard, still great!
Joey: Hey, what do you say we make a double feature?
Ross: What else did you rent?
Joey: Die Hard 2!
Chandler: Joe, this is Die Hard 1 again.
Joey: Ohh..well if we watch it a second time then it’s Die Hard 2!
Ross: Joey we just saw it.
Joey: And?
Ross: And it would be cool to see it again!

I just summed up for you MARY POPPINS RETURNS in a nutshell. While I am still mildly recommending the movie as a whole for a couple of things I’ll get to in a bit, Disney just pulled “The Force Awakens Effect” yet again. “The Force Awakens Effect” for those of you not in the know, is basically claiming a that movie is a sequel, when it is almost beat by beat the same exact story and plot of the original film. But seriously…if you had complaints that The Force Awakens was beat by beat too close to A New Hope, Mary Poppins Returns is tapping your shoulder right now and asking you to hold its spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down. Mary Poppins returns to help out the children of the children she helped in the first movie, and instead of trying to make the now older Michael realize not to neglect his kids like his father was taught, she tries to make older Michael realize that home is wherever you make it if you have your family by your side, and to appreciate his kids more. Wait…what? It’s essentially the same thing, with a minor twist. Just like everything else is in this movie. It’s the closest thing that Disney can make a remake without calling it a remake.

Instead of a picture that Mary Poppins and the kids go into full of brilliant animation, it is now a ceramic bowl. Instead of a spoon full of sugar and Mary Poppins helping the kids tidy of their room, it is now just a different non memorable song with them taking a bath tidying up themselves. Instead of a chimney chim chim cha roo with some very talented chimney sweepers, it’s a new song called “Trip A Little Light Fantastic” and instead of chimney sweepers, its now lamp lighters, but it’s the same dark cinematography and matte imagery and intricate dance choreography. All of this is surrounded by Colin Firth trying his best to act like an asshole and the family has to find this certificate of shares that the children’s father left them or they lose the old house we know and love so well.

This movie is beat by beat by beat by plot point by plot point by plot point the exact same film as the original, with just some minor tweaks here and there from it being a shot by shot remake. It’s just Disney being safe. They know that safe works (see Force Awakens) and they know that going outside the box may not (see The Star Wars Prequels and I guess see some dumb fan boys’ view of The Last Jedi). They know that just bringing in an older version of the children from the first film, but now focuses on their children will give audience enough sweet sweet memberberries to chew on while watching the movie. It’s kind of sad that you could’ve even done something similar yet different of all new kids, in a all new setting, with a different plot, more attune with The Force Awakens, and yet they still didn’t go that route. And while the movie was entertaining and held my attention, I just felt kind of eh through the whole thing because I know I had seen it all before.

Okay, now let’s get to the good stuff where I’m actually giving this film a minor “thumbs up.” Emily Blunt is always amazing in my eyes, and here she is no different. She steals every scene. She is the only other person in my eyes I deem fit to play Mary Poppins other than Julie Andrews (Andrews was in her early 20s playing the role and Blunt is 35, yes, they do have an age joke or two). She can sing, dance, and do anything. She’ll win an Academy Award one day, but not for this. Let the Oscar be still with Julie Andrews for this character. And Lin Manuel Miranda (yes, he kind of raps at one point in this as expected) is great too here. Every since Hamilton he’s been on this rise, and even with this things will just keep getting better for him. Yes, Dick Van Dyke is in this for about 3 to 5 minutes, has a minor little dance number where my jaw was on the floor considering he is 93 years old.

I also appreciated when they went into that animated world we all knew she was going to take the kids into that they didn’t just cop out and try to make them interact with Pixar like animated characters. No, they go back to home grown, home spun 2D animation, and it was brilliant enough for me to crave a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? even though I hope they never make one and if they do that it isn’t just another soft reboot/remake like this one is. And yes, Meryl Streep is in this (she’s got to be in everything, ugh), however, she’s only in one scene, one musical number, and then she’s out for the rest of the picture, and she wasn’t annoying, and she was quite good).

Unfortunately, as I remember the kids quite fondly in the original movie, the kids in this aren’t memorable at all in the fact that I’ve already forgotten what they look like. And while this film is a musical, and there is a song and dance thing every ten minutes, they in no way even touch the classic songs of the original. In fact, I can only remember two songs being fantastic, “A Cover Is Not The Book” and “Nowhere To Go But Up” and the latter isn’t until the very very end of the film.

But the film is harmless, is entertaining, and in some parts even fun, even though it’s just a melting pot of the original film. I completely recommend this to people who haven’t even seen the first one or haven’t seen the first one in a long time. For God’s sake, don’t watch the original right before you go and see this or you are going to regret it. It’s a decent family film, what more could you ask around the holidays? Well, I could ask that Bumblebee never existed, but that’s like asking for a billion dollars…

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS is the most mis-marketed, bait and switch movie of 2018. Hands fucking down. It advertises in the trailers and tv spots that the film will portray “the ultimate rivalry” for rule between her and Queen Elizabeth, and that the movie is going to be about one giant power struggle. Nope. Wrong…Not. Even. Close. I made sure to brush up on some of the real history of Mary Stuart, and of all of her life they could’ve made the movie about (in fact, it could’ve just been one giant biography with 20 added minutes, with a lot of the fat trimmed out), they decided to make the movie about the least interesting part in her life, where she returns to Scotland. It is there the movie turns into a #MeToo type entity, where every single man character in the film is apparently a sadistic, mean, psychotic, asshole son of a bitch with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. This “rivalry” in the movie is barely even there. A couple of letters written between Mary and Elizabeth when Mary returns to Scotland, trying to make a deal with inheritance to eventually have one ruler over England and Scotland, and then only one final confrontation at the end of the movie. In a meeting that apparently is pure fiction and never takes place, they speak to each other for only 5 minutes, and then years of imprisonment/protection pass (which we do not see, nor do we hear about some of her cool escapes and escape attempts) and then Mary is sentenced to death for some letter Elizabeth has that we never see or hear anything about, other than that it might’ve been written in Mary’s hand about a plot to kill Elizabeth. Instead we are treated to 2 hours of Mary just dealing with dumb, mean men that completely ruin her life. Margot Robbie is in the movie for only about 10 to 12 minutes by the way, and in no way does she deserve a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

Saoirse Ronan on the other hand is utterly fantastic as Mary, and it would be well deserved if she was nominated, but at how much I completely dislike this film, I don’t care to see it get any nominations, as to send a message to the filmmakers this was the wrong way to go with the years and years of story that they could’ve told. What’s funny is that Saoirse doesn’t look a day over 18, (which is where we see her at the start of the film) and then she hasn’t aged a day, they didn’t even bother trying to do make up or use CGI, and is supposedly 44 when she gets executed. I know my movie review is all over the place, but if you think about it, I’m paying homage to the movie itself, which was the exact same thing. I currently have a couple of web pages next to the one I’m writing on and I’m scanning over the history of Mary and Elizabeth and I’m shocked at what is not in the film. There is some really juicy stuff such as Mary’s rule when she was younger before where the film starts, or some of her escape attempts and apparent plots to kill Queen Elizabeth, or they could’ve went full Rated R and actually shown how awful her execution was instead of it copping out with a fake to black end credits bullshit text update on what happened to the other characters kind of conclusion. Plus, even telling the story of Mary’s return to Scotland is riddled with inaccuracies, such as her marriage to Lord Darnley being a sham because he was gay and fucked her catholic private secretary Rizzio, when in actuality she was actually fucking him, or that she saw her son for the last time when he was clearly older than 1 or 2, when in actuality he was only 10 months, and again, if her and Elizabeth actually ever met. Also the conclusion of Lord Darnley’s character is very fictionalized and not at all how it really happened. If you are going to make an historical inaccurate film, and there have been many, they might as well have went full fiction and actually made the rivalry movie that was promised and marketed.

And the movie is quite boring. I was actually into it a little bit until it hit the 45 minute mark and I figured that the movie marketed to me and everyone else on Earth was a sham and it was something completely different. I kept looking at my watch, wondering when this rivalry/power struggle film was to begin, and it never did. I guess you could say the power struggle was within her own group of politicians that were supposed to be “loyal” to her but even that was uninteresting and too repetitive. It was basically males that seemed to just slap her around, control her and betray her, trying to turn a historical film into a platform that modern audiences can relate to, aka the #MeToo movement. I don’t know what really happened back then and couldn’t tell you anything unless I was standing there watching it all happen, but the movie seemed to make Mary too strong of a character, where when all this bad shit was happening to her, she should’ve just ordered the deaths of people around her to regain ultimate control, instead of just taking blow after blow without being able to do anything about it.

I’m just mad that I was scammed out of what could’ve been a very powerful movie about Mary Stuart, with a breathtaking performance from Saoirse Ronan. I had a similar complaint with Bohemian Rhapsody, in that they could’ve made a much better film than they did, with Rami Malek giving us a better powerful performance (don’t worry, he still owns the movie we got, but still) with elevated material. Is it possible someone could write something else in the next few years, maybe something about Mary’s entire interesting life and still get Saoirse back into the role? Now that I would give a chance and see. The look of the film was fine, the direction fine, some of the visuals fantastic, but the boredom, inaccuracies, and misdirection the movie ultimately told was too much of a distraction for me to even closely give some kind of recommendation. I guess if you love Saoirse Ronan, watch it for her performance, but that is about it. If you are going for Margot Robbie, be prepared to be overwhelmingly let down. It’s not one of the worst films of the year, but it is one of the worst disappointments.

If you are a casual movie goer yet still keep up with the reward circuit, you might be wondering what this ROMA movie is that is being nominated for all these awards and how to watch it. If you have Netflix, well I have some good news for you, it just premiered on the service yesterday! And if you are a dummy and already knew that, yet spend the amount on one ticket to see it in a theater that would pay for one whole month for Netflix, well…I already called you a dummy didn’t I? Roma is a pretty good movie, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who has directed some great films such as Gravity, Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men, and Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Apparently this movie has been a passion project for him for years and years. And you can tell that every bit of love from his heart went into making this. The movie is set in 1970 and shows the year in the life of a live in housekeeper that works for this middle class family with a bunch of kids that have a mother that is oblivious to her husband not wanting to be around anymore. It is called Roma because it is referring to the Colonia Roma district of the city. The film is subtitled and black and white, and it is one of the most gorgeous films of 2018.

The cinematogrphy and shots are crisp, vibrant, and sharp. Definitely wouldn’t have looked as great if it were in color. Cuaron uses real locations to pull the viewer into the movie with his visuals. A lot of the shots consist of the camera panning from left to right or right to left, with careful choreography that feels natural. All of the actresses/actors are complete unknowns, but even with kids playing a big part in it, everything feels real with real emotions. Cleo, the films protagonist, especially great, with parts of her journey I don’t want spoil here, emotional enough to make me almost shed a couple of tears.

IF you are an award watcher completest, Roma is a must see. It is a lengthy 2 hrs and 15 minutes, but it kept my attention throughout the whole thing, mainly because of the visuals. The best sequence has to be Cleo shopping in the middle of the Corpus Christi Massacre, the camera work alone should get Alfonso Cuaron some kind of Oscar this year. If you don’t like reading subtitles or don’t like black and white films (how could you), this might not be your cup of tea. I enjoyed it though, always enjoy great film making.

I did a short review yesterday, let’s see if I can replicate it. Because to really dig into the plot of SPIDER-MAN INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is to reveal a lot of what happens in the movie, aka spoilers, and this movie is so much fun in the discovery of what is happening that I don’t want to do that. The teaser trailer to this almost a year ago we knew that the movie would be about Miles Morales and that he was talking to a Peter Parker. The newer trailers/tv spots let on to the fact that there was so much more going on, more Spider people, and I wish I hadn’t have seen them. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a bunch of cool surprises in the film, but if they would’ve kept the fact that there are multiple Spider people that don’t belong in Miles Morales world more of a secret, it may have even had the chance to be my favorite Spider-Man movie. But don’t worry, still love it and it is pretty damn close, probably just under Homecoming and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 for me.

And even with the multiple Spider people in the movie, the film manages never to lose focus of Miles Morales journey and doesn’t make the same some of the other Spider-Man movies have made, aka, too many villains, or in this case, too many heroes. And even though there are multiple villains in this as well, the film still manages to keep its perfect balance. That is a rare feat. You could say the main boss is Kingpin, with The Prowler, Scorpion, and one surprise villain I dare not reveal here being sidekicks, but even the Kingpin is subdued to a supporting role, his part not over staying its welcome. Story wise all you need to know is what the trailers have shown you. This story is an origin tale about Miles Morales becoming a Spider person, but sort of flips that origin tale on its head, by coming up with a unique story that involves other Spider people from other dimensions. I’m not going to reveal how Kingpin or any of the other bad guys are involved and not going to reveal how the dimensions collide in the first place.

It’s amazing given how many people there are in this movie, how every one gets a complete well rounded character arc, shit, even Aunt May. (well…I guess maybe except for Scorpion, but that’s okay, he didn’t need one). And it still gives room for Miles Morales to have the most beefed up character arc of all. Some parts of the movie are pretty emotional, and the story earns those emotions. The look of the movie is unique as well, and it makes me want to go back and possibly watch it in 3D. This is a comic book movie that actually looks and feels like you are reading/watching an actual comic book. The textures, style, and colors of the animation are vibrant and fantastic, something I have never seen before. The movie also works with the voice acting. Everyone does a fantastic job, but I have to give props to Nicholas Cage as Noir Spider-Man. Now I just want a movie with that character with Nicholas Cage reading beautiful dialogue to me for two hours.

Anyway, this is where I am going to cut it short. This movie is fantastic and deserves to be seen on the big screen, possibly maybe even in 3D. It’s a really fun journey, and there is no way they could’ve made a live action version of this story to make it work. Keep on with the Tom Holland MCU sequels, but I want sequels to this as well. Now, about whether your young kids, younger than 6 should see this or not. It’s rated PG, but that’s for the cartoon like violence and fighting. There is no language whatsoever in this. Word of warning, there are two pretty emotional Mufasa like deaths early on in the film (one closer to the middle) that could rattle them up. But the rest of the movie is light, action packed and fun. So if they are huge Spider-Man fans, even at like 4 or 5, they might really dig this movie, and are sure to dig it even more once they get older. This is a fantastic, awesome, spectacular, any phrase from any dimension you want to use to describe a fucking awesome Spider-Man movie. Oh, and stay after the credits for one of the funniest post credits scenes in Marvel history.

I swear to God this review for AT ETERNITY’S GATE will be short. I swear. The only reason I saw this movie is because Willem Dafoe is up for a Golden Globe, its been said that he has a very high chance for a Oscar nom, and I heard it is his best performance to date. If all of us was given an actor’s name and had to name our top three favorite performances, and I was given Willem Dafoe, I would say Boondock Saints, The Florida Project, and definitely this film. This is some of his best work if not THE best. The movie itself is not a whole biography of Vincent Van Gogh (the title of the film is the title to one of his pieces of art work), just an “imagining” of the painter’s last mentally unstable and sort of psychotic years. Basically where he painted a shit load of painting in a short time period, cut off his ear due to the loss of a friendship with another famous painter (Paul Gauguin, played by Oscar Isaac), and then eventually shot himself? The question mark on that is because the movie imagines how he got shot in the stomach a different way other than that it is historically recorded that he shot himself due to his mental instability.

The movie is good. I would probably never watch it again, but it was good just by the fact that Willem Dafoe’s acting is incredible in it. If you look at the poster you’ll see other famous names such as Mads Mikkelsen, Rupert Friend and the previously mentioned Oscar Isaac, but going to the film for them would be a waste of time considering that all of them only have one or two short scenes. This is the Dafoe show, and he completely rocks the house. I did like the storytelling aspect as well, kind of imagining what Vincent Van Gogh was going through when he was in a mental institution and then just roaming around the country side drawing and painting. I like how it wasn’t a by the number biography of the end of his life. What I did like however was some of the aesthetic and weird camera choices. Some of the visual artistry in this film is simply beautiful, and then other times it seems like the director his having a stroke while holding the camera. Sometimes the shots had wayyyyyyy too much shaky cam at random intervals, sometimes the camera would travel weirdly and unpleasantly and too close to the other actors faces, and at one point some of the visuals are muddle because it seems like the camera cracked in half as the bottom have of some of the shots are blurry as fuck.

And I get that it was probably to represent Vincent Van Gogh’s frame of mind, but the inconsistency and awkward timing of those decisions kind of annoyed the fuck out of me. But if you are a Willem Dafoe fan, and I am, this is required viewing at least once. He’s incredible in it and if nominated for an Oscar, it will be well deserved. The film itself just doesn’t have any staying power to ever be mentioned again by me, other than a quick reference if someone asked me that 3 best performances question on Dafoe. Aka, wait until you can somehow see this for free. I did it, this is my shortest one in a long time, hooray!!!

Just when I think a genre is dead, done and possibly gone, comes another movie that gives a nice little delightful spin on it, giving a few more steady miles out of a car that has been sputtering on fumes for years. In this case, its the zombie film. During the time where Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil franchise was beating a dead horse with sequel upon sequel of tiresome zombie antics, Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead brought life back into the genre for a brief time, so did Shaun of the Dead, and so did AMC’s The Walking Dead and so on. The Walking Dead’s ratings have been slumping pretty bad these past couple of years, showing that maybe this way overdone set up has finally hit its peak (I missed the entire last season and haven’t watched any of this season, so I’m feeling the fatigue too. Now, while ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE didn’t pour a whole tank of gas into the genre car, it actually had me invested enough where I actually cared about some of its characters, looking forward to each step of the journey, and cared about the quality of songs.

Oh shit, that’s right, I forgot to mention HOW this movie reinvigorates the genre a little bit. This is actually a zombie Christmas musical. If you look really, really hard into this, its almost a complete re make of Shaun of the Dead, but with different characters and motivations, songs replacing Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg dialogue, and a school replacing the Winchester. Don’t worry, it’s not a total rip off, just some pretty noticeable similarities. They both play off the zombie genre to interesting results, and they both become semi-serious near the end of their run times. I am trying to do research on this movie, mainly trying to uncover how much this movie cost to make. Because during the whole thing, you can tell this was made on a next to nothing budget, and what is impressive about the whole thing is how much it works without any kind of money. Basically, the less it cost to make this thing, the more impressed I’m going to be when I find out.

But what clinches this movie in being the light delight that it is the songs themselves. The songs are 100% completely original, and two of them, Hollywood Ending and Soldier of War are so damn catchy they are still in my head a day later after viewing the movie. And you know my rule, not only one thing can make a movie, its got to be a combination of things. Thankfully, the songs aren’t the only things that work in the films favor. The movie has actual character development, and the movie does have a couple of minor shock/twists, where I didn’t see a couple of deaths coming where I actually got me a little sad we wouldn’t be seeing that character the rest of the movie anymore. Also in doing my research the cast actually sang the songs, it was a bit difficult because you can obviously tell in the movie that the songs were added post production and the actors are lip synching while dodging and diving zombies, but with the fact that they didn’t use other people’s voices I have to give them credit for. I do wish though that there was a zombie tale where a real human being didn’t end up being the tale’s ultimate bad guy/girl. Can’t just the threat of zombies be enough? (Now that I think about it, there wasn’t really an ultimate bad human in Shaun of the Dead, was there?) Thankfully though the bad guy/girl here plays it nice and just the right amount of over the top to be a little memorable, even if his/her evil song feels rushed and not quite so catchy.

The main star of the movie is obviously Anna played by Ella Hunt, who I haven’t seen in anything before this. She’s quite good, and I can see her going places if she picks the right projects in the future (this was definitely a good pick). Actually, all the acting all around is good. The only real complaint I have is that I wish this movie had quite a bigger budget going into production, because most of the zombie kills are extremely lacking, using fake blood CGI splurts and some of the hits happening off screen or away from the camera. And I understand you can only do so much with a next to nothing budget, so my complaint really isn’t warranted, especially when the make up to the zombies was actually better than it had any right to be. Imagine a movie like this with a $100 million budget. It could go to more locations, the song and dance numbers would be more epic and grand, maybe even making the story a little better than just being separated from parents and/or other friends and trying to get from location A to location B. But like I said, that isn’t the movies fault. I give credit where credit is due. They had a simple zombie story, turned it into a musical, and spent every penny of what they had with what they could afford. The films emotional beats worked, and when the movie went dark, it went dark. It is a crisp 92 minutes and doesn’t overstay its welcome. I’m glad that everyone in making this film ended up getting this a theatrical distribution, but I have a feeling it might’ve played a lot better if Netflix would’ve bought and premiered it on its streaming service, or if it premiered on another streaming service or went straight to VOD. There was only 5 other people in this large theater I was in and kind of felt sad for the movie. But after watching the two hour $150 million dollar shit fest that was Bumblebee, something simpler was just what I needed. I have a feeling this movie will catch on and become a cult classic in later years. It just needs time for people to discover it.

Fool me four times, shame on you. Fool me five times…I mean, what did I really expect from BUMBLEBEE? aka Transformers 6? aka prequel to the first movie? I expected something different. For starters, there is a new screenplay writer (writing the upcoming Birds of Prey movie, which gets me really fucking worried now), Michael Bay didn’t direct it (but he has a producer credit, so I still should’ve seen this shit fest coming), it’s a prequel so we don’t have to continue the story from the last one, the Transformers designs are more like they were in the 80s cartoon, it has talented actress in Hailee Steinfeld, and a couple of other things going for it. Nope. Bumblebee is still the same movie. And just like every preceding Transformers movie, it is now the worst of them all. I still like the very first Transformers movie with Shia LeBeouf. It still gives me nostalgia and memberberry goosebumps when I remember seeing these awesome action sequences for the first time (when Bay hadn’t sold out quite yet) and Shia LeBeouf still carried the movie before he turned into the hippie psycho we all know and fear now. But Revenge of the Fallen and so on and so forth have all been the same film. And Bumblebee doesn’t do itself any favors with tricking the audience. You think you are going to get something different with a lighter, more family friendly tone, and heartfelt story, and in actuality you get just a soft reboot/remake of the first movie. You get basically almost the exact same origin movie, yet with worse dialogue than the original, uninspiring action (even when Bay’s action got tiresome there was still some cool shots, this has zilch), terrible, terrible fucking acting, AND THE EXACT SAME GOD DAMN ENDING AS ALL THE OTHERS.

Yeah so, the only few differences with this movie, is that it takes place in the 80s, and it’s Hailee Steinfeld instead of Shia, and we sort of get to see the fall of Cybertron, and the Transformer designs look more like they did in the 80s cartoon. That’s about it. So think for yourself, if this takes place in the 80s, and the war on Earth doesn’t start for another twenty years, and this is supposed to be canon with the rest of the other movies, what story do they have to tell that would make sense with the rest of it? Basically only two Decepticons try and track Bumblebee for the entire film, and their mission is to find him, but then send ANOTHER GOD DAMN SIGNAL FROM ANOTHER GOD DAMN TOWER to the other Decepticons, alerting them that the Autobots new base is on Earth. So all the tension is completely drained from this film, because we know they don’t, because we know the real war doesn’t start until Shia LeBeouf comes into play. And if you watch the others, the ending is the same, there is some tower, with some beam, that Bumblebee and the main protagonist have to destroy to prevent whatever comes next. It is so tiring, they couldn’t have found anything else to do? Why have a storyline that features humans at all? Why couldn’t they have made a movie focusing on the fall of Cybertron or maybe some battles and crusades through space before they actually found Earth? Do we really need to add us, human beings, into the mix just to have the story related to dumb minded casual moviegoers? I guess the answer is yes.

John Cena gives the worst performance of the year by anyone in any movie. He is so God damn terrible in this. Every line delivery is over the top and unrealistic and he seems like he thinks he is in a comedy. Every time he showed up on screen, I was wincing and clenching my teeth every time he opened his mouth. It was that bad. In fact, every human character is stupey, stupey, dumb, dumb, or really just inept except for Haille Steinfeld. This movie makes our government and military looks super, super, dumb, and it is very insulting. And I get that this movie is supposed to be more family friendly in tone but this goes down to the level of cheap straight to video family tone. The dialogue is so bad it feels like a new born baby wrote it. And none of the choices in the movie, made by character, Autobot, or Decepticon, make any damn sense. The Decepticon’s have Bumblebee’s location before they land on Earth, yet they land on the other side of the country and then have a long road ahead of them? And even if that were the case, and they know Bumblebee is there, why didn’t they try and just start the signal to alert all the other Decepticons right away and get them to destroy Earth instead of waiting until it was plot convenient to do so and have all these entities trying to stop them? When Bumblebee lands on Earth for the first time, he happens to land right in the fucking middle of John Cena and his army playing a friendly combat simulation of paintball. You know why he lands right in the middle of them? Contrived plot fucking convenience.

Everything in this movie is convenience, convenience, and convenience. Nothing develops realistically or naturally. Every choice is forced, or several lines of bad dialogue are written to explain why they can’t do this and this now, or what they can’t alert so and so right away. The Decepticons have literally 10 fucking times in the movie to make sure that Bumblebee is dead yet they don’t fucking do it for scripts sake. It is mind numbing and infuriatingly bizarre. And I had another “are you fucking kidding me?” moment in this film, and the whole time I knew this moment was going to happen, but praying it wasn’t so. They introduce Hailee Steinfeld’s character as someone who was a really good pool diver, possibly even Olympic qualifying. She quit because of her dad, and one point in the middle of the movie, Bumblebee pushes her to try and show off in front of some bullies but she can’t do it. So at the very end, where the tower and signal is for the Decepticons to signal the other and destroy Earth, there just happens to be a damn near by, and that damn gets destroyed, and she dives in from a very high point to try and save Bumblebee from possibly “drowning”. Even though he is a large mechanical entity and she wouldn’t be able to bring him to the surface anyway, the movie just puts on this inspiration music and has her do her swan dive to show that she’s developed as a character. Pffft. Also, at one point John Cena wants to see what is going on in a military building he is stationed at, and he tells his group of people that there is a door in his way, and they just blow it up. Why the fuck couldn’t they have just opened it? Also, they wasted actress Hailee Steinfeld in this, she’s the only half way decent thing in this movie, but this young woman has been nominated for an Academy Award (remake of True Grit) and was excellent in The Edge of Seventeen. This and everything else in between has been a slap in the face to her talents. Her and her manager need to learn to say no. Also, the director, Travis Knight, who has been nominated for two Academy Awards for The Boxtrolls and the fantastic Kubo and The Two Strings, should have known better than to take this as his first go around into live action.

Also, Bumblebee with the rest of the Autobots are supposed to be these war specialists, military types that try and fight for the good of their planet. So why does when Bumblebee land on Earth he goes fully mentally challenged and acts like he is a toddler with no clue of what is going on? I mean come on. This Autobot is blasting Decepticons with accuracy at the beginning of the film, giving orders and talking to Optimus Prime, yet when he lands on Earth, he doesn’t understand what hiding is or how to blend in when told. And then he destroys a house because he acts like an animal and doesn’t know to obey orders from Haille Steinfelds character and just stay put? All of the screenplay writing in this film is fucking insulting to me not just as a movie goer, but as a huge film buff that at once wanted to be one, and this shit still gets made. And some of you idiots will still go and out and see this and love it, because you have nothing better to do, and don’t expect more out of movies. If you think I’m talking about you, congrats, you are the reason we still get shitty movies and still get shitty prequel/sequel shit like this. It is time to raise the bar. Hopefully some of you will become the wiser, and this film won’t make any money. But no, it will, and we will get a Bumblebee 2 with Haley Steinfeld coming back even though at the end of the film it would make no fucking sense of why she was coming back and why Bumblebee would come out of hiding between her and LeBeouf. Just more dialogue and plot conveniences written to make that prequel/sequel dollar. In actuality, this should be the final nail in the coffin for the Transformer franchise. They need to roll out right into their graves.

Rank of Transformers Films:

1. Transformers
2 – 6. The exact same pieces of shit, each one stinkier than the last.

THE POSSESSION OF HANNAH GRACE is one of the worst mainstream horror movies ever released to human beings. The worst I’ve seen since Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. And I’d probably have to watch both again to determine the real winner of the worst horror film I’ve ever seen, but I’m not going to subject myself to that torture. This movie is fucking terrible. But the only reason I went is because I have a horror movie friend named Kim that I see these kinds of films with (because none of our close friends really like horror films that much or find them interesting) and sometimes I’m seeking out bad films to just completely rip apart in a review like this. Kim and I usually point out the really dumb shit during horror films, but usually they are A. Really short comments like “really?” B. Those comments are few and far between as we don’t really find that much horrendous shit to talk about that often (these are mainstream horror films professionally made, not those horror films you’ve never heard of whose only copies really exist on digital or a few rare copies still left on VHS where you could just point out one bad thing after the other) and C. We don’t want to disturb those around us actually really wanting to see the movie. We usually only talk a lot if there if there is no one in the theater. With Hannah Grace, there was hardly anyone in the theater, where we were seated we were completely secluded from those who were, and there was enough shit minute by minute to completely pick apart and laugh over. We had a hell of a time hating this movie. And before you ask, no, it’s not a so bad its good movie. It’s a really really really really fucking terrible film that is fun to watch just once to completely shit all over it. But that’s it. Only once. You’d have to kill me before I would ever watch this film again.

The film has an interesting concept and premise: basically the story of what could happen AFTER an exorcism that you’ve seen in a thousand other movies. What if the exorcism didn’t work? What happens to those involved in the exorcism? What happens to the body? Haven’t seen anything tackle those questions before this movie. However, Hannah Grace takes all those interesting questions and concepts and completely fucks everything up. It executes everything wrong on every cinematic narrative, acting, and technical level countless times. I have a feeling that the script, originally titled ‘Cadaver’, was a lot better, and this end result that was rushed into theaters was complete studio interference and fuckery, the likes of which I have never ever seen before. The whole movie could’ve been one cool little mystery, with the whole exorcism plot reveal kept away until the very end as a giant “OH SHIT” twist. Instead, the very first, completely, dumb, stupid, unoriginal scene in the movie, reveals the entire exorcism. It is one of the slowest and stupidest exorcism scenes I’ve seen in any exorcism film that I’ve had to tolerate on my 32 year here on Earth. I have a feeling that the exorcism scene was actually shot for, and took place as a flashback near the very end of the film. But being the little bitch that studios can be exclaimed, “No, fuck you, we need to market it as an exorcism film. People don’t like or go to films anymore where they have to piece together shit before the big reveal, they only go to films where they know what is going on at each and every frame of the movie. Put the exorcism scene at the very beginning to force feed theatergoers and change the title to the worst possible generic piece of shit title available that will explain the whole premise of the movie on the poster.” At one point in the movie a homeless guy tries to get into the morgue, and if it were the original film that was released, audiences would’ve asked, “is Shay Mitchell going crazy and this is all in her head, or is it just some crazy weirdo that likes to fuck dead bodies, or is there really something sinister afoot” But no, right when he shows up, you know it’s the possessed dead girls father, because of the first piece of shit unnecessary scene, and when he reveals himself, it is shot in the way for audiences to suddenly gasp and scream out, “Oh My God!” but when that shot finally does come, it just feels like over dramatic trash.

Let me back up a second. The films premise is that it’s about a girl that used to be a cop, that now works in a hospital morgue overnight because some traumatic thing happened to her while she was still a cop (duh!). She gets a burned, mutilated cadaver on one of her watches. Once the body is delivered to her overnight, she starts to see and experience strange shit, like a bunch of flies coming off the body, and her examination equipment keeps faulting when she tries to take photos and identify the subject. Also what appears to be a homeless guy is obsessively trying to get into the morgue. Then employees of the morgue/hospital keep getting killed off one by one by what appears to be a mutilated corpse that may or may not be possessed. Is all this stuff really happening on the girl’s (that used to be a cop) watch, or is it all inside her head? Nope, that first scene completely negates that question I’m sure the original version of the script tried to ask. The first seen happens, and the entire film is pretty much ruined. Any tension or mystery the film once had is absolutely butchered, delivering a boring, dull, mess of a story that tries to use cheap jump scares (they don’t work) with terrible, fucking God damn terrible, CGI. Also, either the studio or production ran out of money for the movie, because the finale’s pacing and editing is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Two characters are talking about how to expose the possessed body into the incinerator (because the movie reveals that’s the only way to dispose of a body after an exorcism, because if you don’t, the body, still with the demon apparently inside, will start killing people until it claims enough lives to resurrect itself, a la 1999’s The Mummy) and then cuts them off talking about it and then they are suddenly there. No tense scenes with them taking the body to the morgue with the demon inside trying to stop them or anything. It just cuts to them with the body at the incinerator and then two seconds later the body kills one of the characters. It is just confusing and stupid all mixed up into one colossal piece of shit climax.

Let’s start nit picking at this film a little bit. Like really nit pick. I’m going to slowly reveal how dumb and stupid this movie is shot by shot, set by set. And while we are on the subject of sets, this “morgue” is the most unbelievable morgue at any hospital in any film ever. It’s completely made of high rise concrete, so sleek looking, it looks as if the entire film takes place in the future. The motion sensor lights go out every minute if you aren’t moving within the facility and when an ambulance drops off a dead body, the sound system blares out annoyingly, enough to try and cheap jump scare you every time, that someone is outside waiting to drop off. I guarantee you that no God damn morgue in the entire world works like that. It only works in the context of what the movie is trying to do to you, which is trying to forcefully cheap jump scare you. It doesn’t care about believability, it only cares that you jumped out of your seats a little and put your hand to your heart, trying to catch your breath. Worst unrealistic morgue in any film ever. I already talked about the unnecessary exorcism scene that didn’t need to be in the movie at all or if it did, should’ve been at the end in flashbacks. What else? Oh, let’s get into Shay Mitchell. First off, I haven’t seen any episode of Pretty Little Liars, but she sucks acting wise in this movie. And her former career is the most unbelievable career in the history of cinema, completely stealing the throne from Denise Richards being a chemist/scientist in The World Is Not Enough. There is no way Shay Mitchell would be believable as a former cop. She’s just too good looking/fucking hot and can’t act to save her life. If you are going to hire somebody that good looking for the cop role, at least make sure she can act. When they showed her in her flashbacks as a cop, police hat and all, I started laughing my ass off. That brings me to another thing, the movie tries to add a character arc for her in the film and that arc is fucking stupid. It didn’t need it. Basically the reason Shay Mitchell’s character in the film isn’t a cop anymore is because she was either fired or she quit after an incident where she didn’t shoot a running suspect after a traffic stop. The suspect ended up pulling out a gun and shot and killed her partner. And the reason why the film didn’t end up needing this whole backstory is because the whole mystery that I’m guessing the original script/film was supposed to have is ruined by the first exorcism scene in the film. The notion of whether she is stressed out because of those demons or is really lying and is on drugs, and whether everything could be happening entirely in her head, is fucking negated by the fact that we already know everything is really happening because the movie told us so. If the first scene didn’t exist, the backstory of the character, while still dumb and stupid (she literally goes on morning runs to “run” away from her inner demons from that one fateful night), might’ve worked on a narrative standpoint. But with the first scene, the backstory is laughable and ridiculously unwarranted. And the payoff to her redemption was dumb and hilariously executed as well.

This film is also filled with a bunch of other unnecessary shots and sequences. The film near the beginning sets up that Shay Mitchell’s ex cop character likes to make rubber band balls, all for there to be a scene later where she’s sitting on the fucking toilet and the possessed body of Hannah Grace rolls the ball under the stall, to suddenly grab her wrist, giving the audience a shitty cheap jump scare. Near the beginning of the film, to show that the character has “inner demons she is trying to run from,” it shows her on morning runs, breathing hard. That’s not the unnecessary scene. It’s when they have to have a 7 second obligatory shower shot, with Shay Mitchell showing enough side boob but the shower curtain covering her nipple because she probably has a no nudity contract clause. There was absolutely no reason to see her in the shower. None. I don’t mind (I REALLY don’t mind) seeing girl nudity in a movie every now and then, but usually with me, and now especially in general with the #MeToo nowadays, the nudity has to have a point within the story. This has no point. I guarantee you it wasn’t in the script and either the director or some executive at the studio was a fucking pervert, and wanted to see Shay Mitchell half nude privately, so they added a 7 second shower shot just so he could get his jollies. I can’t believe Ms. Mitchell didn’t object to that scene wholeheartedly.

Also, the entire movie sets up an ending that didn’t happen and they ask a question which answer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Several characters in the film ask why doesn’t the possessed body of Hannah Grace just kill her, why is it only attacking these other people and not her when she’s been alone almost the entire movie with plenty of time to do it. The movie should’ve explained it in one of two ways. The first way could’ve been that she was the only one killed that had “inner demons” inside of her. But the movie never confirms this theory. Once character that it kills has a scene right before he is killed, telling Shay Mitchell’s character he used to have a bunch of problems, but then his child was born, so he stopped all that shit (Him getting killed right afterward was a cheap shot by the script, it made me actually feel because I have a young child and it made me wonder what would be going on in his brain if he didn’t get to see me anymore, I fucking hated the movie for that rushed forced crap). Anyway, that showed that I guess he didn’t have any inner demons anymore, but there wasn’t a line of dialogue or anything for the others. I guess that nurse played by Stana Katic gets killed because it shows that she has dealt with her demons by being a mentor to Shay Mitchell’s character. But that doesn’t explain the death of Hannah Grace’s father or the two security guards. Are we just to assume they didn’t have inner demons? Very poor ass script decisions. If you are going to set up rules, you have to go all the way or you don’t go at all.

Anyway, to get to the ending that didn’t happen. It sets up the whole time that if someone is possessed by a demon, they will probably have a bright blue neon type shade as their eye color, and not have their normal eye color. I was guessing that the demon was keeping her alive, so that way when the demon finally stitches up the body after killing so many people to resurrect it’s damaged skin (I know, fucking stupid right?), that it would touch Shay Mitchell and she would end up being possessed at that final stupid obligatory sequel scene right before it cuts to end credits. Nope, it didn’t take that ending either (although ten bucks says it is on the deleted scenes). And what is so frustrating is that everything was set up for that schlock of an ending. So I don’t know whether to actually praise the movie for not doing that, or be mad that it didn’t just go full schlock on itself. The possessed body of Hannah Grace fully takes care of fixing up the body, and grabs on to Shay Mitchell’s head right before she finally gets it into the incinerator, in what looked like a soul swapping little maneuver. So she actually ends up getting the body into the incinerator (without the help of anyone, even her ex boyfriend cop offers to help her but she says no because the script stupidly calls for that solo journey ending bullshit thing) and then we see her some time after, her demons behind her, running just to work out, taking yet ANOTHER FUCKING SHOWER FOR ANOTHER STUPID SHOWER SHOT, and then after the shower she stares in the mirror. Her left eye framed right in the middle of the screen, her wet hair covering the eye. Switch too even a more close up of her face and her eye. Then a god damn fly lands on her bathroom mirror (flies are a recurring theme in this movie, and in more than one case, always scavenging on the open eye of Hannah Grace), and then Shay Mitchell squashes the fly with one finger, end credits. Don’t set up shit unless you are going to follow through. Don’t do schlock unless you are going to go full schlock.

I’m sorry the review is so long. I think I am done. I’m sure I’ll think of other complaints (one of the God damn security guards looks like a grown up version of a Garbage Pail Kid), but I won’t bother editing this thing. I’m done with this movie. I wish I was a billionaire. Because if I was, I would buy the right to this movie before it hit home video. I would then delete/destroy every copy I could find, just to make sure that people like you reading my review are never subjected to this utter and complete piece of shit. I AM OFFICIALLY DONE WITH THE DEMON, EXORCISM, POSSESSION MOVIES!!! The final nail in the coffin as been hit for me. There is no lower that any film could possibly achieve after this. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Definitely bottom ten. Please do yourself a favor and actually listen to me this time. Do not give this film any more money.