Was Steven Soderberg saying he was retiring from directing several years ago just like complete bullshit? Or maybe he retired for a couple of months and realized that he is kidding himself and misses the game? I don’t know, but if he ever talks about retirement again I am not going to believe him. His new film is UNSANE, which has the unique distinction of being completely shot with an iPhone. That’s right, an iPhone. And needless to say, he did a pretty damn good job. The movie is entertaining enough and the iPhone does bring about a claustrophobic feel when it comes to the actual story. Would I say it is one of Soderberg’s greatest films? Hell no. Would I watch it multiple times? Certainly not. But it was a heck of a one time watch, and I could see maybe watching it one more time to study the iPhone camera work that he does.

If you aren’t in the know Unsane stars Netflix’s The Crown’s Claire Foy, who after just moving and receiving good marks at a new job she has gotten, is involuntarily/voluntarily? committed to a mental institution where she thinks a very creepy, icky, weird, disgusting stalker has followed her from Chicago and is now trying to finally have her at said institution. But is he really there, or is it all a figment of her insane imagination. That’s for you to decide. The movie, at the beginning, does a really good job of trying to get you to double back whether you think this is really happening to her or not. If I do have one complaint about the film is that it shows all of its cards wayyyyy too early and should’ve waited another 15 to 20 minutes to let the audience in on the whole story.

But that is only a minor complaint. Even with the reveal, the story flows at a break even pace and doesn’t let the audience even a chance of nodding off or completely fall asleep. The acting too here is why this movie doesn’t just flow into the mediocre abyss of all the other crazy/not crazy wild mind trick films. Claire Foy (I haven’t seen any of The Crown but heard she is extraordinary) is great here too, playing a vulnerable, but ultimately strong and capable young woman that doesn’t know what she has gotten/forced herself into and just wants to escape this epic nightmare of utter lunatic proportions. I do want to shout out here though ex-SNL’s Jay Pharoah, who does an extremely good job as a likable inmate named Nate Hoffman. He had pretty good chemistry with Foy. Oh and the creepy stalker that may or may not be there, is played to utterly icky and cringe worthy brillance by Joshua Leonard.

There is one thing that almost took my out of the movie. A very, very, very, very well known actor/actress makes a very quick and short cameo in this movie, and it almost completely took me out of the movie. I won’t say who it is or what he/she was doing, but if I told you it wouldn’t end up being spoiler worthy at all. It really is a pointless cameo and I think it should’ve been played by a unknown actor/actress and a better result would’ve come from that quick 2-3 minute scene. The fact that the actor/actress was too recognizable, and a Soderberg MVP, took me completely out of the film, as I was trying to guess if he/she had anything to do with what would happen in future events (minor spoiler: No, he/she doesn’t, it really is a pointless cameo, nothing a la Kevin Spacey in Se7en).

The real star of the movie is the iPhone, for which this was shot in its entirety (probably not edited with though). The limitations of the iPhone works for the films advantage when it comes to Claire Foy being in a mental institution with really small rooms and big walls to lose your mind in. I could never really see anything big budget being shot with an iphone, but I do look forward to several films in the future being shot with just this device, but unfortunately instead of good pieces like this, we’ll get the era if iPhone horror schlock (watch, it will happen).

So yeah, I liked Unsane, not enough to buy it, but enough to watch it another time but this time watch the iPhone camera work. The story is interesting yet nothing you really haven’t seen before, and the performances take it out of being lost in the mundane see of endless films that are put out into theaters nowadays. And the cameo may or may not take you out of the film. Some people and critics have said this is better than Get Out. HA! Not by a long shot, but you might be pleasantly surprised that this film does work. It is an interesting watch to be sure.

Ok, listen, I’m probably going to get my ass ripped apart by some of you but I didn’t think PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING is as bad as the critics are making it out to be. But, if you didn’t like the first one (I actually happen to find the first one quite engaging), you aren’t going to like this one at all. But if you did like the first one, have an open mind but then leave it at the theater entrance door, and know that it at least can’t be as bad as the last two Transformer movies, you might come out of it thinking it was “‘aight.” Also, if you focus on the special effects, the fights, and John Boyega’s performance, you might not hate it as much as some official critics would allow you to believe. Of course, if you focus on the major problems, like the film completely ruining Charlie Day’s character from the first one, Scott Eastwood cannot act, and that the final ultimate objective of the kaiju is quite dumb in its Avatar-esque type plot device, you will REALLY hate this film.

So am I recommending this? Because it sounds like above that I can’t make up my mind. I’m going to give this a shrug. It’s completely harmless. It doesn’t really destroy the reputation or anything the first one built, but it doesn’t exactly expand upon it either. It is something to play in the background in a get together party in the garage or basement of someone’s house. It’s a literally shrug. It has its moments, but in the end you really couldn’t give a shit less. Maybe my expectations were just low going into the theater. I will give the film a little bit of merit for trying to do something different other than the rift just opening up again and the kaiju just coming out to play again. It tries to come up with a side story that thinks it is bolder than it actually is. It’s bold, but then it is ruined by what the kaiju have really been seeking all along. I really want to tell you what it is, but you’ll know it the second it comes out of Burn Gorman’s mouth. And you’ll roll your eyes.

Anyway, the set up plot is really basic bitch in nature. The son of Idris Elba from the first film, tried Jaeger school but failed and is now living the drunk, stealing, I don’t give a fuck life. He tries to steal something, crosses path with a young girl that is looking to steal the same thing (she actually builds a small jaeger herself), they get caught and to avoid jail she has to enter the Jaeger academy and he has to go back to train the lot of them. As you can tell it is very basic plot set up fair. And the more I think about it I can’t fucking believe writer/director Steven S. DeKnight fucking left Daredevil to do this. But then the movie gets a bit interesting once they get all that shit out of the way, and the story goes into a way to somehow bring the kaiju back. Again, I won’t tell you what it is. It seems pretty interesting at first, but then you get to the finale finale and its a bit of a let down. It’s basically blue balls when it comes to that plot structure.

But the action is actually pretty good this time around too, I saw it in 3D and I actually recommend seeing it in that format and in the largest screen possible. In those regards it brings you into its atmosphere and sucks you a little bit into the movie even though there are so many things going against it. Like Scott Eastwood. God damn, that kid is riding his father’s coattails and is just not coming up to snuff. He’s terrible in everything he is in, and he’s terrible in this. I want to tell him to get off Hollywood’s lawn. And Charlie Day. Fuck. They completely ruin what good will his character had in the first movie. Basically, take Charlie Day from the first movie, and have him fuck Charlie from It’s Always Sunny, and you get the monstrosity this movie deals his characterization. And almost unforgivable, thankfully he isn’t in the film too much. He’s in a lot, but thankfully its fleeting, if you catch my drift.

But John Boyega completely saves this movie from being total trash. He is not Finn in this, not at all. He makes Jake Pentecost his own character, using his native tongue, and you don’t even see a hint of Star Wars in him. I also like the Jaegar building girl Cailee Spaney. Usually a girl like that would be annoying but here she gives off some pretty good attitude. I just didn’t like that basically they recycled the plot line of the junk girl from the last Transformers movie into this. It makes it seems somebody was copying somebody else and that there was no originality when it came to her storyline. Another two actors that come back from the original are Burn Gorman and Rinko Kikuchi. Burn Gorman’s character is thankfully the same good old comic relief from the first film. But if you are excited that Rinko is back, hold back your expectations. You should know what happens by now to original characters that come back in sequels where the sequel takes place a decade after the first one…you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see the cliche.

So meh. Shrug. It’s not as bad as the critics are saying, but the film isn’t great by any means. It’s a mindless time while sick in bed on Netflix or perusing movie channels at home (if you still subscribe to that shit). There is a right after the end credits sequence that hints at another different way that the film could go, but I say let it die. The first film didn’t need a sequel. It was and is completely unnecessary. If they do do a third though, get Guillermo Del Toro back on board and fire the rest, because I don’t think my ass will be back in the seat if the same people from this are brought back. While this didn’t destroy the franchise, there were definite seeds planted that ultimately could bring about the apocalypse. But for now, *shrugs* whatever.

The first question you are going to ask me in reviewing this new TOMB RAIDER might be: does it break the video game movie curse (if you believe in such things)? No, it doesn’t, but it knocks a big dent into the curse door and is a huge step in the right direction. Since I am a movie person, I go along with this ‘curse’ deal, but in actuality, I just don’t think video games were meant to be turned into movies, because video games themselves are one giant movie to begin with. And yes, I have played two of the old Tomb Raider games and I have played the two fantastic masterpieces that are the two recent newer Lara Croft adventures all the way through as well. This film is the closest any film has gotten to actually feeling like the videogames it is portraying. It is definitely now my favorite video game movie, but does that necessarily mean anything considering my favorite one before this was 1995’s Mortal Kombat?

And yes, this movie is SO much better than the two terrible films we got more than a decade ago starring Angelina Jolie. I watched those two films again recently and they are just too silly to be taken not only seriously, but turn your brain off entertainment. They are just slogged down in incoherent drivel that makes absolutely no sense. The only reason they are remotely watchable is because of Jolie’s charisma after the time, having just won an Oscar. And speaking of just having won an Oscar, Alicia Vikander is more than half of the reason this film works at all. She looks like she wants to be there, even did her own stunts, and she has the charm and wit of Lara Croft from the newer games. She’s the closest we could possibly get without Camilla Luddington (she voices Lara in the new games) leaving Grey’s Anatomy and doing it herself. Unfortunately Luddington is too old for the part on screen now, seeing as we are starting out with Lara in her very early 20s.

Now, this movie does have problems. Like any video game movie does. The story, which actually sounds interesting at first, is more of a MacGuffin with a few lines of dialogue here and there trying to give it more of a background but not quite getting where it needs to be to be decent. If you know anything about the games, you know Lara Croft has daddy issues, and that is essentially the beginning here too, with her finding out that the last time she saw him 7 years ago, he was going in search of Himiko, Queen of Yamatai who seemingly had the power over life and death. She finds old research of his journey and goes out in search to see what happened to him. She takes a drunk captain, Lu Ren, and his shoddy boat to the island, where she meets Mathias Vogel, having been on the island because of her father for the past 7 years, still unable to find Himiko. He thinks that Lara can unwillingly help him.

And the story goes from there. I do have to admit, marketing is keeping one huge thing from the audience, and I did appreciate that it did, as it added a little bit more layer to an overall story that would’ve been flatter without it. Here is the main problem with the whole story. I wanted to know more about the history of Himiko, Queen of Yamatai, and I wanted searching her tomb and solving the riddles and puzzles more of how the game does it. The video games has these riddles and puzzles that you have to solve throughout it, and you are with Lara and she is talking out loud while you solve the puzzles, linking it to the history of the MacGuffin, where as you find out more about everything, and everything becomes a tad bit more interesting. They don’t really do that here. They do do it in one scene where a floor is falling underneath them, and that scene is really good, and I wanted more of that. A lot of it, Lara is just looking, moving, and pushing stuff, and “wha-la!” it opens, and we don’t get any substantial information on how she figured it out.

Basically I’m saying I want a Tomb Raider movie to have the good action and stunts that it had (some shoddy CGI in places but that is to be expected), combined with National Treasure-esque puzzles and clues. The National Treasure series is a great treasure hunting movie, it only lags when it tries to bring ho-hum action into the mix. Tomb Raider is a decent action film, but it needs that National Treasure charm. And with the one scene that it does get right, I feel like it could master it with a better and tighter screenplay. Even though National Treasure combined fictional clues with factual history, it made learning the things that were true fun. I feel like these new Tomb Raider movies can duplicate that but with solid action.

There is still a lot to like about this movie. They say something to the line of “there is some truth in myths,” and they don’t just say it for dialogue sake, it does have a good huge surprising payoff in the end. I did like the subtle nods to the video games. And I did like the not too in your face world building they have for Trinity, Lara Croft’s main enemy corporation in the games. Walton Goggins plays a decent bad guy, although he plays it a little too straight here. I mean, the guys has been on the island for 7 straight years, they should’ve wrote in some wacky quirks that his character had developed from cabin fever or something.

But this is all Alicia Vikander’s show. She is great in this and I really hope they make sequels and that she comes back and reprises her role. This isn’t the excellent be all end all of great video game movies. But it is a great step in the opposite and now right direction from shit we have gotten in the past. But what do I know? This review is coming from a guy that thinks the Super Mario Bros. film was ahead of its time and instead of seeing it as a shoddy production with writers and directors that didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, sees it instead as a accidental tiny little weird fucked up triumph. And this is coming from someone that has watched the Mortal Kombat film a hand full of times and still enjoys it (I can’t stand the sequel though) (I did enjoy the recent live action shorts but nothing really came out of those big screen wise). Anyway, Tomb Raider is a little nice March 2018 escapism that finally shines some light on videogame movies that could be. Hollywood might be finally turning this thing around, although Rampage could turn it right back again, we’ll see.

 

Let’s get this out of the way right now, you don’t have to be gay to love LOVE, SIMON. (I don’t know why some morons on social media are saying that you have to be. They are either homophobic assholes or just don’t know shit and need to leave the human race). In my opinion, this movie could be loved by everyone, anyone. Also in my opinion, but I look at this as absolute truth, if you don’t come out of Love, Simon either loving it or getting choked up at certain moments, maybe you need to reexamine yourself as a human being. I know this is pretty early in the year but there is always one high school/school comedy/dramedy each year that comes out on top and above all the mediocre rest. 2016 was The Edge of Seventeen, 2017 was Wonder, and I have a feeling Love, Simon has already won 2018.

If your head is up your ass, or you don’t watch TV or go to the movies much, the film is about a high school guy named Simon that knows he has been gay for about 4 years, but is hiding it from everyone: family, friends, etc. He doesn’t know when or the right time to come out. On the high schools own social web page this other student named Blue writes a post about being gay and having to keep the  secret from everyone, not knowing what to do. Simon sees this post and decides to respond, using an alias himself, and after his post his life is thrust into a whirl wind of revelations, some heartfelt, some filled with heartache, and he might have to make a decision sooner rather than later to come out to everyone.

Since I am not gay, and I am not in high school at this time, I don’t know whether to tell you whether or not this is the quisisential movie of our time about knowing you’re gay when you are young,  having to deal with it with others, keeping it a secret, when to come out etc.  I do know that the movie felt real, with a little light splash of Hollywood glitz and glam here and there (especially toward the very very end). It felt real with the acting, the dialogue, and the story. If I have one complaint about the film, is that I would think that it might be a little bit darker of an experience once you come out to everyone in real life. I have a feeling that high school kids would be meaner or someone like that would have a tougher time. But then again, like I said, I didn’t go through that, so I don’t know. I’m just doing a movie review here and letting you know that I really liked it.

What did I really like about it then? I really liked that the movie kept me guessing the identity of Blue, and when revealed, was actually shocked. Its marketing has kept the identity very well hidden and I hope that it isn’t spoiled for others. I loved the acting. You think the guy that plays Simon, Nick Robinson, is a fresh face, but you are wrong. He has been in some high profile stuff, like Jurassic World, Everything Everything, and The Kings of Summer, but with his amazing performance in this, he is likely to shoot up to the big time quick. Katherine Langford is also in this, you know, the main suicide girl in 13 Reasons Why, and even though she isn’t in this too much, she actually shows she has some range, by playing someone completely different from Hannah Baker and pulling it off. Jennifer Garner is great in her role as Simon’s mom, and I only wish that TV spots weren’t giving away some of her very sentimental speech near the end of the film to her son. And if you’ve ever had a doubt about Josh Duhamel, like I have countless times, this is his best role to date, playing Simon’s dad, but having some playful edge to him and actually feeling like his first true character he has ever inhabited.

The movie is a tight hour and 50 minutes, and it didn’t even feel that long. I laughed quite a bit, and the film earned all of my emotions instead of trying to force them out of me. This was written by scribes that have written for This Is Us and directed by the main head honcho producer of the CW DC superhero Universe Greg Berlanti. Since this is mainly a point and shoot movie, with the director, you gotta make sure you capture the performances, and with this he does an extremely good job, but he is sure to throw in a musical (really funny ending) number in there to let audiences know that he could be even better at different things. And thankfully, unlike This Is Us, which seems to throw too much heartache and doesn’t balance enough happiness with its stories, doesn’t lay the sentimentality in this too thick. It felt like just the right amount, and didn’t go into too much into a sappy ass territory.

Finally, I forgot to mention movie is based on a book that I would now like to read call Simon Versus The Homo Sapiens Agenda. Yeah, I can see why they changed the title, the book title is perfect but for a movie title it would be too long. Anyway, yeah, I really really recommend this movie. And like I said, I don’t know if this is the be all end all of gay/coming out movies, you’ll have to tell me, but it was a very enjoyable and honest look about it according to my eyes. I wanted more when the end credits hit, I wanted to see more of that world and more of the characters. And if you ever feel that way when you walk out of a movie, you should know that you loved it.

STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT should be the poster boy of what NOT to do when you make a horror movie sequel to a beloved original film. The first Strangers film is bleak, horrifying, and pretty damn scary because it has a eerily realistic tone and feel to it. Strangers 2 throws all of that garbage out the window and, except for a really well done pool fight scene with the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” playing in the background, is a fucking disaster. The film is completely unrealistic, it’s eerie factor from the first film is gone replaced by cheap jump scares and bizarre chase tactics, and all the characters constantly contradict their previous characterization choices. It is mind numbing, dull, and very annoying.

The one really good scare the film had going for it, the movie trailer and all the television spots out there ruin it. It takes place where a character, played by Bailee Madison, is in sort of this construction concrete/maybe plastic circle, with good lighting and camera work. Ruined… because they decided its all they really had and put it in the fucking marketing. Whatever, it isn’t the main problem with this film. The main, main, main, main problem, is that the took the realistic, scary Strangers that stalk and kill for absolutely no reason at all, and turned them into superhuman horror movie like monsters such as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. One of the characters takes a such gun blast point blank to the chest, and survives long enough to be able to say “why not?” when one character asks, “why are you doing this?” I understand that THOSE characters don’t know why they are doing this, but the audience already does if they’ve more than likely seen the first film, so we didn’t really need that dialogue to begin with.

Oh, and another one of the Strangers not only survives a car explosion, but after falling to the ground after taking a giant piece of glass out of his chest, is able to, two minutes, later, catch up to the running teen he was stalking and be able to hand on to a moving vehicle while still swinging his stupid ax. It is insulting not only to the vicious killers as characters, but it is insulting to the audience, hoping for a realistic follow up to a pretty damn good first film. I do understand that the filmmakers were trying to give the audience what they wanted, by making most of the Strangers finally get a comeuppance of sorts for their murderous psychopathic behavior, but I feel as if they could’ve still done it in a more down to Earth way like the first. Turning your killers into walking entities that almost can’t be killed takes away any and all tension your film had in the first place.

Oh, if you needed to know, this movie is about a family that is on their way to take their daughter to a boarding school because she is a hot mess in real life (gee, we’ve seen that one before haven’t we?), and stop by their Aunt and Uncle’s trailer park getaway place to spend the night, only to be stalked and killed by The Strangers. Stupid and un-creative set up huh? Surely everyone involved could’ve come up with something better than cliche upon cliche upon utter cliche of shit done thousands of times in the 80s and 90s right? I understand that horror films don’t care anymore and just need a basic set up to get to the killing because the film is a short 85 minutes long, but I mean, I feel that everyone coughing up their money to see your movie should maybe get little better nuggets of realism than what this film did.

Other than the pool scene mentioned above, everything about this movie is just rushed and lazy. Did I forget to mention that after his mom and dad are seemingly just killed, and he has one of The Strangers dead to right with a working loaded gun pointed right at her face, he doesn’t pull the trigger? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t think anyone in their right mind would’ve hesitated and shot the full clip into that bitch. Especially when ten minutes later he’s stabbing one of them like his life depended on it, and because he didn’t kill the other a cop gets his throat slit. It’s stupid and insulting. All of it. Even the acting, the parents are stupid and non believable and Bailee Madison is there to just scream and run. Not too intricate.

This is a horror series that didn’t need a sequel. When saying it is “based/inspired on true events,” they are stretching those true events to dimensions wayyyy beyond fiction. Doing some research, there aren’t really Strangers out there, the filmmaker based the first film on that Manson-Tate murders and a couple of non violent break ins in his neighborhood when he was a kid. But the first film still worked due to its realism, so why couldn’t they have just stuck with that for the second film? Why up the ante in all the wrong ways? Let’s hope they make this franchise a real stranger, one that we never have to see ever again.

A WRINKLE IN TIME sucks my 31 year old wrinkly balls. Sorry to be so inhumane with my first sentence, but it is the most boring movie of 2018 so far, and I couldn’t think of anything wittier to say other than I want my time back and straightened or some Back To The Future reference I’ve already done a million times before. I saw this film yesterday, and while I haven’t been reading the reviews online of the film, I just saw that it was sitting between 30 and 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t good, and I had read a summary from a audience who saw an advance screening that said it was a misfire. I can now confirm those reports. But I’m going to go one better and say it was a HUGE misfire. Constantly I was muttering under my breath during the movie asking myself, “what the fuck is this?” and “this is the most absurd world building I have ever seen.” Add to that I almost fell asleep a few times.

So a girl and her adopted brother go searching for their father, who has been missing for four years but is believed to maybe have crossed time and space using frequencies of the mind. A kid friend from school also comes along and they run into three, I guess, spiritual light guides played by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, and then they cross time and space to find the girl and young son’s father. They of course run into obstacles and a faceless darkness is after them as well. This sounds like it could’ve been an ultra uber cool trippy science fiction film for Disney, but it turns out it is about as bad as their recent renditions to do live action Alice In Wonderland films. I have asked several of my friends who have read the book and also have seen the movie what they thought, and they said while adaptation is pretty close, the book, with its words, descriptions and more depth to its characters, is so so so much better.

I hope so, because this movie does not make me want to read the book at all. Everything about it, including the visuals are just bland. No wonder Disney has been pushing the hell out of this for months, because they realized the end product wasn’t so good but that they have a fantastic marketing team. I really wanted to see this film, the trailers intrigued me, so did the cast, and the fact that Ava DuVernay was just coming off the really great film Selma a couple of years ago, everything pointed to success. But it sucked. All of it. The acting, the way everything was represented. I don’t know if it was everyone being lazy, trying to hard, a bit of both, or that Ava’s vision was just not in the right place of her mind, body, or heart.

It really is that boring. My wife was really wanting to see this film, and even she was almost bored to tears. The film has a great message, don’t get me wrong. But the message is muddled in really crappy visuals and really weird uneven world building. The world and mythological building is so weird in this I kind of want to read the book just to make sure that I understand it and that it actually makes sense when explained written down on paper. In the movie, since it isn’t the book, it has to visually and mentally connect with you to understand what is going on. DuVernay doesn’t do a good job of it at all. She has pieces here and there, but none of the pieces do a good job of explaining anything or adding up to anything, nothing fits. Here are these three supernatural beings of light that can transcend space and time, deal with it or go home. I wish I would’ve got up out of my seat before half way thru and done the latter.

The acting sucks too. Oprah seems bored, and the way her character is framed and is certain sizes and does certain things, she doesn’t seem to be with the rest of the cast the entire time (even though she is near), and green screened almost all of her scenes in. Is she really that busy and not have enough time to join the cast on set that it resorted to that? Reese Witherspoon plays just a variation on Elle from Legally Blonde and Mindy Kaling is well…Mindy. The child actors fare no better, as Storm Reid has one constant facial expression the entire film, Zach Gilifinakis is hardly in there but is still just playing his weird self, and Levi Miller seems to be just reading his lines because he isn’t given much to do and is just standing there (and I know Levi Miller can act, just watch Better Watch Out. That’s right, I’m plugging a great Christmas horror movie that is much better than this piece of crap Disney film).

The only three that do half way decent is Chris Pine (who is hardly in the film), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who is hardly in the film and really only has one scene to sort of shine), and the adopted brother played by Deric McCabe. A little more of him would’ve been better. But this whole movie just, blows. I’m sorry it does. It seems as though Prequel George Lucas directed it, with some uninspired green screen visuals, lack of characterization, and utter nonsense. This is one of Disney’s biggest misfires in recent memory other than the Alice In Wonderland live action films. It is a huge disappointment, and right now stands as my most personal biggest disappointment of the year and the worst film of 2018 so far. That’s right, worse than Winchester, The 15:17 to Paris, Fifty Shades Freed, or my next review, Strangers 2.

Riddle: What do you get when you have a dark comedy, but it isn’t really that dark and you don’t laugh a lot? Stumped? Of course you are because the only answer is disappointment. GRINGO is one of those dark comedies that think its smarter than everyone else in the room, when it actually is the jealous kid in the corner at a party not talking to anybody and sipping his fucking cranberry juice. It tries so hard to be something like In Bruges or this weekend’s much much better Thoroughbreds, but instead comes off as just another Rock The Kazbah with Bill Murray. Oh, you haven’t heard of that movie? Then you win in life, don’t look it up. Gringo is even more disappointing considering everyone involved. It literally doesn’t work on any level.

How doesn’t it work? Let me count the ways. Let’s start with reason number 1. Not one character is likable, even the protagonist that is the real innocent in all this, Harold, played by the great David Oyelowo. He’s just too much of a pussy the entire movie to be likable and even his 180 turn in attitude near the end doesn’t feel deserved. The usually always great Charlize Theron plays a over the line racist bitch boss of Harold and Joel Edgerton plays a over the line sexist pig other boss of Harold. Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried play the two most worthless throwaway characters I haven’t seen. At least Thandie Newton plays a sort of semi part of Harold’s wife but Amanda Seyfried is completely worthless to the plot. They should’ve just hired a new up and coming actress. What was she even doing accepting this role? She’s in three scenes and literally has one small speech and does NOTHING. The only character close enough to like is Sharlto Copley, who kind of has a 2 dimensional arc, but then his character’s resolution is so anti-climatic it just made me not even care.

I should probably explain what the movie is about really quickly before I keep going on with what is wrong with it. It’s about a business man named Harold who because of his two sleazy awful bosses finds himself in trouble in Mexico with the authorities and drug lords because all of them think he holds the key to a new marijuana pill that is going to kill it in the medical marijuana market. That’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers. The movie goes exactly where you think it will and the ending is too easy and lame. If you are going to do the dark comedy genre, you have to do the unexpected. Not once was I shocked to where this movie went, which is problem number 2, it is 150% predictable on ever level. And even with the predictability the movie isn’t fun.

Problem #3? The humor is way too mean. There is mean spirited humor in movies that work a lot, but that’s because we usually like the characters that are saying or doing those jokes, and we know they don’t really mean harm to anyone. In this, the jokes are just too real, too mean, and not funny. Charlize Theron spits out really just off the wall racial stuff and even makes fun of a deaf person at one point. It’s cringe walk-out-of-the-theater worthy. Not one joke is smart. It isn’t necessarily potty humor, it’s just mean spirited, cruel, or too easy. They were all written in haste and didn’t take too long to think of.

The final problem is that every character resolution is anti climatic. You think all these characters are going to get huge momentous moments, with some getting pure triumph or some getting pure demise…but no. Maybe one character gets that, and its predictable and boring. Everybody else’s resolution just comes really quickly after they’ve been off screen for 25 minutes. They pop back up just to go, oh, here I am and here is the really easy and stupid thing that ended up happening to me, and my story is over! Character’s resolutions are supposed to have rhyme and reason and poetic justice. The writers literally wrote all the characters into corners where each of their endings are the most boring outcomes that could’ve ever been written.

Gringo is just not good. All the funny parts, or really the “chuckle” (at least for me) parts are all in the trailer and the actual film doesn’t offer anything better. The story is stupid and has been done before, the movie thinks it is dark when it really isn’t, and there isn’t one likable character. This movie could’ve had 25 minutes shaved from it, completely cut out Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried, and you could’ve had maybe something a little tighter and a little bit more watchable, but not by much. The director, Nash Edgerton, who is Joel’s brother, wasn’t the problem here. The actors are all good in this and everything is shot very well. The problem was completely the script. It should’ve been thrown out, and rewritten from the top. This will be in the Walmart $5 dollar bin in four months, and no one will remember this movie even exists in five.

What Anton Yelchin does in THOROUGHBREDS is amazing. In what is probably going to be his last theatrical release (he died in Summer 2016), he managed to take a very cookie cutter one dimensional character that was written a little half hazard on the script, and turn him into a full fledged supporting 3rd co-lead with multiple layers on the screen in the handful of scenes that he’s in. RIP Anton, your acting in this just proves that we truly lost a great talent not even in your prime. Anyway, for the rest of you reading this, there are 5 new movies coming out this weekend, including the high profile A Wrinkle In Time, which I’ll review Sunday, and this film is the ONLY film out of those getting good reviews, and it’s probably the film you are least likely to see because it is in limited theaters. That’s a shame. Because along with Date Night, Black Panther, and Annihilation, it’s one of the best of the year so far and is probably going to become a cult classic. Try as you might, unless you see this in theaters, you can’t say you were with it from the beginning if you don’t see it.

I loved this movie. It is basically, “what if Wes Anderson went really really fucking dark in one of his comedies, like darker than he’s ever been…although obviously not really directed by Wes Anderson.” It’s weird, it has those symmetrical shots (but not annoying so as Anderson always does it), it has witty dialogue, quirky characters, and insanely good acting. I can’t believe this was shot in 2016 right before Anton Yelchin died. Why did they hold it back so long? I understand maybe holding it because of Yelchin’s real life death however holding it for almost two years seems a bit overkill. It is really good and the studio should have more faith in it. If you have no idea what it is about, without spoiling anything, it involves two teen girls, one who doesn’t feel much of anything and has to fake her ways with emotions, played by Olivia Cooke, and one who feels everything and is trying to be friends with the other one, played by Ana Taylor Joy, plotting to kill Ana Taylor Joy’s stepdad. Anton Yelchin plays an older drug dealer that may or may not be part of the girls plans.

That’s all I’ll tell you. The genius of the film and of the script is how little it tell you till almost the very end of the film. Instead, it gives you context clues about the girls’ past to make you piece together what had happened before the events in the film take place. It was quite brilliant. My only complaint is that they shouldn’t have gave it to the audience near the end who couldn’t piece it together themselves, it really isn’t that difficult. The film is very witty, in that you have no idea and cannot predict how everything is going to turn out. You think it is going to go one way, it goes another, and then it does even another detour. I love the climax in this. LOVE it, I love the shots of it, the brilliance of the timing, the acting, the shock value, etc. I won’t obviously reveal what ultimately takes place, but everything about it is beautiful and perfect.

What more can I say about the dialogue in that although it feels true and sophisticated, it’s still witty and fun and it doesn’t try and play Juno on you. The acting in this already bumps it up a notch. Anton Yelchin isn’t in this as much as the two girls are, but whenever he is on screen, he is electrifying. He completely turns his drug dealer into a 3 dimensional character with his dialogue delivery and his facial ticks and body expressions. It was amazing. While I was listening to him give his dialogue, I was thinking, “damn, anyone else playing the role probably would’ve played it too straight for us to even get into the character.” He’s just that brilliant. But Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy are fantastic in this as well, especially Cooke. I always liked Cooke from Me, Earl, and The Dying Girl and can’t wait to see what she does as Parcival’s love interest in Ready Player One. The first time I aw Anya Taylor-Joy in anything was The Witch, which I didn’t particularly like. But after Split and this, she is really, really growing on me as an actress to look out for come awards time one day. Both of them.

You need to find the closest theater to you and see Thoroughbreds if you can. It’s a quirky cult classic in the making, reminding you of excellent ones such as Ghost World or Heathers while having a mind of its own and not being a copy cat. I really enjoyed my time with this one and I think with a little patience you will too. At least see it for Anton.

As most of us can probably agree, any movie that Jennifer Lawrence makes has got to be better than mother!, it just has to. mother! is the end all, be all of bad films directed by a cry baby who gets mad every time someone doesn’t like his student film. Wait, wasn’t I reviewing RED SPARROW? Oh yes, well of course Red Sparrow is better than mother! In fact, Red Sparrow is actually pretty decent and yet again showcases how amazing it is that Jennifer Lawrence is this great at acting, dropped out of middle school, and didn’t even take acting lessons. Is it the end all be all of Russian/American tension spy flicks? No. Could you consider this just a Black Widow movie with a title. NO. I’m tired of people saying that too. Red Sparrow is its own thing, and it does it pretty well.

I’m disagreeing mostly with the critics on this one. I admit it is a little too long, as probably 30 minutes could’ve been cut from its 2 hr and 20 minute run time, but it has a solid story and will keep most of you guessing till the very end. I guessed how everything was going to play out 40 minutes in, but still had fun with the journey to get there. Some critics are claiming that the movie is really hard to follow. Yeah, only if you are not paying attention at all. For a quick synopsis for you, it is about a ballerina (Lawrence), after getting into a career ending leg injury, is recruited by her uncle into the Sparrow program, spies and agents that use their sexuality to get what they want. There is a mole in the Russian syndicate, and only an American CIA operative (Joel Egerton) knows who it is as he does a shit ton of drops with him. The American is the ex-ballerina’s target, but when the game of cat and mouse gets complicated, who is playing who, and what is the ultimate goal?

The movie is more sophisticated than that, but saying anything else would ruin anything. The great Jeremy Irons, and the always reliable Mary Louise Parker are involved and in this as well, and they are good with the very small and limited roles that they have. This is completely the Jennifer Lawrence show. She is almost in every scene, with yes, a heavy Russian accent that I didn’t mind and got quite used to fast, and she puts her acting chops to great use. I don’t think Jennifer Lawrence has ever really phoned in a performance, even with the terrible horror movie House At The End of The Street, and she was really the only good thing in mother!. There is never once where I’ve looked at one of her performance and have thought, “Yeah, that is just her playing herself.” She really is my favorite actress.

Also, Joel Egerton is always good and underrated in everything that I see him in. If you don’t really know who that is, he’s been in several things like Uncle Owen in the prequel Star Wars Trilogy, The Gift, and he played the cop orc in Bright.  Don’t be fooled by the marketing on this one either. This is not an action film. In fact it is closer to torture porn than it is an action film with some very cringe worthy scenes of knife stabbings and skin peelings. If those don’t float your boat then this movie might not be fore you. Director Francis Lawrence, who directed Jennifer in the last three Hunger Games films, has made a pretty film here too. The shots and cinematography are dark and somber and I liked watching how everything came together. It is definitely his best film since Catching Fire.

Well, nothing much left to say other than if you enjoy a decent spy flick that is light on the action but focuses more on the realism, you’ll like this one to. Is it one of the years best films at the end of 2018? Hardly. But there are much worse films to watch, and ones that will completely waste your time. This doesn’t waste your time, in my opinion.