We Agree: The Tomorrow War

2021, d. Chris McKay -- amazonprime

As Toasty referenced in his review I have a theory that The Tomorrow War was originally intended as a trilogy but then had its trilogy compressed all compressed into one film.

While there is something to be said about compressed storytelling, this jumps far too fast through both the themes and story, and narratively each act takes a sharp 90 degree turn from the previous.

The first act is really strong. It sets up Pratt as a veteran who is trying to find a good job in the sciences but is relegated to teaching, and he's discontent. He's got a wonderful family (Betty Gilpin in a thankless wife role), but is estranged from his father (JK Simmons), a Viet Nam vet who abandoned him when he was younger. 

Suddenly one evening soldiers arrive (literally in the middle of a football game) from the future, explaining their plight, and recruiting people across the globe to come fight an invasive alien species three decades ahead in time. 

A year later all the acceptable volunteers (the people who can be moved to the future without disrupting the timeline) have been exhausted (read: killed in battle, wounded, or traumatized), and now a draft finds Pratt on the block.  He meets his squad, a couple military (including some Tomorrow War) veterans, but mostly hapless civilians.  They're given no training.  There's no time for training. They head to the future on a mission that goes very, very poorly.

The alien "white spikes" are seriously scary in this first act. The whole first 45-ish minutes builds in creepy, uneasy intensity until we encounter them.  While they're not  completely unstoppable, they are very difficult to kill and they move in such large numbers making the odds always in their favor. 

The draftees are basically stopgaps, bodies meant to buy time for other, more experienced combat teams.  There's a stomach churning sense that so many lives are disposable, but when it comes to war it's less about humanity and more about numbers.  Comedic personas like Nick Wiger, Sam Richardson and Mary Lynn Rajskub make the center of this crew, and once again, if this first act were an entire film, there would be more action sequences, with more pauses to really build these characters out, build up their comraderie, and really make some of their deaths very impactful.

But, the film as it is moves pretty briskly past most of that.  In failing in their objective, with Pratt as one of the few survivors, he his daughter's future self, the woman in charge of his mission.

Thus the second act begins with the daughter and her father from whom she has been estranged bonding over both science and life and death situations, with Pratt learning that he eventually became like his own father.  They dance around why she's so upset with him for only so long, but I like the concept of exploring generational trauma, how JK Simmons' Viet Nam trauma impacted Pratt, and thus how Pratt's various service trauma impacted his daughter, all with repeating patterns (likely Simmons' father served in WWII and had his own trauma).

But the film though casting a glance at exploring generational trauma has no time to really get into it.  The production is all done well enough that we can feel the emotional connection as well as the hurt, but it never gets deep enough.

This second act also completely defangs the "white spikes".  They capture one of the creatures at the beginning of the act and then proceed to experiment on it, but this study of the creature is competing for time with the father-daughter issues, as well as the ticking clock of their base about to be swarmed.

There's room enough for an entire film in this second act.  Not only could it expand upon its secondary characters from the previous act (who were all either killed or sent off on their own mission(s) which we never, ever see) but it could really work through the discovery process on the white spikes zoologically.  I could see a whole mission which is just "observe and report" that would be less action, more suspense.  A slower breakdown of the aliens could also still potentially maintain their scariness, instead of having to broad-daylight them as much as they do here.  By the end the white spikes are more white noise than the stuff of nightmares.

The third act find Pratt returning home to his own time, and it's clear he's been traumatized by his experience.  The prediction that he becomes like his own father starts to manifest, but it's almost like it's a dismissive montage rather than a genuine exploration of PTSD.  Not only should there be scarring, and grieving, but also a pervasive sense of hopelessness for a moribund future (hey, sound familiar?).  

If this were a full third film, it could really get into these themes of trauma and nihilism and their impact upon the family.  It could have done some really good work in showing what soldiers with PTSD need to go through to maybe never recover, but just cope.  It could examine the way society treats its veterans, and work it all into a big action franchise.

What this third act does instead is really smooth over the trauma, reconcile Pratt and Simmons far too easily, and reconnect with characters last seen at the start of the second act in an almost superfluous way.  There was a real opportunity to show men dealing with their problems, and emotions, together, and they completely muffed it.  

[Minor spoiler]

The third act reveals that the aliens are dormant in the modern day, frozen under ice.  So Pratt and Simmons and others form a plan to go blow them up.  This "plan" is all discovered, conceived, and initiated in less than ten minutes.  There's no sense of build up, there's no tension, only inevitability.  The film has no runway to get into Pratt and Simmon's relationship, or Pratt and Gilpin's marriage, never mind deliver any sense of adventure to their discovery. 

In its own film the search, the discovery and the planning/execution could handily satisfy three acts, and do some incredible world building along the way. We never get to really feel the impact of time travel on the "present day" of the film.   We never really get to feel the effects of so many lives lost on a war that seems far more conceptual than tangible.  We really don't get to know what the people left behind experience.  The film we have has no time for it.

The third act should resolve the emotional connective threads, and it picks at it a bit, but amid its action focus it doesn't have time to really dig into it.

As a whole The Tomorrow War is decent yet unsatisfying entertainment.  The first act is stellar but followed up with diminishing returns, unable to deliver on all the threads it sets up.  It needed another 8 more acts to really flesh it all out.

I also think that Gilpin and Pratt should have switched roles.  I think the film would have worked far better with her in the lead.  Have you seen The Hunt, she can hold down an action film no problem.

We Agree: Godzilla vs. Kong

 2021, d. Adam Wingard - Crave

seriously, the scale here is redick

I ended my review for Godzilla:King of the Monsters, I noted that Warner Bros had greenlit and fast tracked Godzilla vs. Kong before it was released.  Had they waited, and G:KotM having performed poorly at the box office and being critically lambasted, this film wouldn't exist.  But, I'm so very happy they did so blindly and egregiously move ahead.  This film is so delightfully overblown, with real go-for-broke comic-book-science that it leaving no shred of reality remaining and it may be my favourite of this era of Kong/Godzilla films, even if it's not the best.  I really hope I get to see this in theatres at some point... (well, I really hope I get to see anything in theatres at some point).

It's a film that moves so fast it just doesn't leave time for you to question the whys or hows of people's actions, things just need to happen in order for giant creatures to fight each other. If you think about almost anything in this film too much after the fact, oh, it's insanity what these filmmakers are asking you to accept.  But it's not asking you to legit accept it, it really just wants you to have fun, and go along with the ride.  

Yet, it's almost the same formulae they used for King of the Monsters which made for an utter mess of a movie that is borderline unwatchable. The difference here is nobody's trying to take their role in this too seriously. They're there to deliver expository lines, provide human reactions to events, and otherwise just get out of the way of titanic tussles.  Wingard clearly understands the tone.  While it's not the same as a classic Toho, like those films there's an overblown sensibility that makes it all larger than life.

Nobody's really coming to a Godzilla film for the story, and WB have finally learned the people in these things don't really matter all that much, but they do need to be there to push a framework. So in order to at least provide something to hold onto for this clash of kings, they casted very well with likeable personas, actors with enough personality to deliver a dozen or two lines of dialogue over the runtime and the audience won't mind seeing and hearing it. Rebecca Hall and young Kaylee Hottle playing her adopted, deaf daughter are great. Millie Bobbie Brown and Brian Tyree Henry make a very enjoyable duo (with Julian Dennison a welcome tag-along but also a wholly unnecessary presence). Demian Bechir, Eiza Gonzalez, Alexander Skarsgard are all here as well doing what's needed (I mean, to tell you just what kind of film this isn't, Skarsgard never takes his shirt off.  This is really all about the monsters). 

It's a hyper-anthropomorphised Kong here that is the lead of the film and, well, he nails it.  Unlike Kong: Skull Island where Toby Kebble brought his mo-cap ape skills from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as Kong, there's no single credited performer.  He's even more of a cartoon now, but more on the soulful Pixar side than classic Looney Tune. The animator give Kong a life and inner thoughts and emotions.  He needs people around to help explain them but they're rather clear in the performance.  Godzilla, meanwhile, is credited as olayed by "himself".

There's a central nonsense plot (see Toasty's recap for all the films multitudinous nonsense) involving the humans taking Kong on a voyage to a hollow middle earth, and that journey is definitely worth making, if only for what's there once you arrive.  The film wisely keeps the middle earth's charms fairly mysterious, rather than seeding in another half hour of laborious world building. Instead there are many visual cues to pour over from which you can extrapolate its own story, lending the film, certainly, some form of rewatchability.

While scale is an issue here (as Toasty points out), how big the titular characters are in relation to their environment all seems to be related to what looks good, not what's consistent. And yet, it does look good, so that's really what matters. The fights are great, as if the filmmakers finally realized they're just big cartoon action sequences and you can do whatever you want, physics be damned. It's just a fun film delivering exactly what it should, and under 2 hours with no post credits to set up anything else.  

This is likely the end of Warner Brothers' underperforming Giant Monsters shared universe, as they've been too costly and hardly smashing successes critically or financially. I've enjoyed to varying degrees most of them (save for King of the Monsters) but I recognize that at this scale and this budget they're never going to deliver the same sense of delight that one had watching them on a lazy Sunday afternoon catching half of one on basic cable.   There are expectations when you sink over a hundred million dollars into a film and while I think that these are entertaining, they most definitely did not need to spend as much to elicit the same reaction.   Spending more money on the film and marketing may get a few more butts in the seats, but are those same butts going to watch over and over again.

But before they shut it all down for a time and then start it again, I really want Kong and Godzilla to crossover into Pacific Rim territory.  Please?

Anti-binging - the unfinished TV seasons of the COVID year(s) (pt1)

For the most part, we here at T&KSD don't like to write about a TV show unless a season is complete, even though in the past we certainly have.  Sometimes our reviews in hindsight show a spot of ignorance as we're guessing at what's to come based on what we see, and sometimes we just don't even get to the end of a season (or series).  During the past year, Kent has been excited for shows, only to fall off of them.  Let's look at what those shows were, and why they went unwatched.

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The Show/Season: Supergirl Season 5 (CW/Showcase/Netflix)

The Draw:  I was watching all the other CW shows and was quite invested in the "Arrowverse" but Supergirl was the show my daughter and I would watch together. Melissa Benoist has made a wonderful Supergirl and the show has made some tremendous strides in LGBTQ+ representation which I actively champion.

Episodes Watched: 4/19

Why I no finish?: As I mentioned in my review of the CW crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths and Arrow Season 8 and even Supergirl Season 4, I got pretty burned out on the CW's superhero offerings, to the point where I really have to force myself to watch them, it's not really something I look forward to doing anymore.  It feels almost like homework.  My completist headspace (when it comes to this nerdy shit) kind of demands I finish what I started but sometimes I just can't.  The truth is, of all the CW shows, Supergirl is the one I still actually want to watch.  The problem is my daughter is too invested in youtube videos of people playing minecraft to sit down and watch it with me.  The other problem is, Supergirl seasons are really long (compared to most of what I'm watching these days, most shows I watch clock in at 10 episodes or less a season).

Will I return to it?: I actually hope to.  Supergirl is in its sixth and final season right now, so I'll probably wait until that closes out and do a concentrated binge.

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The Show/Season: Black Lightning Season 3 (CW/Netflix)

The Draw: I thought Season 1 was good, but Season 2 was great.  I thought that Anyssa/Thunder was the best superhero character on television. I was excited for Black Lightning to finally cross-over with the Arrowverse in Crisis and the story of the fictitious Baltic nation of Markovia declaring a superhero war with Freeland was enticing.

Episodes Watched: 11/16

Why I no finish?: This season is a slog.  If there's one thing that frustrates me with television shows it's spinning wheels, not advancing plots forward, biding time to pad out their story to fill their entire episode order.  There's a lot of spinning wheels here.  I've had three binge days on Season 3 and I'm still not finished.  After each binge day I had no desire to immediately return.  This big declaration of war that Markovia has issued has been so low-key and such a non-starter in the show.  Everything sort of revolves around it, but there's been little to no tangible escalation in the 11 (or so) episodes I've watched so far (plus the "war" is Markovia, a whole country, vs. Freeland, a city in America...makes no sense).  Also, Anyssa has abandoned her Thunder disguise for a more shadowy superhero character which has been tremendously disappointing because I love Thunder so much.  As well, Anyssa's girlfriend Grace has had a very, very drawn out, tedious arc over two seasons that's become tiresome.  

Another thing that frustrates me about television is when characters keep repeating the same mistakes or having the same conversations over and over again, both of which happen here so frequently.  Jefferson and Lynn keep getting divided rather than supportive of each other, which is soooo frustrating.  Bill Duke is amazing, but his character Agent Odell is used too often as a deus ex machina that he feels more like a plot device than a real person.  And James Remar is still godawful as Gamby.  Tobias still having any relevance is beyond frustrating as his arc was done last season and he feels completely shoehorned into the story of this season.  

Ultimately, it plays out like a show that doesn't really have a plan for itself.  It's messy and frequently boring and doesn't provide its characters with enough logic resulting in a lot of manufactured drama.  Post Crisis, upon joining the Arroverse proper, I was hoping there would be a noteable shift in the reality, but no.

Will I return to it?: Probably, at some point.

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The Show/Season: Run Season 1 (HBO)

The Draw: That one actress from Girls runs away from her life to meet Domhnall Gleeson, an old college flame who is likewise running away from his life.  It was posed as a romantic comedy/suspense which seemed an intriguing mix.  Plus, Domhnall Gleeson is always great, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge produced (and guest-stars).

Episodes Watched: 1/7

Why I no finish?: The first episode didn't really captivate me, and the wife seemed bored.  There was other stuff to watch.

Will I return to it?: I dunno.  I only just now learned that Waller-Bridge actually is acting in it too so I may give it another go.

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The Show/Season: Tales from the Loop Season 1 (amazonprime)

The Draw: A quasi-anthology series about a town that manufactures advanced super-science.  The main characters of one story are background in others.  I really kind of dig that concept.  Plus it's based on the work Swedish painter Simon Stålenhag, and it's really cool to see his designs brought to life.

Episodes Watched: 3/8

Why I no finish?: I did actually enjoy each episode I've seen, but I watched each episode months apart from each other.  It's truly a connected anthology, but as such it didn't pull me to watch the next episode, and the next, and the next like a usual bingeable show.  The first episode of the three I watched is probably the one I connected with the least, but the second and third episodes have lingered with me.  It's a pretty quiet show, it's not a big action or even a big dramatic show, it's very tempered in a refreshing way.

Will I return to it?: Definitely, but in pieces.

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The Show/Season: Love Life (HBO)

The Draw: A staggered narrative of one woman's various romantic relationships. That woman is Anna Kendrick who I do enjoy as a screen presence.  And we all know I like a romcom...

Episodes Watched: 3/8

Why I no finish?: ...but this isn't a romcom, and it's not really fully romantic either.  Each episode is about the trials and tribulations and the differences and growth one has being in a relationship. They're interesting, and challenging, and uncomfortable and they give my stomach butterflies, both the good and bad kind.  But ultimately I'm not sure if I'm sold on Kendrick's character here.  I'm not sure I really get her...but perhaps the point of the show is how she discovers herself over the period of each of these relationships.

Will I return to it?:  I would like to, but I'm not sure if I actually will.

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The Show/Season: The Third Day (HBO)

The Draw: Over three episodes, Jude Law, plays a man who experienced a traumatic incident which, in part, guides him to an isolated community where he starts to understand their unique culture has some rather insidious undertones. I didn't realize that when I started watching it that there was also a multi-media component where there was a 12-hour live event (in the UK which could be attended in-person or watched on a stream) that acted as a bridge between the 3-episodes of "Summer" that starred Law, and the 3-episodes of "Winter" that starred Naomi Harris.

Episodes Watched: 3/6

Why I no finish?: Well, I didn't do any research into what this show actually was.  I mean, should anyone have to really do any research just to watch a TV show? But I didn't know there were effectively three parts to this experience.  I just saw a new show starring Jude Law that looked kinda creepy so I just decided to watch.  We finished the 3-epidose "Summer" arc and it was intriguing enough but also so familiar to the genre of small-town-with-weird-secret/cult.  I felt I got a complete story, but one I was really neither here-nor-there on.  I was never going to sit down with the live "immersive-theatre" event of "Autumn", I just don't have the patience.  The trailers for "Winter" looked enticing, as I love snow-set things, and Naomi Harris is an actress I really enjoy, but my indifference on "Summer" has basically made me apathetic towards watching the remainder.  Plus I've seen Midsommer now and I think that's got to be the apex of this whole small town cult festival genre.

Will I return to it?: 50/50,  Maybe when I'm bored and have three hours to kill and little else to watch and I'm just in the mood for this kind of cultish bs.

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The Show/Season: The Boys Season 2 (amazonprime)

The Draw: Uh, I watched season 1 and my completist nerdhead needed me to watch Season 2.

Episodes Watched: 1.5/8

Why I no finish?: I got about as far into The Boys as a TV show as I did with The Boys as a comic.  Its extreme sensibilities and general distaste for not just superheroes but humanity in general make for a particularly unpleasant viewing.  As well, there's no character I particularly like in the show, thus little for me to connect to and entice me to keep watching.

Will I return to it?: Unlikely

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The Show/Season: Moon Base 8 Season 1 (Showtime/Crave)

The Draw:A comedy starring John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen and Tim Heidecker, as astronauts training in a facility in the desert as a simulation for life on another planet.  I like these performers and expected some weird comedy.

Episodes Watched: 4/6

Why I no finish?:  While amusing, it just wasn't funny enough.  It was almost a light drama in the way it wanted us to relate to the characters, and yet  I didn't really find much about the characters to care about.  It's just a show whose parts weren't clicking.

Will I return to it?: No

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The Show/Season: Take My Wife Season 1 (CBC Gem)

The Draw: Cameron Esposito and River Butcher, real-life stand-up comedians who hosted a stand-up comedy show together and got married to each other got the opportunity to fictionalize themselves into a TV show (well actually a short-lived streaming service).  I was a big fan of Cameron and River's various podcasts years back and like both of them as comedians.  I wanted to see the show when it was originally released but couldn't (because that streaming service was not available in Canada).

Episodes Watched: 2/6

Why I no finish?: In the years between the show airing and finally being made available to watch on CBC, River and Cameron got divorced, and they ended their stand-up night (which was also a podcast) and it was all really upsetting and sad.  I feel like I've lost touch with both of them since the divorce. (I used to listen to them in my earholes at least once a week for many years, and I've only heard them a couple times in the past two or three).  Watching this show, while I like it, is both fascinating and too painful knowing how their relationship ends up.

Will I return to it?: I honestly don't know.  I adore Cam and River but I don't know if watching this is too painful.

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The Show/Season: Primal Season 1.5 (Cartoon Network)

The Draw: I love Samurai Jack, and Genndy Tartakovsky's storytelling style.  I even really liked the first five episodes of Primal.

Episodes Watched: 0/5

Why I no finish?: I don't just want to like Primal, I want to love Primal.  But I don't. The animation is fabulous, but I'm not connecting with it, because I don't think there's any specific arc or objective that Tartakovsky is pursuing with it.  It's just the adventures of a prehistoric man and his uneasy alliance with a velociraptor and their violent misadventures.  If this were 30 years ago, I would be embracing this show tightly with both arms, and maybe even a leg or two.  I would just devour it on repeat.  I don't have that kind of time or patience anymore, and watching it now just reminds me that I don't have time or patience to really savour media like I used to.

Will I return to it?: Absolutely, just not sure when...and certainly not as frequently as I would like to.

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The Show/Season: That Damn Michael Che Season 1 (HBO)

The Draw: I really enjoy Che's don't-give-a-shit attitude on SNL's Weekend Update, and I like sketch comedy.

Episodes Watched: 1/6

Why I no finish?: To be honest, I keep forgetting about it.  I didn't know it was a show until randomly coming across it shortly after its release.  I found the first episode disarming and hilarious (it's central focus was around police), but I put it on the backburner as I already had the second seasons of A Black Lady Sketch Show and I Think You Should Leave on tap in my sketch com roster.  Che's a guy who doesn't let anything get in the way of a joke, which gets him into trouble, regularly (at least on Twitter). 

Will I return to it?: Yeah, I'll need to seed it back in.  We frequently put on an episode of sketch comedy when we don't have time for another hourlong episode of something before bed.

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The Show/Season: Girls5eva Season 1 (W Network)

The Draw: A new show from producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock about a semi-famous 90's girl group reuniting to capitalize on the modern nostalgia wave, despite being quite different people 20 years later.  I was expecting rapid clip jokes and quick aside/flashback edits, and it delivered.

Episodes Watched: 1/8

Why I no finish?: It was delivering on the comedy I was expecting and yet, that's also the problem, in that I found it to be exactly what I expected.  I really like the cast (Busy Philips, Paula Pell, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Sara Bareilles are a great team) but like Moon Base 8 and Love Life, I wasn't connecting with the characters.  If anything I think the usual Fey/Carlock comedy formulae may be too much jokiness, interfering with the ability to actually empathize with the characters. 

Will I return to it?:  Yeah, probably.  I think a binge watch (it's only 8 episodes) and then if it's as funny as these shows can be, I'll probably need to rewatch.

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The Show/Season: Shrill Season 3 (Crave)

The Draw: I really liked Season 1 and 2, and I'm totally in the bag for Aidy Bryant. 

Episodes Watched: 3/8

Why I no finish?: For all its progressive sensibilities and fascinating examinations of body, gender, sexuality and race issues, as well as a very minor flirting with romcom tropes, Shrill keeps stepping into cringe comedy which is an increasingly passe form of humour and one I am kind of over. 

Will I return to it?:  I want to finish it off, as this is the final season, but I need to psyche myself up to get there

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The Show/Season: Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 1 (AMC)

he sure can

The Draw: Annie Murphy's first production post-Schitt's Creek is an awesome premise, one that follows the long-suffering wife of the prototypical schlubby husband character in so many TV sitcoms. 

Episodes Watched: 2/8

Why I no finish?: Oh man, this show is so bleak despite its fascinating set-up.  It portrays scenes with Kevin in very much a typical single camera sitcom fashion, complete with laugh track, and you can see Murphy's Allison just utterly without agency.  The moment she steps away, the world turns widescreen and grey, the forced smile drops and the exhaustion and depression sets in.  Trapped.  Murphy is wonderful, but, wow, does the show ever feel the weight of it all.  Kevin is the fucking worst...I hate those types of sitcoms and they overexaggerate even that style here to really push how godawful the men are in those shows (as if to say point of those types of shows is just to emphasize the misogynistic idea that all wives are shrew and buzzkills).  

I was expecting kind of a sharp meta-comedy, not really a mix of horrendous sitcom and a horrifying suburban nightmare. 

Will I return to it?: Yes. Although I was initially taken aback, now that I know what it is, I just need to get myself ready for the rest of it.

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The Show/Season: Sweet Tooth Season 1 (Netflix)

The Draw:  I read the comics...

Episodes Watched: 3/8

Why I no finish?: I've read the comics... Gus, the poor little antlered boy in this very harsh post-apocalyptic society, gets thrown through the fucking wringer.  I don't even know really why I started watching it.  I was anxious from moment one of the first episode.  It's a beautifully shot (in New Zealand) and realized show with really good performances but these post-apocalyptic societies where the worst of humanity rises to the top are my least favourite stories (because they're probably true, the worst of us will do anything to gain, and keep, any semblance of power).  The fact that the show also revolves around a pandemic, and then debuting in the midst of a pandemic, makes it a bit too "now" to watch comfortably.

Will I return to it?: Not sure.

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The Show/Season: Birdgirl Season 1 (cartoon network)

The Draw:I loved Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, and I love Paget Brewster as Birdgirl.

Episodes Watched: 3.5/6

Why I no finish?: Brewster is in fine form as Birdgirl, but the show thrusts itself into a setting and situation with characters I don't know and that we don't really get a lot of context for, and then slowly tries to figure it out all while going a mile-a-minute with gags and punchlines and asides.  It's a frenetic show but it moves a little too fast for my tired brain to keep up with it.  Like Primal, I want to invest more into it that I have.  Had this been a show that immediately followed up from Harvey Birdman's end, I would be in with both feet, no reservations, but there's been too much time in between, and the connective tissue is almost non-existent, so I just haven't quite gotten into it.

Will I return to it?: Probably but sporadically.

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The Show/Season: Wayne Season 1 (amazonprime)

The Draw:  I saw an ad for it on amazonprime one day and was curious, so I put it on.  The show is kind of punk, with an  unglamorous worldview.

Episodes Watched: 1/10

Why I no finish?: While I kind of liked it, it didn't seem to be a world of characters I wanted to spend 10 episodes with.  I've watched Sing Street since watching the first episode, and now have a better connection with the titular Wayne actor Mark McKenna, but that said there's an attitude to this show that bothers me.

Will I return to it?:  I don't think so.

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The Show/Season: Heels Season 1 (Starz)

The Draw: I came to really like Stephen Amell as a performer through 8 seasons of Arrow so I've been looking forward to him bringing his physicality into a role about a family of wrestlers.

Episodes Watched: 0/?

Why I no finish?: I really didn't start.  Now that the show is a reality and I can actually watch it (maybe, need to double check my service) I've kind of lost interest.  I used to like wresting but I don't think I'm invested enough in the sports entertainment to really want to watch a drama built around it.  GLOW was at least a comedy(-ish) with the good fortune of having an 80's aesthetic to work with.  Heels looks a little dour.

Will I return to it?: I think I'll actually give it a shot...but if I don't do it before the first season finishes then I probably never will.

WFH: Voyagers

 2021, Neil Burger (Limitless) -- download

Earth is dying, and to be honest, I am not sure if the movie is clear as to the Why, most likely just that all- encompassing trope that we are killing the planet, and eventually it will not be able to sustain us. But scientists discover a distant planet that could become Earth 2. But, and it's a big but, to get there it will take generations. The point as to the Why go to the planet, as opposed to Fix the Earth, is again murky, likely that humanity can be saved from extinction if we settle on another planet. 

They decide that a traditionally trained crew would just end up killing each other before the mission was complete, so they artificially create some children and raise them in the isolation of a facility that replicates the ship upon which they will travel. These kids will be the first generation, and their grandchildren will reach the planet. They will be humanity's hope. Oh, and Colin Farrell goes along as the father figure, and because the movie needs something other than a ship full of teens.

Ten-ish years later, to reduce the effect that emotions have on the now-late teens, they are given a daily dose of something blue to mute their emotions. But not their curiosity. One strong personality begins avoiding the drug, convincing a few others as well. And before long, and this was the main reason I kept on turning it off, they devolve into a pseudo-Lord of the Flies situation. I was here for pretty much the spaceship design, and not really interested in a bunch of teens being the worst that teens could be. You would think that beyond the drug, they would have raised the kids to understand morality a bit better, so such situations could not happen. Colin Farrell attempts to impress that upon them, but just makes himself a roadblock to the petulant youths who struggle to understand why they cannot just have what they want, any time. The movie was almost a metaphor for the middle-aged Internet's opinions of millennials.

Considering the regularity at which the stress and anxiety of work and the pandemic hit me, I had to turn  the movie off a number of times. It was one of those tension filled movies where the hints at Things Going Wrong were early, and to be honest, were the whole point of the movie. But I had come in for the spaceship and it's design -- I have always enjoyed the concept of a generational ship, and how a fiction can portray it. By that, I was not disappointed, but overall, the movie was decidedly in the "meh" mid-range of quality. I won't go so far as to say the movie triggered me, as I am somewhat challenged by people not being able to challenged by a topic, but it was more down the lane of not often being in the mood for that range of tension.

Rewatch: WFH: The Happening

 2008, My Night Shyamalan (Old) -- Disney

As mentioned during my post about Awake, there is this spate of apocalyptic movies out there, where we get to watch an inexplicable event unfold. Nothing was more inexplicable in Shyamalan's career than doing a movie where the trees are trying to kill people. But even when I first saw it, I got what he was trying to do, in a style only he seems interested in resurrecting these days, a classic slow-paced thoughtful approach to horror most often attributed to Hitchcock. Cinematically, this is still a wonderful movie to see, but now a decade later, oh my, does the acting show through rough shod.

Mark Wahlberg and Zoey Deschanel are a couple going through a rough patch when an event hits the American north east. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the populace begins killing themselves in mass numbers. They are in NYC, and with little coaxing, hop on a train west, to head to a house in the country. If a terrorist bio-attack is happening, then hiding away from the cities should help. But soon it becomes clear that this deadly event is happening everywhere, urban or otherwise.

In a time when impending dread is a trigger for me, I was wondering how I would react (re)watching this movie. Given that the WFH tag forces me to watch in small doses, I was up for it, and also I have seen the movie a few times before. What I was surprised with was not being able to get past the two main characters. I am fine with Wahlberg's acting when he's playing an action hero, but here as a high school science teacher, he is entirely out of his element, not at all believable. And Deschanel's doe eyed stares and whiney lack of emotion quickly gets annoying. I get what Shyamalan was doing with having the event unfold around an incredibly mundane couple already in the middle of their own entirely mundane circumstance, but OMG I was boooooored by them. And that boredom killed the tension for me, for the most part.

The mass casualty, once introduced as the premise, happens entirely in the background. In other movies, this shock appeal would continue throughout, but Shyamalan narrows it down to the people travelling with or encountered by the main couple, until it is whittled down to ... just them. And then, once its determined the event is actually over, we pick up months later, and life just seems to have ... resumed. I guess, like what we are going through now, people who survive an ordeal are just determined to get back into the patterns defined as "normal" no matter what happened.

3 Short Paragraphs: Werewolves Within

 2021, John Ruben (Scare Me) -- download

The first thing I noticed in the trailer was the Ubisoft logo on the screen. Huh? A werewolf mystery comedy doesn't sound like the typical Ubisoft video game. And then I saw the game it was based on, essentially the common party game called Werewolf or Mafia, where party goers try to convince each other that they are NOT the villain. So video game based on common domain party game. But sure Ubisoft, if you want to claim the game as yours, you do your usually evil you. Also, according to a coworker, I do not play the game very well, despite having never played the party game nor the video game. But he was referring to some workplace politics games I am forced to play, and based on recent events, he is entirely correct.

In hindsight, I really enjoyed Ruben's entry movie, something we watched during the IRL Horror Show, 2020's edition of 31 Days of Horror. It affected me, even if I didn't always like what these effects were. This entry is a much more palatable reflection of the current state of horror fiction, drawing not only upon the game source material, but a lot of horror movie tropes that investigating players of the game would be damned into drawing upon, to the benefit to their fate, or not. Stylishly, it is rather enjoyable in having some fun dialogue and character choices, without overdoing a desire to impress us. That is me saying I rather liked that the main characters are not stereotypical Hollywood choices.

Finn (Sam Richardson, The Tomorrow War) is a park ranger accepting a job in some remote town while dealing with a not so obvious breakup with his girlfriend. Well, not obvious to him, but astoundingly obvious to anyone else, including the cute, friendly mailperson Cecily (Milana Vayntrub, Lily the AT&T Girl) who introduces Finn around town, and to all the freaks that live there. And then it becomes quite apparent that there is a werewolf in the community, just as they are cutoff from the rest of civilization. As with the game, it becomes a contest of accusing each other, as more are killed off. Until it becomes pretty fucking obvious who the werewolf is.

The tropes tell us it had to be Finn or Cecily. The way it is played makes us wonder whether they would go the way of The Wolf of Snow Hollow and end up faking out the whole werewolf story. But no, there is a werewolf, a really furry beast that tears out organs and eats townsfolk, worthy of death or not, and could surprise us if we weren't paying attention. Either way, the fun of the movie comes from the way the non-standard characters are played, not in the way standard tropes are played out standardly.

3 Short Paragraphs: Luca

 2021, Enrico Casarosa (La Luna) -- Disney

In 2011, Casarosa did an incredible bit of short animation called La Luna, about a boy joining the family business of cleaning up all the delicate little fallen stars on the Moon. Its such a sweet little thing, beautifully animated, with such an air of Italian. What does that mean? I am not quite sure, but it felt so Not American, as so much of this kind of animation does. Casarosa returns with a flick that is both again so very Italian but also very approachable for all, but again all about family.

The weirdest thing about it is that, at the core of the movie, it is about a merfolk kid named Luca who becomes dangerously curious about the surface world. And yet, the movie is not really about merfolk, just about being an outsider and finding how to be accepted. Luca meets another merboy Alberto, who has no family under the sea and lives near the 50s Italian village of Portorosso. Neither of them get humans very well, but are attracted to all the stuff. Humans have a lot of stuff. In a bid to gain enough money to buy a Vespa, they help out a village girl named Giulia who wants to win a bike race, especially against the town bully Ercole.

As expected, the movie is charming, sweet and beautifully animated. I found myself enthralled with bits and bobs of the movie, but overall, it was just ... nice. Very nice, but not astounding, like I found his short. There is something so safe and Disney about the movie, and aside from the once again not-very-American setting, it is told with few chances being taken. 

3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Willy's Wonderland

 2021, Kevin Lewis (The Drop) -- Netflix

If I already have a WFH tag, maybe I need to also have a WTF tag. This incredibly indie movie, with only Nick Cage to provide it some street cred, is so deep in the WTF Realm, it really can only be because of him. In fact, if this movie had been done with anyone else playing this role, it would have been just another Z-grade horror movie with barely any hints of creativity.

Nick Cage is driving his <insert fast American Made Car> fast and hard down a country road. Nick Cage is wearing leather, blackout shades and his hair & beard are so so SO dyed dark. People have asked me if I dye my hair, but really all they have to do is look at my beard to see what I should look like. My hair is scattered with gray hairs, but no, I do not dye. Nick definitely does.

So, Nick is driving his fast car when all four tires blow out. Spikes on the road. Not long after a tow truck with a Good Ol Boy shows up claiming kids stole the spikes from the Sheriff and are playing pranks. Back at the garage, Good Ol Boy claims a couple of thousand in repairs and claims Cash Only. Or Nick can pay it off cleaning up the local dead restaurant, Willy's Wonderland. Did I mention the two preambles? One, we see a woman running around in said resto, chased by evil.  She dies. Also, a young woman tries to burn down said resto and is caught by the Sheriff.

Nick accepts the terms, pulls on the Willy's Wonderland tshirt, and gets down to cleaning. In the resto fridge, he jams his pile of Punch Pop, probably some z-grade cola from nowhere. As said, he gets down to cleaning, but takes his regular labour law required breaks, by the timer set on his watch, and slams down another pop. Meanwhile the various mascots of the Chuck E Cheese style resto begin trying to kill Nick. And the arsonist from the preamble gathers her horny teen friends to rescue Nick from the Evil Inside the Resto, i.e. the mascots. The mascots don't have much luck, because Nick Cage.

So, here it is, a Z-grade indie horror movie with terrible acting and terrible effects and a recycled plot from nine thousand other movies. But it has Nick, Nick who might as well be called the Honey Badger as he just doesn't give a fuck. He sees monstrous, creepy mascots come at him, and he just smashes away at them until the oil/blood is spraying. Then he bags the thing, cleans up the newly made mess, and puts on a cleaner branded tshirt. Meanwhile the rest of the cast tries to carry off their bad movie.

You would think Nick Cage smashing mascots in his usual over the top Nick Cage way would be sufficient WTF, but did I mentioned Nick does not have a single line? He doesn't utter anymore than his familiar bestial cries of rage and LOTS of knowing glares full of rage & disbelief. Also, once Nick adds playing the branded pinball machine to his break routine, things get even weirder. The movie has a decent soundtrack of indie rock, punk and electronica which Nick seems aware of, and gyrates to, as he plays the pinball machine. Yep, full on Nick Cage.

In the end, Nick Cage, Defeater of Evil, kills all the mascots of evil (BTW, they had an appropriate Z-grade horror movie backstory) and all the humans who supported their evil killing ways. And he gets his car back, all repaired and fueled up, and sexy, underage teen arsonist hops into the car with Nick, hinting at just a few daddy issues, and they drive off into the evening.

Migawd that was grand & terrible.

WFH: The Girl in the Spider's Web

 2018, Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) -- Amazon

Lisbeth Salander was not positioned as the main character of the movie adaptation(s) of the Stieg Larsson novels, but she emerged as the most memorable one. Starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, she was played by Noomi Rapace, which cemented Rapace's place in Hollywood despite these not being American flicks. In 2011, David Fincher made a very American version of Dragon Tattoo starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. The movie was visually stunning, as all Fincher's are, but to be honest, I remember nothing of it. And I think that lack of memorability is what made this one just come and go without much notice. Mara was replaced by Claire Foy who surprisingly was able to make me forget she was Queen Elizabeth in The Crown. Craig was replaced by Sverrir Gudnason, but maybe I shouldn't be using that term, as this is not meant to be a sequel to the Fincher, just another adaptation of another Larsson novel, despite how Hollywood spun it. This is Salander's movie through and through.

I watched this at the end of Spring, when the cold winds of winter were a recent memory. Swedish movies, like many from that part of the world being marketed to Americans, are shot in winter. The cold visuals of Stockholm are ever present, the wind blowing snow across the landscape. Salander is hired by Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant, Logan) to steal back software he wrote for the NSA, software that can take control of nuclear arsenals, anywhere everywhere. LaKeith Stanfield (Get Out) is transparently bland, as the American agent who runs off to Sweden to steal the software back from Lisbeth. But she becomes the fly when it is revealed that her sister (unrecognizable Sylvia Hoeks, Bladerunner 2049), assumed long dead at the hands of their gangster / psychopath father, emerges as the new head of their father's organization the Spiders, and is responsible for the theft, and has dire plans for it. 

The movie flits between chunks of Salander's trauma, her adept nature with technology and people (the movie assumes we are aware of her role as the punisher of men who hard women) with a tense sensibility, and a spy thriller structure. All the men in the movie play a supporting role to Salander's lead, even when she is carried away by an international conspiracy that threatens to overwhelm her. Noticeably was the choice to make Blomkvist an almost background role, reminding us of their complicated relationship but highlighting how lost his fame is without her. And just when he is almost ready to resurrect his name via another story about Lisbeth, he deletes everything, and let's her real story, the tragedy of her sister and her, and their evil father, just lie.

Despite Foy disappearing into the role, much more than I thought Mara did, I didn't find this much more than a passable movie. It was a good choice for WFH lunch hours, and 5pm step-aways. I liked the visuals, and Hoeks was incredibly creepy, all in red with bleached brows, and deadly as any black widow out there. Unfortunately, I believe this movie has milked what worth they can get out of the Millennium series.

Fear Street: 1994, 1978 & 1666

 2021, Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) - Netflix

I was not all that fond of Janiak's debut with Honeymoon. While it was sufficiently creepy and had loads of creature-feature ick factor, I found the reactions of the characters to be questionable, even in the context of horrible creatures creeping around in a lady's hoohaa. Euphemism intended to lessen creep factor.

This series of three movies positioned, as adaptations of popular RL Stine books, for the teen / post-teen age group, is so SO much better. Janiak gives us a trilogy of classic slasher killer supernatural possession witch curse revenge tropes, all elements at the heart of the classic horror movies of the 80s and 90s. But these movies are not just an homage, but quite the stand-out on their own. And she raises the bar, adding sexual politics and the turnover of often misogynistic tropes associated in horror movies. If the black friend always dies third, the women (well, all but the virgin) always get the sharp end of the kitchen knife. And don't you dare be sexually active.

Part One - 1994.

Maya Hawke works at the mall, just like she did in Stranger Things. Late night, as she is closing, the kid in the store across the mezzanine cracks and becomes a slasher killer in a Halloween mask. As he kills Maya, he is shot dead by the town Sherriff. 

We learn of Sunnydale vs Shadyside, side-by-side towns more just neighborhoods of each other, one affluent & successful, the other run down & under a curse -- they have more than their fair share of spree killings. It is a horror movie town. We meet Deena and Sam, two girls who had a secret relationship, until Sam moved to Sunnydale and strived to reinvent herself, ala boys. During an incident after a school sports game, where Deena confronted Sam, there is a car accident and an injured Sam bleeds into some strange red moss. She is instantly beset by visions of the past, horrible visions. And something has been stirred.

This raises the dead, quite literally, to come after the kids. Its a solid first act movie, as the kids expand on the curse Shadyside is under, learning more about the accused witch Sarah Feir, who was long ago hung from a tree (which now sits at the centre of the mall) and is blamed for the regular spree killings for 300 years. The kids have to learn more, much from weird kid brother Josh, and find away to do away with the curse before it, and the resurrected past spree killers, kill them all.

Unexpectedly, the kids have depth. Unexpectedly, the kids we actually like don't all survive. Deena may end up saving Sam, but at the cost of two of her oldest friends, in incredibly gruesome deaths. This is not a "you cannot kill kids" movie. This movie is for kids, so the kids die, and not just the horrible or slutty ones. Not that this movie would slut shame anyone. Sunnydale does enough of that for everyone. 

The movie ends as Sheriff Goode, who knows more than he lets on, blames the post Maya Hawke killings on the two friends who died last -- they were known Shadysider drug peddlers. And while traumatized by the heaping of insult upon injury, Deena, Josh and Sam have survived. It's over. Until they get a call, a call from the lone survivor of the last spree killing in 1978, who tells them, you cannot get rid of the Feir Witch so easily.

Part Two - 1978

I love how they slipped into this second movie so easily and so quickly. The lone survivor of the 1978 summer camp killings tells them the tale of that summer, and her experience with the curse from the evil witch Feir. She tells how she has lived in fear of Sarah Feir returning and with the guilt of not having saved her sister. And we slip into a movie-long flashback.

This is a summer camp without "adults". All the camp counselors are teenagers, raunchy, horny, awkward and bullying teenagers, from Shadyside and from Sunnydale. The tale begins as a number of Sunnydalers attempt to hang Ziggy, a Shadysider whom they just don't like. In case we didn't catch that Netflix wants this series to be the new Stranger Things, Ziggy is played by Sadie Sink from season 2 of the aforementioned series. Ziggy is at odds with her own sister, who is playing at being a Sunnydaler, wearing a polo shirt, her only polo shirt, and dating a tall, handsome boy from Sunnydale. Ziggy is weird and angry but catches the eye of a younger Nick Goode, who will grow up to be the Sherriff from the previous movie.

Its a summer camp, so we need to have a slasher. But we are learning of the curse, and the slasher in a burlap sack is Ziggy's sister's BF Tommy, possessed by Sarah Feir's curse when the kids blunder into a secret sanctum below the summer camp. Tommy is now an axe weirding murderer who picks off the campers and counselors in droves. Again, this is a kids movie for horror loving kids, so we are only mildly surprised when youngsters are chopped to bits by the axe wielding possessed murderer. But Ziggy and friends are doing their best to understand Sarah Feir's curse, and defeat it. Alas....

In the end, they defeat Sarah's curse (for this round), allow the majority of campers to escape (people make unexpected good decisions to not hide in the wood shed filled with rusty blades) but with one twist. We have assumed all along that because it was Ziggy who was cursed, the one who bled on the hand-bones of Sarah Feir, that she was going to die and her sister was telling the tale. But no, in the final scenes, Ziggy is stabbed in the gut while her sister is horribly bludgeoned to death before her eyes. Ziggy dies, briefly, but is revived by the young Nick Goode. She survives, the curse is foiled. But she has lost everything.

Back to the future, nay 1994. The kids, having heard the tale of Sarah Feir's hand, and her horrible treatment at the hands of the villagers in 1666, believe they can assuage her wrath by returning her hand to her bones. The kids in 1978 thought the bones had been under the tree where Sarah was hung, but do not find them. But they do bury the hand there. Deena, in 1994 knows the hanging tree now stands at the centre of the Shadyside Mall (greaaaat choice there) and also knows the bones are under that strange moss in the woods, where Sam bled into. Hand meet bones, curse lifted? Again, not quite.

Part 3 - 1666

This is the most clever of the trilogy but also the most ambitious, as Deena is now seeing through the eyes of Sarah Feir, waaay back in 1666. She is not possessing her body, but all the cast of the other two movies get to play 1666 counterparts, including the recreation of the love affair between Sarah Feir and Hannah Miller (as seen as Sam). Sarah was not a witch, but a rebellious young lesbian, doing her best to rebuff the horny pioneer boys and make connection with Hannah. Nice rework of the classic witch accusation, as well as a rebuff of the classic tale that has built both Sunnydale and Shadyside.

But deviltry IS at work in Union, the community that laid the ground for Shadyside and Sunnydale. Something IS causing a rot to form at the centre of this community. It doesn't take long for the sinful ties between Hannah and Sarah to form the works of a witchy accusation, and we the viewers join in this suspicion when Sarah does in fact find a witch's den deep in the woods, along with the evil spell book that played a part in 1978. When Sarah says No to the wrong young man, she is instantly lied about, making a strong tie between the actual witchcraft at work, and her already known sinful ways. Alas, Hannah also gets accused along with her, but Sarah throws all caution to the wind to save Hannah, whom she loves dearly.

We have seen Deena in two movies doing everything in her power to prove her love to Sam, and now the ties between Deena and Sara, Sam and Hannah are so clear. Sarah is not the force of the evil inside Shadyside, but another fucking victim. And when we find out who the actual "witch" is, and lo it IS actual deviltry, an actual pact with not just Satan but many devils, we are kind of not surprised. Nor are we surprised by its connections to the fates of the two future towns. 

The Goode Family, that which spawns Sherriff Nick Goode we have met in the previous two movies, have been manipulating the souls of the residents since 1666. By forcing someone to be possessed by the evil they have summoned, the blood and souls are sacrificed for the betterment of some of Union, that which eventually becomes Sunnydale. And those doomed to live in Shadyside, they will always be the unwitting sacrifices. Sarah Feir was not a witch. Sarah Feir did not cut off her hand to show her dedication to Satan. She discovered Solomon Goode's evil pact, and he cut off her hand. But can an already reviled young woman convince her brethren of her innocence in defiance of a Goode man of the village? No. 

Back to the future, nay 1994. Deena is once again herself, but still armed with the truth from 1666. And now they have to defeat Goode, good Sheriff Goode, and his minions, the evil souls of evil possessed killers from so many ages past, summoned to do his killing once more. In a classic teen movie confrontation scene, that once again tells us viewers that Netflix wants this to be the next Stranger Things, the kids gather together in the Shadyside Mall, with a plan in hand to defeat the evil.

And they do. And all is better with the world. Finally, for real this time. But so many are lost. So so SO many.

This series was epic, in its telling, and in its scope. It not only drew upon all the tropes of the 70s to 90s horror movies we grew up on, but also deconstructed them in so many ways. It created heroes, villains, gave us tragedy that had weight and a redemption that was cheer worthy.

P.S. I am looking at YOU, The Tomorrow War.

A Buncha Short Paragraphs: The Tomorrow War

 2021, Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) -- Amazon

I really should write up the posts for these highly promoted, streaming service blockbusters as they come out. It would just seem more relevant. But I hesitated on saying anything about this incredibly mediocre flick, as I was hoping an opinion would germinate. But really, the only thing that stands out in my mind was a comment by Ken't (not a typo, just his Kryptonian name), in that this movie was made with three movies in mind, each act being incredibly distinct from the other. I will let him expand on that.

Dan Forester (Chris Pratt, Her) is a veteran, a family man, and not being very successful at finding meaningful work, despite being a popular biology teacher. And then the youngsters from the future arrive. They tell the world of an invasion by aliens called the Whitespikes (not the Jack & Meg White band) who are successfully wiping humanity out. They ask for, and get help, sending 2022's military into the future to assist. It doesn't help, so they start drafting average people. Dan is one of those draftees. Dan is the main character, he will save the future.

Act One. The draft is ludicrous, as they just grab up a bunch of civilians, shove whatever guns they have handy into their hands, and send them to the future. If they survive seven days, they can come home, with a brand new type of PTSD. Dan's jump suffers a glitch and drops the civilians from high in the sky above Miami, and only those who land in the roof top swimming pool survive. The resulting mission is to just introduce us to the Whitespikes, weird white coloured lizardy bug-y tentacly things that shoot (ahem) spikes from their tentacles. This encounter scene is exciting, tense and more than a little foolish. While they complete their mission, only Dan and a few others (out of a thousand?) survive.

Act Two. Dan meets the future miltary led by Colonel Forester (Yvonne Strahovski, I, Frankenstein), yep you guessed it, Dan's daughter all grown up. We learn how the draft works (anyone who died before the current date) and exactly how badly things are going. But taking a nod from Starship Troops they believe by taking down a single central alien, the Female, they can stop the war. But they need to capture her first, so they can make their super poison. Dan helps Colonel Daughter do so, and they transport her to an offshore safe base. That is until, the rest of her brood swims out to the base and tears everything down. Colonel Daughter's final act is to send Dan back into the past/present with the poison, so they can mass manufacture it, and perhaps eliminate the Whitespikes before they have a hit album. The time machine is destroyed in this final act.

Act Three. Dan has even a newer more powerful PTSD in his back pocket, when he and his wife conceive of an idea that the Whitespikes have been here all along, and something in 2048 revealed them -- perhaps polar ice caps melting? With the remaining future youngsters, and Dan's estranged father (scarily buff JK Simmons, Palm Springs) they hunt down and find the alien ship frozen in ice and blow it up good, but not before releasing the toxin in the alien ship.

When Act Two ended, I noticed the time left on the movie, and was rather surprised they were going for a third act. This final act, as opposed to Colonel Daughter's final act, seemed entirely tacked on. There was so much that could have been explored, if this had been a movie on it's own, as Ken't postulated, but like pretty much the rest of the movie, all the interesting stuff was left out to compress all these ideas into a single movie. What we ended up with was a definitely exciting movie, but not one even as coherent as the comparative Starship Troopers. There are some great characters never explored, some great ideas barely hinted at, and so much potential just abandoned.

ReWatch & New: Hitmen & Bodyguards & Wives

The Hitman's Bodyguard, 2017, Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) -- Netflix
The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, 2021, Patrick Hughes (Red Hill) -- download

Rather tragic that the last two movies I watch on my now dead TV are the above. Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the fuck out of them, but not exactly high brow. And yes, I am now sans TV, pondering the repair vs replacement options available to me. My previous TV, purchased about 10 years ago is working fine in a friend's apartment. This TV was about three years old. Planned obsolescence? No, just my luck of late.

Ryan Reynolds is currently his own monster marketing machine. Whether he is marketing his latest movie or selling gin, he always comes off as charming, crude and never not funny. But I am not sure how he chooses what he gets into. Sure, Six Underground sounded like a Reynolds-Bay match made in heaven, but fell so incredibly below expectations, despite the marketing being on point. And the coming, long delayed, Free Guy is doing a great job of keeping interest alive, despite a world wide pandemic. But other than the big ones, there is nothing standout. I guess, as long as he gets to do his non-stop quip delivery schtick, then he's in the movie.

My first time through the first movie, I was entirely "meh" about it. It was a fine flick, charming and ultra-violent, and Reynolds and Jackson played well off each other, and Hayek was an absolutely stupendously shocking foil. But this time through it, I much more enjoyed the frenetic action, the mix of slapstick and dialogue humour. It clicked better. I am thinking its the exact low brow I need right now.

Ryan Reynolds is Michael Bryce, triple-A rated bodyguard, top of his field. Then a client gets killed and everything goes downhill. But he perseveres, just with clients of ... lower calibre. Samuel L Jackson is Damian Kincaid, internationally infamous assassin captured by Interpol after they picked up his wife, Salma Hayek. They are leveraging Hayek against him, using him as a witness against Gary Oldman, the ruler of Belarus, in jail for war crimes against his own people. Reynold's ex-wife is an Interpol agent tasked with getting Kincaid from the UK to The Haag, to stand witness, when they are ambushed and only she & Kincaid survive. She is forced to call her ex for assistance. Aaaaand plot.

This is such a European highlight movie, almost a travelogue, but with Sam Jackson and Ryan Reynolds swearing non-stop the entire way. In fact, that might be a pretty decent travel series. The key to the interaction is that Reynolds sees himself as the Good Guy, and Jackson is very obviously the Bad Guy, as how else can you see an assassin who has killed thousands? But of course, the fun is found in the converse, where Kincaid is so incredibly likeable, while Bryce is more than a bit of a downer. This formula is pretty familiar, and really incredibly tired, but these two power personalities sell it. And all those locations!

The second flick is like a warped alter-ego of the first movie. Where in the first was over the top, funny and chaotic, the second takes place in an almost cartoon version of our world. This is a world where Greece has economic sanctions against it, and is ruled by a Bond-ian villain played by Antonio Banderas in a blonde hair piece -- they describe him as the progeny of Liberace and the curtains, but Kincaid puts it better. This is a world where bodyguards have yearly award events, and Bryce used to be the shoe-in winner. 

The movie picks up with Bryce still trying to regain his place in the bodyguarding world. He has fallen even further, as the "review board" didn't like that he protected an international assassin. His therapist sends him to Italy on sabbatical, to clear his head, and instructs him to avoid violence and killing. But that's alright, as Kincaid's wife, Sonia appears out of nowhere killing dozens of mooks demanding that Bryce help her rescue Damian.

Meanwhile, Liberace Curtains has stolen cyberpunk technology that can repurpose any electronics to disastrous purposes, and intends on using it against the European Union. American Interpol agent Frank Grillo is trying to foil his plans when Kincaid, Bryce and Sonia blunder into them. He somehow blackmails them all into working for him.

The first movie was about the dynamic between Kincaid and Bryce. This movie wants to be comedy Bond, as Liberace Curtains has a very Bond-villain attitude AND a doomsday weapon, but also expand that comedic dynamic to the trio. And while working, as all three are hilarious, it is also so extremely cartoonish, which diminishes it. Don't get me wrong, it's fun but I would have preferred if it stay a bit grounded. Sonia, who in the first was a violent foul mouthed perfect match for Kincaid, is now a near psychopathic killer, utterly obsessed with their marriage and becoming a mother. And she's more than a little unhinged. Meanwhile Bryce is so obsessed with returning to bodyguarding, he is entirely disconnected from reality. Kincaid is the unexpected straight man. But despite these quibbles, I did enjoy the ride. Again, probably just what I needed.