Bad Boys for Life Review

I laughed. I cried. I learned.

Actually, that's a lie, except I did laugh, sometimes out loud and frequently grinned, during my screening of "Bad Boys for Life." Released seventeen years after the previous entry (and twenty five after the first film), this threequel is far better than it has any right to be, a mostly smart action picture with a good sense of humor.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back as Detective Lieutenants Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, respectively, with Marcus turning in his badge after the birth of his grandkid. That miffs Mike, particularly once he's gunned down and returns to the force with a vengeance expecting his backup. What follows are a series of tears, revelations, explosions, shootouts, and many, many one-liners.

The two have lost zero comedic timing, bickering about everything from cars to ladies, sometimes involving secondary or background characters into their paltry squabbles; they go back and forth with increasingly silly comebacks that you can't help but picture these two knowing each other since childhood (or, at least twenty five years). It's really a joy to watch, two maturing icons who's intimacy with the characters help prevent the humor from feeling forced- I really did believe that Marcus was upset when Mike brought up breaking up with his sister that one time!

The plot was a bit deeper than your usual blockbuster, with enough twists and surprises that it holds your interest in the moments between the bloodshed and quips. There is an unanticipated level of drama in the narrative, thanks to the film's willingness to allow the stars to play with their age (both of which are in their early fifties). The age aspect is handled with grace, and the leading men know how to do more than simply make jokes and flex muscles- well, the latter is more for Will; Martin looks paunchy with chipmunk cheeks.

What extends this flick above other action pictures, such as "6 Underground," the most recent picture by the series' previous director Michael Bay, is how the more tender scenes are handled, particularly with the two inevitably facing retirement (and/or death). We're allowed to explore the less glamorous possibilities faced by Mike and Marcus, and our heroes are given several opportunities to do more than simply raise their eyebrows at the camera.

Underwater Review

"Underwater" is a bemusing film that wants to be too much and settles for too little. Any movie with an underwater setting is riffed here, from monster-on-the-loose to disaster epics, but its becomes just "Alien," but underwater!

For its strengths, it would have to be its opening half, before things dilute to a basic creature feature, where the audience is playfully tricked into each moment of aquatic calamity is some sort of beast, only it isn't, but then sometimes is. Genres are swapped sometimes within the same scene seamlessly, and the little kid in me was smiling from ear to ear wondering where we would go next. We go to "Aliens R Us" unfortunately.

And that's fine, but the creativity stalls once the monster is revealed, looking like a baby Xenomorph, only, well, not from outer space. It grows into something else of course (what kind of clone do you think this is?), and only its final form, showed from a dark distance and with much opaqueness, inspires any thought (like "how did Hillary Swank miss this thing when she was on her way to "The Core"?").

The plot centers around Norah (Kristen Stewart) and a handful of survivors of a massive underwater mining facility that's collapsing. Things move at a startling brisk pace with very little in the way of character development, at least in the beginning. Once the obligatory body count increases and our cast is dwindled to a plucky few, the rare moments of small talk boils down to "what's your corgi's name?" Great dialogue...

Most ripoffs have the monster entering the human location (be it spaceship, cruise liner, etc.) but "Underwater" unwisely moves a bulk of the action underwater. Here director William Eubank and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli struggle to create any sort of personality from either the vacant ocean or the cast in their deepsea gear; characters are practically indistinguishable and there is no sense of scale to the water, or any clear idea where these people are in relation to the submarine buildings.

Look "Underwater" isn't bad by any means, with an effective cast and moments of fun spectacle, but sometimes it isn't enough to throw every B-movie cliche into a blender and hit puree.

The ambiguous ending was a neat touch, alluding to corporate corruption otherwise only discussed during the opening credits, but it felt unsubstantial, with no payoff for either the characters or the audience. We felt relieved when Sigourney Weaver finally killed that slimy slender thing in this film's most obvious inspiration, but here, we know what's going to happen, it happens, then that's it. Please exit the theater following the marked signs and dispose of any trash in the appropriate receptacles.

1917 Review

"1917" is less a war film than a drama, less epic and more intimate, then the action-extravaganzas one thinks of with that generalization. We follow two Lance Corporals, Tom (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will (George MacKay) as they move to deliver a message to call off a French attack on German forces, as it's a trap. It's a picture about trying to stop a battle, not a war, and we spend almost all of the runtime with such a little cast.

Problem is we're promised one thing with Will and Tom at the start, but a keen eye will know the ads focus mostly on just one individual; draw your own conclusions here with what happens. I did, and was right.

But let's not dwell on plot, as it's an exaggeration on history and, well, it's a movie. But even that's not true- this is less a movie and more an experience, thanks to the entire film being one-shot. Of course it isn't, when characters crash into raging waters, or enter a pitch-black trench when the cheating of this effect being most noticeable, but it works. There is no time to waste on secondary or even tertiary characters. No unnecessary scenes; this is a lean 119 minute long flick with no fat.

It works on a level rarely touched in the theater, where you the viewer live vicariously through the action onscreen. You can only catch your breath when our characters can, and director Sam Mendes doesn't give you many instances. You grip the arm of your chair, you feel you need to remind yourself you need to blink, that's effective moviemaking, and it's a trick exploited here to its absolute fullest, teetering on the brink of being a video game, or even one of those 3D attractions at Universal Studios Florida.

Of course, with all this movie magic the heart of the picture is lost, the point, to help save troop's lives, is trivialized for pure visual, visceral stimulation. Do we need to commercialize the horrors of war with some new tricks just to make a buck? This is a wonderfully constructed piece of cinema, with a lot of heart behind the camera, but there is no heart onscreen.

When I first saw "Jurassic Park," I wanted to be a paleontologist. I doubt anyone will see "1917" and want to be a history major. Or a peaceworker. Or a solider. But they're probably want to be a movie maker.