The Matrix Resurrections Review

The word "resurrection" is perhaps the most overused movie subtitle, given to long gestating sequels to long-ago films, and although it is more accurately "resurrections," "The Matrix" finally returns. Was it worth it? I'm the wrong guy to ask, since, gasp, I have never seen the original trilogy. Does that make my review invalid? Of course not, unless you're talking to fanboys, and even that doesn't matter, they'd see it anyway.

Being part of "The Matrix" will no doubt bring in box-office dollars and subscribers to HBO Max where it is also playing, but the nearly two and a half hour long adventure didn't benefit me from its namesake history. It sets the preceding flicks as a video game called "The Matrix," where Tom Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a "world famous designer" but after a failed suicide attempt, is popping pills, you can guess the color, at the prescription of his therapist, played by Neil Patrick Harris. Tom, also known as Neo, does indeed return to the Matrix, but lemme just stop right there- I could go deeper into the plot, but that would expose potential spoilers like character's true motivations and I'm just not that kind of critic. I'm also not the kind of critic who gets paid but hey, who asked?

"Resurrections" does a decent job at filling in some of the blanks a first-timer to the series might wonder, as Tom/Neo also needs a refresher on how it all works. I didn't know who Tiffany/Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) was, but then the film told me plainly. It's a narrative as elegant as Mr. Reeves general performance (which consists of him looking dazed and drunk most of the time), but it functions to remind the general audience of what happened, what, like twenty or so years ago.

Technology has come a long ways since "bullet time" revolutionized action movies, and as an action movie, "The Matrix Resurrections" fails. There isn't any "new" gimmick like bullet time to hold our attention, so what we get rather rudimentary hand-to-hand fights. We get a couple actually, but its all things we've seen before, just a basic "punch" here and a "kick" there. You know you're in trouble when one of the longest fight sequences takes place in a decrepit warehouse. Oh, someone got thrown into a decaying wall, how "exciting."

But in addition to the "action" genre, this is also science fiction, or at least that's what its Wikipedia page tells me. Since I'm not a scientist, I'm not sure how "scientific" anything onscreen really is, but it did make sense, even to a non-scientist dummy like me, so it has that going for it. What it doesn't succeed at is world-building: outside of the Matrix, it looks like any random city in America. And once we get inside, it becomes a mess of murky colors and indiscriminate shapes that are supposed to be machines, ships, or places. There wasn't a moment that went by that I found myself in awe, instead the visuals reminded me about how good "Star Wars" is at just that.

Perhaps I was supposed to wonder at the logic it jumps through, and I will admit, it did have me guessing pretty consistently (Like, why do the blue and red pills look like "gel-caps" in flashback scenes but now look like capsules?) But it feels artificially complicated, an opaque delivery of what boils down to two rescue missions, first Neo and then Trinity, so what's the point? Is the mythology a warning about the "metaverse" tech companies today preach about? I'd rather watch "Ready Player One." I don't mind to be asked questions a film doesn't have answers to, but "Matrix 4" barely has questions, and it's heritage's once technical prowess is in desperate need of a firmware update.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City Review

Not sure what is more surprising: releasing a horror movie Thanksgiving weekend (instead of the more appropriate October last month) or the movie's quality itself. Dubbed a "reboot" of the film series of six prior entries, it utilizes its visibly low-budget of a reported twenty five million on recreating numerous set pieces from the video game franchise all this is based on, relying on suspense instead of overblown action sequences like the pictures before it. To middling overall results, but hey, I had a blast, and when at the movies, that is all one could ever want.

The plot is a weird hybrid of the first two video games, changing a few moments here and there but maintaining the same basic mythology laid out by its digital forerunners. Did I care that the truck driver, who as fans may remember tips his tanker and explodes, meets his grisly demise by a dog rather than some person at a gas station? Nope, didn't care, diehards beware and be-damned.

Anyway, all the fan-favorites are here, Jill (Hannah John-Kamen), Claire (Kaya Scodelario), Leon (Avan Jogia), Chris (Robbie Amell), among others, new and old, as they battle their way through a zombie outbreak in the soon-to-be ghost town Racoon City. The dual plots, adapting both basic settings of each game, allows for twice the nostalgic bang for your buck; one moment, you see the iconic Spencer Mansion entrance from RE1 and the next you see that slimy Licker scaling the ceiling from RE2. Most major beats are touched upon allowing for a trip down memory lane in just under two hours. Does it have a point? No, especially since you really can just play the games themselves, but writer/director Johannes Roberts clearly loves the games, it shows, and he wants us to watch his playthrough.

But just being faithful doesn't qualify three stars, so what's going on? Why is the rating so high? It's the little things, the parts that showcase that the filmmakers know how to make a film, not just adapt a popular piece of pop culture. It was these neat touches that were fun as a viewer regardless of the material.

The sound design was spot-on, not afraid to be completely silent save for the faint undead screams coming from each end of the theater. Even when a character (or portrayal of a character) I didn't care for was onscreen, there was noticeable tension was I never quite knew what direction the zombie was going to jump out from next. And it's efficient pacing leaves us with seldom a dull moment- even when its just basically somebody shooting at those boring, lumbering zombies, it's often spiced up with gimmicks like a completely black screen, our only illumination being the gunshots of a desperate would-be survivor.

There's another thing that stuck with me as I watched "Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City," and that was the timeliness of the story. Vaccines, outbreaks, lockdowns, corrupt businesses, gun violence- it all felt "real" despite being a movie based on a 90's video game. I doubt that was the intention, but it should have been.

8-Bit Christmas Review

For all the Christmas movies, from made-for-TV "rom-coms" to theatrical releases, there's not telling if it'll become a perennial favorite. HBO Max's original "8-Bit Christmas," which plays like "A Christmas Story" but set in the 80's and trades a BB gun for a Nintendo Entertainment System, has a lot going for it, including some unexpectedly good performances, but occasionally undermines its own homey feel with cheap bodily function (or disfunction) jokes that probably look better in commercials, and can't quite justify the existence of the mild but various political incorrectness. A boy wearing "girls" boots is such a "then" problem that has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with video games.

Now I'll generally laugh at anything as long as somethings funny, but here, it isn't funny. But hey, it was the 80's, a simpler yet probably not any "better" time.

Anyway, the recycled plot... Jake Doyle, played by the plucky Winslow Fegley, wants a Nintendo, badly. Getting one for Christmas means the world to him, and what follows is an hour and a half of him trying and failing to persuade his parents, win one in a wreath-selling contest and trying to buy one during a school trip. Told as a series of flashbacks by adult Jake (Neil Patrick Harris), who's celebrating the season with his own kid who wants her own cellphone, there isn't any substantial parable between his own child wanting and hers except to instigate the whole movie.

But that's OK- the lack of any greater purpose gives the production a small, intimate feeling that I much prefer over last years similarly direct-to-streaming kids movie, the way overstuffed "The Christmas Chronicles 2" on Netflix. 

There is also refreshing absence of an arbitrary villain or any real reason for being outside of the obligatory "meaning of Christmas:" this is a movie about a child who wants a gift on December 25th. That's it. Is it an original? Absolutely not, but like "A Christmas Story" it so brazenly copies, it takes its time, showing the boredom kids experience, the exaggeration that only the youth can imagine and the world-ending realities of obligations like chores. There are many scenes of this, but I wanted even more.

The bulk of the action takes place in the indeterminate "late 80's," where Jake's annoying younger sister Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) is on her own mission to get another dated hot-item, a redhead Cabbage Patch Kid. (With freckles!) They form a loose alliance to help each other get what they want under the tree, but they're still brother and sister and they don't always like each other. Their kidding rivalry is without a doubt the best part of the film, making me nostalgic for my own childhood relationship with my siblings, how you can go from hating each other to being friends. At one point, after he loses all hope of getting his NES, she passes the TV remote to him, as a signal that she understood his silly would-be trauma. I did too.

There are some more curious relics of a less complicated era, like when their parents (June Diane Raphael and Steve Zahn) leave the kids unsupervised in the toy store at the mall towns away. They don't add much to the overall product, but they do aid in cementing the whole "back when I was a kid" feeling. 

I would be remiss not to mention the sudden tonal shift, when the narrative becomes depressing without warning, which is jarring considering the rest of the picture is so aggressively low-stakes. It feels shoehorned into the plot purely to emphasize the spirit of the holidays, as if the producers realized that "8-Bit Christmas" is ultimately a feature-length advertisement of festive commercialization.

Red Notice Review

With a cast including Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds, Netflix's would-be blockbuster "Red Notice" has all the grandiose excess of an actual blockbuster, but it lacks the heart, chemistry, and purpose to be anything but a way to spend a lazy afternoon. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but jeez, look at that all-star cast! There is no reason for the flick to be as downright unspectacular as it is, but here we are.

The plot, which is both complicated and basic, has us following FBI agent John Hartley (Johnson) working alongside "the most prolific art thief in the world" Nolan Booth, played by Reynolds (or is he the second most; it doesn't matter) to get to Cleopatra's three eggs ahead of The Bishop (Gadot), the other "most prolific art thief in the world." People get arrested, characters escape, folks are double-crossed, while we deal with outlandish twists involving Nazis (Nazis!) moments of tomb-raiding and heists, all the good stuff, nestled safely within the span of about two hours. But the parts far exceed its sum, as the general template exists as such: exposition happens, action happens, and then its onto the next location. 

And that's fine! James Bond movies do it all the time, but again, look at the cast! And that's only the three billed on the movie poster! Where things crumble on the most simple entertainment level is the spectacle, which is surprisingly perfunctory. This is a very expensive piece of media, yet aside from an opening chase in a Rome art exhibit, the CGI is so obvious that you wonder why The Rock even bothers working out, computers could just digitally add outrageous muscle mass. Bond's best flicks feature some of the most exciting scenes, things that haven't been done before or done with such grace or on such scale or with so much forward momentum. "Red Notice" just sorta has some very famous (and even more expensive) people doing things in front of a camera and greenscreen in a variety of places.

And these should be exotic, exciting places, from Rome to Argentina and others, but it amounts to one of three possible realities: a nice building, a decrepit building, or outside. The international escapades serve as nothing but to change the backdrop to see more of what just happened in last country: pedantic banter between our odd couple of male heroes. Both Reynolds and Johnson can be funny guys, and aside from a few bits involving their "on again, off again" bromance, their quips just sort of come out of their mouths and sit there. Gadot gets even less to work with, as if her contract only allowed her to walk around like a sex object, even during hand-to-hand fisticuffs.

The Egyptian plot device means obligatory shots of desert, which called to mine the goofy exploits in 1999's "The Mummy," which is far better, Booth's and Hartley's daddy issues and the whole Nazi (Nazi!!) involvement riffed on "Indiana Jones," which is far, far better, only it's not smart enough to acknowledge that "The Mummy" copies "Indiana Jones, "which in turn copies James Bond. 

In all honesty, though, perhaps is most reminiscent of 1994's sublime "True Lies" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, which also lifted from Ian Fleming's franchise but with the promise of humor, the time's biggest stars, the most breathtaking sequences, and it mostly delivered. "Red Notice" should be returned to sender, repackaged and they can try again.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin Review

A Paramount+ original, "Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin" is the sort of low-grade sequel they used dump directly to VHS, only it's 2021 and the solution is now streaming. It's worth noting how I have not seen any of the prior films in the series, but that didn't seem to matter, the formula was apparent within the first ten minutes: people with far too many cameras go somewhere they shouldn't, and record when they should leave.

I'm not entirely saying that this isn't effective film, because with the right state of mind, I'm sure there is some audience for this. I imagine they're the sort who would watch with a group of friends, preferably inebriated with the lights out. Like that, it is a decent popcorn muncher, but only when you can watch others shriek at the numerous "jump scares" dotted throughout its ninety eight minute runtime. For me personally, the picture failed at the most basic levels, never giving me a character to care about, who instead do dumb things over and over again while providing only the most spartan reasons for all the dumbness. Oh, a spooky secret chasm? Well, better grab my camcorder and make sure I get the best possible angle. Who writes this stuff?! According to Wikipedia, that would be Christopher Landon. Shame on him.

We follow Margot, played by Emily Bader, an orphan who recently found out she not only has one relative (Samuel, played by Henry Ayres-Brown), but a whole family. And they're Amish, so why not make a documentary? Alongside cameraman Chris (Roland Buck III) and.... driver(?) Dale (Dan Lippert), they drive through the snowy lone road to Samuel's parents farm, who initially toss them out. Then plot happens and they end up as guests at their homestead with Margot keen on figuring out why she was abandoned in the first place. Does the family know something she wonders? Probably, otherwise this movie character wouldn't wonder it.

More plot happens, and well, does any of this at all matter? It would enter spoiler territory, and for a first-time watcher, that would have to be the only appeal the franchise has to offer, to go in blind so that when things go "boo" you can scream with a mouthful of popcorn. I didn't have popcorn, but the scent of fake buttery goodness would have elevated the mood. It would at least give me something to jostle around the couch had I been spooked, but then I realized that when the "found footage" camera suddenly stopped moving, and people went "shhhh," I just needed to silently count to "five" in my head and something would either A) go "boo" or B) not go "boo."

Once you figure that out, "Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin" has absolutely no chance at suckering you in to its world of would-be horror tomfoolery.

What am I supposed to say here? I wasn't scared, I wasn't interested, and as the humdrum story unveiled a new key piece of the story, it only got more and more nonsensical. It assumes you believe in, or can suspend your own disbelief, the supernatural, and I wasn't having any of its dreck. Perhaps I just didn't let myself have a good time, you might be asking, but then why would I watch it? Just to write mean things about it online? All I know is, I sunk deep between the cushions wondering to myself "... is this all life has to offer?"

Halloween Kills Review

While watching "Halloween Kills," the sequel to 2018's solid "Halloween" reboot/sequel/remake/whatever, it's obvious there's another one on the way. That's the case of course, since it's been announced, so what we're left with is the awkward middle child of the trilogy. Where as the first film was a taunt little thriller, the second is poorly staged, hammily acted, overwritten and generally boring, with absolutely nothing to say except to showcase the special effects department's gory killings.

There is this clunky tone throughout it, unable to be either scary or funny, so the blood-soaked images just sit there, and there are a lot of them. The 1978 original is rather well known for its absence of actual onscreen violence, something thrown away for most of the sequels, but "Halloween Kills" is another beast entirely, resembling those Rob Zombie remakes nobody talks about more so than anything in John Carpenter's original.

The plot is just an excuse for Michael Myers to show up and slice up dozens of random people, the random old couple down the block to folks in the angry mob set up by Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), who was one of the babysat kids in the franchise's first entry. Why the hell is Doyle (or Mr. Hall, for that matter) even here is beyond me; there is this weird obsession with retconning "Halloween Kills" with the previous pictures, so far as resurrecting Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis with fancy special effects in an unexpected flashback scene. It's great to see the late veteran actor back in the series he gave so much thematic weight to, but for what? It spits on his grave to see him brought back for this trash.

Jamie Lee Curtis is here too, once again playing Laurie Strode, who's stuck in Haddonfield Hospital after stab wounds in the climax of the first film. (First as in the first in the sequel trilogy, not the first film. Gosh why is a slasher flick so complicated!?) She's in the thankless position of spending her screen time going from the gurney to the lobby, spouting gibberish like "evil never dies" and all that nonsense. It's the same old hat that we've heard for the last forty plus years, and frankly I'm sick of it.

As for the actual kills in the title, they're nasty for sure, including one where you literally see the eyeballs pop out of some poor schmuck's head, but aside from having no point except to exploit the act of cruelty, there is a curious lack of tension. The shape just wanders around, and there is no build up or suspense to when he will or will not jump out and yell "boo" with his knife. No one scene filled me with dread, not one performance made me think that they weren't just some actor reading a script, and most unfortunate of all, not once did I get filled with terror.

Character still do dumb things like split up to investigate the murder's childhood home, walk away from a seemingly "dead" Myers (twice!); sure, it's a horror movie, but this should have been a smart horror movie.

"Halloween Kills" gets so bogged down with its own mythology that you just end up playing "spot the reference." Angry mob like in 1988's Halloween 4? Check. Laurie in the hospital ala 1981's Halloween 2? Check. The list goes on, on and on, and the more I saw the more I realized they weren't just cute little callbacks but filmmakers straight up out of new ideas.

There's Someone Inside Your House Review

Somewhere between the charismatic cast and intriguing story, Netflix's latest slasher film "There's Somebody Inside Your House" holds a wonderful film. But it's not what we end up getting. Bogged down by a lack of subtly and reliance on genre tropes, it's fine for a mindless evening on the couch, but it's frustrating to be genuinely intrigued by a premise only to be left with scrapes left over from other, better films.

For a film entitled "There's Someone Inside Your House," it does open inside somebodies house with someone else inside it, but once a knife slices their ankles, the film quickly disregards its name and becomes a standard teen slasher flick. The twist? The now dead individual had a secret. In a better movie, this would have helped provided dramatic heft to the commonly cliched cinematic category, but then it happens to another person, and then another. 

Their secrets range from self-inflicting like pill-popping to physical abuse of others, but since we never really spend any time with the victims, their mystery is about the only backstory we get. Hard to care about that popular girl getting stalked when all we know is that she's a white supremacist and quite literally, we only just learned that just before the bloodshed.

You see the problem? Our main heroine Makani, played by Sydney Park, fares far better thanks to being given something to work with, and a relatively strong performance. She's got a lot of secrets actually, ranging from her forbidden love with the school's bad boy Oliver (Théodore Pellerin) to something much darker. We see brief flashes of her primary private past throughout the runtime, and although I appreciated being asked to try and piece together what happened, I wasn't totally satisfied with what she actually had to say.

Her outcast group of friends are sadly lame, some defined only by their hobby. Take Darby, played by Jesse LaTourette, who's only character development involves loving NASA (and donuts, in a throwaway line). I won't spoil whether or not our would-be astronaut lives to the end credits, but I can confirm that we never make it to space.

We watch as teenager after teenager holds a phone only to try and run instead of calling the police, or dial the police but then hang up, as we the audience groan at the onscreen stupidity. Yes I know that this is a slasher film, but if you're going to settle on being yet another dumb horror film, at least make it distinct. Where's the creative deaths? The excessive nudity? Where's the exploitation?! "There's Someone Inside Your House" doesn't know it's own idiocy, or know any better.

No Time to Die Review

There is no way "No Time to Die," the latest in the James Bond saga, can be completely satisfying; not only does it mark Daniel Craig's (allegedly) final time playing the double O, it was also delayed for over a year due to the pandemic. That is a lot of baggage to handle, and for some, it'll be the first time they step into an actual theater, and for what? Big explosions that seem just as big as they did the last time.

That's not to say it's in anyway a bad movie- it spruces up the franchise's well-worn formula with a few modifications, just as any entry would. Just that those expectations are far too grand to be surpassed by something so competent. "Competent" would otherwise be completely suitable had this been released in another time, but alas here we are, the world's first "3D" (conversion) Bond is also the first "face-mask required at this establishment" Bond.

The plot is needlessly complicated, the runtime is excessive, and our hero continues to be a great shot while a myriad of henchmen can't seem to hit his bulky frame, yet it's all classic "Bond." He finds himself surrounded by beautiful beaches (this time in Italy), beautiful women (including but not limited to a fresh CIA agent played by Ana de Armas, who trades stoicism for quirkiness with refreshing results), and some very bad men (mostly Rami Malek as the facially-scarred Safin, the primary villain, and a few others who I won't spoil). Yet even with a megalomaniac on the loose, we still find time to swing by and visit an old nemesis (Christopher Waltz as Blofeld), drink a few dry martinis, kill some people, kiss others, drink some more, get scolded by M (Ralph Fiennes), get thanked by M, among a whole lot of other pitstops. It's cinema comfort food on the big screen (and I saw it on a very big screen).

These are all the ingredients in James Bond stew, and I recalled wonderful moments of earlier moments in the series between its general familiarity and callbacks. I sunk into my reclining leather chair with warmth despite the constant blowing of hopefully filtered air-conditioned air, it's a great feeling to be lost in a different place in one's life.

But I don't think that's the point of this very expensive moving picture show. When I snapped out of it and paid attention, what I saw happening was never thrilling enough, funny enough, entertaining enough. The only thing that this Bond "era" does differently is provide an overarching story, with finishing up what happened in Craig's four former flicks, but that doesn't make him any more interesting. More vulnerable sure, but it's been over a decade and I'm sorry, I just can't keep all the silly little plotlines in line. Does that make me a bad "007 fan?" Maybe, but it doesn't make me a bad "No Time to Die" viewer.

James Bond baddies always have some ridiculous plot to take over the world, destroy the world, or make a lot of money indirectly ruining the world, and this one's no different: a deadly nanobot fog capable of targeting specific DNA, from a person to an entire nationality. It's ironic that a picture delayed by the covid-19 virus would be about, well, what is effectively a super-virus. This element gives the film a relative sense of realism, a breath of fresh air from all the musty nuclear weapon plots of past pictures, but then you realize that in the same movie, on two separate occasions, two different characters get shot multiple times only to get up and walk around.

But I'm getting carried away because none of this really matters. I'm not about to sit here and write why I think one film is better than another or why one actor is a better representation of the literary spy than someone else. "No Time to Die" is a James Bond picture, and that's what matters.

Cry Macho Review

Clint Eastwood understands his age. At 91, he's not running around like a machine gun blasting away baddies, even if that's what we all really kinda want to see him doing. "Cry Macho" is his latest director-staring role, is tailored around the decrepitude of an actor who's, well, 91 years old.

Let me get this out of the way: this is NOT an action movie! Our hero throws one punch, and I counted two violent confrontations and no gunshots, a far cry from the westerns where our star starred and didn't have a name, but that's fine. This is squarely a drama who can only be called a western if the definition dictates that, yes, men ride horses and yes, they wear ranch hats.

Eastwood plays Mike Milo, a sober hasbeen of a cowboy who's past his expiration date. He owes his boss (Dwight Yoakam) for keeping him on the payroll for so long, and now it's time to get even. The mission? Bring back his son Rafael (Eduardo Minett) from his allegedly abusive mother's care over in Mexico City. Superficially, the plot resembles Liam Neeson's "The Marksman" from earlier this year, though "Cry Macho" comes from a decades old novel of the same name by N. Richard Nash. The point? This is an overly familiar tale, but hey, at least it's got Clint Eastwood, and sometimes that's all a production needs.

Mike finds the kid cockfighting, living on the streets but covered in bruises he says is from his mother's palace. Do we believe him? Mr. Rodeo does, and they form a rather sweet relationship over a few weeks of stealing cars, getting girls and some underage drinking. If that's not macho, I dunno what is.

Well, actually Macho is the name of the son's pet rooster, a prize-winning bird who inspires some amusing lines about Milo wanting to roast him over an open fire. I'm not sure if it's legitimately funny writing or only humorous because Eastwood says it. His face aged like an arid sponge, so wrinkled, weathered and shrunk that he's able to command the screen with merely a glace, and that brings a certain level of classy professionalism to this musty story.

In truth, he doesn't get a lot to do here except looking stereotypically macho, and for long stretches, he doesn't do a lot other than snarl. But there is a genuinely good feeling when we watch him eventually smile, particularly at the hands of local grandmother Marta (Natalia Tavern). He also has a poignant piece of dialogue about the true meaning of the word, where we watch him break down the harsh realities of a man who's been so long characterized by the adjective. In the movie, it's about his descend into the vices of drugs and alcohol after he breaks his back and loses his family, but one has to wonder how much of the speech has to do with his own life.

There's a lot to like in "Cry Macho" that you've probably also liked when it was done in other movies; feeling like a thematic follow up to 2008's "Gran Torino" and 2018's "The Mule." Whether that's an observation or a criticism depends on one's tolerance for what is essentially his "Angry White Guy" series.

Kate Review

I'm sure on paper, a film like Netflix's "Kate" sounded like a fantastic idea. Take the basic premise of "Crank," a poisoned assassin looking for revenge and mix in the neon-soaked choreography of "John Wick," topped off with a gender-swap lead- it's no wonder that the idea could attach top talent like usually wonderful Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the lead and a supporting cased including Woody Harrelson and Tadanobu Asano. Yet the end result is a visual candy that leaves you hungry for substance once it's all over. Good thing I love candy, but the problem here is that this is not very good candy.

Mary plays the title Kate, who's exposed to high levels of radiation between missions, and well, that's it, that's the plot. Harrelson plays Varrick, her mentor, a most thankless role that consists of him sitting down, standing up, and I think one time he got out of a car. A character like that in a movie like this can only be one of two things: A) a good guy or B) a bad guy. And here, the script doesn't even try to hide which one he really is.

The film takes place in Japan for an excuse to have brightly colored lights and a few subtitled conversations, mostly in the form of family drama between the men behind her contamination, and some cheap gags about cats.

Her mission takes a detour once the supposed villain's niece Ani, played by Miku Martineau, who's initially used as bait but soon forms a sorta sweet relationship with our heroine. The script gives neither much to work with, with only small pieces of backstory that feel pillaged from other movies. Yet their performances won me over thanks to a spark of chemistry between the duo. Both are talented actresses, and both deserve a better production to showcase them.

That unfortunately doesn't save "Kate" from sinking to the depths of the Netflix backlog; so much of the film is resolved through violence, which is fine by me, but only if there's some personality to it. The gunfights are lazily staged, filled with slow-mo for no reason outside trying to look "cool." The hand-to-hand combat fares better, with a rhythmic pacing that is filmed in a clean, clear way so that you can actually tell who's punching who, but what does it matter? It lacks the sense of humor of "Nobody" and the brutal efficiency of something like "John Wick 3." Oh, she shoved a knife through random henchman #3's jaw? Neat, I guess, but remember when in the latter Keanu Reeves killed a man by shoving a book in his mouth? Now that's cool.

But then again, from the safety of your own house, you can stream a diet vengeance flick that'll keep you distracted for an afternoon. Covid-be-damned, we want our violence, and we want it slick, professionally made, and by golly we want it disposable!

Malignant Review

I dunno what I expected by a film named "Malignant," especially when you consider it's from director James Wan, who also produced and has "story by" credit. His penchant for bloodshed and plot twists is on full-display with his latest efforts, and even when they don't work, I found myself disregarding my standard "taste" and just went along for the twisty and twisted ride.

Annabelle Wallis plays Madison, a would-be mother who's abusive husband meets his due early in the runtime by the title villain. Who this unknown killer is eludes both Maddy and deputies Shaw and Moss, who are now on the case for his death. More people die of course, I mean, its a horror movie, but whole gimmick this time is that our title heroine "sees" the killings as they're happening. The cops don't believe her of course, and we the audience wonder if she's telling the truth, just crazy, or the murderer herself.

The answer to that loaded question might not come as a surprise, especially to any seasoned slasher flick fan, but what's commendable is that there is any sort of mystery here; in an age where so many supposed scary pictures hide from any actual explanation under the guise of god and religion, it's a genuinely good feeling to be watching something that expects me the viewer to piece together the subtle hits ahead of the end's big reveal.

None of that would matter if this was a cheapo geekshow, but it's not- Wan fills many frames with weird camera angles: some swoop overhead others spiral sideways, digging deep into the filmmakers bag of old tricks and exploits them to create something that's so heavy on style it is practically dripping. Sure, it is at the expense of some substance, but hey, that's what the surprise ending is for, providing the illusion of meat on this lean skeleton of a script. 

I won't spoil what actually happens, which means my synopsis of the plot is relatively light, and that is OK. I sat on my couch and pressed play on HBO Max having no real context, which is probably the way to go. It lured me in with a first-act straight out of "The Conjuring" universe, only to swing hard in a completely different direction. Things escalate quickly, becoming bloody and boggling, and its nerve to suddenly shift gears left me guessing what else it had in store. Turns out, we have enough time for a violent, "John Wick" style gunfight in a police precinct, a visit to a spooky, decrepit medical center, plenty of body-horror, as well as a riff on the actual definition of the word "malignant." Is that a spoiler? Only if you've seen a lot of movies.

I am not, however, saying this is a "smart" piece of cinema.

Characters still wonder in dark hallways after hearing a strange noise, cops are unable to hear gunshots from inside their own jail cell, and hospitals with plenty of patients become seemingly empty once inside. These moments are what reminds of what could have been and not what we actually have, resulting in a series of individual highlights surrounded by boilerplate.

Sweet Girl Review

We don't need a movie to tell us the horrors of cancer. We also don't need one this this professionally made, frustrating, and, for long stretches anyway, entertaining. Yet here we are, with Netflix's Jason Momoa action thriller "Sweet Girl."

Playing Ray Cooper who's wife succumbing to the awful disease, finds himself caught up in the politics when the promised miracle drug is taken off the market. He calls in to a news report with makers BioPrime's Simon Keeley (Justin Bartha), a scene without any of the succinct grace of that iconic Liam Neeson exchange in "Taken," but then again, our star Jason is no Liam. He lacks the cool detachment of everyone's favorite Irishman, instead raging across the screen like a pitbull with a toothache.

Mere scenes later, the corporate stooge is found dead in the back halls of a UNICEF gala. Now Ray and his daughter Rachel (Isabela Merced) are on the run from both the cops and assassins who seem to know their whereabouts before the police do.

All your obligatory scenes follow, but director Brian Andrew Mendoza punctuates ordinary material with visceral action scenes. The best ones use Jason's physicality as an asset; he's no "former CIA agent" or whatever, just some random kickboxing father and widow. His brute force has the hired gunmen change their approach to conflict, giving the fights a sort of unchoreographed personality that's refreshing in the wake of all the John Wick copycats that's flooded the cinema.

Yet there's this unshakeable feel that, for as "everyman" as Ray the character is, he's still played by the foreboding Jason Momoa. He just isn't convincing as anything but a superhero, and in the more dramatic moments, his emotional range is angry and more angry. There either isn't enough time watching his fall into madness, or he simply cannot handle the thematic subtly the role occasionally asks for. Sadly, I think it's both.

The film's big twist is unsatisfying and unconvincing, an awkward revelation that belittles the plot's otherwise simplistic tone. But it did catch me by surprise, leaving in a sort of suspense as to where the rest of the runtime would go. Unfortunately, it is a most anticlimactic climax, a cop-out by screenwriters Philip Eisner and Gregg Hurwitz who couldn't think of a better way to end things than to pillage other pictures; you know the kind, where the actual villain is finally exposed to the movie-world not by the competency of law enforcement because they don't shut their traps when clearly the protagonist is recording!

All these issues throw the balance of the finished product awry, because for as fun as the fisticuffs are, their potency is diluted by a pedestrian execution of some rather basic concepts. The whole thing's about cancer after all, and no one seems to understand that.

The Suicide Squad Review

You can knock Marvel pics all you want, but they at least know how to name them; case in point, competitor DC's standalone sequel to 2016's "Suicide Squad." What's it called? "The Suicide Squad." Why oh why oh why?! It is a stupid move that makes zero sense to the casual cinema consumer, but hey, it's a silly superhero adventure where people in rubber suits fight CGI monstrosities to the tune of random songs you'd probably hear on the radio on your way to the theatre. Only this time things are very bloody, violent, and I saw it from my couch on HBO Max.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn takes over as writer and director from David Ayer, and the change is immediately obvious from his use of bright colors and his irrelevant script. Overuse would be more accurate, as each and every scene is punctuated by gratuitous style and gobbledygook dialogue that goes against the frequent bright bouts of bloodshed. Heads blowup, bodies torn in half, and we see it all. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but by the time our motely crew of sometimes bad guys actually get to the meat of their mission, it's so late into the runtime that you're left wondering "what was the last hour even for?"

Unfortunately Will Smith does not return as Deadshot (who readers will no doubt recall was one of the only reasons to see the original); in his place we get Idris Elba as Bloodsport. Actors and performances aside, they serve the same basic function in the mess of a movie. They both represent the onscreen relief from the chaotic crap that happens, serving as a way of us the audience to express our weariness. He bemoan the goofy cast, and spend a lot of the time looking angry at things. The weight of the film is on Elba's shoulders, so it's a good thing his are so broad.

Only three of the principal cast is back: Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, the government entity who runs the show offsite; Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, a name or a face who I honestly couldn't say I remembered; and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, who's shtick is about as tolerable as Fran Drescher in "The Nanny." Very little of her personality goes a long way, and lamentably she's in this a lot.

Other former castmates also reappear, albeit briefly, like Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, though he's killed like ten minutes into the runtime thanks to a false-opening, and getting rid of his obnoxious smugness is one of the biggest highlight here.

Rounding out the main cast is John Cena as Peacemaker, a deplorable parody of Marvel's own Captain America. He wears a shiny metal helmet that at one point is called "a toilet seat." He of course claps back at the comparison, but the fact that a line of dialogue like this actually exists goes to show just how elementary the comedy is and how needless he is. But wait, it gets somehow worse! Daniela Melchior plays Ratcatcher 2, who's superpower is, get this, controlling rats. But it's David Dastmalchian who represents the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel of characters playing, no joke, "Polka-Dot Man." He literally kills people with polka dots. The existence of superheroes like this baffles me. You'd think that the sight of a man throwing polka dots and a woman summoning rats would illicit laughs immediately, but they don't, weighted down by the otherwise serious plot of government coverup and war.

The only moment between any of the above ensemble where I cracked a smile was with Mr. Polka Dot, who has some unexpected mommy issues. Gunn must have known this was a genuinely funny bit, so he repeated the same gag two more times. Sorry pal, that's not how jokes work.

Their job is to sneak into the nation of Corto Maltese, a horribly outdated depiction of South American countries, and destroy any trace of "Project Starfish." Spoiler alert, the project is actually a giant alien starfish (who attacks its victims like the Facehugger in "Alien," but I'm getting ahead of myself). It's easy to spot the influence of American war films, but unlike a great work like 1987's "Predator," which blended military action stereotypes with humor and aliens, "The Suicide Squad" gets distracted by far too many characters who come with their own baggage of subplots- there's just too much going on. That starfish at one point breaks loose, causing havoc as it wonders why it's even here.

If the script is so full of shenanigans, why is it a war movie? And if its a war movie, why does it have superheroes? It doesn't spoof either genre, and never benefits from shoehorning them into the story. I'm sure this is all based on some comic and fans will no doubt eat every onscreen minute up, but when I see an awkward hodgepodge of half-baked concepts, I call it.

Oh I almost forgot: Sylvester Stallone voices "Nanaue," or "King Shark" as he's known. He's inappropriately toyetic in such an R-rated feature, sporting cute little eyes that cancel out his giant, flesh-tearing teeth. But the stunt casting of Sly is inherently funny, and it would be unprofessional for me not to mention him. Why? Easy, he's the best part of last two or so hours I just spent on my couch.