Road House Review

Remaking any film is hard work, but imagine the pressure of remaking a classic! But neither have anything on remaking a cult classic; the filmmakers struck the elusive cinematic lightning-in-a-bottle, and you dare try and recapture it?

Amazon MGM Studios' "Road House," which debuts on Amazon Prime, bills itself as a reimagining of the 1989 original. I've never seen the original, but I do know there's monster trucks in it. And I'm sad to report, this new one does not, and suffers thusly.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dalton, the Patrick Swazye's character here, a homeless former UFC champ, disillusioned as he makes money by entering underground fights, then wins by not fighting. Why? Because the other fighters recognize him and back out. We see this as the film opens with a cheap Post Malone cameo, bowing out and losing the pot of winnings. This plot-point doesn't make much sense because it A) depends on everyone knowing who this guy is and B) depends on people being so intimidated.

I'm tempted to say Post Malone's flabby, shirtless body makes even less sense as the "underground champ," but that'd be mean of me. Oh whoops, did I write that out loud?

All this changes when Frankie, owner of the "Road House," an, ahem, roadhouse bar, in the Florida Keys, played by Jessica Williams, asks Dalton if he'd like a temp job as her bouncer. He originally says no because of plot, since the next scene finds him sitting in his car on the train tracks, hoping to kill himself.

I know I know, what a good main character.

He snaps back to reality at the last second, only for his car to stall, but for no reason outside of the magic of movie making does he survive, so it's off to the Sunshine State. It's a bad story marred with even worse CGI effects of boats, trains and trucks, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

What kind of unruly customers frequent this Road House? The goons of a crime boss, naturally. They work for Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen), a sort of high-maintenance prima-donna who whines and freaks out about everything, right down to the way he gets his face shaven. In his defense, he's mad that the guy shaving him keeps nicking him, but then again, he's getting a shave on a yacht, so...

Dalton easily takes out the thugs, which highlights two of the best things this version of "Road House" has going for it: the hand-to-hand combat, and Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. Much of the action is very well-staged and cleanly shot, but sometimes director Doug Liman gets in his own way with silly film techniques like the occasional "first person" view between blows. It is cool in theory, but it is disorientating and makes it hard to see what's going on. He also sometimes blurs the scene, I imagine to simulate how the fighters are getting hurt, as in, their view is blurring, but if I wanted to see what it was like as a bar-fighter, I wouldn't just watch movies based on the subject.

But Gyllenhaal is really quite interesting to watch: he has an awkward screen-presence, kind of mousy, like he's uncertain about each situation he finds himself in. It juxtaposes wonderfully against his rippled muscles. He also speaks with a sort of quite, almost bored tone, as if he views how his life's turned out with sadness and disinterest.

I mean, he could easily be bored, like he knows the script is a stinker, and I dunno, maybe I was grasping at straws for positives. At one point a character compares him to Mr. Rogers, only if he was crossed with John Wick. Unfortunately, the idea is better than the execution.

But again, why are the goons always at the bar? Why don't the cops do anything? Why do these men's wounds heal in what seems like a day? Because plot, that's why!

Ben's dad, who's in prison, really runs the show, and has bought all the land neighboring the bar for his dreams of some silly construction project, or something. I know, thrilling. The fights are the highlight here, but much of the two hour+ long runtime gets bogged down with this silly scheme that you just wish they cut all that noise out and make a shorter, tighter film about some bouncer at an inexplicably rowdy bar. It's this narrative nonsense that leads us to the aforementioned janky special effects, which look atrocious on the small-screen that you wonder if they're the reason this isn't on the big-screen; imagine how much worse they'd look there!

Eventually the boss sends in Knox (Conor McGregor) to kill the bouncer, and this really irks Ben. Actually, everyone hates Knox, but I found no solace in sharing that feeling. Knox is too smug and shallow to be anything but annoying, this obnoxious caricature that only resembles a real-life human in the sense he's played by a person in real life. At at least two points he shows his ass cheeks, and I don't think I've ever seen someone be so proud by their onscreen nudity. Har hee har har.

I get that they were going for a villain you "love to hate," but this would be over-the-top in a cartoon. He just over-does it. The interwebs tells me this is his first movie, so maybe he there's a good actor inside the lump of meat, but then again, the interwebs also tells me he's a pretty horrible person in real life too. So you know, maybe it's just really good casting.

He hulks around in a constant state of flex and speaks with a most irritating brogue, spewing angry trash talk almost every single moment he's in. But what bothered me most was his giant grin he always sports, like someone on the crew kept whispering "you're doing such a good job" in his ear. Sorry Conor, they're lying to you.

Irish Wish Review

Hallmark Channel has Lancey Chabert, Great American Family has Candace Cameron Bure, and now Netflix has Lindsey Lohan. "Irish Wish" marks the second collaboration between the streamer and the actress after 2022's "Falling for Christmas." And good for them, because she is a wonderful actress with impeccable comedic prowess. But boy-howdy did they pick another stinker of a script.

Lindsey plays Madeline, a book editor for the dreamy charmer of an author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos), who's of course Irish. And wouldn't you know, she has a massive crush on him, who's actually a pretty lousy guy. She dreams of writing her own book, which he promises he'll help with, but "his" comes first. Really Maddie has an awful taste in men. But anyway, at a book launch event... Or something... She inadvertently introduces him to one of her friends Emma (Elizabeth Tan), and they end up getting married just a few months later. In Ireland, naturally.

Maddie's jealous (and her mother's disappointed, since she tells her everything for some reason), but the film wisps us off to Ireland barely twenty minutes into the runtime. And like any of these films, in a luggage mix-up, she meets a different guy, also Irish, a kinda slender-hunk photographer named James (Ed Speleers). Because of course she would.

Everyone is staying at Paul's families house, which is a massive mansion (what else could it be, really), complete with butlers and expensive sculptures, the works.

It also has some absolutely gaudy wallpaper; like every single room is draped in this atrocious wallpaper. Wall-to-wall ugly. Sometimes it was all I could look at. Not the sign of a worthwhile movie, I'd say.

Paul surprises everyone the day they arrive (where no one has jetlag, somehow) with a picnic. But before the picnic, they decide to go on a little boat ride, except for Maddie, who would rather sulk in her emotions on a walk by herself. She accidentally sits on the magic wishing chair, complete with a fairy (Dawn Bradfield), who's performance is like from a completely different movie, who grants her wish. Her, ahem, Irish wish.

I could go over the plot some more but why bother? It's a cheapo romantic comedy that fetishizes over scenic Ireland like a travel brochure. Only I'm sure the writings there more inspired.

I dunno, I've watched a lot of these quickie romcoms over the years, but "Irish Wish" is the first time I've ever seen erotic darts. It's all very PG of course, but hey, when in Ireland...

Ricky Stanicky Review

Someone with John Cena's charisma will one day get a movie worthy of the wrestler-turned-actor, but Amazon MGM Studios' "Ricky Stanicky" is not that. He performs as if the script was written in gold and not by six credited writers, and that is truly a shame. It wastes not only his time, but mine, and life is too short to not laugh during a comedy.

The films centers around three friends, Dean (Zac Efron), Wes (Jermaine Fowler) and JT (Andrew Santino), who all their lives used their unseen friend Ricky Stanicky as a reason to "not" do something. Don't want to go to a baby shower for JT's son? No worries, just pretend Ricky's cancer is back. Because you know, cancer is always funny.

They have a bible chronicling each time Ricky is used, so that all three men are consistent with details. And while not at the aforesaid baby shower, they bump into an alcoholic actor who sings about masturbation to the tune of famous songs as "Rock-hard Ron." Think "Weird Al" but rated X, only his lyrics are about as funny as any penis joke you'd see written on the stall of a high school restroom.

But the trio's plan backfires, somehow only just now, when JT's wife goes into labor early. Now the boy's have to explain why they weren't in a hospital in Albany NY for this "Ricky," since she, her mother, his mother, and everyone else's significant other called "every hospital and no one had a record of a Ricky Stanicky." Dean explains that Ricky's cancer wasn't really back, but that it was a rouse to get to see his friends. Honestly, Rick is a dick. But the sitcom doesn't stop there, since he also promises that Ricky will be there for the bris, which is what all friends go to, leaving the boys in a panic to figure out how their imaginary friend will make an appearance.

"Why not hire an actor to play him?" says Dean to a panicked JT and Wes, and wouldn't you know it, they just meant an actor! Ron! What a convenient turn of events!

What follows is a series of obvious plot points that borrows from other films; take, for example, when Ricky ends up getting a job with Dean and JT after impressing their boss at the bris, played by William H. Macy, with his "fresh perspective." It's dumb and dated and ripped straight from better movies like "Big," only with sex jokes instead floor pianos.

It also doesn't make any sense, since you'd think a corporation would have HR or recruiting who do things like background checks. Maybe if they got a seventh screenwriter, they'd work out the plot holes.

I could go on and on but why bother, if you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the whole thing, and if you've ever seen a "comedy of misidentification," well, you probably had a better time watching that. I didn't laugh once during the entire runtime, my face numb and disinterested as I stared at my large flat-panel TV, wondering why I decided this was a good way to spend a Saturday. I didn't have to pay for popcorn, so I suppose that's something.

The Beekeeper Review

The only thing amusing in "The Beekeeper," actor Jason Statham's latest action vehicle, is the inherent humor in the idea of action hero being, well, a beekeeper. Secondary, tertiary and properly even a few background actors, all say in surprise "... a beekeeper?," usually before getting their head smashed into something hard nearby.

But it is a serviceable film, a sort of low-end "John Wick" that lacks the actual humor of something like 2021's equally derivative "Nobody" but fortunately doesn't have the needless self-righteousness of last year's quite boring "The Equalizer 3." Statham stars as Adam Clay, a, you guessed it, beekeeper, living in the barn of some little old lady (a wasted Phylicia Rashad), who's commits suicide after losing all her money to a phishing scam. "Two million for charity," or something like that, yells her daughter, FBI agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), as if the audience shouldn't already feel bad. It's an example of how devoid of personality Kurt Wimmer's script is, but then again, he also wrote "The Expend4bles." The man writes exposition more leaden than, well, lead.

Anyway, Adam is so upset that he decides to not even wait for the police, or FBI, to handle the situation. Oh no, he almost immediately sets out to destroy the company responsible. And he does so, in typical hand-to-hand violence that people seem to love so much. Director David Ayer, who's "Suicide Squad" is a strong contender for "worst films in the last decade," redeems himself by staging and shooting the mayhem so that you can almost always see "who" is kicking, punching, stabbing, shooting, etc., "who" It helps that it's mostly always just Mr. Jason).

Of course, the company that he burned to the ground (literally) was just one of several call-centers involved, run by a well-cast Josh Hutcherson, who absolutely nails the recent "NFT influencer" personality. He chain-vapes from scene-to-scene with a cocky nervousness, covered in tattoos and expensive-looking clothes that also involves heavy drinking and the occasional line of coke. He's way in over his head with the situation and turns to a bored-looking Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwyld, who mainly serves to drip-feed us how this Beekeeper is able to rip so easily through so many well-armed men. It's all gobbledygook CIA nonsense that honestly is less interesting than actual beekeeping.

Oh well, because none of that matters: this is a fast-paced action thriller that skates by on a good action and an even better cast, even if they have little to do outside being constantly flabbergasted at what a Beekeeper is.

I saw it in a mildly busy theater, where far-too many children watched fingers get sawed off, bones broken and knives shoved into people's necks. And they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Were they too young? Who am I to judge, but their parents, or at least guardians, were having an equally good time. In fact they applauded not one, but twice: first when Adam Clay finally catches up with the villain, and then once the credits rolled. Honestly, these people need to get out more and see other, better, films.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire Review

Netflix is so desperate for a franchise to call their own that they've appeared to have written director Zack Snyder a blank check and said "make us "Star Wars."" And the end result, the mouthful-of-a-name "Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire" is exactly that, only it has all the style and budget but absolutely none of the heart, soul, or reason for being.

This is not just a bad film, but also an ugly, needlessly long, cliche, tedious, monotonous, sterile, joyless, tired, absolutely plain old cinematic travesty. I'd call it a turkey, but it's more of a tofurkey, no real meat here.

It doesn't help that the apparently blank check the streaming titan provided didn't come with anyone to keep Snyder's energies in-check; this is perhaps the most self-indulgent piece of movie making I can recall seeing. My mouth laid agape as all his bad habits appeared in such excess that you wonder if he intentionally set out to make a terrible film. Dialogue is terse and often shouted, lacking the magic of a truly gifted screenwriter (or world-builder). We get this huge, sprawling world, highly stylized but devoid of personality, where all sorts of nasty people and even nastier creatures function in a society barely explained. Our main villain (Ed Skrein) at one point wears a white shirt and black tie, yet other characters are draped in flowing robes, loin-cloths and humble scrapes of fabric seemingly sewn by hand. When does this take place? Why do the horse-like creatures, Urakis, look just like regular horses with a tree-trunk taped to their heads? Why is Anthony Hopkins voicing a robot? Why is Anthony Hopkins barely in this? Why is he here at all? Does he really need a paycheck that badly?

His egregious overuse of slow motion, a trademark of the director, is easily the worst, we sit bored stiff as this laborious lemon of a movie shows us scenes including, but not limited to, slow motion walking, slow motion running, slow motion standing, slow motion falling snow, slow motion hand-to-hand combat, slow motion gunfire, slow motion space ships, slow motion removal of hats, and, my favorite, slow motion sword fights against a giant spider woman. What a hell of a sentence, I know.

The plot is a garbled mess of sci-fi stereotypes, one involving an evil empire called the Motherworld, who comes land one day on the small farming village of Veldt asking for demanding food supplies. The evil people do evil things to innocent people because that's what they do in cliches, and it takes only a few dozen minutes before there's an attempted rape on one of the local girls. Why in the world anyone thought this was a necessary plot point is beyond me, then again, it's directed and written by all men so, I dunno. You tell me what that means.

Our protagonist Kora (Sofia Boutella) saves her of course, by killing all the baddies left in the town, so the community decides that, well, better join "the resistance" now, because, cliche. Heading out with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a farmer who may have a lead on someone who'll get them in-touch with "the resistance." The two travel from one empty hull of a set piece to the next, searching for would-be warriors to join their cause in hopes of strengthening "the resistance." And yes, much of this is done in sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwww moooooottttttttiiiiiiiiiooooooooonnnnnnnnnn.

There is an awful lot of money on the screen, but there is not a single interesting character. There is not one piece of interesting dialogue. I counted two interesting moments, though. That's not a typo, there are truly only two genuinely amusing things that happen here, and one is the aforementioned spider woman fight. The other is this little creature who talks through a human host. It exists for the sake of moving the narrative along, still, it was a fun little visual effect in an effort so starved of excitement that I was happy to just have something new to look at.

A bit of interwebs searching brought me to the Rebel Moon wiki, because apparently that's a thing, and it tells me there's going to be a directors cut next year, alongside part 2, and it'll be rated R (this, um, "streaming cut" is PG-13). Considering they didn't have to worry about losing money to teenagers being unable to buy movie tickets (anyone with a non-kids account can probably access this), I suspect this is purely a marketing move. I do not look forward to seeing what other slow motion scenes were cut.

I went into "Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire" with no context, I hadn't even seen the trailer. Had I watched it before, I probably wouldn't have added this to my Netflix watchlist.

Godzilla Minus Zero Review

Finding a screening of the latest installment in the "Godzilla" franchise, "Godzilla Minus Zero," was surprisingly difficult, especially considering I was able to see the last entry, "Shin Godzilla," theatrically twice. Why twice? Because I was so disappointed the first time that I thought, maybe, I had missed something.

Unfortunately, I hadn't.

When I did finally find a matinee (the real way to watch these films in the states, aside from maybe a UHF TV station), I was shocked that my local, usually premium, movie theater had it showing in one of those outdated arenas, one without those now-commonplace leather reclining chairs. It felt cramped and cheap, like the place didn't respect the literal King of the Monsters. All signs point to walking out, again, crestfallen, but I am more than pleased to say I walked out instead in awe.

"Godzilla Minus Zero" achieves the perfect balance of intimacy and spectacle, frequently simultaneously, something the franchise hasn't hit since the 1954 original (and no, not the one with Raymond Burr). Taking place during and after WW2, making this the literal first appearance of Godzilla, the narrative focuses on Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) a kamikaze pilot who cowards out of his mission, landing under the guise of mechanical problems on Odo Island. And like any good film in the series, Godzilla appears shortly after to cause destruction. He's the only gunner on the island, with only mechanics there during the battle, but he freezes behind the trigger, and all hell breaks loose.

But unlike almost every one of its predecessors, the titular monster doesn't just focus on environmental damage, but attacks like a dinosaur out of "Jurassic Park." It's the first time since I was a child that he'd been, for lack of a better word, scary.

Koichi makes it out alive, and is in shock of what happened. He suffers from survivors guilt, in addition to the shock of hearing his hometown was destroyed during the war, his parents killed too. Maybe he should have just done his mission, kamikaze or not. Maybe he'd stop the war. Or at least his mom and dad from dying. It is a dour opening, and a relentlessly cheerless film throughout, but what else could writer/director Takashi Yamazaki do? It's goddamn WW2! He understands what Godzilla means to the medium, and not the sullied reputation that the American dubs have been inflicting since the 50's.

Not long after first arriving, Koichi stumbles into thief Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), who's looking after a newborn her dying mother gave to her. They form an unlikely and mostly platonic relationship, both outcasts and both struggling to keep themselves (and infant Akiko) alive. The laser-focus on so few principal characters means you really get to know these imaginary movie-people, something that Hollywood continues to fail at.

Most of the runtime is dedicated to their survival, and eventual success, which inevitably leads to long stretches of dialogue. Being subtitled instead of dubbed, there are numerous awkward pauses, where scenes linger with a few seconds of needless fat. Possibly a side-effect of the English localization, but as I cannot speak Japanese, I will never know, and I can only review the film I saw.

But that's OK, because it only means that when Godzilla returns to throw another hissy fit, that you root for our main cast. It's a remarkable feat when you consider that you have to not only read the subtitles but quickly glance back to soak up the imagery. In short, I really, really enjoyed "Godzilla Minus Zero." It might not be a perfect film, but it's the perfect "Godzilla" film. It's dark and damn depressing, but without time-travel, talking kaiju, space or gymnastic rubber suits, it perfectly fits the tone Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya intended way back when they first showed the world the cinematic horror of nuclear warfare.

Sly Review

To make a documentary about Sylvester Stallone, honestly probably one of the most recognizable actors alive, and just spend the runtime patting himself on the back seems so, I dunno, disingenuous? I like Sly, I know the impact his "Rocky" and "Rambo" films have meant to cinema, even if they sometimes dip into pure commercialization, but the man is so much more than that. I mean, look at his filmography! He's acted in so many well-deserved bombs and probably even more unappreciated ones that seeing the actor star "soulfully" at all his boxing memorabilia is just so smarmy.

Oh sure, I mean yeah, he does spend some time talking about the infamous "Rocky V," but come on, how the hell did he get tricked into staring in 2018's "Backtrace?" (The "how" is probably more interesting than the movie itself.) Hell, we never even mention how he played the villain in "Spy Kids 3." Maybe he forgot? I didn't.

I said in my review of his latest theatrical film (one of those aforementioned "well-deserved bombs"), "The Expend4bles," and I quote, "I read online that the budget was something like 100 million dollars. Whatever house that bought Stallone must have been nice." And just a few months later in his own ego-stroking documentary, he's moving. I don't recall ever seeing his new house, but his old one certainly looked expensive. I also don't recall him ever saying he's modest.

If there is anything good about the documentary, the one area that feels "real," is the earnest look at his relationship with his father Frank Stallone Sr.. Sky portrays him as a violent man whom he probably hated, it helps show that the Italian Stallion actor is more than the meathead. It is almost heartbreaking to see how long he spent not-quite begging for his dad's approval and how that never really came, until he was on his deathbed and almost-but-not-really made amends. How did this all ultimately affect Sly? Well, he never road horses again. How emotional...

It is also peculiar how we only see infrequent interviews from a handful of others, from the obvious ones like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Talia Shire, to more surprising appearances like Henry Winkler, all they do is say things we already know. Yeah yeah I know, Sly and Arnie had a rivalry in the 80's: who could have the biggest guns, muscles and knives. But what about the troubled production of "Tango & Cash" or "Eye See You?" I'm sure someone who worked on those films could paint a very interesting picture.

I would say I'm the wrong audience for this documentary, since there was seldom a moment where I didn't think to myself "oh I already knew that," but as a fan of the actor himself, I'm of course the right audience. So who the hell is "Sky" for?

On a side note, Netflix also released a documentary earlier this year on Schwarzenegger, which was a three-part series. Dear Stallone, his knife is bigger than yours again.