A Working Man Review

I don't go into an action movie expecting all that much- just give me some good action! And "A Working Man," the second pairing between director David Ayer and star Jason Statham after last year's "The Beekeeper," does deliver the goods: plenty of fights and shootouts, but there's literally nothing else going for it.

Statham has all the elegance of Chuck Norris, who's compact physicality moves across the screen like a barrel of gasoline: ready to explode at any moment at any unlucky chap who happens to be in his way. He commits himself with a level of seriousness that betrays the seriousness of the film itself. "A Working Man's" plot stinks, with a story, based on the 2014 book "Levon's Trade" by Chuck Dixon, which is unread by me, cobbled together without anything other than technical competency.

Statham stars as Levon Cade, a construction worker and former marine who agrees to bring back Jenny (Arianna Rivas), the daughter of his boss (Michael Peña) because he needs the money to fight his father-in-law in court over custody of his own kid, who's blamed Cade for the death of his daughter years ago. You can just see the moths flying out of this musty material.

Cade quickly figures out that Jenny was taken by the Russian Mafia, a plot point only interesting due to Sylvester Stallone, who co-wrote and produced, and his recently announced political leanings, but let's not open that wound, if you wouldn't mind; I'd like to be able to enjoy his filmography of yesterday unsullied by the facts today.

A film this dumb should be self-aware enough to know it's dumb, but "A Working Man" plays everything straight. Not necessarily a bad thing, 2008's "Taken" took itself sincerely but that film had a sense of urgency about it, with Liam Neeson having to find his daughter within a short time window. Cade here? He just strolls around Chicago in his comically large truck, no clear timeline in sight, spying on would-be bad guys at such laughably short distances that it borders on parody; I kept waiting for someone to make some glib remark, but no, Statham is all business (he even wears a suit when pretending to be an up-and-coming drug dealer). I feel silly just typing this all out.

More logical errors come to play with a pair of corrupt cops (Muki Zubis and Alex Bracq), who appear several way too convenient times (a different issue all together). It's fine though, they end up being killed in a shootout, so case-closed right? No need for any character to report them or anything, I bet those were the only two bent officers in the whole force. Yup, nothing to see here.

But action movies are usually only as good as their villains, and while we have a half dozen perps who want Cade dead, there's no real sense in their hierarchy. Oh he killed this guy and now his nephews are upset? Please! Give us one guy, one person we can root for and sit in anticipation for his comeuppance, but alas, all Cade wants is the lowly people who physically did the kidnapped. What gives!?

"A Working Man" ends up being just another workmanlike actioner; the only reason to see this is if you really need to see a Jason Statham movie in theaters and all those better films at home just won't do.

The Electric State Review

Netflix's "The Electric State" is notable for two reasons: this is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the men who directed the completely competent "The Grey Man" for the streaming service a few years ago. Oh, and a few of those little movies in something called "The Marvel Universe." I'm sure you've heard of them.

The second reason? Its budget. The internet tells me this cost north of 300 million bucks. That's a lot of money, enough to make this one of the most expensive flicks of all time, putting this in the company of movies that won't be forgotten when next week's "movie of the week" drops.

Notice how neither reason was for being any good, because it's not. I'm not saying it's bad, just, considering all the talent, both on and behind the screen, not to mention all the moolah, the end-product should be something other than, well, a "product." Cinema should be an experience, and this is just an exercise in wannabe franchise building.

The plot, based on Simon Stålenhag's illustrated novel, has us follow Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a teenager in the 90's, but not the same 90's we all went through: it's told robots (invented by a certain amusement park creator, no less), had been used for decades, doing all the jobs humans don't want to. Only tensions rose where they wanted rights, to be treated fairly. A war breaks out, but a Mr. Skate (Stanley Tucci) creates "drones," which are like robots controlled by humans like a virtual reality video game. This allows the humans to quickly win, and all robots are banished to live within the walls of the desert. It's a novel (heh) premise, but the moral implications here are never answered- instead, we get explosions, battles, sketchy tech billionaires, the works. Sounds more like the news to me.

It's implied at one point by the bots that the humble toaster should have rights; it's supposed to be some level of satire, but let's pretend it's not. Let's pretend, for a moment, that all electrical and mechanical equipment should be equal to anything sentient. Does that mean the humans would have locked up cars? TVs?

And, let's say for a second, that robots have rights. Alright cool, which rights? Do they get maternity leave? Pretty sure a toaster is asexual. Probably best to not think about this.

Anyway, Michelle lives in a foster home, after her parents and brother Chris (Woody Norman) are thought to have died in a car accident a few years prior. She acts like any teenager does in the movies, hating everyone and everything, especially drones. I don't exactly know why she hates this technology, but maybe I was just on my phone, enjoying the luxury of not having to "silence my cellphone."

But one day a noise outside wakes her, and by-golly it's a robot! Communicating exclusively through voice samples of an old cartoon, she realizes that it's really her brother! He explains (non-verbally) that they need to see a "doctor with glasses" in the robot prison, which leads them to meeting up with Keats (Chris Pratt), a trucker who smuggles items lost in the desert. To go on would be to enter spoiler-territory, but then again, anyone who's ever seen a science fiction movie has seen "The Electric State."

In an attempt at creating a backstory, we sporadically see flashbacks of Michelle and Chris, but there's something "off' about the two actors. The brother and sister have this uncomfortable relationship, like they're too close, flirty close. Or maybe I just have a poorer relationship with my family. I kept waiting for them to kiss, like find out they're adopted or something. 

Eh, on second thought my family relationship is better.

The best part are all the cameos: you get a glance at some tertiary character and wonder for the next thirty minutes who it is. "Wait was that Jason Alexander?!" Why yes it is.

My second favorite thing is watching all the unspecial special effects, wondering how in the hell this thing cost so much. Probably all the cameos.

I get it, it's a dystopian adventure, but in a make-believe world where Chris Pratt plays a loser truck driver outside a prison sounds like a wacky cross between John Carpenter's "Big Trouble in Little China" and "Escape from New York," but its prerogative is far less fun or serious. And if you're gonna remind me of stone-cold classics, you'd better bring your A-game. The folks behind "The Electric State" are on barely passing. It's a flick so aggressively mediocre and uninterested in answering its own questions that I ended up watching it in pieces; I almost didn't go back and finish it. That is not a good sign.

But back to how much this whole thing cost, I just can't get over it! You're telling me, in a world the way it is today, that this is the best use of literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Why not invest all that in the future, like donate it to a university where today's young minds could very well create tomorrow?

Unless this is supposed to be some cautionary tale against using bots, but then again, the only thing this cautions against is stale filmmaking.

The Parenting Review

A horror comedy about a gay couple's parents both meeting for the first time is a great idea, especially when they're played by the likes of Lisa Kudrow, Dean Norris, Edie Falco and Brian Cox. But somehow "The Parenting," debuting on streaming service Max, just barely misses its mark. Nothing works here, from the setup to the punchline, the aim is straight but, alas, never hits the target, which is ironic, since almost the entire story takes place in a single location.

Nik Dodani and Brandon Flynn play Rohan and Josh, respectively, a young couple who we meet driving with their dog to a secluded residence they've rented for the weekend. They're very much in love, but the thought of meeting each other's parents is enough pressure, let alone the parents themselves meeting too. Too bad the house is haunted.

The film actually opens in the 1980's, where a mom and her teenage son and daughter are seemingly killed by an unseen entity. It's likely a demon, since the wallpaper is seen peeling from the walls right before the attacks. I'm sure that hurts the resell value.

It turns out the girl and her friend summoned Andras, who both the film and interwebs tells me is a particularly nasty demon with the head of a bird who can control storms, among other things.

Who ya gonna call? Wait sorry, wrong yet infinitely better film.

Anyway, back in the present day. The couple arrives first, greeted by a strange caretaker played by Parker Posey, who may or may not be wearing a wig (spoiler, she is). She gives them a gift basket and the wifi password, then heads out. Well, she draws a circle around the house with a stick, then heads out. Probably nothing to worry about, I mean, free stick! I'm sure the doggo will love the stick- wait never mind, she took it with her. That's what counts as a joke in "The Parenting."

Soon both parents show up, and while Liddy and Cliff (Kudrow and Norris), Josh's folks, are pleasant middle-class people, Sharon and Frank (Falco and Cox), Rohan's adopted kin, are a bit more standoffish. The family frustrations continue into that night, Sharon in particular is upset when she learns that Rohan lied about Josh having a job, though Frank seems more mildly uncomfortable with being there at all; honestly, he gets more worked up about the wifi password not working than anything else.

Ah yes, the wifi password! It's a weird one, a Latin phrase that may or may not welcome a demon in. And wouldn't ya know it, that darn Frank just happens to be just what that demon is looking for. The effects start with him cutting Josh with a bread knife, then walking around naked, erm, excitedly, and eventually tries to kill his wife. The family locks him in a room as they try to figure out just what the heck is going on. There's a lot of screaming at each other, sudden figures dressed in 80's attire attacking, etc., and while there is some chaotic energy to these moments, the dialogue just isn't very funny, and the feeble attempts at jump scares don't scare.

"The Parenting" is a classic example of a film where all the best parts are shown in the trailer, a short minute or two of dissonant clips that promise a better movie. But the remaining ninety-ish minutes are dead air, talented actors struggling to make a bologna of a script be a worthwhile one. And what's so irritating is you can see how this whole thing could be funny, there is no edge to the material. Take, for example, the insinuated insecurities Frank has with his son being gay- until he's possessed, he's just been cold and distant, not homophobic. So is the demon just bigoted, or the dad deep-down? Even if the film answered that, so what? Seeing an old man yell about his homosexual son's purportedly petite penis isn't necessarily humorous, it's just unnecessary.

If you're horror comedy is not going to be funny, you better make sure it's scary. The only scary thing here is that someone thought this was funny.

Plankton: The Movie Review

"Plankton: The Movie" is about as good a movie spinoff, based on the tiny antagonist of one of the longest running animated series of all time ("SpongeBob SquarePants"), can be. It's ostensibly about Plankton (voiced by co-writer Mr. Lawrence) learning the value of marriage, as his egotistical and selfish behavior drove away his computer-wife Karen (voiced by Jill Talley), but it's really just an approximate ninety minute excuse for candy-coated visuals, sight-gags and puns, and I liked it. I sat there on my couch constantly amused, if not all-the-while wondering what the point of all this was.

If you're a fan of the show (and if not, why the hell are you here?), you'll know that Plankton's whole shtick is his obsession with trying to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula from the owner of the Krusty Krab, a one Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), and then conquer the world as cartoon villains do, and the film opens up with his latest attempt. But after twenty five years, Plankton's better half is fed up, not with her husband's lifelong quest at thievery, but about how he doesn't respect her. And after she converts The Chum Bucket, his competing restaurant, into a successful one, he explodes and kicks all the customers out, be it out of jealousy or idiocy I'm not sure. This is her last straw, and she decides not only to leave him but to conquer the world herself; she even nabs the secret formula within a few seconds. Oh what is a little copepod to do?

Karen ends up taking all the metal in Bikini Bottom (where the show's located) to build her world-dominating machine. Plankton is left with an empty plot of seafloor where his eatery once stood, and immediately sets out to rule the world himself; he even ends up tricking SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) into helping him, the naive porous pal thinking he wants to win back his wife. The plot is your usual sugary confetti stuff, but there is a whiff of sophistication in the concept of a children's cartoon character learning to mature and love another. It's not exactly Pixar, but hey, who is?

There's a running joke where SpongeBob hypnotizes Plankton, as he tries to figure out what caused her to leave him, and these were some of my favorite moments: we not only get a bit more backstory in a show about a talking yellow sponge, but frequently a musical number and often an animation change. Part of me wishes the whole thing was one big song-and-dance flashback.

But this brings me to perhaps the biggest failing with "Plankton: The Movie," the animation. Not that it's necessarily bad; it's smooth, zany and filled with the show's personality, but something's off. The textures all look flat, like a feature-length and fully voiced video game that I'm watching someone else play. Its distracting, sterile and distractingly sterile.

It's also worth noting how this (and last year's spinoff "Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie," which is unseen by me) debuts on Netflix, instead of Paramount+, considering they own the property. I imagine money is the reason why giving their own streamer original content wasn't the priority here, which just goes to show you what happens when you let Mr. Krabs run a business.

Kinda Pregnant Review

Netflix's latest comedy "Kinda Pregnant" has one joke, and that's "what if Amy Schumer pretended to be pregnant." It fails the feeble concept with an anemic execution, the kind where for almost 100 minutes you sit surprised on your couch, wondering how a stacked cast like Schumer and costars Jillian Bell, Will Forte and Damon Wayans Jr., among others, fail to take this idea in any interesting direction. No, instead, a make-believe pregnant Amy crashes into a wall, catches her tummy on fire and falls on it twice. Har he har har.

Schumer stars as Lainy, a grade-school teacher who wants nothing more than to be a wife and mother. In fact, she's convinced her longtime boyfriend Dave (Wayans Jr.) is going to propose. Oh he proposes alright, but for a threesome, not marriage. Oh, did I forget to mention that Adam Sandler is a producer?

You can just taste his touch all over this; exactly what a film about pregnancy needs.

Freshly single, she then learns that her coworker and best friend Kate (Bell) is pregnant, which is apparently all it takes for Lainy to don an artificial baby bump, stolen of course, in a fit of jealousy. And when wearing it out one day (I dunno, to "test it out" or something, the ordeal's genesis is pretty murky), she winds up making a new friend (Megan, played by Brianne Howey), who's brother Josh (Forte) is temporarily staying with. But Lainy already knows Josh, having flirted with him at a coffee shop during that all-too brief window in the runtime where she was single but not yet falsely expecting. She likes him and he likes her (culminating in one of the least sexy, or funny, sex scenes I've ever seen), but I'm getting ahead of myself. What matters is she's now in too deep with her lie, and despite knowing she's going to have to eventually come clean, she doesn't until the script demands. If only the script demanded something else, like a punchline that didn't involve swollen body parts, farting or puking, but I digress.

The narrative goes on and on, finding new but never interesting situations for those who know she isn't "with child" to almost cross paths with those who think she, be it at a Toys R Us (gotta get that product placement in), baby shower, or a, er, romantic boat? And when these lives do cross, all she needs to do is make something up quick or just turn her body just so that it doesn't raise any suspicions. You would think the fact that she never looks any more "pregnant" would raise some questions, but then again, the pregnant characters are either thin, big or bigger within the matter of only a few scenes that it's impossible to know the timeline

It's so egregious that a decently funny film would have make a joke about it. Alas, this is not that decently funny film.

What might have been interesting would be if Lainy's parents or something spotted her, for example, but the film firmly establishes her as an only child who's parents died when she was young, so that when her falsehoods inevitably show, she has some level of built-in sympathy. For the make-believe characters that populate this movie I mean, not at all anything that ever resembles any actual human that's ever existed anywhere.

Star Trek: Section 31 Review

I have never consumed a single piece of Star Trek, being more of a Star Wars fan, which makes the newest movie, "Star Trek: Section 31," all the more fascinating to watch; I should have had no idea what was going on, and I didn't, but its fast-pace, good cast, delicious overacting and even better special effects piqued my interest just enough to begin considering binging the media property in earnest. Or maybe I'll just wait for the sequel.

Michelle Yeoh stars as Philippa Georgiou, a name I most certainly had to Google, a sort of gangster who runs a totally legit club somewhere outside Federation space, or so the interest tells me. She's introduced during a flashback, where we see her (played by Miku Martineau as a kid) seemingly returning home from, er, something. Oh that's right, it's a sort of trial to see who'll become the next emperor, and she's got just one final test. What's the test? Oh nothing, just to kill her parents and younger brother (all within the first five minutes of runtime) before her competition San (played as a kid by James Huang and James Hiroyuki Liao as adult). She does, he doesn't, and she's crowned emperor, with San to forever serve as her servant. Talk about a cutthroat competition.

Anyway, Georgiou, having now assumed the name Madame Veronique du Franc (thanks interwebs), is soon approached by Alok (Omari Hardwick) and his team about stopping Dada Noe (Joe Pingue), who's selling a very dangerous weapon. The Godsend in fact, a weapon Georgiou herself had developed and later ordered destroyed. Of course, we wouldn't have much of a movie if it was actually destroyed, or if things went smoothly, so of course the Godsend is stolen, and then a lot more plot happens. In fact, there's probably about 25% too much plotting and 25% too little action plot, with a double-cross, few red herrings, a sabotage or two, all for what amounts to a pretty basic narrative. Still, there's enough good world-building, sets and creatures to keep any scifi fiend amused.  

But you wouldn't know the ultimately decent film this becomes at the start, with director Olatunde Osunsanmi filling the beginning with so much slow-motion that you'd think this hailed from Zack Snyder, including, but not limited to, slow-motion running, hugging, affectionately gazing, ladle pouring, laughing, eating, and oh yes, dying. It was so bad that I began questioning my decision to hit "play" on Paramount+, but I persevered, just for you- we believe in full-service film criticism around here.

He does go on to stage the action competently, so you more-or-less have a clear idea who is throwing which punch or shooting which gun, but then he decides to get all cute and constantly fuddles with the camera while people are talking, walking, or any other basic activity. Swooping left or right, up or down, gliding in all directions so we never get a sense of the environment the heroes, or villains, are in. It's disorientating and completely unnecessary, and feels like a really nerdy, two-hour long music video without, you know, music.

But it's fine. I was surprised at how much I was engaged with "Star Trek: Section 31," as if all the problems made the whole thing more intriguing. I would feel ripped off had I driven to an actual theater and spent actual money on a ticket, all while munching on overpriced candy, but watching from the comfort of my own couch with reasonably priced Junior Mints in hand, it's not bad.

Back in Action Review

The casting of Jamie Foxx, and Cameron Diaz especially, go a long way in keeping Netflix's next franchise wannabe "Back in Action" from being a complete dud; but a pair of effervescent leads can only keep it firmly afloat in "disposable" territory. And that's OK, if it's mid-January, too chilly to go outside and contribute anything to society.

Diaz and Foxx play Emily and Matt, who would look like any other suburban parents had the film not opened to an extended chase over its MacGuffin, a key that can control all sorts of electrical things. Like any James Bond entry, they first infiltrate a terrorist party, escape to a plane only for it to crash, the device seemingly lost in the snowy mountainside. Only it's not nearly as exciting or innovative.

But look at me, I'm getting ahead of myself- that scene was, like, fifteen years ago, and the couple now have two kids, watch HGTV, coach soccer and drive a minivan. Emily pines for her daughter's affection (McKenna Roberts), a fourteen year old who the two catch, alcohol in hand, at some 18 years and over club, and in a moment of blind rage, the former spies take out the creepy men who were pawing over their underage daughter. A bystander and their phone was all it takes for their old enemies, and allies, to track their whereabouts, all looking for this "key," so the family leave the states for London.

Why London? So we can force in an extended cameo by Glenn Close, as Emily's mother Ginny, but no, I swear there's a narrative reason for this outside the "globe-trotting" requisites made genre canon by Eon's adaptations of Ian Fleming's famous operative. See, the bad guys (and good guys) all think our heroes have the device, and, spoiler alert, they do. Or at least did, Matt having hid it at his mother-in-laws before she was legally related to him, unbeknownst to anyone else. 

The rest is your usual action movie stuff, with double-crosses, red herrings and plenty of PG-13 violence. But so what? Just because you have some explosions, gunplay and fights doesn't mean you have an action movie worth seeing. Director Seth Gordon, who also co-wrote it alongside Brendan O'Brien, competently enough films the fisticuffs, things only occasionally looking like janky green screen, but it's all so mindless and meandering. Not bad, just without reason outside the trappings of billing itself an "action spy comedy."

As for the comedy, things fare better, no doubt elevated by Diaz and Foxx's natural comedic timing; the script has a few truly funny scenes, but they're throwaway bits independent from the gobbledygook espionage business. And I can't help but wonder how much male writer/directors know about a mother/daughters relationships, but maybe I'm reading too much into things.

But the best thing here is the return of Cameron Diaz; it's so good to see her back, er, in action, and she has such genuine chemistry with Foxx that you wish this was some silly comedy about former spies, not an action spy movie with some comedy.