The Bluff Review

Ah the swashbuckler film. It's hard to believe it was once a common sight in theaters, bit today, not so much. The last big one was probably 2017's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales," and be honest, do you remember even one scene from it? I know I don't.

But Amazon Prime's "The Bluff" is more "Pirates of the John Wick" than "of the Caribbean," with our heroine moving faster with guns and swords than any swashbuckler I've ever seen.

Priyanka Chopra stars as Ercell, who's husband, T.H. (played by Ismael Cruz Córdova) is at sea searching for a cure for the legs of their physically disabled son Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo). She stays behind to bake him a coconut cake for his birthday (wonder if he wished for his legs to work?), alongside her sister-in-law Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Green) on a quiet coast of the Cayman Brac. Lizzy, as she's called, plans to run away with a boy, but the night of, Ercell awakens to men outside her quaint house. It's, gasp, pirates! 

Little does she know, T.H.'s ship was commandeered by none other than the infamous Captain Connor, and wouldn't you know it, him and Ercell have a bit of a history. He kidnapped her at a young age and turned her into a fellow buccaneer, until one day she stabbed him in the back (er, well, chest) and took off with his money. He's been looking for her ever since, and considering his luck finally finding her, you'd think it was his birthday.

He's played by Karl Urban with a calm intensity that verges on overacting, but that's just the kind a dumb movie like this demands. He knows what kind of picture he's in, whereas everyone else takes their dialogue so seriously as if Francis Ford Coppola was behind the camera instead of Frank E. Flowers.

But back to the plot: Ercell first tries to play dumb when a few greasy men hold a sword to her, but like any modern woman, she makes quick work of them using knifes, chairs, frying pans and her bare fists. Freshly freed, she has Isaac head to light the signal fire to alert the British with Pastor Bradley (David Field), while she tries to locate Lizzy. Most of the island holds up in the local church, while the villains try to find Ercell. And the gold, wouldn't be a pirate movie if there wasn't a gold bounty.

It never explains how Ercell here knows this style of fighting, mind you: oh sure, we're told she's previously a seafaring criminal, but I must have missed the day at school where we learned pirates knew "gun fu."

The fighting is bloody and frequent, but it rarely thrills. It's also way too dark, which is especially a problem during the back-half of the runtime with a bulk of the action taking place in a murky, dingy cave. I had all my blinds down and I still struggled. And the problem wasn't my TV, it was obviously a stylistic choice- some scenes are draped in total blackness, the only light coming from the barrel of the gun. When I could see what was going on, it was fine, I guess, I just don't know why the filmmakers didn't want me to see more of it.

The "John Wick" movies, the obvious inspiration here, had almost a sense of humor to them, as if they acknowledged the inherent silliness of killing a man with a book through his mouth. But "The Bluff" fails to find such giddy pleasure with its mayhem, it's just violent to justify its "R" rating. It adds little new to the action thriller genre outside what costumes everyone wears and the occasional use of cannons.

Scream 7 Review

You either die a satire of dumb slasher films, or live long enough to become one. And unfortunately that is what "Scream 7" is. This is a lame movie, filled with too many characters, too many callbacks, too many conveniences and a chronic lack of intelligence.  

Neve Campbell returns as Sidney, who's living a quiet life in a small Indiana town with her daughter Tatum (Isabel May) and her husband Mark (Joel McHale), the chief of police. She runs a coffee shop (like all mass-murderer survivors naturally do), when she gets a phone call claiming to be from Stu (Matthew Lillard), who fans might recognize as the deceased killer from the first film way back in 1996. (And if you think that's a spoiler, then you clearly haven't checked out the film's IMDB page, but I digress.) Then he video calls her, claiming to be at her daughter's school where she's at theater rehearsal. Good thing she's married to a cop, who sends over all available units, her rushing over as well, but apparently this little town is soooo big that Ghostface is able to kill two students before anyone shows up before disappearing. That rascal.

Tatum is distraught that she just lost a friend, and the cops question everyone who was there. This leads to the only clever line of dialogue, spoken by Tim Simons as the theater director: "she didn't even have an understudy!" But please, one cinematic issue at a time.

Sidney immediately suspects everyone, but especially Tatum's boyfriend (Sam Rechner), for no reason other than he's a boy who has an interest in her daughter. Well, that's not entirely true: he's good with computers, and they can't rule out Stu's call being a deepfake. There's a lot of talk of AI in the script, which, instead of being used to seriously discuss its inherit dangers, or do anything interesting with it, just sounds like it wrote the damn thing. I mean, just think of the possibilities: maybe they could have falsified a video of someone killing someone else, or maybe have the good guys use it to confuse the killers? And that's just off the top of my head, and I'm not even a screenwriter!

A lot has been said about Neve Campbell returning to the role of Sidney, which she famously bowed out of the previous picture over a pay dispute. I'm glad they gave her a butt-load of money, but was this dismal entry worth hurting her legacy? At least when Jamie Lee Curtis returned for the seventh "Halloween" entry, "Halloween H20," the film ended up decent. Not here.

Series veteran Kevin Williamson returns as co-writer (alongside Guy Busick) and graduates to director for the first time for the franchise, but boy howdy is the directing shoddy. The camera flailing around during the many attacks so you never have a clear idea what's happening, the only indication that Ghostface plunged the knife into someone being the subsequent shot of him peering over a corpse. 

And for a film filled to the brim with murders, only one showcased any inspiration; I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say, I'll never drink beer from the tap again without thinking of it. But the setup is unfocused, and the execution is sloppy, the actual "kill" looking obviously like a dummy. It's not even a good shot, just a good kill. The only good shot happens early and involves a stage play, but that is just one scene in an entire film.

That's to say nothing of the fact that the daughter is in a play to begin with playing a dog, even. Actually, all her and her friends are, despite everyone wearing cool clothes, having perfect hair and skin. I mean, sure, maybe that would happen, but back in my day, those were the kids everyone else made fun of.

And then there is the writing, which relies on nostalgia instead of pushing the medium forward. Old characters are introduced to get a paltry few claps from a certain audience, but man are they running out of legacy cast members to bring back. The first film had characters who were relatively smart, at least intelligent enough to have seen a few horror movies before and learn from them. But fond memories are all he has, unable to drum up any suspense, relying on ye olde trope of having people go where they shouldn't, never calling the cops and never sticking together as a group. You'd think they'd be able to learn from their own damn movies! (You would also think, after so many murders happen, that cops would be crawling all over the place, but nope, nothing to see here, officer. )

I'll give and example: later on, after a few slicing and dicing, Sidney cries over the phone to her daughter, under attack from the masked villain, yelling she needs to "shoot him in the head." Great advice, something I often think characters should do when I watch these kinds of movies, but because it'd all be over too soon, we need to have Tatum hesitate, gun literally in-hand, so that the killing spree can go on just a wee bit longer. It's just all so laughable, the franchise edging dangerously close to toppling over into parody; you could have easily called this "Scary Movie 6." At least I wouldn't feel bad chuckling at it.

And then there's the ending, where the killer's (or killers, I'll never tell!) motives are revealed. This is the franchise's famous trick, and while I admit I did not predict it, it also made absolutely no sense. I sat thinking to myself "who's that again" and then "wait that's the reason?!" The whole thing reeks of rewrites, reshoots and reedits, which of course probably happened given its infamously troubled production history, but you'd think with so many cooks in the kitchen that they'd come up with something tasty, even if accidentally.

The Strangers - Chapter 3

"The Strangers - Chapter 3" is not so-bad-it's-good. It's not so-bad-it's-bad either. There's a chance, no matter how slight, that I could have enjoyed it that way. Instead, it's so-bad-it's-boring, barely able to register as a movie only because it features what are supposed to be actors doing what is supposed to be acting in front of a camera. I would love to tell you I sat in my reclining leather chair fuming with frustration, or a smile crept onto my face at its overall absurdity, but no. My body refused to give up even a single emotion, this doesn't deserve any.

This is just an unpleasant cinematic experience, but I couldn't bare give this zero stars, simply because it didn't earn the notoriety that comes with such a rating. So as to congratulate the actual onscreen bloodshed, as uninspired as it is, you get one half instead. Movie, I hope you're happy with yourself.

Madelaine Petsch returns as Maya, fresh off of the events from "Chapter 2," after one of the three masked assailants was killed in a car crash. She watches on from behind a tree in the misty woods as the other two examine her body, pick it up and haul it away in their beat-up pickup. She quickly runs in the opposite direction and finds herself at an empty church. In true horror-movie stupidity, she leaves the door open behind her and, I kid you not, begins to play the organ until one of the killers arrives unmasked (Gregory, played awkwardly by Gabriel Basso). It, apparently, never occurred to her to hide or look for weapons or, gasp here's an idea, look for help before his arrival. Gregory isn't there to attack her, I can only assume because it is a place of worship, but that implies a set of rules the film isn't interested in establishing. They share a shot of alcohol and tells her to leave. What. The. Hell..

She almost immediately runs into the creepy sheriff (Richard Brake) in his SUV, who she suspects is "in" on the murders. She tricks him to exit the vehicle, with it running I might add, and speeds off. He looks on wearily, as if he expected this. Now, I imagine anyone in this situation would drive off to another town for help, but not our Maya. She decides, while driving at night and pumped full of adrenaline, to take her eyes off the winding road, rummaging through the passenger-side for, something. So, of course, she crashes into a tree, and a hooded Gregory almost instantly appears and kidnaps her, again. Why don't they just kill her and end the collective audience's misery? Maya actually does this so many times, where she could easily escape but doesn't, that the only possible explanation is that she must like the thrill of the hunt. Stockholm syndrome, maybe? Ha, like this film would even know how to spell either of those words.

But I know the answer: Gregory, alongside the surviving serial killer woman, are hoping she'll go to their side and become their new "third" person in their murder party. This other woman, portrayed by Ella Bruccoleri, the internet tells me is named Jasmine, but I can't recall it actually ever being spoken, but I digress. Maya, for absolutely no reason, doesn't fight back here, at least not until Greg uncomfortably forces the deceased killer's mask on her and begins to simulate a kiss through their facewear. He storms off and slams the door when she rejects his advances, and the next thing we know, all three are in the truck, searching for new victims. All three have their masks on, but why Maya doesn't like, I dunno, yell or scream or do something to attract attention to her unfortunate situation, isn't in the cards for Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland's screenplay. Director Renny Harlin didn't seem to mind, either.

In fact, the only time something resembling an actual plot occurs is when Maya's sister Debbie, her husband and their I think hired bodyguard show up to town and confront the locals at the diner. (Rachel Shenton, George Young and Miles Yekinni, respectively.) No one is freely giving up much, and here is the only time the narrative picks up any momentum. A missing girl, suspect cops and shady townspeople could, at the hands of literally any other collection of filmmakers, make for an intriguing film. Sadly, the threat of resembling competency forces the three out-of-towners to almost immediately be led out into the dark of night, in the middle of nowhere to be attacked and killed off. What was the point of even writing them in?

But now, I know what you're thinking: this movie is bonkers! Just in proofreading my own review I couldn't help but think this was a more interesting motion picture than it really is. But trust me, not only is it more monotonous than it sounds, it will no doubt drag your opinion of what a truly "bad" movie is.

Just by pure coincidence, I happened to watch his 1993 film "Cliffhanger." One of many "Die Hard" clones from decades ago, I sat there today struck at just how decent a director he can be when someone, an actor, writer, producer- anyone, cares even the slightest about the job at hand. I get he hasn't made a decent movie since the 90's, but man, as the director of this entire trilogy, he is such a hack. I can only hope once the cameras stopped rolling this time, he takes time to reflect back on his career, and then swap it.

Inexplicably committed to the lowest common denominator with a story featuring all the dramatic heft of an episode of Degrassi, "The Strangers - Chapter 3" is less interesting than reading the dictionary. At least then I might come across a dirty word.

The Wrecking Crew Review

Eschewing a theatrical release in favor of an Amazon Prime debut, "The Wrecking Crew" asks audiences to suspend their disbelief so many times- not just in the way it depicts a helicopter crashing into a bridge, but in how we're supposed to accept that Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa could be brothers. Well, estranged half-brothers, to be more specific, but that doesn't help make them look any less related.

As the film opens, we see Walter Hale (Brian L. Keaulana) being followed in a crowded Hawaiian street. Knowing he's being tailed, he quickly makes his way to a mailbox, rushing to drop off something before he's killed in a seemingly accidental hit-and-run. Of course, in a movie called "The Wrecking Crew," the cops find it totally normal that the street cameras were not functioning that night and there were no witnesses. The local police must have never seen a movie before. 

As a private detective, Walter wasn't too good a father through the years, so much so that when his son James (Bautista) is called to identify the body, he doesn't want to let his forsaken sibling Jonny (Jason Momoa) know. It's probably for the best: where as James is a tough-as-nails Navy officer, Jonny is a drunk cop, suspended (with pay, much to his own surprise) for excessive force. He's invited and initially declines to attend the funeral, but after the Yakuza attacks him at his home in Oklahoma, looking for a mysterious package, he decides something doesn't smell right. Could be that he used a cheese grater to shred the skin off of one of the assailants, I can only imagine how long it'd take to get that odor out.

James and Jonny are quick to exchange insults, a common element throughout the runtime, but Jonathan Tropper's script seems to mistake four-letter words as clever retorts; by the third dozen or so f-word, it stopped being cute and ended up a distraction. There isn't a single line of creative dialogue- places where someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger would quip like "let off some steam" or something, has been replaced with heavy sighs, burps and expletives. The sacred art of dumb action movie screenwriting is a lost one, apparently.

A buddy-cop genre picture needs two contrasting heroes, and despite having two towering lumps of muscle, to the actors' credit, they are quite different here. Momoa is a slob, his hair looking like it only gets washed when it rains. He's kind of unhinged, unlike the up-tight Dave, who lumbers about with all the physical grace of a late-era Sylvester Stallone.

The local police sergeant (Stephen Root) is dismissive of the two meat-heads unfounded accusations of some larger conspiracy, which of course there is one. This means the two must learn to put aside their differences and stop the boilerplate plot that involves everything from legalizing casinos, the Hawaiian home lands, corrupt property developers and corrupt politicians (and of course the Yakuza); "Double Impact" crossed with "Moana," if you will.

The production values are quite high here, which helps elevate this well-worn material. Director Ángel Manuel Soto has a sure hand behind the camera, which helps keep the 122 minute length feeling shorter with a good number of action set-pieces. The hand-to-hand combat is a particular highlight. It is frequent, creative and well-shot: you always can tell who is punching who and from where, set in locations from a bathroom to a kitchen to a long hallway to a boat dock. I liked it, even if the film never explains why the two brothers know how to fight like this. Isn't Jonny just some disgraced cop? And what of James? Just because he's in the Navy? What is he, one of the Village People? I gotta calm down, here.

There is some shoddy CGI, sadly, one extended chase involving a minivan and a chopper looks unfinished, with characters flailing about without the weight of a real person. Having the scene take place at night, so the not-so-special effects would be obscured a bit would have been a wiser choice than the bright, sunny middle-of-the-day the filmmakers went with. Oh well.

I also couldn't shake this undercurrent of misplaced misogyny; the various women characters exist as either eye-candy, damsels-in-distress or expendable. I get that this is a candy store of testosterone, but somethings are better left in the 80's.

"The Wrecking Crew" isn't great, but I didn't hate it. Bautista and Momoa almost have chemistry, and considering neither of them have been able to strike it rich with a movie that isn't part of a larger franchise, mashing the two together could have been a whole lot worse.

Shelter Review

It's winter, which means it's time for a Jason Statham movie. What's different this time? Well, um, he has to protect a girl. Talk about range.

"Shelter" is mercifully better written and directed than "A Working Man," his stinker last year, but it is missing the gleeful silliness of "The Beekeeper." It occupies a sort of awkward middle ground between the two, which, should satisfy the star's undemanding fans.

Statham plays Mason, a man with so little backstory, IMDB doesn't even list his whole name (which is Michael Mason, for what its worth). Living reclusively on an island lighthouse, his only interaction being a weekly supply-drop by a young girl and her uncle. One particular day, a storm is coming in over the ocean, she confronts Mason, curious as to why they're always delivering to him, who is he is, that sort of thing. He sends her away, and that slight delay is just enough for the weather to turn violent, capsizing the boat. Mason rushes in to try and save them, but only she survives, walking away with an injured ankle and some swallowed water.

The young woman's name is Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who wonderfully balances grief, innocence and naivety), and she awakens distraught at the news of the death of her only living relative. But Ward Parry' script doesn't wait around for character development like a normal movie, this is a Jason Statham movie, and once today's equivalent to Chuck Norris heads into town to pick up some medical supplies for her, a camera picks up his face and is immediately flagged as a terrorist, and thus begins what all the middle aged men I saw in the theater today came for. (It takes way too long for the action to pick up, ten or so minutes of fluff a script like this doesn't know what to do with.)

This leads to the core narrative of illegal surveillance, with Bill Nighy as Manafort, formerly high-ranking in MI6 until a "blick and you miss it" scene where he steps down amidt allegations of government overreach, as well as Mason's former employer. A running story element is how all cameras (car, phone, etc.,) can be tapped to spot Mason, a timely but untapped thought that just had me wondering why he hasn't ever heard of a hoodie. But I digress.

Nighy adds some gravitas to the production, but the academy-award nominated actor has less to do than a book would on the set; he leads a cover-up of Mason's defection ten years ago, after he disobeyed orders, and is trying to have him killed. This never really amounts to anything but a clotheline for Statham's rampage to be justified on. And now that Jesse is involved, she's expendable, and the film becomes a rescue mission to get her out of the country.

There isn't much else here, either; Naomi Ackie stars as Roberta, another MI6 official who is immediately suspicious of Manafort, but her involvement and skepticism goes nowhere. There's no closure on this whole corruption plot, leaving us with your standard shootouts and grunts who continue to prove no match for our English action star.

Director Ric Roman Waugh does a decent job filming the fisticuffs at least, but every inspired set-piece (like a nightclub late in the runtime) is followed by a murky fight on a dimly lit dock. But any goodwill he is able to get on film, he's let down by frantic editing that makes it hard to fell what's going on. Worst of all, he commits cinema's biggest sin: he lets a dog die! And unlike the film's obvious inspiration "John Wick," it doesn't have any greater meaning on a character's pathos. It's just an unpleasant scene, in which a dog, gets shot. This is one shelter not worth taking.

The Rip Review

Any film headlined by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck should be a lot fresher, wittier and exciting than it is in Netflix's "The Rip." A new crime thriller about dirty cops and a big ol' pile of the cartel's cash, writer/director Joe Carnahan populates the picture with too many red herrings, too much style and practically no substance. 

And that's a real shame, I mean, look at that cast! But instead of character development, everyone has a motive, and it's often just greed. Why is it always money? I mean, in one instance it's revenge, but that's it? It's about as boring as Affleck looks here and in those memes I sometimes see of him on the interwebs.

The famous duo star as lieutenant Dane and sergeant J.D., under investigation when their police captain is killed in the opening scene. We see her gunned down by two assailants, their faces obscured by the night and masks, her just barely getting out a mysterious text before they take the final shot. Her small team is grilled by FBI agents, one of which is J.D.'s brother, and the two exchange expletives as well as fists. The sibling is played by action veteran Scott Adkins, who's wasted here with about two scenes and handful of perfunctory lines; he deserves more and it's high-time Hollywood realizes.

But back to the plot. Right after everyone's shift, Dane announces he got a crimestopper tip on some illegal dough stashed away in some house, and the group heads off for some unpaid overtime. (Where's the union when you need one?) In a messy house smack-dab in the middle of a cul-de-sac, where the entire neighborhood seems abandoned. They trick resident Desi (Sasha Calle) into letting the team in under the guise of looking for drugs, which she claims there aren't any. Well, aside from marijuana, but hey, it's 2026, who cares about the devil's lettuce?

Once inside, sure-to-be-star Wilbur the Money Dog (played by, you guessed it, Wilbur The Dog), soon sniffs something out in the attic. Desi continues to claim she doesn't have any narcotics, until she realizes he's tracking moolah. Dane says the tip was only for a few hundred thousand bucks, but what they find is something just north of twenty million. Something isn't adding up. That or someone is as bad at math as I was in grade school (the age the filmmakers are clearly aiming for).

Things escalate when Dane isn't following protocol and ignoring J.D.'s concerns. Who is not who they say they are? Why do some local badges show up, and why does J.D. recognize one? The film asks a million questions, answering them with more vagaries until the very end when the key players are in an armored truck. Problem is, the scenarios are so standard, and the resolutions so routine.

"The Rip" contains far fewer fisticuffs and gunplay than its trailer would suggest- the camera shrouding everything in a noir-esque shadow, giving the folks at home watching reason to suspect everyone. But films about bent police officers, double crosses and a butt-load of cash are a dime-a-dozen, and this is ultimately just a glossy, not to mention expensive, regurgitation of cliches and stereotypes.

But I am a pushover for material like this! I should be able to look over a flaw or two, but Carnahan seemingly is unable, or uninterested, in challenging either the genre or its audience with anything truly inspired. You'd think a leading cast featuring no fewer than two other acclaimed writers, and one acclaimed director, would have known better.

What's even more strange, while the man behind the camera does know how to make a truly great shot (a garage shootout with hazy green lights is a particular highlight), he can't seem to keep himself from getting all cute with technique and style. The climax, which I won't spoil, is so poorly shot with too much darkness and edited with too many cuts that I could only tell who was punching who because I've seen other films.

Greenland 2: Migration Review

"Greenland 2: Migration" is probably as good a sequel to a disaster film can be: the principal cast returns, (Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin as John and Allison Garrity, respectively) as does all the family drama, societal disintegration and special effects. Compared to the first "Greenland," seeing the latter on the big-screen mostly satisfies.

Taking place in the bunker from the original, years have passed and supplies are dwindling, the neighboring Earth either destroyed or inhospitable due to radiation from the meteor that crashed all those years ago. The Garrity's live in one of several bunkers throughout the world, so we get the obligatory scenes in a picture like this about where the survivors can possibly all travel to to avoid starvation. In a likely unintentional twist of current events, some of the countries are fighting each other (here over the site of the crash), where Dr. Casey Amina (Amber Rose Revah) believes that life can begin anew, free from the poisons polluting the air. She compares the theory to the time of dinosaurs at one point, which just made me wish a giant T-Rex showed up too, but alas, that never happens.

But it doesn't take long for, ahem, disaster to strike again: an earthquake destroys their safe-haven, everyone trying desperately to escape. Masks are a premium, as the air is eventually toxic, and John has his stolen during this initial chaos as everyone eyes one of the limited escape ships that washed up ashore recently. They dock in what used to be England, a partially flooded hellscape where the military patrols that country's bunker from non-government personnel. One just needs to watch the news in real-life to guess what happens.

The original, released during 2020 in the heat of the pandemic, and yet somehow six years later, scenes of this civil unrest play out far too hauntingly, and unfortunately, relatable. Even the film's title country is in the news.

A lot more happens, including a particularly effective scene where the family needs to cross a gaping valley on makeshift ladders and ropes, but John's been hiding a secret: he's sick, and it's not the kind that's curable. He claims he has just six to eight weeks from the time he begins coughing up blood, and while I won't spoil what ultimately happens to our aging action star, Butler is quite good here. His performance is one of exhaustion, reluctantly putting himself into situations to save his family, but never appearing bored with the role.

His son Nathan, played now by Roman Griffin Davis, remains diabetic like before, but aside from a throwaway line about "packing all the insulin he can grab," it never comes up or interrupts the small group's mission to the crater. There are a few other inconsistencies (like how the scattered survivors never show any obvious signs of radiation), but "Greenland 2: Migration" is consistently engaging, frequently thrilling and occasionally timely.