The Mongoose Review

Rob Schneider is "The Mongoose." Naw just kidding, as if I'd see a film staring that guy today. (Or any day for that matter.)

Liam Neeson actually stars in the new movie called "The Mongoose," whose name is Ryan "Fang" Flanagan, which has got to be his most ridiculous name since portraying a guy named "Coxman" in 2019's "Cold Pursuit-" wonder if that's his full government name?

But I digress. In true Neeson fashion, his character is a decorated former army captain clearly suffering from PTSD. His wife, the always wonderful Marisa Tomei, divorces him over his refusal to seek help for his sufferings, despite the two still very much being in love. He lives his days drinking and, well, this isn't the kind of picture that really gives anyone much backstory other than their favorite drink.

Now there's plot: Ryan gets a call that his exes current lover has struck her, and since he's such a good guy, he promises to go and get her belongings. But wouldn't you know it, he ends up in getting a gun pulled on him, a brawl ensues that leaves him wounded and the other guy in a puddle of his own blood. If there was ever a time to call the police it'd be now, but Ryan knows he's a powerful guy, a lawyer I think with plenty of connections at the station, so he flees the scene in a stolen car.

But not just any car, oh no, specifically a Ford Mustang Shelby Super Snake. Car guys all the around the world just let out a collective moan. Ryan crosses over from Kentucky and ends up in Texas, where a scenery-chewing Michael Chiklis runs the cops as a sorta throwback to the tobacco chewing hick cops from 70's Hollywood, only Thompson Evans' script is either too smart or too dumb to lean into the racial stereotypes.

Much of the film has everyone's favorite Irish actor buckled into a car seat, leaning left, right or sometimes even forward(!) as he turns he turns the steering wheel. That runs the rrisk of having the film to end up, ahem, running on fumes, but the narrative has Ryan to have flashbacks to his time as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan. He's supposed to be I think twenty years younger, but instead of recasting, digital de-aging or clever camera angles, they just have him grow out his beard- the first time I saw him like this I had to contain my laughter. Can't have the surprisingly full theater of geriatrics judging me.

I read on the interwebs that "The Mongoose," though set in America, was actually filmed in Australia, which I'm sure is obvious to anyone, erm, lucky enough to ever walk into the Lonestar State, but it didn't bother me. Hell, I also read in the same article that Neeson doesn't actually do the driving! The movie magic, it's-it's gone!!

The director Mark Vanselow has previously had been the star's longtime stunt coordinator and double, and he makes his directorial debut here. He's actually pretty good. Most of the stunts appear practical, with only the rare moment of CGI jank to take you out of the moment, and if there's ever a trend that needs to return to modern cinema it's that one. "The Mongoose" may not make much sense and not do anything to move the road movie subgenre forward, but it's easily Neeson's best pure action film in years.

Worth noting that, despite the similar setting, this is not a sequel to Neeson's 2023 film "Retribution. If I had a dime for every Liam Neeson action movie where he's in a car most of the time, then I'd have two dimes, which is simultaneously not much and a lot.

Street Fighter Review

Legendary director Howard Hawks is credited with saying that the key to a good film is having "three good scenes and no bad ones." Well, this year's "Street Fighter" is all bad ones, except of course for all the awful ones.

There's specific kind of enjoyment one gets from terrible films, and while I don't quite think that the filmmakers were onto something, they most definitely were on something.

Based on the popular video game series of the same name by the company Capcom. A one-on-one fighter where players have a certain amount of time to kick the snot out of their opponent, and would you be surprised that this (the somehow third!) adaptation has a plot? Some narrative purpose is actually a good thing, helping set up the reason behind the mayhem, but there's way too much here and all it does is get in the way.

I mean, the whole point, the whole point of the series is to fight, so what do I care about M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) and his plot to hold the second World Warrior tournament, trick Ken (Noah Centineo) into the event as so to coax his estranged "brother from another mother" (and country) Ryu (Andrew Koji) out of hiding? What value do I get from this entire enterprise so the bad guy can take the good guy's powers? Ah, but you see, his powers are actually evil powers! Ooh so sophisticated...

It's so frustrating since just when these colorful cast of characters begin to smack each other around, the film cuts to Interpol agents, at least three characters with daddy issues, male bonding, anachronistic music, lots of people drinking, an odd amount of foot dialogue, Eric André trying his damnedest to be funny, hotdog jokes, and, wait, isn't this supposed to be about Street Fighter?

Rounding out the rest of the cast includes everyone from Cody Rhodes to Jason Momoa to even Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, and their performances range from overacting, underacting, good acting, bad acting and sometimes even non-acting. It certainly looks like a group that'd be fun to be on set with, but just hiring eclectic actors for the stunt of it doesn't mean it was a good idea.

"Street Fighter" is wrong-headed from beginning to end, so misguided and chronically unexciting and unamusing that it doubles over on itself and becomes fascinating in its bad excess and excess of badness. I was never bored during the nearly two hour long flick, but it's hard to really come around to properly enjoy something where almost all the characters speak in either screams or cliches.

Director Kitao Sakurai shoots much of the film with these awful closeups, so much so that you can never get a proper sense of scale of the action. I know its set in 1993 but in our 1993? Where are the cops? Why does the government only secretly get involved? And, more importantly, where is the fun? A lot of fists fly to be sure, but their impact lacks impact, like a spoon slapping jello. But don't worry, the limpless battle will soon be interrupted by more story so that we can formally setup a sequel.

Crawlers Review

I don't know what it is about apartment buildings and killer spiders, but that is apparently what's hot in B-movie land. But where 2024's "Sting's" budget failed its own ambition, this year's "Crawlers" knows exactly what it is and has just enough money to mostly realize it. This is a thoroughly goofy creature feature that, what it lacks in honest characters it more than makes up for it a cast with wacky characteristics. That goes for the evil spiders too.

The film begins with a text crawl about spiders, whether or not they're factual or not I don't know, but it amusingly ends with the text "there's probably a spider underneath your seat." Then an overweight guy returns from a business trip, ill from a real bad looking wound on his shoulder. He probably should have gotten it checked out, but instead decided to microwave some pizza, you know, because he's fat. Then he passes out on the ground and little, itty-bitty little eight-legged bugs escape from his flesh. There's no explanation as to where he went or why he was bit, but who cares? Let's get on with the monster mash!

Matilda Lutz stars at Serena, an aspiring musician who works at her apartment building as the maintenance manager. She hates it and the other tenants hate her too, especially since she had to hand out the owner's rent increase. I immediately sympathized with her and immediately hated the others, and was worried that the film wasn't going to be able to make me care what's going on, especially with its hour and twenty one minute runtime. The script, credited to Jayson Rothwell, doesn't spend much time fleshing anyone out, but it does give us just enough time to see one live-stream himself paintballing wall art. Another tinkers with computers while flirting with his AI girlfriend. It's all just so odd and unexpected that I began enjoying them and their silliness. But I still definitely wanted to see them turn into spider chow.

And boy do the little buggars eat. Hardly any time passes before the entire building is covered in their webs, but it wouldn't be a monster movie if the characters noticed right away. It's Serena who first notices the dead body, the source of the infestation, and the government quickly quarantines the building, no one in or out until scientists can determine the cause of death. Phone lines are eventually cut as is the internet, I think because the people in hazmat suits don't want the people to talk to anyone on the outside, but there's no way for them to report an emergency so I dunno. It's almost as if the filmmakers needed a way to force everyone out of their rooms to encourage the spiders to the attack. But this isn't the kind of movie where one is supposed to ask those kind of questions.

The body count swiftly rises as the creepy crawlies literally crawl out of every which way, but way before the characters notice the spiders, we the audience have noticed them long before. We see them sneak around the walls, creeping behind everything from the toilet paper to the TVs. There's one scene where an arachnid hides in a bag of chips, and we see both the person's and spider's point-of-view.

The cockeyed script bodes beautifully with Angel Gómez Hernández's snappy direction. "Crawlers" is filled with interesting camera angles and packed with environmental fake-outs. Take, for example, a leaky pipe in the building's lobby- I kept waiting for a character to be sprinting to what they think is their safety, only to slip and fall in the pool of water collecting. But that's not what happens here. Instead, the water grows and the puddle creeps over to the breakers to short the electricity. See someone puffing on a cigarette? A lesser film would follow that up with the hero creating a makeshift flamethrower, but no, not "Crawlers." Instead we get BDSM whips slapping spiders into paste, and it is glorious.

Resident Evil Review

The world probably doesn't need another "Resident Evil" film reboot, but at least this time they got the plotting right. Director Zach Cregger (who also wrote the script with Shay Hatten) doesn't bother adapting any of the video games, instead focusing on a simple "what if." Considering the franchise's plot is so outrageously wack, even to its biggest fans, that's probably for the best.

The story follows Bryan, an unambitious medical courier who takes a last-minute job. It pays double because of how far away he has to go- he has to go all the way to Racoon City. He wants the money, even if it means he'll be home late, where his pregnant girlfriend wants "to talk" about what to do with the baby. I imagine he hopes if he's out long enough she'll fall asleep and they can just talk tomorrow; Bryan is not the kind of guy who thinks that far ahead.

In his illequipped Subaru, Bryan struggles to keep a good pace on the icy roads, his girlfriend mad that he is still not home and has bad reception. If you're wondering just what the heck this has to do with "Resident Evil," don't worry, because the filmmakers are wisely getting the setup out of the way so they can highlight the mayhem to come. He accidentally runs over a woman who stumbled into the street, and as it turns out, our poor protagonist does not exactly handle emergencies well. And that's putting it mildly.

He finds her off on the side of the road, bleeding and paralyzed. He figures he'll drop her off at the hospital since that's his destination, ultimately, especially since he can't get ahold of the police. What luck then, it is that one pulls him over for swerving recklessly. The cop's radio is down as well, so he takes the girl and escorts him to the hospital. Or so that's the plan.

Things do not go as planned. In fact, they almost immediately hit the fan. Soon after some more plot, Bryan's attacked by the woman, a dog with a surprise its own, then another person, who end up combining with the other into a grotesque, somersaulting mass of fleshy disgust. It chases him through a tunnel and into the mammal-inspired town, getting bit himself in the process. I wouldn't worry, I'm sure it's just a flesh wound.

Things just keep growing more and more out-of-hand once Bryan enters the city, too. Attacking rats, zombies jumping off of rooftops, even evil babies! The man just can't catch a break. And it's in this narrative simplicity that "Resident Evil" succeeds. Expected scenes filled with flat characters and forced dialog are replaced by dark corners, dimly lit sewers and pulsating blobs of bloody bodies. Dariusz Wolski's cinematography is a gift, and Cregger exploits it to its fullest effect.

Bryan is played by Austin Abrams, who gives a wonderfully interesting and askew performance. He's cowardly, insecure and awkward, lacking tact and force in pretty much every of the many situations he stumbles headfirst into. It's fun to watch someone constantly and consistently be in over their head; he never develops the confidence lesser scripts often suddenly give their heroes, and Abrams is charming in his own, offbeat way that the sometimes imbecilic decisions he makes don't distract.

It's not perfect, however. The men behind the camera wanted to finish with an unexpected, somber twist, but it disrespects the relationship I built up with Bryan through his journey through literal hell. He deserves better, and so do audiences.

The Runner Review

"The Runner," which came out this weekend, is unrelated to "Runner, which comes out next weekend. Both are action thrillers, but only the former has Gal Gadot in yoga pants doing a lot of running. So if sweat-drenched workout clothes are your thing, then I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my site being in your browser history alongside whatever else you look at. You sicky.

Gadot stars as Maia, a successful laywer who's latest client is about to link some big crime lord to a double-homicide of two young women. The trial date is today, and what better way to prepare then to go on a run. After dropping her diabetic son off at school, she has hardly broken a sweat when she gets a call from his phone. But it's not her offspring on the other end, but a mysterious man. She naturally doesn't believe him, until she hears her son say this nice unknown man is going to take him out for ice cream. Someone clearly hasn't ever seen an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and it shows.

What does the caller want? He wants her to shoot her client, so that his employer can walk free. He gives her rules, like not talking to anyone, must travel by foot, but most pressing is a short one hour time limit, or else her son will die. Oh, violence against kids, is there anything more tasteless?

So she races off. It's a good few miles to the hotel where her client awaits the courts, and every single gimmick you can think of, so did writer Mark Gibson. Someone steals her phone, she gets hit by a car, she falls down, the works. She also breaks every rule she's given, though it mostly ends up as an excuse for her to run inside a train, and then on the train tracks. At one point, the caller tells her "rules are meant to be broken." Then why even bother with the rules in the first place?!

For a film Amazon Prime claims is an action thriller, there is very little action. Most of the runtime consists of Maia running in the crowded streets of London, while talking to the unknown man through her headphones. You would think some bystander would hear her conversation and contact the authorities, and the script's answer is to have every single person in the city glued to their phones. Well, except the homeless. And the cops. And children, oh and a priest, because the filmmakers decided we needed little detour in a church. Just what all films need.

I will say, the creative and relentless way things just keep happening to our heroine is amusing, and I did find myself wondering just what else they could possibly throw at her. Director Kevin Macdonald shows some flair by having us see Maia running from behind, then through a shop window, or from a distance, though the camera did seem to linger a bit too long on her backside at times. Then he gets in his own way by periodically showing Gadot's face in this awkward freeze-frame, and I'm sorry, but she simply isn't a strong enough actress to carry emotions, or scenes, by her mug alone. This is a woman whose only kid is being threatened, and she constantly stares ahead with the same level of wide-eye indifference.

But Macdonald is just as much to blame for the subpar acting, however. It is the director's job to make the film they want, and I honestly doubt "The Runner" ended up how anyone dreamt. Some of the more hectic moments are just clumsy, like unfinished CGI or shoddy bluescreen. One scene in particular, when our lead leaps out of the way of speeding train, grabbing onto a chain linked fense for safety. It should be thrilling, but it is so oddly filmed, acted and edited that I laughed loudly, and Amazon Prime most certainly didn't label this a comedy.

I can't be all that hard on Gadot though, as it's not like she's given much to work with. She plays a single working mom, and her case revolves around senseless violence towards women. Her backstory is even less savory: she shot her dad after he kept beating her mom. I get that these events are what made her into the heroic lead she is today, but why can't she just be heroic from the start? And don't get me started on the subplot concerning her lack of a social life. The caller man, who has hacked into her phone and computers, finds images (no doubt Photoshopped) of Wonder Woman herself half-naked, intended for a would-be lover. Maybe a male writer and director aren't the most knowledgeable when it comes to making a female-led film?

Mutiny Review

If there's one thing I hate more than planes, it's boats. I don't trust the water, myself on top or what's beneath. But what about a plane that makes an emergency water landing? Jeez, my body tensed up so much just writing those words down that I need to use one of those complimentary alcoholic drink vouchers.

Fortunately for my silly irrationalities, the new big action movie "Mutiny," which takes place almost entirely upon a large shipping vessel, doesn't so much as utter the word airplane. Not that there's much in the way of dialogue, I mean, its lead actor is Jason Statham, who views words as inconveniences on his way to continue coming up with unique ways to insert ammunition into bad guys. If Liam Neeson is today's Charles Bronson, then today's Chuck Norris would be Mr. Statham, if only because both hardly ever stray from the action genre. I make that statement with both affection and the cold realization that I'll never get to see that starring role of his in a romantic comedy.

I can't quite get over the name though. The meat of the movie takes place upon a ship, yet the title is "Mutiny." Why not "Ship" or something? I mean, the director Jean-François Richet's previous picture was named "Plane" whose action quickly left the skies and took place in, checks internet, somewhere in the southern Philippines.

But back to "Boat-" I mean "Mutiny." This is not especially an inspired film, one whose story I swear I've read at least a dozen times before when scrubbing through the bowels of Amazon Prime, but I'll do my best: Statham plays Cole Reed, a highly decorated former cop and military something or other who now works as the top security guard for some big billionaire bloke (Ramon Tikaram). His boss is about to sell his Bangkok shipping business, so that his son will be able to follow his own dreams," as if being stupid rich wouldn't already allow that, but I digress. Soon after the title card appears, there's a shootout where Cole dispatches a half dozen nameless henchmen using guns, the side and open door of a car, but not before his superior is killed in the crossfire. 

Now, Cole knows he's in trouble; this attack wasn't some random act of violence but a strategic siege. He must have seen other action movies before. Rummaging through the assaulter's belongings, he stumbles upon both a passport and security card for, get this, one of the executive's own boats! Uh oh, this means it's an inside job, and no doubt will lead to him being blamed for his death.

So it's a good thing that the now-dead goon was not just white, but also bald, now he's able to infiltrate the ocean liner unnoticed, now on a mission for vengeance. What luck! Once it leaves the dock, he begins to creep around the ship when he hears what sounds like faint whimpering. Breaking the lock off of a large metal crate, the faces of ten or so women, men and children trapped inside stare back at him. He's surprised to find them, of course, but since he had to crawl so far deep inside the barge, I'm surprised he wasn't surprised that he could hear the noise in the first place. But this is Jason Statham we're talking about, his ears must lift weights and do cardio.

There are other characters, some of which have names in the script, but who cares? The sight of everyone's English tough guy using a knife to battle a man with an ax, all while swinging on a gangway, wasn't something I knew was missing from my life, but "Mutiny" has that and more! 

Well, more violence at least. Purpose, intelligence, grace and logic are in astonishing short supply. It's not just dumb but also excessive and also loud- subtlety appears here only in its right-wing agenda: human traffickers? Bad (duh). Your boss? Good (umm). The US military? Also good (also umm), and so on.

The fighting, which is frequent, bloody and features just about as many guns as it does punches, takes place almost entirely during the day, so you can clearly see who's barrel which shot is coming out from. And isn't that what really matters in an action movie?  I mean, it is until the action stops and plot is forced to happen: the narrative is packed with holes big enough to fit an entire ship though, along with both of Statham's fists. But just when I begin to think about thinking, this absolutely goofy enterprise pulled me right back into its absurdity that I found myself no longer caring. And people say I'm a harsh critic.

The End of Oak Street Review

"The End of Oak Street" succeeds where so many in the "Jurassic Park" franchise have stagnated for so long: this is a tense action thriller disguised as a blockbuster, creating individual moments so fresh and so exciting that you often end up forgetting the aggressive silliness of the actual plot and astonishing stupidity of so many of the characters.

False Mesozoic era purists might scoff at the lack of people standing in awe at the majesty of these warm-blooded reptiles, but that's because here, they're too busy ripping people to shreds, and I appreciate that.

It all begins with a scene that only exists in the minds of boomer parents, where the entire block is out having a block party. The adults all drink Schlitz beer together while the kids play balloon toss, regardless of age or middle school social stature. This opening would be hilarious if not for its stone-cold sincerity.

We see young Brian (Christian Convery) ride bikes with his friends, dote over his doggy Starbuck and make googly eyes at the new girl Jeannette, played by Jordan Alexa Davis, who just moved in nearby. Yet not all is right in this 1980's community bliss: in an offscreen accident, he shoved a stick through the spokes of a classmate's bike, resulting in a kid breaking his arm, and boy is his older brother out for vengeance. This sort of adolescent shenanigans must run in the family, as his older sister Audrey (Maisy Stella) is seen struggling to fit in. See, she reads books! And not just any books- science fiction books! What a nerd!

Anne Hathaway plays their mother Denise, a hypocrite housewife who's been plotting to leave her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor) since their honeymoon, chronicling a hypothetical "how to" in a novel she writes in secret in the basement. He is a good sport though, maintaining a positive attitude throughout, much to the chagrin of the wannabe writer. She fears Greg's been drinking again, which he has, and is embarrassed that he's delivering pizzas to make some extra money. While she doesn't know he's been laid off (again) from the Chrysler plant, she knows he's keeping something else from her and that is apparently enough to put into practice that newfangled no-fault divorce she must have seen Dan Rather report on from their wood grain CRT TV.

This is a lot of backstory for what ultimately amounts to a simple monster movie. But then I remember that this was produced by J. J. Abrams, who's entire career can be defined as wanting so desperately to be Steven Spielberg that it all makes sense.

But I digress, because once the dinosaurs appear, the picture picks up such momentum that I almost forgot the awkward corner seat I for some reason decided to sit in. I say almost not because it wasn't uncomfortable, which it was, but because man, these people make some dumb choices. Brian's dog is missing since the creatures appeared, but after seeing it being chased by a raptor, he climbs down from the second-story window and goes after it! In the dark! Armed with, get this, a bow-and-arrow. His sister spots him, and instead of telling their parents, goes after him. In the dark! Armed with, get this, a pocket knife. Yeah sure, I'm sure "Jurassic Park" would have ended a lot differently had Alan Grant had a folding blade in his jeans.

Then things get lively again, like a scene where Denise and Greg's car is smashed into a house by a sharptooth. There is an intensity to these pleasantly feathered behemoths, showing up out in the open, in houses, from the sky and even out of pools, and they're shot cleanly so that we the audience can clearly see them.

Dinosaur films have hardly had any competition ever since "Jurassic Park" ruled the world back in 1993, at least not with a budget as high as this one does, and writer/director David Robert Mitchell knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be, but it lacks the nerve to achieve those gnarly ambitions. Why bother putting kids into a dinosaur movie, dangle them in constant danger only for the worst thing to happen to them, physically at least, is a few cuts and I think a broken leg. The whole thing wraps up too cleanly with a nonsensical happy ending that isn't anywhere near as clever as the filmmakers thought.

I should also mention that, while Starbuck does live, a random cat scene in the background does not. Obviously Mr. Mitchell is a dog person.