Sweet Girl Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Suicide Squad Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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