Home Team Review

Did you know that during the Super Bowl, there is only about twelve or so minutes of actual gameplay? You can guess what makes up the rest of the "event" during the remaining three to four hours.

Trivia aside and just in time for 2022's big February football game is Netflix's "Home Team," a comedic retelling of Sean Payton's suspension for putting bounties on opposing teams last decade. What a meat-headed decision it is to make light of a controversy about intentionally injuring people. All for a sport, what a dumb sport.

Maybe I'm missing the point, perhaps I brought my own personal prejudice against football onto the couch when I pressed "play." Or, maybe oh just maybe, I have a point. But who am I? Nobody; I'm a man who just wasted his Saturday afternoon regretting his Netflix subscription.

Anyway, Kevin James plays Payton, who decides that "hey, if I can't coach in the NFL, I might as well coach little league to reconnect with my son and ex-wife." (They're played by Tait Blum and Jackie Sandler respectively.) It is an awful message, an ugly act of would-be good publicity that glosses over why he's divorced and a bad father and instead just cuts right to them having fun. Oh sure, there's some stilted drama about "taking the game too seriously," but come on! Anyone who has ever seen a sports film about young kids will know every scene the flick has to offer, save for an extended vomit bit who's inclusion does nothing but remind you that Adam Sandler's company "Happy Madison" produced it.

Look, Kevin James is a relatively gifted actor, but he's got nothing to do except stand around while children either play football poorly or play it well. The script by Chris Titone and Keith Blum lacks any emotional stake in the main narrative, wrapping up the "father-son" issues simply by having the father and son share screen time. At one point, his son says he's only there because he was suspended from the NFL. He has a point you know, a point forgotten by the time the disgraced coach is reinstated by the end-credits. 

"Home Team" portrays Sean Payton as a really crummy human- it's the best joke here yet I'm not sure the film's in on the joke.

Other examples of crap writing is a supposed running gag about his baby mama's new lover Jamie, played by Rob Schneider, a stereotypical hippie who makes his own soaps, practices meditation, that sort of thing, but there's no punchline. His presence is supposed to be the punchline, and it's that kind of lazy filmmaking that shows how little effort was put here, you know, into what should have been a more serious look into the impact of a man who was involved in literally paying professional football players to hurt other players. What the hell is this!?

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania Review

It's not a good sign when your lead actor doesn't return to the series. It's not a good sign when that actor happens to be Adam Sandler. And it's not a good sign when it's an animated film! But that's what happened with "Hotel Transylvania: Transformaina," the fourth film in the franchise about Dracula (Brian Hull taking over for the SNL alum), his hotel and his growing family. Even Genndy Tartakovsky, director of the former three entries, declines directorial duties in favor of producer and screenplay credit. Whatever potential turmoil behind the scenes is more interesting than any of the drama onscreen.

Fortunately, this third sequel is about as amusing as the rest (well, I skipped on the second sequel, but I digress). It's manic, colorful, and doesn't overstay its welcome thanks to a zippy eighty seven minute runtime. It doesn't have a point, but with Covid ruling over the world like it's 2020 again, beggars for fresh content can't complain.

The plot this time around involves Drac's retirement, but his plans to hand over the key (literally, a big shiny key) to his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her human husband Johnny (Andy Samberg) are stalled when he begins to fear that his annoying son-in-law may radically change his monster safe haven. So in order to create a reason for this entry to exist, he makes up a tax law that prohibits creature-person property transfer, to which Johnny responds by turning into a monster via a magic ray gun Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) happens to have (and who happens to live in the basement).

Uh oh, still not enough story for a movie. Drac then tries to return Johnny back into human form, but accidently turns himself into a paunchy, balding bag of mortal flesh. OK OK, we're getting somewhere with something that resembles an actual conflict for a feature film. But egad(!), the crystal powering the metamorphosis hand-cannon cracks, and now it's up to the two male characters to travel to the South American jungle to replace it. And before Mavis finds out! Spoiler alert, she finds out.

Look, this is a kids movie, not a particularly good kids movie, but it's not a bad one either. The script, as basic as it is, isn't overstuffed with a myriad of side stories, focusing instead on a pleasant, if heavy handed, tale about accepting each other, and to my great surprise, there is hardly any generic pop songs plaguing the soundtrack.

I've seen worse excuses for children's entertainment in theaters, ones where I actually paid money to see it, which is probably the best/worst recommendation I have ever given.