Fistful of Vengeance Review

What bothers me most about Netflix's "Fistful of Vengeance" isn't that it's based on their show "Wu Assassins," it's that it didn't tell me that. I don't necessarily have a problem with film adaptions, but when the viewer is thrown into the plot without any idea who anyone is or why they're doing what they're doing, it creates an unfair viewing experience. Maybe had I been notified to read-up on the franchise before pressing the play button, I'd have a completely different opinion. Of course, they could have just made a film that didn't require any homework.

This left me with one of two options: A) suspend my viewing and start with the one season of "Wu Assassins," or B) just ignore logic and observe lots of very violent vignettes vaguely strung together by moronic dialogue. Actually I'm sure if it's moronic, I just didn't understand what they were ever talking about. In case you haven't figured by now, I chose B.

Eventually, you start to make sense of what's happening (even if you don't understand the why or how), so let's get the narrative out of the way: Kai Jin (Iko Uwais), a Wu Assassin, Lu Xin Lee (Lewis Tan, in full "Ryan Reynolds" mode) not a Wu Assassin, and Tommy Wah (Lawrence Kao), also not a Wu Assassin, try to track down who killed the latter's sister Jenny. It's of course a whole lot more complicated, involving an evil god, double-crossing billionaires, double-crossing acquaintances, double-crossing baddies, and a whole lot of hand-gestures.

OK I'll be serious here and tell you what you need to know; William Pan (Jason Tobin) and Ku An Qi (Rhatha Phongam) are bad, trying to resurrect Pangu of Chinese mythology who will wipe out the world as we know it. At least that's what I remember- it was mentioned so early in the runtime when I was still trying to figure out who was who.

They can't just kill Kai of course, because of plot. "Take them to me," or something like that, yells Ku at one point to her troops, who have managed to trap our heroes in a van; they're completely surrounded. "Don't fire," hollers one nameless henchman to another, so the enemies use gas tanks to blow the vehicle sideways, and then toss bottles of booze so it catches fire. Sigh, good help is so hard to come by these days.

Because the film doesn't play by the rules and respect the viewer's time, what we're left is a lot of combat without purpose outside of primal entertainment. Fortunately director Roel Reiné handles these myriad of fights with finesse, cleanly shot where you can easily tell the location of the good guys relative to the bad guys. Shame its score is full of awful hip hop and rap- each scene sounds like I walked into a high school prom.

"But Mr. Critic," you interject, "what exactly is a Wu Assassin?" Great question reader, but I'm afraid it doesn't really mean much. They have "special abilities," which I observed as the ability to sort of push the space directly in front of their hands. They can block punches or use it to supercharge their punches, or in one moment, stop themselves from falling to their doom. The problem is that this "power" is completely underwhelming; the non-Wu Assassin protagonists frequently hold their own against the Wu Assassin antagonists, so what's the point? I guess it looks good in ads.

It doesn't help that it's so poorly explained. Why wouldn't these extraordinary eliminators use this ability with every blow they inflict? Maybe it's that they just get tired. What about stopping a bullet? I guess not, because Kai always ducks from gunfire, so, then, why do so many henchmen insist on fighting hand-to-hand? Not that the ones with guns live much longer, but I dunno, I thought it was a good question.

I wish I could have put blinders onto the world of reason and simply gone along for the ride, but I couldn't. It's settles on genre clichés instead of transcending them. Take a scene when where our heroes happen to find an unlocked Mercedes with the keys inside (in just the nick of time of course). What happens next? They drive down a parking garage while being pursued on foot. They didn't have the audacity to have someone quip "must be my luc-key day" or something.

I'm giving "Fistful of Vengeance" two stars because I didn't hate it. I could end this review right now, but lemme get in one final random waffle. It's a bit of an odd one, a single point in the film where I had to rewind just to make sure I understood it. A sex scene, between characters I will not name in respect of spoilers, it should have been titillating and exciting as you saw exposed breasts. But then it cuts, and she has her top back on. It cuts again and we see the guy biting it off. It cuts again, and her breasts are covered! I shouldn't be forced to apply continuity to a sex scene, but here we are.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Review

A good chainsaw never dies, it only needs gas. For "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," the ninth film in the franchise, that means more gore, plenty of callbacks and social media influencers. Does it work? If you just want to see people get chopped up, then yeah, it'll do.

But just how do you make a sequel to one of the most influential horror movies of all time? Why, you take 2018's "Halloween" approach of course! That includes this film's answer to Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode, with Sally (now played by Olwen Fouéré), returning from the 1974 original. She's been waiting for "him" to return (heard that one before?), a woman worn down by the weight of being the sole survivor (and her trusty shotgun, although I don't know how much one weighs).

Seemingly ignoring the sequels and taking place decades after the first, if you can trust the internet, the young people ripe for the slicing and dicing include Melody and Dante, played by Sarah Yarkin and Jacob Latimore respectively, who plan on selling pieces of a ghost town in Texas (where else?). Her sister Lilia (Elsie Fisher) comes along for the ride but doesn't want to be there, and filling out our initial quadrilogy of protagonists is his would-be fiancée (Nell Hudson). A smart reader can figure out why, in a slasher film, I didn't list her name or describe her much. Ooooh, the spoilers.

They arrive in a poorly veiled Telsa and immediately make no friends with the locals, including their gun-toting carpenter Richter (Moe Dunford) and Mrs. Mc (Alice Krige), owner of the local orphanage who swears she still owns the property. That's trouble when you're trying to auction off the town to the now arrived bus of young rich kids, and even more so when you realize just who the only orphan under her care is. Nevertheless, chaos ensues.

What am I supposed to critique here? Do the characters get killed "real good?" It serves no purpose but to keep an antiquated series relevant by showing us, well, characters getting killed "real good." Lots of gore and guts are shown, the deaths viscous and visceral. It didn't shock me but it didn't put me in a good mood. Maybe that's the whole point to these pictures, I wouldn't know. Bad movie critic move here, but I confess, I've never seen any of the previous eight films. And after this 2022 entry, I'm not sure I want to.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is an ugly way to spend eighty one minutes of your life. It's like one of those "true crime" documentaries on steroids, with any semblance to what actually inspired it buried so deep in gallons of blood that it exists purely to gross out audiences.

That doesn't mean it's devoid of skill; it's professionally made (even and especially the onscreen deaths), with some exceptionally well shot moments of a seemingly endless field. The southern sun burning into the camera with a sort of haze in the distance. A sole road dots it, with no incoming traffic. It makes you really feel as if it's taking place miles and miles away from anything close to modern civilization. It's a stark contrast to the dark, rainy scenes of the desolate village of decaying buildings.

Wait, does that mean I admire it? Hell no! It remains a "dumb horror movie," the kind where if a line of dialogue mentions a corkscrew, it'll come up later (no doubt in a moment of peril) and no less than four (four!!!) characters seemingly die only to suddenly get up! I'm generally fine with dumb flicks, but I do not have a tolerance for ones that try to act smarter than they really are. Racial tensions involving a confederate flag are brought up for no reason other than to fill out a couple of scenes, but the most egregious example is with Lila, who barely lived through previous public shooting. Early on we see her pick up a gun, only to understandably panic with the flashbacks of what ever horrors she endured. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how later we're supposed to believe that she's totally fine handling a shotgun to blast at the titular maniac! Fight gun violence with guns!? What sense does that make!!??

Another moment of stupidity comes when Sally, loaded weapon in hand, confronts Leatherface in the orphanage; he slumps on a bed, chainsaw down but still within arms reach, and she starts yelling! "Do you remember me" or something like that, and she doesn't fire! She couldn't miss if she tried! But she wants, no, needs him to remember her, but he isn't paying her any attention. What, does she think, there are TWO Texas chainsaw massacres and she's just talking to the wrong one?! Now there's a plot.

Blacklight Review

My favorite part of any action movie is the black SUV: you know, the one that stalks our a would-be protagonist's significantly smaller car, picking up the obvious bad-guy from location to location, and is always so shiny. And in the new movie "Blacklight," the second I spotted that ebony sports utility vehicle, my expectations were set in stone- this is a Liam Neeson film.

Its plot is a bit more complicated than what you'd might expect from this generation's Charles Bronson. I mean sure, his family is in jeopardy and soon goes missing, but it leans far more into the political intrigue of it all than I was anticipating. It felt like a modern-day take on the kind of film you'd see in the 1970's, with everyone's favorite Irishman playing government operative Travis Block, who winds up in a web of lies that "come right from the top of the FBI(!)." That is, of course, if you believe defector Dusty (Taylor John Smith), who's grown a conscience, and an up-and-coming online reporter Mira (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who's looking for her big story.

Travis is also "the best of the best," because naturally he is, but he also suffers from obsessive-compulsion disorder, and his main motivation for the narrative here is, in a rare moment of acting his age (I mean the man's nearly seventy), is wanting to retire to spend more time with his granddaughter Natalie (Gabriella Sengos). She's picking up on her granddaddy's delusions, and there's a cute throwaway gag where he gifts her a stun gun for her birthday. It's a shame there aren't more of these cockeyed bits.

All the major beats from any other picture cut from the same cloth are present in slow-burning 108 minute runtime, just organized a bit differently. The moment where our hero realizes the truth comes sooner than I thought, the disappearance of his kin occurs much later than the trailers would have you believe, but it's all stock script beats. It fits comfortably into the Liam Neeson mold, mildly refreshing the usual mold of his works while remaining firmly in his wheelhouse. Fans should enjoy what they see, even if they've seen it before.

The main car chase is fortunately far more entertaining than the one from "Honest Thief," the last time he teamed up with director Mark Williams, involving a garbage truck which of course dumps trash bags into the pursuing automobile. The action is pleasant, but one or two more big moments could have livened up the overall muted tone.

None of this probably matters, because the biggest selling point is leading man Liam Neeson. I'm giving "Blacklight" two and a half stars because it's an effective Liam Neeson movie. He retains a commanding screen presence, owning whatever frame he's in; he's too good for the movies he's starring in! 'Tis the curse of being Liam Neeson I guess.

Jackass Forever Review

Who is the audience for "Jackass Forever," the fourth theatrical film in a franchise where people get hit in the groin, blown out of a cannon, bit by several animals like spiders and snakes, as well as various other stunts played purely for the sick joy by the groups lucky onlookers. "Lucky" as in, they are not the ones going to get hurt.

The best part was the opening, a riff on classic "Godzilla" movies, only its only part of a man in a rubber suit. You can guess what part that is. The rest of the acts range from half-clever wordplay to things only the drunkest, dumbest fratboys would do. Only they have a reported ten million dollar budget to realize their soused ambitions.

Fans of the series have a lot to like here, where the "sets" are indistinguishable from previous pictures save only by the grey hairs on the veteran cast and the quality of the cameras used in filming. What am I supposed to say here? This time the kick to the nuts was better than the last one? Please, I have my dignity.

I squirmed anytime someone took a knock to the privates, and looked away from the screen whenever vomit was on display. But at about halfway through, I think I noticed the appeal of these "Jackass" films: comradery. There is an overwhelming sense that everyone involved is really a family by now, from actors like Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O (and yes, even, uh, the guy known as "Poopies"), from the director, cameramen, everyone. Got a stun gun to the neck? Expect a hug once you pick yourself up. Even the meanest things they do to each other are done out of love. (Just in time for Valentine's day too.)

What's perhaps more interesting was the drama releasing "Forever," where former Jackass Bam Margera was dropped due to substance abuse and somehow more. Then a quick Google search shows PETA's investigation into alleged animal abuse. I dunno, I thought the people were most abused.

I'm beating around the bush and giving "Jackass Forever" two and a half stars, because it sets its sights low and hits its target dead-on. Shame, the target was potty humor.