Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire Review

Netflix is so desperate for a franchise to call their own that they've appeared to have written director Zack Snyder a blank check and said "make us "Star Wars."" And the end result, the mouthful-of-a-name "Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire" is exactly that, only it has all the style and budget but absolutely none of the heart, soul, or reason for being.

This is not just a bad film, but also an ugly, needlessly long, cliche, tedious, monotonous, sterile, joyless, tired, absolutely plain old cinematic travesty. I'd call it a turkey, but it's more of a tofurkey, no real meat here.

It doesn't help that the apparently blank check the streaming titan provided didn't come with anyone to keep Snyder's energies in-check; this is perhaps the most self-indulgent piece of movie making I can recall seeing. My mouth laid agape as all his bad habits appeared in such excess that you wonder if he intentionally set out to make a terrible film. Dialogue is terse and often shouted, lacking the magic of a truly gifted screenwriter (or world-builder). We get this huge, sprawling world, highly stylized but devoid of personality, where all sorts of nasty people and even nastier creatures function in a society barely explained. Our main villain (Ed Skrein) at one point wears a white shirt and black tie, yet other characters are draped in flowing robes, loin-cloths and humble scrapes of fabric seemingly sewn by hand. When does this take place? Why do the horse-like creatures, Urakis, look just like regular horses with a tree-trunk taped to their heads? Why is Anthony Hopkins voicing a robot? Why is Anthony Hopkins barely in this? Why is he here at all? Does he really need a paycheck that badly?

His egregious overuse of slow motion, a trademark of the director, is easily the worst, we sit bored stiff as this laborious lemon of a movie shows us scenes including, but not limited to, slow motion walking, slow motion running, slow motion standing, slow motion falling snow, slow motion hand-to-hand combat, slow motion gunfire, slow motion space ships, slow motion removal of hats, and, my favorite, slow motion sword fights against a giant spider woman. What a hell of a sentence, I know.

The plot is a garbled mess of sci-fi stereotypes, one involving an evil empire called the Motherworld, who comes land one day on the small farming village of Veldt asking for demanding food supplies. The evil people do evil things to innocent people because that's what they do in cliches, and it takes only a few dozen minutes before there's an attempted rape on one of the local girls. Why in the world anyone thought this was a necessary plot point is beyond me, then again, it's directed and written by all men so, I dunno. You tell me what that means.

Our protagonist Kora (Sofia Boutella) saves her of course, by killing all the baddies left in the town, so the community decides that, well, better join "the resistance" now, because, cliche. Heading out with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a farmer who may have a lead on someone who'll get them in-touch with "the resistance." The two travel from one empty hull of a set piece to the next, searching for would-be warriors to join their cause in hopes of strengthening "the resistance." And yes, much of this is done in sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwww moooooottttttttiiiiiiiiiooooooooonnnnnnnnnn.

There is an awful lot of money on the screen, but there is not a single interesting character. There is not one piece of interesting dialogue. I counted two interesting moments, though. That's not a typo, there are truly only two genuinely amusing things that happen here, and one is the aforementioned spider woman fight. The other is this little creature who talks through a human host. It exists for the sake of moving the narrative along, still, it was a fun little visual effect in an effort so starved of excitement that I was happy to just have something new to look at.

A bit of interwebs searching brought me to the Rebel Moon wiki, because apparently that's a thing, and it tells me there's going to be a directors cut next year, alongside part 2, and it'll be rated R (this, um, "streaming cut" is PG-13). Considering they didn't have to worry about losing money to teenagers being unable to buy movie tickets (anyone with a non-kids account can probably access this), I suspect this is purely a marketing move. I do not look forward to seeing what other slow motion scenes were cut.

I went into "Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire" with no context, I hadn't even seen the trailer. Had I watched it before, I probably wouldn't have added this to my Netflix watchlist.

Godzilla Minus Zero Review

Finding a screening of the latest installment in the "Godzilla" franchise, "Godzilla Minus Zero," was surprisingly difficult, especially considering I was able to see the last entry, "Shin Godzilla," theatrically twice. Why twice? Because I was so disappointed the first time that I thought, maybe, I had missed something.

Unfortunately, I hadn't.

When I did finally find a matinee (the real way to watch these films in the states, aside from maybe a UHF TV station), I was shocked that my local, usually premium, movie theater had it showing in one of those outdated arenas, one without those now-commonplace leather reclining chairs. It felt cramped and cheap, like the place didn't respect the literal King of the Monsters. All signs point to walking out, again, crestfallen, but I am more than pleased to say I walked out instead in awe.

"Godzilla Minus Zero" achieves the perfect balance of intimacy and spectacle, frequently simultaneously, something the franchise hasn't hit since the 1954 original (and no, not the one with Raymond Burr). Taking place during and after WW2, making this the literal first appearance of Godzilla, the narrative focuses on Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) a kamikaze pilot who cowards out of his mission, landing under the guise of mechanical problems on Odo Island. And like any good film in the series, Godzilla appears shortly after to cause destruction. He's the only gunner on the island, with only mechanics there during the battle, but he freezes behind the trigger, and all hell breaks loose.

But unlike almost every one of its predecessors, the titular monster doesn't just focus on environmental damage, but attacks like a dinosaur out of "Jurassic Park." It's the first time since I was a child that he'd been, for lack of a better word, scary.

Koichi makes it out alive, and is in shock of what happened. He suffers from survivors guilt, in addition to the shock of hearing his hometown was destroyed during the war, his parents killed too. Maybe he should have just done his mission, kamikaze or not. Maybe he'd stop the war. Or at least his mom and dad from dying. It is a dour opening, and a relentlessly cheerless film throughout, but what else could writer/director Takashi Yamazaki do? It's goddamn WW2! He understands what Godzilla means to the medium, and not the sullied reputation that the American dubs have been inflicting since the 50's.

Not long after first arriving, Koichi stumbles into thief Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), who's looking after a newborn her dying mother gave to her. They form an unlikely and mostly platonic relationship, both outcasts and both struggling to keep themselves (and infant Akiko) alive. The laser-focus on so few principal characters means you really get to know these imaginary movie-people, something that Hollywood continues to fail at.

Most of the runtime is dedicated to their survival, and eventual success, which inevitably leads to long stretches of dialogue. Being subtitled instead of dubbed, there are numerous awkward pauses, where scenes linger with a few seconds of needless fat. Possibly a side-effect of the English localization, but as I cannot speak Japanese, I will never know, and I can only review the film I saw.

But that's OK, because it only means that when Godzilla returns to throw another hissy fit, that you root for our main cast. It's a remarkable feat when you consider that you have to not only read the subtitles but quickly glance back to soak up the imagery. In short, I really, really enjoyed "Godzilla Minus Zero." It might not be a perfect film, but it's the perfect "Godzilla" film. It's dark and damn depressing, but without time-travel, talking kaiju, space or gymnastic rubber suits, it perfectly fits the tone Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya intended way back when they first showed the world the cinematic horror of nuclear warfare.

Sly Review

To make a documentary about Sylvester Stallone, honestly probably one of the most recognizable actors alive, and just spend the runtime patting himself on the back seems so, I dunno, disingenuous? I like Sly, I know the impact his "Rocky" and "Rambo" films have meant to cinema, even if they sometimes dip into pure commercialization, but the man is so much more than that. I mean, look at his filmography! He's acted in so many well-deserved bombs and probably even more unappreciated ones that seeing the actor star "soulfully" at all his boxing memorabilia is just so smarmy.

Oh sure, I mean yeah, he does spend some time talking about the infamous "Rocky V," but come on, how the hell did he get tricked into staring in 2018's "Backtrace?" (The "how" is probably more interesting than the movie itself.) Hell, we never even mention how he played the villain in "Spy Kids 3." Maybe he forgot? I didn't.

I said in my review of his latest theatrical film (one of those aforementioned "well-deserved bombs"), "The Expend4bles," and I quote, "I read online that the budget was something like 100 million dollars. Whatever house that bought Stallone must have been nice." And just a few months later in his own ego-stroking documentary, he's moving. I don't recall ever seeing his new house, but his old one certainly looked expensive. I also don't recall him ever saying he's modest.

If there is anything good about the documentary, the one area that feels "real," is the earnest look at his relationship with his father Frank Stallone Sr.. Sky portrays him as a violent man whom he probably hated, it helps show that the Italian Stallion actor is more than the meathead. It is almost heartbreaking to see how long he spent not-quite begging for his dad's approval and how that never really came, until he was on his deathbed and almost-but-not-really made amends. How did this all ultimately affect Sly? Well, he never road horses again. How emotional...

It is also peculiar how we only see infrequent interviews from a handful of others, from the obvious ones like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Talia Shire, to more surprising appearances like Henry Winkler, all they do is say things we already know. Yeah yeah I know, Sly and Arnie had a rivalry in the 80's: who could have the biggest guns, muscles and knives. But what about the troubled production of "Tango & Cash" or "Eye See You?" I'm sure someone who worked on those films could paint a very interesting picture.

I would say I'm the wrong audience for this documentary, since there was seldom a moment where I didn't think to myself "oh I already knew that," but as a fan of the actor himself, I'm of course the right audience. So who the hell is "Sky" for?

On a side note, Netflix also released a documentary earlier this year on Schwarzenegger, which was a three-part series. Dear Stallone, his knife is bigger than yours again.  

Five Nights at Freddy's (Film) Review

"Five Nights at Freddy's," Universal's and Blumhouse's latest venture, is not only based on the popular video game franchise, which is unplayed by me, but also is clearing up house at the box office. It's made something like over a hundred million dollars, which is crazy when you realize it debuted day-and-date with Universal's own streamer Peacock. That means even more people have watched this. 

And that's a shame. All those people spending all that time when they could have gone outside, gone on a walk, breathed in some fresh air- not to mention save a few bucks. The human body was not designed to passively absorb all these cynic innuendos and dour imagery. There's birds chirping to hear; leaves to watch being blown in the wind, so much else to do. And digital entertainment does not need to be so... blah. There's enough of that in the world already.

I have only the faintest idea what the games this movie is based on are about, except that it's about possessed animatronics in a long-abandoned "Chuck E Cheese"-esque pizza parlor. I've watched gameplay of it, the first game anyway I think, and with that bare bones narrative (or what I saw in the brief footage), there's a lot more plot here than I excepted. Maybe it's all in the manual...

It's supposed to be scary, which it isn't, but because of that, I can't in good faith discuss much about the story, but here's the basics: Josh Hutcherson plays Mike, the deadbeat elder brother of Abby, played by Piper Rubio, after their parent's off screen demise. We see him lose his job as a mall security early on due to the convenience of the script, and their evil aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson) wants to gain full custody. Why? For the monthly checks, Mike believes, but her character is a complete cartoon, vindictive for no reason other than to drive the story along.

So far, there isn't anything necessarily awful about the plot, but the backstory behind Mike is his addiction to sleeping pills. Why is he addicted? So he can dream the same dream about the day his little brother was kidnapped and never seen again. His goal is to remember "who" the abductee is, and his obsession makes up about his entire character arc. Child abuse is a nasty subject for slick entertainment, but wait, there's more! One night while on his new job running security guard at Freddy's, he meets Vanessa, played by Elizabeth Lail, who always seems to know more about the place than she should. She explains that in the 80s, several children went missing there, and their souls live inside the giant, moving, murderous puppets. It's just... all so unpleasant.

A lot of criticism can be directed at her character, as she randomly changes tone, at one point threatening to shoot Mike. What's her problem!? I'd tell you, but I'm not sure the movie even knows.

This is such a disjointed, mess of a movie that it feels like a sort of companion piece to Blumhouse's equally dreadful and equivalently awkward "Halloween Ends," where people die movie deaths betwist plotholes and some extremely clumsy exposition. Not too long into the runtime, the evil aunt hires some local goons to trash Freddy's, so that Mike may lose him job and help her gain custody, but it's just an excuse for some very PG-13 violence. Vanessa then tells Mike about the break-in, who proceeds to cleanup the place. Yeah, not like it's an active crime scene or anything.

Totally Killer Review

It's almost Halloween, which means it's time for all the streaming services to drop some low-rent horror film unceremoniously. This week sees Amazon Prime releasing "Totally Killer," a slasher-comedy that also happens to be an 80's set time-travel movie. It's a lot of leftover ideas from other films, but it's mercifully better than the app's last year horror-comedy, and also 80's set, "My Best Friend's Exorcism."

"Totally Killer" isn't bad but it's more amusing than clever, and boy does it want to be clever. The time-travelling narrative immediately complicates the plot, as it has to work around the butterfly effect, but it cops out when teenage Lauren (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), as opposed to adult Lauren (Kimberly Huie), says that there are multiple time-travel theories. I mean, she's right, since it doesn't exist (or does it?), but come on man! If the film was really good it wouldn't matter. That, or it'd have an actual answer.

Anyway, the plot: Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) is your average present-day teenager who's mom Pam (Julie Bowen) is killed, thirty five years or so after her friends were killed by the "Sweet Sixteen Killer." Why the name? Because of the killer stabs their victims, you guessed it, sixteen times. Also like your average teenager, her best friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema) has invented a time machine for the school's science fair, as one does.

Jamie's blasted back in time, to the night of the first of her mother's friends' murders, and that's about all you need to know. There's plenty of the obligatory scenes where Jamie comments on how insensitive and irrational the 80's were, yet she and everyone else keeps calling the killer "he" without knowing for sure. I'm not suggesting the killer's gender, nor will I get into gender politics, but it seems like a needless assumption that stands out for a film as self-righteous as this.

Because at the end of the day, this "is" a slasher, so there's plenty of horny teenage sex, or at least insinuation of handy-panky. I imagine it's to titillate actual teenage viewers, but is a non-teenager adult supposed to be aroused? Isn't that, gross? And since this takes place decades past, doesn't that mean those actual teenage viewers are watching people their parent's age "doing it?"

It probably doesn't matter, but hey, I thought it was a good question.

I won't go into much of the actual plot, since the murderer's, or murderers', is unknown, but you can expect all the same stupid moments like when, in a particularly frustrating and frequently repeated moment, the heroes don't unmask the masked assailant, but it's fine. At least "Totally Killer" doesn't masquerade as intelligent filmmaking the way "Scream VI" did.

Though, the more I think about it, Jamie here should have decades of horror cliches to help her solve the case, but alas, just another example of the film critic being smarter than the filmmakers.

Saw X Review

The only surprising thing about "Saw X" is that there are now ten "Saw" films, and even that shouldn't be surprising if you remember the yearly release cadence they had for a bit. It's far less "Spiral: From the Book of Saw" and far more, er, well, "Saw," for better or for worse.

Since the entire franchise is so convoluted (and a franchise...), I'll refrain from going over much that the trailers didn't already explain: John Kramer, also known as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), has brain cancer and through plot finds Dr. Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund), who's dad developed experimental cancer treatments with an incredibly high success rate, something like 90%. He's in hiding so she continues his work, or rather, promises that and instead just takes the dying person's money. You know what they say, something that is too good to be true, often is.

He's given just three months to live by a legitimate doctor, and in desperation contacts Pederson, who arranges for him to meet her in a secret facility (a decrepit chemical plant right outside Mexico City) in just two weeks time. He meets various people along the way, all of course in on her nefarious plotting.

How an incredibly intelligent man like Kramer falls for her decite is never really explained, and by the end of his "procedure," he of course isn't cured. Only since he still has something like two and a half months to live, you know, let the games begin. What also is never explained is how he is able to round up all those involved and get all these series trademark traps setup in so little time, but hey, actual logic isn't the franchise's forte: "cinematic universe logic" is.

What follows is a grisly exploration of imaginary people who exploit others, so what am I to say here? I certainly wasn't ever scared, only occasionally grossed out, and the rather crowded theater I attended never jumped or hollowed in terror either. So what is the point? I suppose it's the same sick attraction that so many of us watch those Lifetime or Discovery Channel shows about actual murdering. Only I don't watch those shows, so shrug.

What I can say is that "Saw X" does take take some detours from the previous films; contestants in Jigsaw's games see exactly who Jigsaw is, and the twist, because of course there's a twist, is at least something that didn't just result in "oh this tertiary character from the film three films ago is back AND bad," but it is equally trite.

I can say that I do feel bad about Kramer's situation, a sick man on the verge of dying a slow and awful death, and there is a more psychological story here somewhere that would make for a really fascinating film. Instead, we watch a child in danger and an attempted rape, just to show how "bad" these bad people are. It is cheap, sleazy and below the moral the character Jigsaw claims to have.

Oh an before I forget, fan-favorite Amanda (Shawnee Smith) is back too, former druggie who still struggles to understand John's levelheaded approach. That is, as levelheaded as having a character cut their own dome open and slicing out a piece of brain tissue can be.

The Expend4bles Review

You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a pretty smart guy: I learned in a recent Netflix documentary that he was wealthy before becoming a huge star via real estate. Or, something like that. I bring this up because he wisely skipped over "The Expendables 4" after appearing and eventually staring in the first three. The "why" is unimportant ultimately, be it Hollywood politics or money or whatever, because "The Expendables 4" is not very good.

From stilted acting to stilted action, the franchise takes an amazing nosedive following a perfunctory opening action sequence where we're introduced our bad guy Rahmat, played by Iko Uwais. He follows the franchises former villains Eric Roberts, Jean Claude Van Damme and Mel Gibson, actors who outclass Uwais in terms of onscreen presence and pure acting chops. He's very convincing in the hand-to-hand fights, but so what? He just smirks at the camera and recites a few bits of somewhat pithy dialogue and that's it. That's his character arc. He's lame to watch and I really fault screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams for not exploring the whys and hows to why and how he's doing anything.

Sylvester Stallone, who pretty much help create the series, seems bored, skipping on an early bar brawl for a cheap joke about hurting his back, and his paycheck-cashing attitude is felt throughout the runtime. (Let's just say this: newcomer Andy Garcia, who fills the roll of Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford of the mysterious guy who gives the team orders, has more screentime than Stallone.) Not only by Stallone but also by every cast member. Jason Statham, also returning from the last three, at least gives his all to the physical role he's been hired for, but remember, he's the one who signed on to fight a CGI shark in front of a green screen. (Twice!) Also returning is Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture, who do nothing but look serious when firing a pretend gun, and supply a gag or two about their physical appearance. Lundgren fares worse, as he's shown to have overcome a drinking problem, but who ends up returning to the bottle (er, well flask) to help his aim. What a great message.

To fill out the cast we also get Megan Fox as Statham's girlfriend and new member of The Expendables. She's introduced barely wearing anything and has perfect hair and makeup even during gunfire. There's such thing as sex appeal and then there's just laziness. She doesn't even look comfortable and I felt uncomfortable watching her. 50 Cent is also new and, so what? He's fine as an actor, but the script gives him the generic roll of rolling his eyes at everyone. Har he har har.

To risk any spoilers, there are a few plot twists, three if I recall, and they are all so obvious that the only surprising thing is that they went through with them.

The action, the whole reason anyone would watch an "action" movie, is unexciting, with so many quick-cuts and panning cameras that it's hard to figure out what's going on or where the heroes are in to relation to the baddies. Director Scott Waugh, who handled the more entertaining "Hidden Strike" earlier this year, offers just one, ONE interesting sequence, where Statham is chased on a dirt bike inside then on top of a large cargo ship. I wasn't at the edge of my leather reclining seat, but it was something new. A bulk of the movie takes place on that boat because plot, so we get the same ol' creaky corridors of the same ol' hull of the same ol' ship that I've seen a hundred other times in other films.

I read online that the budget was something like 100 million dollars. Whatever house that bought Stallone must have been nice.