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.

Equalizer 3 Review

Denzel Washington is a cinema heavy but his vigilante series "The Equalizer," with part 3 debuting this week, gives him nothing to do but look imposing and recite faux-philosophical and sometimes doomy dialogue betwixt bursts of extreme bloodshed. The mayhem is well shot by director Antoine Fuqua, who's helmed all three flicks, but so what? Violent films are a dime-a-dozen, and "The Equalizer 3" seemingly ends the franchise with a third act feeling left on the cutting room floor.

Of course I have no idea of the production history, but all the sudden the credits rolls and I'm left feeling cheated- the bad guy and hero exchange threats, tell each other that they'll meet again "soon," only for exactly what you think'll happen to immediately happen. Suspense is something in such short supply here that the film's trailer was more dramatic.

That isn't to dismiss the movie completely: the action is well shot, well staged and well acted, but the plot is simultaneously underdeveloped and needlessly complicated: Denzel of course returns as Robert McCall, who we see avenging a throwaway character when he stumples upon a drug-smuggling operation at a winery. He's shot by a young boy and is found by Italian policeman Gio (Eugenio Mastrandrea), who takes him to the town's local doctor Enzo (Remo Girone) and patched up. This of course means we ye olde trope of having our hero needing to recover their strength, but come on, why toy with the audience? Does anyone think for a second that his injuries are going to have any baring on the plot? It. Does. Not.

Perhaps it's Denzel's advancing age (the man's nearly seventy!), but an injury is (allegedly) a cinematic way to distract from the idea maybe he's too old to be taking down baddies like he does. In fact much of the action tales place in the dark of night, with McCall sneaking up upon foes; could it be that he's just not as sprightly as he used to be?

Almost the entirety takes place in this little Italian village, where we get rudimentary scenes of McCall interacting with the locals, and moments like this are just more and more cliches. He's reduced to the mysterious and mythical stranger who rescues a town in peril. It wouldn't feel so slightly insensitive if the townspeople had more to do except live quaint little lives where they sell fish, serve tea and coffee and help the community. It's an idyllic false reality that only exists in Hollywood and travel brochures.

There's a parallel narrative where McCall alerts the CIA's Emma (Dakota Fanning) to his earlier drug bust, and it's just narrative noise. The who's, why's, when's and how's amout to "terrorists" and the Camorra, or as the film tells us, the "Italian Mafia," and so what? The bad guys do bad things not because they have anything interesting to say or do, but because that's what stereotypes are.

Honestly the most interesting thing is how there exists a film trilogy, based on the 80's show, exists concurrently with a reboot of said show on TV, all of which share the name "The Equalizer ." I have not watched the new series, or the old one for that matter, but it can't be as disappointing as the first, second or third film.

Retribution Review

I imagine Liam Neeson read the script to "Retribution," his latest "geezer pleaser," saw he sits in a Mercedes Benz for almost the entire thing and thought "wow this is gonna be an easy paycheck." But it's only because he's bound by touchscreen and chrome door handles that he actually gets an opportunity to do some real acting.

Not that the end-product is Shakespeare, it's just a brief thriller, but Liam gives his character Matt Turner such dimension that you're wondering if he thought it might be. At first coming off as a workaholic, and frankly deadbeat, husband and father, and there is a weariness so barely underneath that by the time he gets the phone call telling him there's a bomb in his car (the same car his kids are in), his face and voice somehow expressed rage and worry ontop of the exhaustion. He remains consistently the best thing about his movies, and for fans, "Retribution" has the goods.

Too bad the rest is old hat; the explosive has a pressure trigger, meaning that if he leaves his supple leather seat, kaboom. Or in cinema terms, it's a riff on "Speed," a superior film because of one critical failing here: the villain. Their identity is supposed to be a surprise (speaking to Matt via a voice-changer), robbing us of a juicy character actor to really engage the audience. By the time the big reveal comes, not only is it obvious, but also it is a character actor who clearly is eager to sink their teeth into. It's such a shame it comes far too late in the otherwise breezy runtime.

I won't lie though: it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense; at one point the mysterious person on the phone warns Matt "not" to stop the vehicle, but wouldn't you know, what felt like ten minutes later and the car is parked! The bad guy's demands, or rather their motivation, is also hidden until almost the halfway point, so you spend time guessing only for it to not matter.

But whatever: "Retribution" is another high-concept Liam Nesson film ("the one where Liam Neeson drives a car with a bomb"), so much so that eventually Hollywood is gonna run out of families for him to need to avenge.