Twisters Review

It has been a long time since we've had a good disaster movie, and unfortunately the long-awaited stand-alone sequel to 1996's "Twister," annoyingly called "Twisters," is not one. It's as silly as one could want from a big-budget spectacle, but it's got problems so big you could fit a flying cow through it.

Of course, it's hard to go into this without thinking of the original, and it doesn't help that there is only so much plot you can shoe-horn into a movie about dangerous winds. Kate is our lead, played adequately by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who early on, with her boyfriend Jeb (Daryl McCormack) & team, we see trying out the idea of distributing sodium polyacrylate into tornadoes, which will soak up all the moisture; it's "the same thing used in pads" we're told. The film is clever enough to use a joke to explain movie-science, but doesn't bother with explaining what happens to the water-logged salt once it supposedly kills the twister. Does it drop to the ground? Get flung everywhere? Who cleans it up after? Questions, questions and more questions, and I should not be asking myself those in a disaster flick.

Anyway, the plan doesn't work and only her and pal Javi (Anthony Ramos) survive. We flash forward five years and the two haven't kept in touch, Kate working an office job and Javi forming the company "Storm Par," which uses military technology to scan tornadoes. He has all the latest technology and, gasp, investors. Problem is that they would need to get in real close to one, which is where Kate comes in. She agrees to work one week with him in Oklahoma, but uh-oh, wouldn't you know it, another team of storm-chasers is there, lead by Tyler (Glenn Powell). He wears a cowboy hat and speaks inconsistently with a southern accent, and runs a YouTube channel with his eclectic crew. They have names according to the credits but it doesn't matter. They are exclusively defined by their role; like Lily (Sasha Lane) who flies a drone, and Boone (Brandon Perea) who films his show (and yes, I had to look them up), so to me they were nothing more than "drone girl" and "camera guy," respectively. Such fleshed-out characterization.

This is a crippling problem, since for maybe the first hour we just get scene after scene of people driving towards big storms, and Tyler's team spend almost all their screen-time yelping and hollering as they do stupid tricks like setting off fireworks inside a twister. It's obnoxious and grating, so you feel like you paid to watch a free YouTube video at a theater.

Now you might be wondering, how do you set off fireworks in a tornado? Wouldn't that require driving into one? Several characters, several times, explicitly say not to be in a vehicle during one. Ah but you see, Tyler's truck is specially rigged to anchor into the ground, keeping him safe. Why other vehicles are sometimes safe and others sometimes not, however? I'm no meteorologist, or filmmaker, but it seems the film can't follow it's own logic.

So the dualing groups really don't have much to dual about, one is funded by rich people and the other subscribers, so since they're not competing for anything, there is absolutely zero tension. They cut each other off on roads leading to storms, because of the script tells them (and of course, there is only one road per twister). Eventually the narrative introduces morals to the story, with Kate prioritizing helping those post-twister and Javi wanting to collect his data instead, so soon she leaves for Glenn, because, I dunno, he's supposed to be charming. Yet the two have no chemistry, just two decent actors being paid to talk cute to each other. (It doesn't help that he looks way too old for her, much more so than their mild real-life age gap suggests.)

So what about the meat-and-potatoes of it all, the tornadoes themselves. I saw this on the biggest screen I could, but "Twisters" fails to showcase the wonder of tornadoes, the majesty of mother nature being a force of nature. Instead the action is chaotically filmed, the camera struggling to clearly show the actors and special effects, so it harshly bounces around. I suppose it was to create a sense of disorientation and unease, but what we got was just frustration. There's a lot of money on the screen, and it's a shame we never really get a good look at it.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F Review

For such a belated fourthquel, "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F" commits a cinema felon by adding a subtitle instead of a simple roman numeral like its predecessors. And while I can't forgive such flagrant grammar inconsistencies, I can forgive the film itself for being a pleasantly light-weight action comedy that has just enough thrills and laughs.

Eddie Murphy returns as Axel Foley, who despite some paunch hardly looks a day over fifty, despite being over sixty. He's the same old fast-talking Detroit detective who, after stopping some crooks at a local hockey game, goes to visit his estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige), a criminal defense attorney in, you guessed it, Beverly Hills. She hates him for prioritizing his work over his family, and not a story beat is beaten that hasn't been beaten to death in every other medium of entertainment. But it's fine, the two have chemistry, and it goes to show that with the right script (here credited to Will Beall, Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten) is still capable of being funny.

Anyway, Jane is working on a case to defend Enriquez (Damien Diaz), who claims to be framed for the death of an undercover cop. A cop who works for Grant, played by Kevin Bacon, and I'm not sure if it's the film or the actor himself, but the second you see him you know he's dirty. Of course the film comes out and says just as much soon after, so don't press that "play" button thinking there's any subtly here at all- Bacon's the kind of actor born who has the face of a slimy bent authority figure.

He's the kind of character that can only exist in movies like this, where their word is trusted by the entire department despite the fact that he or his goons are constantly planting evidence, kidnapping, arresting, breaking-and-entering without warrants, stealing, and oh yeah, killing, in the age where everyone in Beverly Hills and their pampered pooch have a phone capable of recording.

Oh don't get me wrong, Kevin is a fantastic actor, capable of range this belated little distraction doesn't deserve, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give it his all. Because he does, but man, he can do this in his sleep.

Judge Reinhold returns as Rosewood, as does Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot and John Ashton (as Jeffery, Serge and Taggart, respectively), and their participation is an extended cameo at best and just a plain old cameo at worst, but hey, part of me is happy to see someone like Reinhold still working in Hollywood. In actuality, Axel spends much of his time with Jane and Detective Abbot (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who's frizzy hair and relaxed, almost bored expression reminded me of disgraced and incarcerated actor Danny Masterson, which if unintentional is uncanny. He's working on the Enriquez case too, and previously dated Jane, which probably sounded like it'd provided suspense, but this featherweight actioner couldn't muster any dramatic or romantic tension if Eddie broke the fourth wall and said directly to the audience "this is dramatic and romantic tension."

But who cares, because director Mark Molloy keeps the familiar plot moving fast enough that you're never bored, but he fails to craft a single creative moment; your standard shootouts and chases punctuate the picture enough times to keep you from dozing off, but it never stimulates you. It never challenges your expectations, instead banking on warmed-over nostalgia and Murphy's comedic talents.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die Review

The fourth entry in the "Bad Boys" series, "Ride or Die," is more or less as fun as the previous film "Bad Boys For Life," and yes, I'm ignoring the silly subtitling. What it lacks in purpose is it more than makes up for it by being a breezy comedic action thriller- I laughed thrice out loud, twice was even at the same joke, and no, I'm not gonna spoil the punchlines.

It helps that my screening was in a relatively packed theater, a lively bunch who busted out giggling constantly. It's not that funny, but it does give good reason as to the whole point of theaters, streaming be damned!

Both Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return, as detectives Mike and Marcus respectively, and despite both pushing sixty, they handle the action scenes with both humor and conviction. It helps that the script by Chris Bremner and Will Beall, gives the actors an opportunity to suffer from the effects of aging; early on Marcus survives a heart attack at Mike's wedding to Christine (Melanie Liburd), and Mike suffers from panic attacks throughout the runtime. But don't worry, they still blow stuff up real good.

And that stuff being blown up succeeds at a technical level too: directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah return from the last picture, and they continue to find exciting ways to film the same old shootouts and car chases. Take one scene where our heroes, alongside Mike's illegitimate son Armando (Jacob Scipio), drive a stolen van after a hit is placed on them. The usual stuff right? But here, the Van catches on fire as it speeds down the streets, cops and gangs in pursuit. It might not make much sense (how does one see, for example), but in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die," questions like that only come up if you forget to leave your brain at the door. I left my brain at the door.

The detectives are working to unframe their late captain Howard (played by the very-much alive Joe Pantoliano), who was working to figure out who "from the top" was working with the cartel. But plotting in a film like this only exists to setup the next big action scene, culminating in a finale inside an abandoned alligator theme park. I always love it when movies involve these reptiles, though I do knock the picture for not having anyone use the line "see you later, alligator." I mean it was right there, come on!

What I can't get behind however brutality against women, where they exist either as a token character in a group (such as Vanessa Hudgens' Kelly) or as kidnap fodder (spoilers). Or, in one scene, unable to handle themselves, despite being a COP and having a GUN, against a man (spoilers, again). I'm not necessarily against cliches, but it's ones like this that are as easy and antiquated as they are wrong.

The narrative is filled with twists and turns but nothing comes as a surprise, and so the emotional core lies on the shoulders of Smith and Lawrence, who have some real nice moments of male bonding. I mean it happens betwixt barb after barb, but hey, boys will be boys.

Under Paris Review

I brought up in my "Sting" review earlier this year that 1975's "Jaws" will likely forever be the defacto giant shark film, and Netflix's latest giant shark film "Under Paris" does nothing to change that. It is a great movie experience even if it's not a great movie, filled with dumb dialogue, idiotic characters, cliches and gore- all the good stuff.

Hey, even a classy critic like me can let loose every once in a while!

We follow Sophia (Bérénice Bejo), your standard cinematic "shark expert," who we first meet right before an incident where her husband and the rest of her team were mauled by Lilith, a tagged mako shark they were tracking. This scene immediately sets the tone for the film, as people float feet underwater next to a bloody baby sperm whale carcass as a shark swims mere meters away. I felt like yelling "get out of the water," but I don't speak French.

Not to suggest that Hollywood (France, as is the case here) at all represents true shark behavior, but even a dummy like me knows better then to enter a predator's territory, let alone one where the beast's leftovers sit.

Still shaken after several years, Sophia is approached by Mika (Léa Léviant), who's been following her work and knows where Lilith is. Spoiler alert, there's a shark in Paris. Well technically it's the Seine, but I suppose "Under Seine" didn't have quite the same ring to it.

Mika leads a sorta hippy environmentalist underground organization with her girlfriend Ben (Nagisa Morimoto), and due to a recent car accident in the Seine where they found the car but not the driver, the couple are planning to go visit Lilith later that night. While underwater, Mika find the car, it's driver's side door covered in teeth marks. Totally nothing the police should have noticed. Nothing suspicious. Nothing to see here.

In truth the cops are shown to be pretty dumb overall, who once a homeless man's half-body is pulled from the water, instinctively dismiss the local shark-expert's claim that it's, you know, a shark. But they've got nothing on the mayor (Anne Marivin), who's role is effectively the same as the mayor in "Jaws:" her only concern isn't the safety of the people but instead the upcoming triathlon

Every line she delivers sounds like a political ad, but her best moment is when after shaking peoples hands, she turns around to apply hand sanitizer- and then she whips her paws dry on a guy's suit! Good stuff.

Anyway, Sophia eventually teams up with cop Adil (Nassim Lyes), but Miko goes her own path, using social media to get help with an effort to safely move Lilith to the ocean from the flooded catacombs. Things, of course, do not go as planned, and it becomes an absolute bloodbath. Here in lies "Under Paris'" strength, showing the stupidity of man: not just of those in charge but people overall, where background characters get trampled as the crowd panics for safety, while others are knocked out and drown. 

This would be horrific had it been played seriously, which it isn't, but mostly had it not immediately succeeded an absolute gem of a scene, where we find out Lilith has a daughter. Miko's in the water, deciding to pet the baby like a doggie. Even a dummy like me knows that shark's skins are like razors! Oh but it gets better, this would-be professional doesn't seem to think that mommy would mind some strange creature being so close to its kid. Miko should really watch more monster flicks, it's obvious the filmmakers have.

Darkness of Man Review

Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Darkness of Man" is the kind of gritty, low-rent crime thrillers they don't make anymore; where it's almost always nighttime, the sun only shining through the mostly closed blinds to awaken the alcoholic main character. Playing Russell Hatch, Van Damme drinks and smokes with class and swagger, trying to protect his ex-lover Esther's (Chika Kanamoto) kid Jayden (Emerson Min) from getting into the family business: drugs. Only the plot isn't that simple, involving the Russian mob, double-crosses, plot twists and some surprisingly gory kills, mostly at the hands of Russell. 

The narrative is labyrinthine not because it's well-written but quite the opposite- story beats are delivered awkwardly in English, Korean and Russian, characters often swapping between languages mid-scene. But it's biggest flaw is it's lack of purpose: this exists to make some money on the VOD market and to keep the Van Damme name relevant. Well, as relevant as a VOD film can keep you.

We meet Russell via a flashback, sitting impatiently at a diner, where he dismisses a waitress' inquiry on spiking his coffee, claiming he doesn't drink. Ha, his glazy eyes, five-a-clock shadow and suspiciously flask-shaped bump in his blazer pocket suggest otherwise. He's soon met by Esther, who begs him to protect her son. He agrees, though is narration disagrees, spouting doomy dialogue that probably sounds good in advertisements. They part ways, where she's soon killed, and him wounded, and well, here we are.

Living in an extended-stay motel, his neighbor Chris, an unrecognizable Spencer Breslin, sells drugs and generally acts as the film's comic relief. He's never funny really, but he's completely believable as a low-level pusher, and when he tells Russell that he uses a drone to pick up his merchandise, I totally bought it. (Sadly, we never seen it happen. Perhaps in the sequel?)

Jayden, a moody teenager who vapes and overall is not a great kid, thinks his mother was a druggie and overdosed, effectively abandoning him. Ah, kid, if only you saw the opening scene! He doesn't take kindly to Russell, referring as "his driver" to friends and teachers, but is soon approached by his uncle Dae Hyun (Peter Jae), to work with him in that forbidden family business. Remember when every cinematic villain involved vague drugs? Simpler times.

Van Damme, an actor with a screen-presence that is simultaneously distracting and interesting, remains convincing in the action scenes despite being in his sixties, my favorite being a fight filmed from within a minivan, while he takes down two thugs. (But my favorite moment is when we find out the muscles-from-Brussels has a little cat!)

Judging by all the production companies in the opening credits (I thought I counted no less than five, but the interwebs tells me it is "just" four), we can only surmise this didn't exactly cost a lot to make, but director/co-writer James Cullen Bressack keeps the action limited to just a few rainy streets, grungy back alleys and rundown buildings, and it works quite well. The (very) few larger scenes, such as a Cadillac Escalade flipping over, don't look cheesy or filled with cheap CGI; it's something that Cannon would have made in the late 80's, from economic directors like J. Lee Thompson or Joseph Zito, probably staring an aging Charles Bronson (or even a young Van Damme) as they slashed the budget with the cameras were still rolling. It's not necessarily good, but it is a skillfully made little thriller that in another time probably would have had a good trailer and awesome VHS box.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 Review

Director Renny Harlin has a career far more fascinating than pretty much any film he's actually directed, and boy has he directed a lot of films; he has four scheduled for this year alone, three of which form an independent trilogy in the cult franchise "The Strangers." It begins here with "The Strangers: Chapter 1," a name only confusing unless you forget that there's actually two previous flicks, and what ever subtlety the earlier entries had is completely lost this time around. Third time is not the charm, it seems.

It's not-quite-a-reboot-but-not-a-remake, at least officially, but the same exact beats are repeated, not just from 2008's "The Strangers" and 2018's "The Strangers: Prey At Night," but by dozens of other slasher films. Tell me if you've heard this before: a few out-of-towners (Madelaine Petsch as Maya and Froy Gutierrez as her long-time boyfriend Ryan) stop by a mysterious town for a bite to eat while driving cross country, their car mysteriously breaks down, and have to spend the night in said town while it's in the mysterious shop. It's a mysterious airbnb way out in the middle of the mysterious woods, fully furnished and yes, it even mysteriously has chickens! They actually have some of the best dialogue; I believe it went something like "cluck cluck..."

Ryan has asthma but forgets his inhaler in the broken down car, so he hops on the inexplicably functional and full-of-gas motorcycle, somehow finds his way back to town to get it. Meanwhile, Maya stays back in the cabin, and though Ryan returns safely, not before hell breaks loose when a group of strange strangers arrive, mask on face, and knife and ax in hand.

Harlin, for his part, does know how to stage a shot, where woods are enveloped in a heavy mist at all times (naturally), and exercises some surprising restraint with the gore. I'm fine with that, but the actions of the characters is so illogical and stupid that the would-be tension only exist because the script has them doing illogical and stupid things. You sit on your worn leather reclining chair waiting to be scared, waiting for the audience to yelp in terror, but instead everyone slowly dies of boredom.

But it is not just the story that's banal, but also the score; there are somehow two composers, Justin Burnett and Òscar Senén, and their contributions here consists almost entirely of droning beats and silence, usually right before a sudden loud noise accompanies something equally sudden appearing onscreen. It is all just cliche, so cliche in fact that I began to notice just how uninspired it was. I usually only notice a film's score when it's really good or really bad, but this is the first time in my life I noticed it just because of how bland it is.

The screenplay, written somehow by three people(!) (Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Amber Loutfi), steals not just the basic premise, not just the beginning, middle and ending, but also every single problem every single other film in the genre has. A perfect example is when, because plot, Maya and Ryan find a working car and try to escape. So far, so logical. But uh oh, these cloaked bad guys also have a working vehicle, and smash into theirs. You might have asked yourself, why didn't they IMMEDIATELY drive off? I don't have an answer, but then again, I doubt the screenwriters had one either. Anyway, Ryan is trapped, and has Maya leave him and run into the woods while he picks up his gun and begins blasting away. Only the hooded villain is able to quickly escape the blast by exiting their vehicle, leaving the keys inside. You can of course, surmise that neither of our heroes didn't think to, you know, drive away it in it. Someone get me a thesaurus, because I'm running out of ways to say "dumb."

It's as if all the characters exist in a vacuum and their only option is to react to any threat by running away, instead of using their heads.

Oh, you might be thinking, that's just one scene, that perhaps the entire film can't be filled with moronic moments that like, but you would be wrong. How wrong? Well.. characters not calling the police when they should; when they do make that belated call, the reception is bad; protagonists don't shoot antagonists when their shotgun is aimed square in their face; people split up (multiple times); everyone but the bad guys trips, falls or otherwise hurts themselves; hero has a chronic illness; hero forgets inhaler; hero later drops inhaler; heroine thinks someone is in the house, so she drinks; and when heroine still thinks someone is in the house, so she smokes weed. I hating writing that as much as I hated seeing the film itself.

The immature teenager in me wanted some violent bloodshed, hell I would have settled for gratuitous nudity, but no. Despite its R rating for, I dunno, some bad language and tame pools of blood, this is an exploitation picture without the exploitation. I wouldn't mind "The Strangers: Chapter 1" so much if it weren't so offensively dull. Usually you just want your work to be memorable, not memorably forgettable.

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver Review

If the first "Rebel Moon" film was director and co-writer Zack Snyder's blatant attempt at making his own "Star Wars," then its sequel (dubbed the very loquacious "Part Two: The Scargiver") is his "The Empire Strikes Back," a film arguably twice as good as its predecessor. That's true here as well, but sorry Zack, you know what two times zero is...

That may be an exaggeration, but that still means his follow-up gets literally just one star.

The interwebs tells me both films were shot back-to-back, which is unfortunate because Mr. Director learns absolutely nothing from his first go about; "Part Two" suffers from all the same shortcomings, and again, the most offensive is the fetishistic obsession with slow motion. This time around we get slow motion crown falling, slow motion people falling, slow motion people dying, slow motion people yelling, slow motion grain harvesting, slow motion romantic gazing, slow motion birds flying, slow motion water canteen filling, slow motion fade to black, slow motion people posing, slow motion self-arm amputation, slow motion people pouting, and slow motion suicide, along with the returning slow motion walking, slow motion shooting, slow motion explosions, and slow motion hand-to-hand combat. If that was hard to read, just imagine having to watch it.

What's funny is the all the nuance to the persistent slow motion, where, mid-sword fight, the action slows down even further to emphasize this or that. It is nothing short of dumbfounding and, well, just dumb. Another humorous moment was when the subtitles read "gunfire in slow motion." Even the subtitles are bored here.

But my favorite (or er, well, doesn't that make it least favorite?) was the long stretch of slow motion grain harvesting. We see people swing the sickle in slow motion, the grain fall in slow motion, people bundle it up in slow motion, being picked up in slow motion, placed on a cart in slow motion (at least it's a floating cart I guess. How "space-operatic..."), then the grain being ground in slow motion. This in itself is silly, but then you realize that with all these flying ships, laser swords, etc., that what we're watching is quite literally how people did (and probably still do) harvest grain. When the hell did it swap to How It's Made? Where's the fun in watching actors pretend to work? It's as thrilling as a historic reenactment without the actual history. 

The grain is critical to the plot, in case you forgot the first film's stale plot about the evil "Motherworld" demanding the heroes' harvest in the small town of (checks internet), Providence. They're so low on food that they have to resort to flying way out into space to get some, apparently Walmarts doesn't exist in this nebulous time. At one point the residents of (double-checks internet) Providence practice defending themselves from the villains by using that very grain as dummies. Think of the wasted resources.

We again follow Kora (Sofia Boutella), the "Scargiver" in the title, but I'm not sure if that was before or after she gave main baddie Atticus (Ed Skrein) a literal scar when she almost killed him at the end of the last picture. Oh what, that's a spoiler? Consider yourself lucky for not having seen it. She, alongside her lover Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), Titus (Djimon Hounsou), Nemesis (Bae Doona), and Tarak (Staz Nair), among others either in the little village or returning from the first film, devise a surprise-attack on the Motherworld's men when they arrive to pick up the grown yield. They are far outnumbered and, as Jimmy the robot (an oddly-cast Anthony Hopkins, hopefully collecting a good paycheck) tells them, they "cannot win." Of course, there wouldn't be a sequel in the works if they lost, or maybe there would? I dunno, I'm not a storyteller, and neither is Zack Snyder.

If he was, the viewer would know when the films take place; the future? Then how come the big ship Dreadnought uses a manual hand-crank to position cannons? Wouldn't that be all electronic or something? OK what if it takes place in the past, then how come characters wear jeans? How are there holograms? How is a basic question like this even a question?!

Then there's the flashbacks, no not to the first film, but new scenes giving some much needed backstory. The day before the attack, our band of protagonists sit around, drink, and share their "truth." Titus goes first, then asks the others. It's all good and all, but once he gets to Kora and ask for her "story," you remember that the small-minutia of a background Kora has, pure "revenge," was shown in a different flashback that opens the picture. Please, Titus, how about YOU watch the damn film you're in! The best part of her flashback is, during an assassination (slow motion, naturally), we see the king (another weird casting decision, this time a barely used Cary Elwes), as he walks in on the trap. A live-band plays somber music as he and his family are about to die, and yet, they still play music. They missed a good opportunity to go "whomp whomp."

The whole thing plays like a film suffering from corporate meddling, as if everyone from the executives to the janitors trying to make it "theirs." It has this overly-homogenized feel that is sadly what happens when you give a blank-check to a man who made one good film back in 2004. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but like the saying goes: "nice guys make terrible, mundane, long, laborious, obvious, banal, and probably even more adjectives, movies."

While this time around there isn't any rape attempt (a particularly unsavory moment from the first film), at two different points two different "strong" female characters need to be rescued by a man. Or boy, in the case of Nemesis, who you could argue is a symbol of her losing her children, as explained (badly) in the first film, but then you'd be giving it more thought than I think the filmmakers did. It's the kind of cinematic sexism that only a male director and three male credited screenwriters could mistake as a good idea.

Characters speak in terse and tedious terms, consisting of nothing but demands and arbitrary name-dropping in lieu of actual world-building; at one point the subtitles read "birds chirping," which is easily the best dialogue in the franchise.