Super Cops III (Bad Boys for Life, 2020)

Who wasted a perfect title for a fourth film???? Seriously people… Bad Boys 4 Life.

Seventeen years after the last film, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett are back. A little older, a bit…um…thicker…but they are back. Burnett is desperate to retire and spend time with his wife and new granddaughter. Mike wants to keep being the badass cop.

But when there is an assassination attempt on Lowrey, they are called into action to try and determine who the killer is.

Bad Boys for life focuses on the impact of past choices, getting older, family and trust. Like, this is the first film to not make a joke about the closeness of these two men. It treats their friendship as noble and good, not something to be embarrassed by.

The stakes get raised and while certain twists are not super original, they do work. The action sequences are incredibly easy to follow along with, yet still exciting.

Seriously, this is the best film in this franchise and I found myself curious for the clearly set up fourth film. Bad Boys for Life is exciting, has depth the other two films lacked and was just a lot of fun to watch overall.

May 14, 2020 0

Super Cops II (Bad Boys II, 2003)

The Boys are back. The bickering couple stuff returns. The hot babes as props returns. The Gay subtext of the relationship of Lowrey and Burnett is here again. The fast and confusing visuals are back.

Honestly, I found the second Bad Boys film painfully tedious. There are few bright spots. I mean, Gabrielle Union is good. Peter Stormare is always fun. But this film tired me out quick.

May 13, 2020 0

Super Cops (Bad Boys, 1995)

In 1995 Will Smith was still primarily known as the Fresh Prince (with a lot of acclaim for his role in Six Degrees of Separation) and Martin Lawrence was riding high with a successful sitcom, stand-up and supporting roles in film. And Michael Bay? He had directed music videos.

Bad Boys is set in Miami and follows the exploits of two risk taking cops with attitude, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. When there is a heist that steals all the drugs from a recent major bust right from under the noses of the Drug Task Force’s vaults, they start trying to determine how it happened. When a call girl, Julie, calls in demanding to speak with Lowrey. This leads to “comic hijinks” as, since Mike is not in, Burnett pretends to be Lowrey.

This forced Mike to stay with Marcus’ family as they pretend to be each other to keep the trust of Julie. They take shots at each other via putting themselves down and so on. This is the Bickering Couple style of buddy cops, in the vein of Riggs and Murtaugh. Except, Mike has no death wish, instead he perceives himself as super awesome and is very into style and appearance. Like, I have no idea what a detective in Miami makes, but I still feel like it is very likely they cannot afford the lavish lifestyle of Mike Lowrey.

This film kicks off poorly aging humor about how it sure seems like they are a couple and both men getting hyper sensitive about it. Bay’s use of women as either unpleasant scold wives/authorities or hot objects is on full display here.

It can be hard to follow the action and the film often feels more like it is a bunch of rock videos strung together.

Bad Boys really cemented Bay’s style very early on and not really for the best. A lot of his weaknesses on display here have carried on through his career.

May 12, 2020 0

There Will Be Bloodshot (Bloodshot, 2020)

Back in 1987, Jim Shooter was fired from Marvel Comics. He had a tumultuous tenure as the Editor in Chief which saw a lot of success, but also a lot of enemies made. Two years later he fought his way back into comics with Valiant Comics. Valiant had made a splash and built a following. However, they never managed to get a share of the greater public recognition of companies like Marvel, DC or Image. The company has gone in and out of business, moving from owner to owner. In 2018 the majority owner DMG fully purchased the company and apparently focused on pushing their characters beyond comics. The first of a possible shared universe would be Bloodshot starring Vin Diesel. To be honest…I have one Bloodshot comic book from 1993 and I cannot remember the story at all. I know just enough…he is a super soldier full of nanotech.

We are introduced to Ray Garrison, top soldier who is killed along with his wife after a mission. He wakes up later, told he is the first successful Super Soldier project of his nature. He is introduced to team mate who have high tech enhancements to compensate for lost limbs or sight, or in the case of KT, a specialized breather that both allows her to breath and to be able to breathe gasses and even underwater. When he regains his memory of the murder of his wife, he goes rogue to kill the man who murdered her.

But after accomplishing this, it is revealed that the memories are manipulated by the people responsible for his nano tech. When a mission goes wrong, he learns the depths of the manipulation and is determined to get his life back.

Bloodshot is a very simple tale, and does not really add any new beats. The bad guys are bad, the good guys are fighting against the odds. Guy Pearce does a good job of coming across as possibly a good guy losing control of his work during act one, but clearly a dark and greedy villain once it is all revealed. Eiza González is sympathetic as KT, trapped by her desire to, you know, not die.

Vin Diesel is good in the role, as it kind of plays to his strengths.

David Wilson is a visual effects guy making his feature debut, and he gives us a pretty solid action movie. The effects look good, and I genuinely liked the visuals showing Bloodshot’s powers at work.

The film ends open wide for sequels, but does not hint at a bigger universe, so I am not sure what the future holds for Valiant. But Bloodshot is a fun super soldier action film that makes for light entertainment.

May 11, 2020 1

Quicktime (Sonic the Hedgehog, 2020)

Sonic popularity came about at a time when I had no access to video games. So I watched a lot of the discourse around the film lacking any real skin in the game. There are two things that stood out. One was the initial trailer that drew outrage over the look of the Sonic. This led to the studio rushing back to the drawing board and aggressively redesigning and animating an all new Sonic model. Since the movie was released, it seems pretty universal that the altered model is a big improvement.

The second issue seemed to revolve around how relevant this would be for young kids. One example is that on Fandom’s Charting with Dan, Dan Murrell and Lon Harris asked if kids really cared about Sonic. But honestly, at the time, the only reason I expected to see the movie, it was because my nephews liked Sonic and wanted to see the movie.

We are introduced to young Sonic, who lives on a magical island in another universe and is looked after by an Owl. She warns Sonic that he has special abilities that people will always want to exploit, and so he must always keep himself a secret. She gives him special rings of gold and explains to him that if trouble ever happens, he must escape to another universe using the rings. When they are attacked, Sonic is forced to leave on his own. He ends up in our world, where he spends the next ten years living in hiding.

He lives his life alone, pretending to have friendships with all the locals, with a special attachment to the local Sheriff, who he has named Donut Lord. Meanwhile, Donut Lo-uh Tom lives with his wife and is trying to chase a life of excitement by joining a larger police force. When Sonic accidentally causes a massive power outage with his powers, the U.S. Government sends out eccentric scientist Doctor Robotnik to find Sonic.

Tom finds himself road tripping with Sonic to San Francisco to locate his lost rings, bonding and trying to escape the grasp of Robotnik.

And you know…the movie is actually a lot of fun. Ben Schwartz voices Sonic with an excited child like quality. James Marsden is always a solid Every Man (in spite of his leading man good looks). And Jim Carrey is clearly having a blast here.

The CGI works pretty well, and successfully bridges the cartoonish and real.

I am not a huge fan of the whole “You can Never Share Your Secret” narratives, as it often feels kind of an easy setup. But for the most part, once the movie kicks into gear, you kind of forget about it until the end. Some of the humor falls flat (like the running jokes about Olive Garden).

But I was far more entertained by this film than I expected to be. Sonic is one of the more fun video game adaptions and makes for nice light entertainment.

May 8, 2020 0

Poison in the Well (Dark Waters, 2019)

Frankly, companies do not care about you. Amazon does not care about you. And chemical companies really do not care about you. And Dark Waters is about the fight to not just expose this to the world, but to hold polluters accountable for the destruction they have caused.

Dark Water is a legal drama that somehow manages to pace itself like some sort of action movie. It does not spend a lot of time establishing Ruffalo’s Rob Bilot. He is a lawyer and has a family, and quickly he finds a farmer, Wilbur Tennant, in his office demanding his help. Wilbur is certain that Dupont chemicals have been destroying the earth and cattle of his farm.

Hesitant at first Bilot does a little research…it does not take long for him to suspect Tennant is on to something. His firm is unsure at first, as they normally defend companies like Dupont. But as time passes and information comes in that seems more damning, top people in the firm start to share Bilot’s conviction.

One of the most effective aspects of this film is how they sell the paranoia and demoralizing nature that can be part of challenging the status quo. In one scene, a man Bilot believes he could trust tells him he is sending all their research. It is so many boxes, as they pull away it feels defeating. It is clear they were inundating Bilot with so much they hoped he would give up or never be able to process it all and therefore miss something.

Dark Waters spans over a decade, and sometimes the time jumps greatly between scenes. This method of transition lulls the viewer a bit as you kind of expect maybe jumping a couple years here and there…and then around 2006, the screen stays dark as the title card jumps year by year.

Mark Ruffalo gives a great performance and you see the years of not getting justice take their toll, the fear that he and his family are in danger.

Dark Waters got kind of overlooked last year, but it is worth locating and watching.

May 6, 2020 0

Hot News (Bombshell, 2019)

Bombshell is the dramatic recounting of the harassment scandal surrounding Fox News top guy Roger Ailes in 2016. Focusing on a wide eyed new Fox News employee Kayla Pospisil. An ambitious Conservative Christian, she finds her reality challenged as she starts to rise through the ranks, eventually becoming a victim of Ailes.

Robbie’s Popsisil is a composite character invented for the film. Robbie manages to be sympathetic in spite of her aspirations. Theron and Kidman do a good job disappearing into their famous roles, as does Lithgow.

The real MVP of Bombshell is the make-up, which made many actors near unrecognizable.

This being your standard “inspired by a True Story” fare, there is a lot of embellishment (outside of actual Fox News personalities, the central people Kayla interacts with the most are fictional, including Kate McKinnon’s Jess Carr).

The story playing out is pretty engaging, but the film seems unsure of what it wants to be. Is it a drama that indicts a sick corporate culture? Is it a satire of a sick corporate culture? Is it just the facts?

The main story is bookended by two very different set pieces. It opens with Megyn Kelly (Theron) giving us a tour of the Fox News offices. It closes with a Gretchen Carlson (Kidman) speech about sexual harassment in the work place.

Bombshell is largely well made, bolstered by excellent make up and good performances. But it’s lack of focus on what type of film it is trying to be definitely is a detriment.

May 5, 2020 0

The Saga’s Endgame (Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker, 2019)

All things must end they say. It seems like May 4th is the appropriate day for me to put out my review of the final film in the “Skywalker Saga”. While I saw the film twice in theaters, December and January passed before I started playing catch up…and then I decided to wait for the 4K release of the film so I could get one more watch. And I finally committed to a third watch.

The film opens with a quick update crawl telling us the Emperor is back. And the story picks up with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren trying to locate the Emperor so he can defeat him. But quickly, we learn the Emperor has plans and wants Kylo to help, in exchange for an army that the Emperor and his Sith Cultists have been building for thirty years.

We then get reintroduced to Finn, Chewie and Poe, who are gathering data from someone who reveals there is a spy within the First Order. Rey is busy training to be a Jedi under the watchful eye of General Leia Organa. Once they find out the Emperor is definitely back, they determine they must take the fight to the Emperor, but the problem is that Exogol, the home planet of the Sith, is not on any map. They need a special Sith device that will lead them to the planet. So Ray, Finn, Poe and Chewie go off on a series of adventures.

So, the core question, if you are reading this, I suspect is “Did I Like It?”

I…guess? I mean, I did not hate it? But I did not love it?

Some Spoilers ahead…

It was great to see the characters return. It was nice to finally see Lando back. I like the way they used Hux in this film. I feel like John Williams did a solid job with the soundtrack. The action sequences were great. I was not super bothered by the return of the Emperor, since the old Extended Universe used the idea that the Emperor had been using cloning technology to extend his life. I also am never bothered by “new” Jedi powers being revealed in the films. The power to move objects was introduced in Empire, as were actual Force ghosts. And the powers exhibited in this film really build on stuff we have already seen.

Babu Frick is awesome.

At the same time?

A large chunk of the film feels like course correction. It feels like J.J. Abrams and writer Chris Terrio are trying to respect that Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi Happened, but also trying too soft reboot. When Kylo Ren told Rey her parents were nobodies, he was not lying…he did not know the dark truth that her father was the clone son of Emperor Palpatine. And they were really good people trying to protect her from the Emperor. It is weird to think that Rey has had almost no interaction with Poe, but somehow they are besties in this film.

We have heard about the Knights of Ren for several years now and we meet them in this film. Kind of. I have no idea if they have names, but the movie shows them walking around. We have a Storm Trooper say they are scary. That is pretty much it. There is one fight with them towards the end and they are quickly dispatched. Otherwise we just see them walk around.

The way they tried to retro fit previously unused Carrie Fisher footage in the film never feels organic. At no point does it feel like anyone is interacting with her. Which leads me to this frustration… Abrams and Terrio sidelined Rose Tico in the saddest way possible. They make her a sidekick to a digital restoration of Carrie Fisher. Why was she not part of the action on the Millenium Falcon in the early part of the film? Why was THIS guy there instead???

The film has multiple points where it raises the stakes dramatically, only to reveal that there was nothing to worry about. Major story impacting incidents are reversed so that we lose nothing as fans. There is not anything that engages our emotions for the story. And that is where I lean towards feeling disappointed with how the Skywalker Saga comes to a close. It is fun, but not as satisfying as I had hoped it might be. It has some good ideas, such as Storm Troopers who rebelled against the First Order. But then instead of the obvious plot point of Finn having inspired Storm Troopers to refuse their orders, it is just never something that is connected.

So… I did not hate the film. There is stuff I really enjoy and stuff that annoys me. It kind of evens itself out.

May 4, 2020 0

Did Not Plan That

I was not intentionally meaning to fo the entire month of April without a single post. I apologized for that. I am still playing catch up on films that I missed before the theaters all closed.

As someone whose job already allowed me to work from home, I still have the schedule I have always had, so the lock down has not resulted in actual additional free time to devote to my creative endeavors.

But I am going to be getting more stuff up this month, starting Monday.

May 3, 2020 0