Woke Culture (The Hunt, 2020)

So, the Hunt was meant to be released last year, but after a mass shooting and leaks about plot specific information led to people declaring this movie should not be released, including a condemnation from the impeached President of the United States. And so the movie was pulled. Although there seemed to be talk at the time of this film just being put on a shelf somewhere…well, it was released to theaters with a modest amount of commercials and it hit a week before movie theaters closed across the nation. Universal took the proactive move to make three of their recent films (the Hunt, Emma and the Invisible Man) available for streaming rentals. Disney has followed suit with Onward. I recommend Onward and the Invisible Man as very worth watching. I have no opinion on Emma yet as I have not gotten to watching it yet.

So…how is the Hunt? Is it a super hateful film celebrating killing Trump supporters? Well, my short answer is as follows.

No. Yes, this film is about a bunch of rich liberals who hunt a bunch of red staters. But the film is not at all sympathetic to its liberal characters. They are all played as awful people, while the film is pretty ambivalent about the Red Staters. Most of those characters get little to no characterization, not even in the sense of being stereotypes. Most of the liberals are stereotypes, with really only Betty Gilpin and Hilary Swank’s characters getting much personality.

Betty Gilpin is actually really good in this. She seems to be in a constant state of shock and on the verge of breaking down. But she also delivers some great action scenes and had a really good show down sequence.

As a genre film, this has a solid and classic hook. This is in the vein of films like Surviving the Game (a personal favorite). Honestly, I think it is hilarious that people assumed this would be a hateful screed against Trump when all the people who do not support Trump are evil cretins. As a lefty, this did not bother me terribly much, Gilpin feels rather a-political and is easy for viewers to root for.

I liked it. It is not the greatest film, but it is pretty effective as a genre thriller.

March 22, 2020 0

Interference (Blockers, 2018)

Honestly, when I heard about a film focusing parents trying to stop their daughters from fulfilling a sex pact on prom night? I cringed. The boys get American Pie where their quest is validated…but for the girls it is all about stopping them? It felt archaic.

Imagine my surprise watching the film Blockers to realize the film makers had similar ideas.

Mitchell, Lisa and Hunter meet on their daughters’ first day of school and become friend. Flash forward and the three are no longer as close of friends as their daughters. Julie, Kayla and Sam have remained the closest of friends and on prom night, they agree to lose their virginity to their dates. Julie is into her boyfriend and wants a romantic moment, Kayla just decides it is time and Sam…well, Sam is wondering if she wants to date boys at all, but she is afraid of losing her friends.

Julie and her mom Lisa are in a single parent situation, and Lisa seems very scared of losing her daughter. Mitchell is a bit of a man’s man who believes he has to protect Kayla from predatory boys. Hunter has largely been absent since divorcing Sam’s mother, but he is sure his daughter is gay and does not want her to regret sleeping with a boy just because she feels pressured to do it.

When the three get wind of their kid’s pact they go on a mission to save their daughters from making terrible mistakes. But through the course of the evening, they start to realize their daughters are not the core problem… Lisa is fearful of not having a close relationship with her daughter, not realizing she has been pushing Julie away. Mitchell thinks he has failed his duty as a protector…and realizing that maybe Kayla is not in need of saving is a scary thing. And Hunter? Well, he actually fears he has let his daughter down so badly, there may be no hope of connecting back to her life.

The film avoids stereotypes, John Cena’s Mitchell is actually pretty playful and kind…and prone to tears. And the film never treats this as a shameful thing. Leslie Mann has the neurotic mother thing down and is quite sympathetic. Ike Barinholt’s Hunter starts out as super obnoxious…but you start to see cracks in the facade.

The film also gives us a totally platonic friendship between Mitchell and Lisa (with her having withdrawn out of finding seeing him with his family as painful as it reminded her of what she feels she has lost). I found all three of the main actresses really likable. They really sell the friendships with the girls. The film also avoids making any of the guys who are the dates awful people. There are no villains in the films beyond the fears of the parents.

Now, the film is incredibly raunchy at certain points. Blockers may be a little to much for some folks. But I found myself laughing throughout the film. The jokes hit and the film has a lot of heart. Blockers was a pleasant surprise that left me entertained.

July 21, 2018 0

Fantasy Nation (Bright, 2017)

Netflix has been focusing hard on original material over the past few years, especially now as they face the future of no Disney films. Bright is their first foray into high concept, high budget action fantasy.

They brought together notorious Internet personality Max Landis (Screenwriting son of John Landis) and David Ayers (director of End of Watch and Suicide Squad) to present us with Bright. Bright is a genre mashup, best described as a combination of Ayer’s own End of Watch and the 1988 sci-fi film Alien Nation*. Except, instead of aliens, it involves fantasy creatures.

Set in a version of our world in which elves, orcs, fairies and so on all exist and interacted with humanity for thousands of years, Will Smith plays the human cop Daryl Ward. His partner is the first Orc police officer, Nick Jakoby. Due to an incident where Ward was shot and Nick appeared to have let the perp get away, there is tension. Nick pays lip service to the equality of the races when talking to his daughter, but he seems to struggle with it himself.

When the two stumble upon a young Elven Bright (a user of magic), they find themselves on the wrong end of gangs (both human and orc), evil elves and corrupt cops. It is a chase through the city as they try and determine who they can trust and how they can stop the impending threat to the world.

Bright is not a terrible idea. The film works hard to establish an existing racial hierarchy with it appearing to be Elves and Humans at the top, while Orcs face a lot of discrimination. The film hints that the Orcs once threw their lot in with a dark lord, and so people generally do not trust them.

But this is also where the film falters. While it is a decent concept, some of the execution just feels lazy. Smith has a throw away line about an orc being a “Shrek-Looking” thing. Would Shrek exist in a world like this? Would pop culture develop in the same trajectory? Orc music is literally just death metal. Orc culture is basically “L.A. Gang Culture” stereotypes. Sure, one character refers to having been a bus driver before moving to L.A., but we see no real examples of Orcs in any other life than gangs.

And to make things more frustrating, we never observe what kind of life Jakoby lives outside of being on the police force. Oh, sure, he talks about how he has wanted to be a police officer since he was a child, and how he files down his tusks to appear less threatening. But we are told this. And we know nothing beyond what he tells Ward. We see Ward’s home life. We even know he is trying to sell his home. We meet his wife and daughter. Nick is likable in his somewhat teenage-ish exuberance and well intentioned demeanor. Yet we never experience his life as an audience. And the film really needs that. This is where that Alien Nation comparison leaves Bright wanting. Alien Nation creates a real feel of the Newcomers trying to assimilate into the world around them. There are rich businessmen, street punks, teachers, prostitutes and most any profession out there. We are given important information through both show and tell. And it feels organic. In Bright, it is all given through dialog. There is some attempts to give us visual queue, mostly in the beginning where Ward and Jakoby are driving to work. This is mostly done through graffiti and Smith getting upset when they cut through Elven territory.

The villains are either stock characters (the humans and the orcs) or severely undefined. While the film references the Dark Lord, the evil magic using elves seem to have very vague notions other than service to this Dark Lord.

This is not to say it is all bad. I mean, the visual effects are nice. The Orcs are appropriately brutish looking and the elves are both creepy and ethereal. The action sequences are exciting to watch. But as much as I wanted to like this film, it just does not live up to it’s potential, especially when similar territory has done it so much better.

*I cannot take credit for this, the first person I saw make the reference was the talented comic book artist Jamal Igle. But this is by far the most accurate comparison.

January 9, 2018 0

The Mother Daughter Bond (Snatched, 2017)

When I first saw announcements for the Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn vehicle Snatched…I cringed. Kidnapping for laughs is kind of a weird one. And one that has been pretty done to death. Kidnapping for comedy films are, of course, very divorced from the realities of the crime of kidnapping. And some are better than others.

So, I walked into this film a bit hesitant. I had certainly laughed at bits in trailers, and I like Hawn and Schumer. Thankfully, for me the film worked pretty well. A lot of the weight for this falls on Schumer and Hawn, with some terrific backup by Wanda Sykes and (an entirely silent) Joan Cusack.

Goldie has a long career in comedy and knows her trade. This is a real benefit for Schumer since they have a nice chemistry together. Schumer is basically playing a common character for her. The aimless and awkward loser. Hawn plays her over protective and cat loving mother.

Emily (Schumer) gets dumped by her boyfriend (an entertaining but brief appearance by Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park) and drags her mother along with her on a non-refundable trip to Ecuador. Once there, they become tricked by a handsome stranger who delivers them to kidnappers who plan to ransom them. What follows is Emily and her mother on the run from a vicious Ecuadorian warlord and trying to get to the nearest American Embassy.

As noted, Schumer and Hawn have a good chemistry, and the film is populated by great character actors. The jokes often hit their target and are entertaining enough to not be distracted by a pretty conventional story about parent and child realizing how much they love each other.

Also, it was really nice watching a comedy and not getting bored because scenes went on to long. Seriously, the most common complaint I hear people make about comedies is “Should have been a half an hour shorter.” Snatched does not overstay it’s welcome, clocking in at a nice hour and a half.

Snatched does not break any new comedy ground, but it was a fun film with a good cast and funny jokes.

May 13, 2017 0