Category Archives: Live Action Movie Reviews

Woman of the Year Review

Posted on by
Reply


I’m glad that the poster mentioned how this isn’t suitable for general viewing because it really isn’t. Yes, I’m talking about the content. It’s not violence or fanservice, but just a bad message that the film churns out which basically says that the heroine tried to step out of her designated gender line and so she was in the wrong. Lets delve into this film a little more, but it all feels like some kind of big scam considering that the title suggests that this will be a very empowering film.

The film starts off with a reporter drinking away his sorrows at a bar. He’s your stereotypical American. Sam like sports, has an over inflated ego, and drinks constantly. He hears a coworker by the name of Tess on the radio who says that sports are basically pointless and she wouldn’t mind if they were banned. He gets incredibly triggered and starts yelling a lot as everyone gently kicks him out of the bar. He writes a quick editorial back at her and the wars start. She’s completely destroying him in these written arguments and the boss begins to worry that it’s getting too personal. He tells them to knock it off and Sam realizes that he’ll have to “win” some other way. He invites Tess to a baseball game and they almost immediately decide to get married. Phase 1 of Sam’s plan is complete…time for phase 2!

Sam wants Tess to stop overshadowing him and making him feel bad. While they are co-workers in the magazine, they are on different levels. Sam writes pieces on sports and nobody really cares about him. Tess has connections within the army and ties to foreign ambassadors and people of very high stature. She speaks dozens of languages and is also rich and known as one of the most charitable individuals in the world. Sam is jealous and I suspect that he has been for some time now. He wants her to be a normal housewife or he’s going to embarrass her socially. He decides to skip out on her father’s wedding because he’s a jerk like that and does his best to destroy her legacy as such a pioneer for women’s rights. Can he succeed?

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: He causes a lot of damage and does undermine her efforts at every turn. Towards the end of the film, Tess starts to get over dramatic to make Sam look good in comparison but it’s far, far too late. While the film doesn’t necessarily say this either, the whole thing seems like a plan of Sam’s from the beginning. I feel like he only married her so that he could try to get her to retire from being super successful and then he can finally feel superior. The whole thing felt like a way to put her down and the film never made this out to be a bad thing.

On the contrary, most of the climax is about Tess trying to make him a breakfast. Plot twist! Despite Tess being a super genius she has never been inside of a kitchen before. She doesn’t know how to make Toast or how to crack an egg. You’ve gotta be kidding right? That’s such an exaggeration and there is no way that she wouldn’t be able to do these things. I was getting triggered myself during the scenes as Sam is still being petty the whole time. He just sits there making mean facial expressions and mocking her efforts the whole time. She shouldn’t even have to be making it up to him since he was in the wrong the whole time.

Lets backtrack a bit though. When they first went out to the baseball game, Tess made an effort to learn it. Learning a sport and all the positions can be pretty tough if you’re not familiar with it, but she used her analytical experience from solving foreign matters of great delicacy and did it. She was then able to really get into the game and have a good time. Next, she invited him to one of her diplomatic meetings. Sam quickly found out that nobody there spoke English so he took the chance to make fun of someone since the guy couldn’t understand him and then Sam dashed out. He gets pretty full of himself from then on and tries to visit Tess in her office without talking to her secretary. Why would he be allowed in without an appointment? He has absolutely no respect for her position or duties and seems to think that he should be given priority over all of them. “Drop your appointment with the Prime Minister…I want to go to McDonalds tonight!” is essentially his attitude.

The only real mistake Tess made was to try manipulating Sam. She made him breakfast in bed for the first time and started talking about having a kid out of the blue. Sam was thrilled about this since having a kid would in theory mean that Tess would be focusing on her job next. She then lays the atom bomb on him by walking in a fully grown kid that she adopted from an unsafe environment. The kid’s a refuge. Sam’s immediately apprehensive, but you can be sympathetic to him. It’s like waking up on Christmas and your parents saying, “Remember that Nintendo Switch bundle that just came out with Mario Odyssey?” Me: Yeah! Them: “Well, we got you a Nintendo 64 and a used copy of Superman 64” Me: “Nooooooo!”

Superman 64 is actually a good game and adopting a kid is a really nice thing to do. They can easily turn his life from a very tragic one into a blessed one. The problem is that it’s not fair to just push this onto someone with no warning and even more so when you bring their hopes up only to smash it down. The kid can’t speak English either which makes the situation worse and the whole thing is unfair to Sam. This is the one part of the film where I don’t blame him for being upset and returning the kid to the orphanage was the right thing to do. The pair couldn’t handle the kid, but none of them really had a discussion with the other. This was also a pretty tricky moment since he did it as she was supposed to accept her Woman of the Year award. He naturally decided not to attend either although to his defense again, she claimed that he had no life so he should come. That’s kind of a mean thing to say.

You can tell by this point that the film was now trying to make her so exaggeratedly mean and insincere that we’re supposed to root for Sam. The problem is that I’d never do so in a million years. You really have to watch the film to see what a terrible character he is. At the very least, he does believe in getting even and tries to do so every time he is slighted.

It’s a shame that the film had to die in the writing department/plot because it could have been good otherwise. It’s part comedy and the humor is handled rather well. I liked one of Sam’s friends who is always talking about how well he fights. The guy came through when it counted and I always like the genuine friends like that who enjoy a good beer but are around when it counts. The scenes of Sam getting embarrassed are also pretty fun as you’d expect. It’s just all for naught in the end…such is the power of a bad ending.

Overall, I’m clearly not impartial in this film. I was on Team Tess the whole time. If you were rooting for Sam then I imagine that you would probably like this film quite a lot as he gets the last laugh time and time again. I never like seeing someone running around trying to please the other when it’s the mean character’s fault in the first place. It’s just unsavory and brings this film down quite a lot. I recommend avoiding it like an old Cheese stick and just watching something a little classier like The Magic School Bus. At least that show is educational and always leaves you with a heartfelt message.

Overall 3/10

What Lies Beneath Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at a horror/thriller film. This one’s about what you would expect. It’s not very good with a bunch of plot twists that don’t help its case. I’ll give the trailer some props for being incredibly misleading with a plot twist. It’s a clever misdirect. Of course, if you were excited for that plot line, it also means that you could be in for a disappointment when you watch the film. Needless to say, I didn’t mind that plot line being cut, but the actual plot in the film wasn’t any better.

Claire and Norman have been married for a long time. Norman can be a little too attached to his job at times, but he’s been a good person. Unfortunately, mysterious things begin to happen. Claire hears voices, she sees things move, her computer even starts typing MEF as much as possible. Norman thinks that she’s just being silly and tells her to cut it out. He’s never very understanding of the whole thing. Then Claire sees her neighbors acting suspiciously. They always seem to fight and the wife was crying about being terrified of something. Claire then becomes confident that she is murdered by the other neighbor and seeks to prove it. A lot of things are happening, but is Claire just making hasty conclusions?

Well, lets talk about some of the twists. We’re entering heavy spoiler land with this review so prepare for that. It’s an old movie so it’s all fair game, but I figure that I’d warn you in advance. One plot twist is that the neighbor’s wife just gets terrified and emotional whenever her husband is away. She has panic attacks, yells, and cries every time he leaves and she just doesn’t want anyone to know which is why she cries in the backyard and then runs if anyone notices her. It’s a very strange explanation and not one that you are very likely to believe. It was a red herring of course, but it’s like the writers couldn’t figure out how to add one in so they just made a very fake one. Not a great move.

You’ll be glad to know that the supernatural part of the film is real and isn’t just a hoax. That being said, it’s one of the weakest spirits in horror movie history. It figures that the one time the ghost is basically a good guy it happens to be weak. I can’t imagine the Grudge or the Ring looking like this. It can’t destroy a single person which is kind of sad. The invisible Ghost want to take him down for the count, but it seems like she needs a lot of help. It also forgets who the main target is at times and just goes wild on everyone. I can appreciate the determination on that, but it just feels very random for the sake of being a red herring once again.

So, one of the big twists revolves around Norman. Apparently he cheated on Claire and then murdered the person to save his own career. This naturally led to her turning into a ghost and vowing to destroy him. Norman also turns on Claire and tries to take her down for the count as well. It’s a very cliche’d route and one that has never worked. Norman also isn’t very thorough as picking another method would have allowed him to have destroyed her a lot quicker. Good thing he likes theatrics.

Claire is an okay character at best. Even as she puts the pieces together, she doesn’t give herself any kind of insurance in case the villain is near. To her defense, it would be hard to guess that Norman is actually evil, but she had cracked a decent amount of the puzzle so she should have thought about it more. Beyond that, Claire also gets possessed rather easily by the ghost or just suffered a nervous breakdown as she helps him relive the moment. It’s another scene that has no purpose in the film.

Lets face it, the romance in the film was poorly handled. The scenes drag on and are mostly just Norman saying “That’s too rough” over and over again during the scene. We get it, Claire’s not acting like herself, no need to keep repeating it. That possession scene was just so random. The film also has an obsession with the bathtub as we get really long scenes of the characters in there. Since Claire is nearly drowned in the bathtub while she is paralyzed, the film uses that as an excuse to keep the scene going. I don’t care for bathtub scenes in any context so that didn’t work for me. Especially not as a climax. We do have some driving at the end as well though and the ghost finally gets to make a move. Better late than never.

The film only works in the first place because of a ton of convenient elements. Claire suffers from intense memory loss because she was so traumatized that she blocked the memories out of something. If not for this, she would have known most of what happened right from the start, but then we’d have no movie. Naturally the cops never figured out the connection between Norman and the girl who went missing either. I like to think that someone would have known what was going on. The ghost was also really weak and couldn’t even help that much before the climax. She could have finished off Norman so easily in many different scenes.

Overall, What Lies Beneath is a thriller that cheats. It doesn’t have much foreshadowing for the events and makes characters act out of character when it suits its purpose. The film should have just played it straight with a vengeful spirit trying to destroy them all. We didn’t need Norman to crack and for the bathtub to be used multiple times as the weapon to destroy them all. There’s nothing really nice to say about the film. The romance is terrible and the film ends on a whimper. None of the characters are likable or even realistic. There’s not much of a soundtrack although I won’t call it bad either. The tunes that were there were likely okay. I can’t recall something sounding out of place at any rate. The film avoided all animal violence and wasn’t that violent in general so that’s a consolation. Still, if you want a good horror film, watch something like The original Mummy film instead. At least it had that retro feel and good writing to back it up.

Overall 3/10

Wonder Woman (2017) Review

Posted on by
11


All right, it’s time to check out DC’s latest film in its big film continuity. It scored 2 mega hits with Man of Steel and Batman V Superman, but then delivered one of the worst films of all time in this genre with Suicide Squad. Clearly it’s been an all or nothing gamble thus far. Well, DC tried to stay with this motto for a while, but ultimately they had to cave in. Critics demolished their older films for being too serious so DC had to fall in line. This was their first attempt to make a film that’s more like a Marvel film with a large increase in humor and a lighter tone. It works to an extent and this film is fun, but a considerable step down from the first two. I’ve been a little cautious about this new tone as Justice League also looks like it’s going to be very jokey, but perhaps it’s good that they switched sooner rather than later. The dark tone worked surprisingly well for Batman V Superman, but typically it’s a recipe for disaster. This is the safer option for the series especially if they want the critics on their side. That being said, I hope we still get a lot of action.

The film starts off with a long prologue of Wonder Woman growing up on Paradise Island and deciding that she wants to be a warrior. She trains in secret and quickly grows to be the strongest on the island. One day, Steve Trevor crashes on the island along with a bunch of Germans so the Amazonian warriors are forced to fight back. They suffer many losses but drive back the intruders. Steve pleads his case to return to Europe to expose the German deeds and potentially end the war with a book that he has found and Wonder Woman decides to go with him. She believes that Ares is secretly behind this war and that destroying him will finally Make Humanity Great Again! Steve doesn’t believe her, but he now has a ticket to get off the island so he agrees to take her to Ares. Can the two of them stop the war?

There’s definitely a lot to say about a big film like this so I guess lets start with the positives. The big climax was pretty great. I had been worried that we wouldn’t have any real villains during the movie and it would just be Wonder Woman beating up helpless soldiers the whole time. Fortunately, we did get a big boss in the end. It should be obvious who the villain is, but I won’t say just in case. We got some tributes to Man of Steel with the imagery and seeing the super fight was intense. The speed and punches were at a high level and still show that DC has the best fights. Wonder Woman’s use of her lasso in the battle was great as well and her bracelets are definitely going to be very useful in future films.

Also, the film gets the sword out of the picture for the climax so Wonder Woman has to fight in hand to hand combat. I can safely say that this is how Wonder Woman should always be fighting. Hand to hand is just the most satisfying for fighters like her, Superman, and the other heavy hitters. It makes their strength feel more real. Now, you can make the case that there is a bit of power level fluctuations in this fight as WW’s opponent is initially much faster than her along with being much stronger as well but suddenly can’t dodge. We can chalk that up to arrogance on his part of just plot hax. Either way, the fight and visuals were on point so it’s not really a big deal.

Speaking of the visuals, those were definitely pretty solid. Wonder Woman’s lasso certainly glowed rather well and seeing it used in combat was fun. The video game esque combos that Wonder Woman got off it was certainly cool. The fiery landscape at the end was also very epic. DC seems to like it as we’ve now gotten this landscape for BVS, Wonder Woman, and it’s confirmed for Justice League as we see it in the trailer. It’s a great background so I wouldn’t mind if they used it for all future films. It just works really well.

Time to quickly mention a moment in the film that felt rather convenient. This was when Wonder Woman decided to raid the Amazonian armory and steal the artifacts. Why was there a random brick sticking out on the wall so she could grab it? I don’t get the purpose of that brick as it would just make stealing from the place a little easier. There were like 4 or 5 others that I saw as Wonder Woman crashed so maybe it was a design thing for the tower? It’s not like it mattered since she could climb it on her own, but I was a little puzzled.

One plot element that didn’t make sense as well in a more major way was how Paradise Island has no defenses. Apparently you can just wander near the barrier and walk right in. Once you’re through, then the illusion fades. If it’s that easy, I can’t believe that more people haven’t gotten through. So either the Amazons have been murdering everyone who’s gotten through (That wouldn’t be too hard to believe, but they acted as if a man hasn’t shown up in a long time) or they’ve just been lucky. Regardless, I think it would have made more sense to have had an actual physical barrier or gusts of wind that typically blow everyone else back. That way, Steve crashing there could still work since he would be going so fast that the winds couldn’t stop him.

Okay, time to talk about the iffy parts in the film. Roughly the first 100 minutes are pretty slow. I had my phone off and my watch is still broken so I couldn’t record the exact time, but it’s not a very exciting start. Wonder Woman training on the island isn’t exciting, but I suppose it’s necessary so the average viewer can get used to the character. As long as origin stories are done once and then never brought back again, then I’m okay with them. Every character has to go through the motions at some point although Hulk still did it best by just including it in the intro. That being said, most films counter this by starting off with a big action sequence. I feel like that would have been useful for this film. Have Wonder Woman start off with a cool fight in the present time as she beats up some super powered crooks or something and then have her reminisce about the good ole days.

Once Steve lands on the island, things go south. The film’s writing is particularly bad as we get very long flirting conversations. Since the Amazons haven’t seen a man in a while, the film plays up this angle extremely hard. It just keeps coming back and back over and over again. The whole boat ride is basically about this as well as Wonder Woman’s conversation with Steve while he was bathing. The film goes for some misdirects by having Steve misinterpret what’s happening half the time, but these scenes are just filler and not very well handled filler at that.

One plot I’ve never cared for much was the “I don’t know about human culture so I’m going to take everything literally and get into a bunch of crazy situations” trope. This one isn’t as exaggerated as other versions that I’ve seen through the years, but it is surprisingly high up. Wonder Woman doesn’t know that you can’t undress in public, but she’s read a lot of rather mature novels. She gets into a lot of trouble by waving her sword around and falling for Steve’s flirtations. I should mention that the romance is pretty bad as you’d expect. It was expected of course since Steve Rogers was about to get in the plane for the last time….I mean Steve Trevor. He got to have some fun before dying this way.

Another issue here is the supporting cast. Don’t bother to learn any of their names since they are complete throwaways. Steve figures that to break into Germany they’re going to need some men. So he picks up a drunk punching bag who used to be a sniper but is too traumatized to shoot anymore and is only good for singing. We get a liar whose whole strength is being charismatic, but there is never a chance to use this skill except for a drive through enemy territory where the villains are so inept that they let a guy in without a passport. Finally we have an Indian who is good at stealing cars and making smoke signals. These are not interesting characters nor are they good ones. The Indian is the only one who is somewhat tolerable as he doesn’t actually do anything…but then why is he in the film? Any scene with the singer is pretty bad and he really should have been cut out. The liar guy is also just bad as he’s only good for bringing us the beer scenes and we really didn’t even need those. The slow dance could be cut out as well.

I think it’s fair to say that the humor is also pretty bad. I suppose it’s a little better than Guardians as it’s handled with more tact and we don’t have a character like Drax running around, but it’s not really funny either. I can’t say that I really laughed at any of the scenes. The funniest moment of the film would probably be when Steve pretends that he can’t hear his boss and hangs up. I rather like that trope and it’s one that has lived through the test of time.

One problem that this film has to an extent comes back to the fact that there is no villain until the final 20-30 minutes. Because of that, most of the action scenes are of Wonder Woman beating up humans. It’s a slight problem because it makes the fights less exciting. For example, how engaged would you be if Superman breaks into an enemy base and beats up all of the minions? It’s just so easy that it’s not as exciting as it could be. It depends on your mileage as we did have a lot of people cheering in the theater as Wonder Woman took them down. The scene of her breaking a tower to stop a sniper got a lot of applause as well. At the same time, for me there is less enthusiasm because that’s just so easy for her. It’s why I was thrilled for the last fight because it meant that she could finally have a challenge. I think I’ve basically covered everything now.

Meanwhile, the Amazons better hope that they never have to fight a real opponent. Despite their tough talk and camaraderie they wouldn’t last very long against any army. Their island suffered losses to a very small battalion of German troops. What this effectively says is that any army could easily defeat them if they wished to do so. It seems like Wonder Woman is the only one with any actual super powers since she is the chosen one. The rest have to constantly keep their guard up or they’ll be shot.

The film is never boring though so that’s always a good thing. Even if the dialogue isn’t always my favorite, it doesn’t feel like the film ever slows down to a halt. Part of that is the novelty of finally having a Wonder Woman film and the other part is the visuals. It’s an entertaining film and it’s why I’d have greater hopes for a sequel since it would ideally take place in modern day. The old World War 1 days may be a better backdrop than the Jungle or the Wild West, but it’s still nowhere close to a nice high tech city.

One worrisome thing to keep in mind is that the film doesn’t explain why Wonder Woman abandoned humanity. We learn in Batman V Superman that she kind of grew bored of them and only came out of retirement on a whim. I was expecting the film to end with her being jaded with humanity and going back to the island, but I suppose a sequel would delve into that. The reason why I’d be worried about this is because I want her sequel to take place in the present. Hopefully they can just briefly mention it or make some kind of excuse for why nobody’s heard of her. I mean, she’s not exactly stealthy based on this film or even the ending where she jumps across buildings striking a battle pose. Something just doesn’t add up here.

As for the soundtrack, it’s definitely pretty sharp. There are a lot of fast paced rock themes that are fun to listen to. Wonder Woman’s signature tune plays a few times and the end credits theme of the film is good as well. Throughout the movie the soundtrack was consistently rapid which is certainly my style. DC’s been hitting it out of the park in this area for sure. Hopefully we’ll get some more epic tunes like this in Justice League.

I suppose we can’t end the review without talking about Etta Candy. Her role was a lot smaller than I had expected, but that’s fine. She was a reasonably good character and she took the situation in stride the whole time. Candy’s the kind of person who always makes for a good friend. I didn’t talk about Steve much either, but I wasn’t a fan. He’s basically your average Captain Kirk. He fights for what’s right and makes the tough calls, but always finds time to flirt now and again. Wonder Woman’s a great lead and certainly makes for a contrast to Batman and Superman as she murders everyone in her path. As a warrior that’s just how it goes and especially in war time. The first villain, Doctor Poison is basically just your average scientist so there’s not much to say about her. She came and went. Hopefully she would not return for a sequel since I want to stick to fighters who can fight back. Adding in Aresia to the 2nd film would make sense if you ask me. She would be a great opponent.

Overall, Wonder Woman is a good film. It has a pretty great climax and Wonder Woman herself is a good lead. The film tripped up a bit with the below average writing and supporting cast, but that wasn’t enough to destroy the film. There’s no after credits scene I’m afraid, but I suppose DC didn’t want people to claim they were copying Marvel. Hopefully Justice League has one though. If you haven’t seen it yet, then you should definitely check the film out. Low replay value is an issue with the film, but it’s not something that would affect you on a first viewing. Wonder Woman will certainly play a major role in upcoming films so you’ll want to see her origin first hand.

Overall 6/10

The Colossus of New York Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another retro film that tried to be like Frankenstein. This version is a lot more powerful though and the film is also quite a bit better. That being said, the film sabotages itself when it was so close to grabbing an easy 7. It’s a reasonably fun film though and you’ll definitely want to stick around for the ending as it suddenly feels like a comic book title. Beware the lasers, for they hunger!

Jeremy was a very promising young genius who was going to help end world hunger. Unfortunately, he saw a ball roll in the middle of an airport and decided to run after it. A truck ran over him instead and he died instantly. His father, William didn’t like this though as he always felt that Jeremy was destined to save the world. As such, he grabbed the brain and built a robot body so that Jeremy could live again. Jeremy’s brother Henry wasn’t thrilled about this since he had been hoping to take Jeremy’s wife Mala for himself while Jeremy was dead. Henry decides to pursue this plan anyway so now Jeremy has to take things into his own hands. He doesn’t want his family to know that he is alive because he feels like his robot body doesn’t look good, but that won’t stop him from doing what needs to be done.

In case you couldn’t guess, the plot that I’m referring to which hurt the film quite a bit was the Henry trying to rebound with Mala part. It had no real place in the film. While we can guess that Henry is a bad character from the onset, it also makes Mala look really bad that she was going along with it. She didn’t have a lot of objections to this by the end as Henry won her over quite easily. She sure got over Jeremy right away and that’s kind of sad. He had seemed like a very nice and earnest guy. Sure he’s dead, but getting together with his brother seems kind of mean spirited don’t you think? Henry was rather petty and jealous the whole time. I can’t say I expected much from him, but I expected more from Mala.

At least Charles was a good character though. He’s Jeremy’s son and still very young so he doesn’t fully get what’s happening. This works well for Jeremy since he is able to play with Charles when nobody is watching. He also lets Charles know about the kill switch on his chest in case Jeremy ever loses his mind. This leads Charles to make the tough call at the end of the film. It was clearly not the right one, but as he is a kid, it’s not quite as terrible as when a grown person does it. Charles didn’t fully understand what he was doing after all.

Discussing Jeremy is a little complicated since it’s hard to say when exactly he lost control of himself. Having a robot body certainly came with side effects and one was that he would lose his mind. It’s easy to see why as well since connecting the brain came with a lot of trial and error and he was treated like a machine for a while. Still, he seemed like a nice guy pre transformation and probably would have been a good lead. As the main villain he also does a good job. The robot design is pretty good and he even comes equipped with death lasers that can disintegrate a target on contact. Now that is efficient!

William may have meant well initially, but he certainly didn’t think much about Jeremy’s point of view when bringing him back to life. He was confident that Jeremy wouldn’t care about missing out on the human angle since he could now work in peace, but evidently he wasn’t as work focused as Will thought. William also didn’t really respect Jeremy’s wish to rest in piece and ultimately his selfishness was enough for me to consider him as the villain. He really only thought of himself and that’s never a good track to take. Once Jeremy learned how to mind control people, it was all over. William only has himself to blame though as he could have stopped Jeremy, but his reactions were very slow and he couldn’t hit the off switch in time. Letting Jeremy break the switch was a fatal move.

The writing’s pretty good for this film. It’s always interesting to hear the characters subtly mock each other and use guilt trip tactics. They were very effective in this film. The debate about the soul was also interesting enough. My stance is that the soul leaves the body immediately and then the body/mind are useless while William tries to claim that it can still act without a soul. The film portrays him as being correct to an extent as Jeremy still exists, he just loses his emotions eventually.

I have to give the film a good amount of credit for actually having a climax. Not just a climax either, but a pretty satisfying one as there is a lot of action. It is a little grim though as Jeremy breaks into the United Nations building and destroys a ton of people with his death ray. Many international leaders and police officers lose their lives before Charles finally takes him down for the count. Jeremy may have been stopped, but the damage is most certainly already done. His plan was pretty good as well since it’s not as if he can be stopped very easily. A few missiles would have put him in his place eventually though.

Overall, The Colossus of New York was a pretty interesting film. Obviously, the movie taking place in New York was a pretty nice way to start things off. The robot design was cool and the climax was exciting. As I mentioned, the part that crippled the film was Henry’s plot, which was just pretty sad. The scenes where the characters are building Jeremy back together can drag on a bit as well. Jeremy also takes a little too long to realize that Henry may not be the nice guy that he had always assumed him to be. The film takes off a little smoother once Jeremy breaks free of the controls and totally turns evil. The first half is still enjoyable enough though. This film will just end up being forgotten in the long sea of other monster films and I can’t say that I mind this occurrence all that much.

Overall 5/10

The Mad Ghoul Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a film that tries to play out like Frankenstein. In its defense, it’s far better than Frankenstein, but that’s not saying a whole lot. It’s a pretty short film with a small cast so it never drags on or anything, but it doesn’t try to do anything exciting either. It’s a movie that simply happens and there isn’t a whole lot more to it. It would have ended up with a more decent score if not for the animal testing at the beginning. Why do so many of these films have to start off by testing on animals? It’s not right and the film should feel bad.

Alfred is a psychotic maniac who wants to see what various old gasses can do. He experiments on some animals and finds that they can completely paralyze you. (and then kill you) He then finds out that by stabbing someone in the heart and giving the liquid (Wouldn’t it just be normal blood?) to the dead person who was hit by the gas would revive them. Ted is a student who becomes an understudy to Alfred. He’s impressed as well, but just wants to hang out with Isabel as he plans to propose to her. She comes over for a visit and explains to Alfred that she no longer loves Ted. Alfred quickly assumes that he is the rebound guy so he tricks Ted into the experiment room and hits him with the gas. Ted now becomes a mindless servant for a while. He’ll regain his consciousness for a bit after getting a heart, but then he’ll be knocked out again. It’s a vicious cycle, but somebody’s got to do it. Can Ted get out of this loop?

In case you’re curious, the rebound guy is Eric. He’s not a bad character, but he’s definitely way too cocky for his own good. He agrees to meet Ted in a dark alley in the middle of nowhere by himself and he gets very close to being murdered. I like the confidence I guess, but you think that he’d be a little more alert right? It’s also hard to like the character since he may have known that Isabel already had someone, but maybe he didn’t know. Isabel certainly changed her mind suddenly, but I suppose that happens. Still, she should have worked up the courage to tell Ted instead of dragging it out and messing with him. That certainly didn’t help the situation and I definitely can’t say that I was a fan of her here. Isabel certainly didn’t act like a great heroine.

Next up is Ted and he has definitely got to be one of the more naive and gullible main characters out there. He should have suspected foul play the instant he was trapped in the room with the gas. How could that have been an accident? He believed Alfred for some reason which was pretty dicey and then he could never put the pieces together when he would regain consciousness. The guy was just way too dense and I couldn’t take his monster form very seriously at all. It’s like he had a bad hair day every few minutes or something. Not very scary or intimidating if you ask me.

Alfred is basically your average mad scientist. He wants revenge on everyone who has spurned him and he’ll make the world burn. There’s not much to the guy and old scientists rarely make for very interesting villains. The guy’s love for music is probably the only interesting thing about him since we don’t get enough musical villains. That being said, it’s not as if it ultimately turns him into a very good character or anything. He’s still the same unoriginal villain that he always was.

The best character in this film was a detective. Unfortunately he didn’t get to live very long. Still, he was able to figure out that it was no coincidence how Isabel would perform somewhere and then a murder would occur. He knew that the Mad Ghoul was following her around. The problem is that he used a very risky plan and ended up paying for it. At least the cops got a little more serious after this and decided to make their move. It’s too bad that the detective had to go though since he had all of the good one liners. He didn’t take orders from anyone and loved to get the last word in.

One thing that could have helped the film would have been to have actually had a good monster suit at the ready. Messing with Ted’s hair wasn’t all that scary to be honest. I wanted to be scared, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy into it. The monster also doesn’t really do anything very impressive as he just walks around and tries to look scary half the time. Still, I wouldn’t call the film boring or anything. It’s reasonably entertaining as it flies by, but I would have liked a little more excitement or some good characters to deliver some banter for the film. Without that…it just doesn’t work.

Overall, It’s not as if this film makes you perform a lot of logical leaps or that there are a bunch of negatives to be found here. The film just didn’t do much to make you engaged with what was happening. Add to that the quick animal scene and it was absolutely curtains for the film. If you like watching retro monster films, I’d recommend checking out Gamera instead. The actual monster there is a little more notable and the character roster is better. When the only good character is a detective who doesn’t live for very long, you know that there’s a problem.

Overall 4/10

Rosemary’s Baby Review

Posted on by
6


Uh oh, it’s time to take a look at Rosemary’s Baby. I can safely say that this is one of those films that I knew would be terrible from the start. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to know that a film with this title rarely goes over well. Especially considering that I vaguely knew of the film by its reputation. It’s about as good as you can get for a film that’s rather satanic in nature…which is a 0. Still, it’s the kind of film that you can make a drinking Pepsi game out of but watch your sugar levels by the end. As such, we’re gonna run through this review with some choices. Lets see if you make the right ones because Rosemary sure didn’t. While the alternatives don’t have to be really drastic, you’ll see how her decisions were just very bad. It’s hard to emphasize enough just how bad they were as watching them in context during the film just makes it that much worse.

The main character is Rosemary of course with the main guy being named…Guy. Rosemary has always wanted a kid, but Guy is too busy with his career. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been going well as of late so things are tense. The characters meet an old couple who are rather nosy and decide to bother the main characters a lot. While Guy was hesitant to meet them at first, he becomes best buds with them rather quickly. Overnight he also decides that he wants a kid. At the same time, a girl that the old couple was taking care of seemingly committed suicide although she had seemed perfectly happy the day before. The old couple brings you a Chocolate cake courtesy of Guy and for once they don’t barge into your apartment which is convenient since you were planning on having a kid. The cake tastes kind of strange but Guy insists that you eat it…or else.

A. Throw the cake at Guy
B. Eat the cake
C. Put it in the fridge and say you’ll eat it later.

Ah well, Rosemary chooses option B. Fortunately she threw out part of it when Guy wasn’t looking. This causes the drugs to not fully work so she is conscious for the next few hours, but can’t move. She wakes up to a Satanic ritual where people are painting her with blood and a demon approaches her to have a kid. She sees her husband make the pact where he turns into Satan temporarily and all of her neighbors are in on it. Rosemary then wakes up the next morning where Guy explains that he made their kid while she was asleep and the giant slash marks on her body are from his unclipped nails.

A. Sounds legit
B. Grab the gun under the bed
C. Sounds legit (After Guy heads to work you board a plane to Europe)

Rosemary chooses option A. She is then given a strange concoction by her elderly neighbors which starts a series of powerful surges of pain. Her local doctor (Brought to her by the neighbors) tells Rosemary that this is normal and forbids her from reading any books or confiding in anyone. Rosemary’s friends tell her to stop taking the drink and after a day the pain stops. The neighbor then comes back with another drink.

A. I’m no fool. That drink brings pain…like this! (Shove the neighbor out the door)
B. Give me that. (Drink it all)
C. I’ll drink that….later. (Chuck it in the sink)

Rosemary’s intelligence continues to decline as she drinks it again. Her reasoning seems to be that the drink helped her gain immunity to the pain even though it stopped when she had stopped drinking. Weird….Meanwhile, Rosemary’s friend comes over and tells her that this isn’t natural. He tells her to meet him outside the next day, but Rosemary tells Guy first. The friend mysteriously dies after that and Rosemary finally starts to put 2 and 2 together. She runs to her original doctor, which is the safest place she can think of because she already told Guy that she was planning to see him a while back. The Doctor also perks up when she mentions her current Doctor.

A. On second thought….I’m out of here!
B. I need to go to sleep. Mind if I use the secluded room in the back after hours so the place will be deserted?
C. Break the alliance or I break you!

Rosemary chooses option B so she is kidnapped once again and forced to have the kid. When she wakes up, they tell her that the baby die. Rosemary partially accepts this, but apparently the neighbors want to mock her so they bring the baby to the room adjacent to hers and let it cry for a while. Rosemary grabs a knife and we’re led to think that she has finally gained an iota of intelligence. She breaks into the room and is surrounded by a bunch of old people standing around her baby who is in one of those carriages so you can’t see him.

A. Ever hear of the Chainsaw Massacre folks?
B. Give me the baby and nobody has to die!
C. Drop the knife in shock

Rosemary chooses the final option. She then decides to fall in line with the Satanic cult and raise the child of Satan. It’s a rather dreary end to a dreary film. All I could say at the end of it was good riddance. It’s a truly terrible movie from start to finish. As you can tell from the options above, Rosemary was a really bad main character who didn’t help the situation at all. She consistently made all of the worst decisions possible and could stretch your disbelief for the character. I don’t get how you could fall for so many of the cheapest tricks in the book. A Doctor telling you not to look at any medical books when you’re having a baby? Intense pain and not seeing another doctor? Drinking a weird drink that is giving you pain? Waking up to a ritual and many signs point to it being real but ignoring it? Guy being in the ritual and not piecing it together til the end?

Rosemary was just terrible and there were so many chances for her to escape. She should have gone with her friends or just gotten on a plane without telling Guy. She had dozens of opportunities but squandered them all. Dropping the knife at the end and just playing along with the others was also pretty terrible. There were no good characters here of course as the rest were all evil or just cameos like the friend. Guy is in on it so he decided to trade his kid and wife for job security and success. The rest of the people were all Satan worshipers so there was no saving them.

It’s not as if the film is very violent or anything, but it’s just no fun. The satanic themes in the foreground/background the whole time drag the film through the mud. Seeing Rosemary make all of the wrong choices is no fun either as it just makes you wish that the movie could have gotten a better main character. The ending is fairly terrible as well although I was expecting nothing less. I can’t think of a single good scene in this film and none of the jump scares are particularly convincing either. The film spoiled the fact that Guy was evil from the start and the neighbors part was obvious ever since the ritual at the beginning of the film. So, it’s one of those movies where you know who the villain is from the start and you’re waiting for Rosemary to figure it out. The problem is that she can’t even figure out how to stop spilling the beans on all of her plans to Guy.

Overall, This film is about as terrible as you’ve likely heard or suspect from the plot summary. Stay as far away from this film as possible and naturally this goes for the sequel as well. I’d recommend watching something a little more fun like the original Sonic movie. It’s hard to do much worse than this to be honest which is really saying something. Rosemary’s Baby lived up to its reputation, but in this case that was part of the problem. What a terrible movie.

Overall 0/10

The Deadly Mantis Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a classic monster film. The Deadly Mantis may have been mostly forgotten by the average moviegoer which is a shame. It’s actually a pretty solid monster film. It’s a very “by the numbers” film as it doesn’t really do anything unique. It handles everything rather well though so the execution is on point. The film is also rather short so there’s not a lot of unnecessary padding or filler scenes and the film just stays focused the whole time.

A U.S. army base is mysteriously destroyed in an instant. The staff and generals have no idea what is going on. The only clue that they can find is a large spike in what is otherwise a completely abandoned pile of rubble. There are no bodies so they discount the possibility of an enemy nation. The local scientists suggest that it is some kind of animal, but don’t dare speculate further. They call in the world’s leading expert on just about everything, Mr. Nedrick. He quickly deduces that this isn’t just any old animal, but it’s the Praying Mantis. Now that they know what it is…how can they defeat it? Nedrick claims that the Praying Mantis is the strongest animal in all of creation. I don’t think anyone actually bought that though.

Despite being an expert, I have to say that it took Nedrick a little too long to realize that the animal would have to be huge. A reporter had to point out that they should scale the spike down and then Nedrick went to work. Isn’t it obvious that the animal would have to be huge if it destroyed a whole installation in an instant? I don’t know about these “experts” sometimes. Nedrick’s a pretty decent character though. He’s certainly all business and got to the bottom of things right away when he arrived. He brings along the reporter Marge although it wasn’t really his choice.

Unfortunately, the army base wasn’t ready for Marge and this is probably the only part of the film where you’ll cringe. Apparently these army guys haven’t seen a lady in ages so they forgot how to talk to them. What follows are some minutes of stammering and staring as they make fools of themselves. There’s also a random romance plot with an army driver that just comes out of left field. I don’t really know what the film was going for with this, but at least this left Nedrick out of the action so he could keep working.

As for the actual monster, the Praying Mantis was pretty cool. It’s unknown how he hid from the army after each attack since he is so huge, but I guess that goes to show how creative he was. The Mantis could fly at pretty solid speeds and picked off quite a few of the humans. It’s slow, but eating a human who won’t even move has got to be pretty easy. People kept tripping and then panicking from there. I do hope that everyone would put up a better fight if a giant monster ever showed up. I can’t say that I have high expectations though. People do like to panic.

This film’s really old so the writing was pretty good. It was definitely nice to see how cordial and formal people were back in the day. Everyone acts as if they are a professional and the army seems more straightforward than in the modern films where they are always corrupt. There’s never really a sense of danger in this film so if it was trying to be a horror than it failed. However, it does work well as a slice of life film where the characters are talking and reasoning things out. It’s a bit of a stretch when they discuss the Praying Mantis’ origin, but I’ll take it I suppose. It’s not as if the premise is all that realistic right? I do wish that the Mantis could have been a little stronger though. He was taken out rather easily by the government and certainly wasn’t the next Godzilla.

Also, I have to question how slow the first army base was. The Mantis didn’t leave a single remain of the people there right? No clothes, signals, or anything. So that means that none of the guys put up a fight since no pieces of clothing were left and they were all swallowed whole. Why didn’t they try to radio someone when they saw a blip on their radar? I won’t say that they should have called for help after the attack since the wires were probably cut, but it’s iffy. Also, surely at least one human could have escaped the monster’s presence. There are a few stretches of logic here, but nothing that should get in the way of enjoying this film. If anything, it shows that the film wanted you to take the monster seriously.

Overall, The Deadly Mantis is a fun film and I’d recommend it. There’s not much to it, but you’ll get some classic monster destruction scenes and a pretty good main cast as well. There’s even a jump scare at the end which is perfectly random, but you can’t fault the film for trying to be a little flashy now can you? It’s just doing it’s best to keep you engaged with the film right up to the end. Since every animal is getting a giant version of themselves, I want a film about a giant Dog, but one who was actually a house pet and just started to grow. He’s a nice dog, but doesn’t realize that his size is endangering the world. The government has to find a way to keep him happy or t he planet will blow up. That’d be a pretty good plot if you ask me.

Overall 7/10

Airplane! Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to review what is considered to be one of the funniest films of all time. Some even call it The funniest of all time. I can safely say that it lives up to the reputation and I actually would agree with the title. Of course, in a film with so many jokes, there are obviously ones that fall flat and others that are crude/annoying. Fortunately, the positive ones outweigh the negatives and this is definitely a film that I’d recommend checking out.

The film starts off with a cab driver named Ted. He’s hit a rough patch in life since he got traumatized by the war and his friends don’t respect him anymore. He decides to stop moping though and gets on a plane that his former friend Elaine is on so they can reconnect. She is less than thrilled about this, but has no time for him. The plane has been stocked with poisoned food that is causing everyone to hatch eggs. She must now think quickly or the plane is going to crash and everyone aboard will die. There’s also a mad bomber to think about along with a suicidal person, a lady wit a gun, a shifty guy with a crowbar, and more. Fortunately, the world’s greatest pilot has been called out of retirement to help guide them down but can he pull it off?

Airplane is one of those films that has dozens of gags a minute. Something is always happening. While there is one obvious joke going, there are always a few subtle ones in the background. The best scene in the film is certainly the pilot’s entrance as he walks in and beats up a bunch of people who were trying to sign him up for their various groups. He wasn’t having any of that and the guy promoting Jehovah’s Witnesses seemed to have gotten punched particularly hard. Needless to say, one of them was wise enough not to approach the pilot. He had a job to do after all. The retired pilot was certainly the best character, he kept everyone on their toes and certainly wasn’t messing around.

Ted wasn’t a bad main character but he’s mostly oblivious to all of the jokes. He doesn’t do anything funny so much as he helps some of the other jokes succeed by existing. I definitely don’t blame Elaine for leaving though since Ted definitely didn’t take the past war situation very well at all. Elaine is a little naive and doesn’t seem to be very smart so I can’t say that she is my kind of character either. Of course, these characters are all meant to be rather incompetent and not very smart to help make the movie funnier. The two characters did a good job in their roles even if they weren’t super likable like the retired pilot.

There are a few other supporting characters. They aren’t notable so much as there jokes can be memorable. One character that fell flat was the guy who would just act random the whole time. He would comment on someone gaining weight and always seemed rather loopy. His jokes never worked. You also had the normal pilot and a basketball player. I liked the Basketball player as his joke worked well.

Now while the jokes were very funny, the humor is also what holds the film back somewhat. We get a pretty iffy scene with the rubber pilot as getting air back into him can be somewhat dicey. The ebonics talk was also a little tricky if you could understand what they were saying as opposed to the sub titles. I can understand it somewhat myself so…yeah. There was also a scene with a dog attacking someone for a little while which could be a little dicey depending on how you look at it. Finally there’s the pilot’s conversation with the kid that was risky. The romance is pretty bad as well. This is intentional, but it doesn’t make it any less bad.

These negatives are fairly mild though so they don’t hurt the film too much. They shave off one star, but that’s all. This is still a film that I’d recommend checking out. There are just too many laughs not to watch it. Before this film, the Cat in the Hat is probably the film that I thought was the funniest and possibly Pixels as a guilty pleasure. I’ve never laughed so hard on the inside during a film before that one, I was shaking in my seat. I dunno, Sandler is like a movie that’s so bad it’s good. The writing wasn’t good, but it was funny. The two don’t necessarily have to be connected.

There isn’t really much of a soundtrack in this film but some nice themes do appear as jokes. I believe the Jaws theme may have played at one point. They also intentionally used the wrong sound for the plane the whole time which is a pretty nice detail. One of the more underrated scenes that was fun was when the two people over the intercom are arguing about where to leave your stuff in the Airport. It’s very subtle at first and is gradually brought to the forefront by the end of the scene.

Mentioning all of the jokes wouldn’t make for much of a review though so I’ll stop there. It’s more fun to watch the film and find them out for yourself. There’s not much more of a plot or characters to talk about either so this is more of a shorter review. Watch out for the flashback since it adds some more dimensions to the characters and squeezes in a Star Wars reference along the way. As I said, the film is quite clever.

Overall, Airplane is more hit than miss. You’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you end up not watching it. The film is basically timeless and has aged quite well. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the amount of jokes we get during the film and it’s so unrealistic and unreasonable that it works. I can’t imagine that a sequel/spinoff/prequel could ever hope to match its greatness, but I’d like to see the studio try some more options. We need more good parody films like this one. I wonder if any film will ever surpass this one with humor or if I’ll die with this one still at the top. It’s definitely something to think about.

Overall 6/10

Patterns Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for an old film about corporate business. You see large businesses like Wal-Mart messing with people all the time, but nobody is ever able to stop them. They’re too powerful and even control politics. Well, this film is about one such incident where a small town guy ends up being hired by a big company. The problem is that it’s all very overwhelming and he notices Ramsey (the boss) picking on his supervisor, Mr. Briggs. Will Fred do something about it or will he quietly wait so he can get the promotion. He has to decide and quickly before a murder occurs!

One of the ways that you can tell this is an old film is how there’s a lot of background noise. It’s like the home videos we create at home where the wind sounds extremely fierce over the loud speaker. There were times in the film where it would almost drown out what the characters were saying. I felt like the film improved on that once the first act was over, but it was definitely pretty interesting to see. The black and white color scheme can definitely help for this kind of flick. It gives the film a more intense backdrop.

The cast is relatively small here so you can just focus on the inter office politics going on. I’d say that Fred did a pretty good job for the most part. He did stick up for Mr. Briggs in the final office and also tried to set the matter straight that Briggs helped him. It’s definitely tough to talk back to the boss in this kind of setting, but that’s why you’ve gotta be bold. I like to think that I won’t take anything from a boss. Naturally they get the last word in and can ultimately fire you, but a good polite, but stern comeback can always go a long way.

Now, a big part of whether you like Fred or not will probably come down to his decision at the end and whether you agree with it or not. It’s definitely one of those decisions that will make you wonder and for what it’s worth, I probably would have gone with his plan. It makes sense to do what he did because then you’ve still got a fighting chance at making the company better from the inside. The giant pay increase doesn’t hurt matters either. It’s definitely a busy business and one with people who really want it to grow. Someone’s got to keep them in check.

Naturally, Ramsey was the big villain of the film. He’s definitely a mean guy who doesn’t give much thought to the people around him unless they are working perfectly. He just wants to make the business as great as can be and will do anything to see that happen. He makes for a good antagonist and is the kind of guy that you’d want as a correspondent when meeting other companies. You need a tough guy who won’t back down to the rivals. That being said, the negative consequences of this on your own staff are obvious which is why you would have to let him go. When he rises up to become the big boss, that’s when things get tricky. There’s always the question of whether you should help people at the expense of your business or growing to new heights and potentially helping more people in the long run, but messing with people in the short run. Spoiler alert, the first option is always best. Keep trying to improve and raise revenue, but it can’t be at the expense of your workers or environment. That’s just a sign that you have to come up with a new idea. As a consumer it’s great to see such low prices at Wal-Mart, but you know that they come at a big price which is unfortunate.

Mr. Briggs is essentially the only person watching out for the little guy until Fred came along. As such, he is thrown under the bus quite a lot. At his level the company can’t really fire him which means they have to try and bully him until he quits. I’m always mocking social norms and this is exactly why. The company can’t fire him because of their image which means that as long as he doesn’t care about the insults, Briggs can just keep collecting his check. News flash, that’s exactly what I would do. I know there’s nothing they can do about it so I’d just show up to work with a smile every day and let the insults roll over me. Whenever the insults start to get personal, I’d just look at my bank account and smile again. If they do decide to fire me, I receive a very generous severance package so we take those. Unfortunately for Briggs he has a heart condition which starts to get fatal so he couldn’t engage in the benefits, but he had a good attitude about the whole thing as he vowed to never quit.

There were a few other supporting characters who showed up once in a while. Briggs had a kid named Peter who was around to make him feel more guilty about the job. Fred’s wife also popped up to make the situation a lot tougher for him and to guilt trip him into doing the wrong thing. Finally we had the secretary who was pretty good at her job, but ultimately didn’t make many moves to stop the corruption. She simply focused on staying alive in the job. As you can tell, I thought the main cast was a whole lot stronger than the backups.

One area that I thought the film did a really good job in was not making Mr. Briggs petty. I was fully expecting him to be really jealous of Fred since the main character was hired to replace him. Even knowing this, Briggs never acted mean to Fred. Sure, he may have slyly tried to seat Fred a little further down the table once, but they got along right away. The world turned against Briggs, but he stayed as a nice guy right up til the end.

Of course, one thing that didn’t help his heart was the fact that Briggs ran to the beer when things get tough. Most of the characters in this film had a “It’s Miller Time!” moment when the situation kept on deteriorating. That’s definitely a bad habit and hopefully one that they can break. That was the one line that the film was missing as the writing was quite solid otherwise. The script was on point and all of the characters were pretty realistic. I would have liked to have had one more ally in the board room, but it is true that most people suddenly begin to look out for themselves in that case so I could see everyone staying quiet.

Overall, Patterns is a solid film. While it may have been satisfying for Fred to have landed a hit on Ramsey at the end and been arrested or fired, having him around to insult the guy with back and forth banter for the next few years is still pretty interesting. The moral of the story is that you want to be in a union or a top executive so you can’t be fired and then you don’t have to take anything from your bosses. If you have a tough boss or enjoy seeing films like this, I’d definitely recommend checking this film out asap. It’s definitely aged pretty well and this is something that still happens nowadays so the film isn’t dated in that sense. The only thing that can take some getting used to is the odd static sound in the background, but you’ll be able to tune it out before long.

Overall 7/10

It Could Happen To You Review

Posted on by
Reply


Whenever I watch movies that are supposedly based on true stories I laugh. When I watch films that do their best to say that they weren’t inspired by true stories, I also laugh. The key point is that you should never believe a film unless it’s being straight with you. This one basically admits that they grabbed the premise from a real event and then added their own story to it which is pretty believable. This is actually what I imagine that most movies do. It’s handled pretty well and definitely has a fun premise as well.

So, Charlie is a cop, but not just any cop. He’s known as the greatest cop around as he’s friends with everyone and always gets the job done. You can count on good ole Charlie is what everyone’s always thinking and they tend to be right. He’s just a good guy who always helps the community out. One day he goes to a restaurant, but he doesn’t have enough money for a tip so he makes a deal to split his lottery ticket winnings with the lady. She agrees to the terms and then Charlie happens to win a few million on it. He honors the agreement, but his wife isn’t pleased. With both of them slowly drifting apart and rebounds beginning to happen…what will they do!?

It’s a classic story of how getting rich can drive people apart. Of course in this case Charlie and Muriel already didn’t get along very well. This just sped things up. Charlie loves giving things away and after literally giving away half of his winnings, he also makes massive donations to the local Police fund and to the beggars on the street. Muriel gets triggered by this and starts throwing money around by redecorating the house and getting into the stock market. Both of them keep trying to one up the other in terms of throwing money around. Finally, Muriel decides to go for the “Divorce to Claim Assets” combo and quickly destroys Charlie. Fortunately, Charlie doesn’t care about the money.

All right, so there are quite a few things you can have fun mocking here, but it’s an enjoyable film. Lets start with Charlie. I actually don’t really care for Charlie. Sure, he’s a nice guy and he did the right thing in keeping his word about splitting the lottery ticket. He really shouldn’t have made that deal since the stakes were so high and could have just brought a tip the next day. Once he said it though, going through with it was the right call. Now, I can understand Muriel’s frustrations with him though. Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your friend has won 4 million dollars. You’re then hit with the bombshell that it is only going to be 2 million. Then you find out that he also donated one hundred thousand to the Police…then he bought his friend season tickets and a new hat…then he gave money to everyone who asked for it outside (That line will never end) etc. I know that Charlie doesn’t care about the money as he mentions this many, many times. He needs to be a little more considerate of his wife.

Finally, the main thing holding him back is his romance with Yvonne. Even if he wasn’t getting along with Muriel, they weren’t actually divorced yet so he shouldn’t be having any kind of affair. You wait until the paperwork is complete and it’s all over before going for the rebound. It’s like the people who dash into the subway as you’re trying to get off and then the yelling starts from everyone. The fact that he was already attracted to someone else was also pretty dicey. He started with the fake “Lets just be friends” line of course as they hung out every day, but we all know how that ends. I can’t say that I ever trust the “We’ll just be friends” pitch even if I do believe that it should be possible to just be friends. People always have an angle and if you haven’t figured one out yet, then that means you haven’t looked hard enough.

Don’t take this as me saying that I felt bad for Muriel though. She’s a very exaggerated villain in this film so the movie clearly doesn’t want you to take her side. She’s mean to everyone and only cares about being rich and famous. She also wastes her money on Pyramid Schemes and plastic surgery. She constantly insults her husband behind his back and her friends give her pretty bad advice like splitting from Charlie or just cheating on him. She flirts with this really old guy for no reason, but the film gives her a sad ending to counter this. Seriously, the ending is almost humorous as everyone who got in Charlie and Yvonne’s way end up bankrupt, dead, or just plain unhappy. The people who helped him out get a happy ending like the Cop who got his season tickets. The basic moral is that you better have been on Charlie’s side or you’re doomed.

The ending is a little cheesy though since a ton of people send the main character’s money. Nah, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I can see a lot of people sending them Karma on Reddit or making some snappy one liners, but the money is a stretch. Not saying that people don’t donate money to good causes as the Reddit “Build a Potato” got thousands of dollars, but it’s still a pretty rare thing and I don’t think their story would move people quite enough.

Finally we have Yvonne. She’s a nice enough character I suppose, but she is hanging out with a married man as I already stated so that gets us into very murky waters. I also feel like the two of them are going to be bankrupt very quickly as the film ends with them renting a hot air balloon and throwing a ton of paper (It better not be money!) down to a park for kicks. Sure, it may look good for a few minutes, but that’s a huge waste of money and an even bigger mess for the environment. They do realize that custodial is going to have to clean that up in the morning right?

I know that I said “Finally” but I have one more at the ready. Finally, Charlie does a terrible job in the courtroom and when the lawyers are meeting up. I know they’re trying to present him as a “Holier than thou” kind of character, but they forgot to incorporate the common sense angle. After allowing Muriel to take all of his money since Charlie is a nice guy, she also decides to take Yvonne’s money as well. Charlie will at least fight for her right? No, he’s still too nice of a guy to get in anybody’s way so he doesn’t put up a fight for her. He just lets it all go since he doesn’t care about the money. He cares about living right? Because it’s pretty hard to live when you have no money. Those scenes were just annoying to watch because being a nice guy doesn’t mean that you have to be a pushover. Charlie lets everyone walk right over him because he just doesn’t want to be mean. I felt bad for his lawyer since he was clearly wishing he hadn’t taken this task by the end.

Overall, This is a fun film though. While I focused on the annoying bits and the stretches in logic, the main reason why I enjoyed the film was the quick pacing and the fairly decent writing. The writing isn’t amazing, but it’s goo enough. Charlie may be annoying and has some dubious choices, but he was a good cop. He did a good job of ending the gunfight in the deli by showing up and taking names. He did make the good choice with the lottery ticket as well. Hopefully he will learn from this experience and get a little tougher along the way. That would really seal the deal on his character arc. Beyond that, just enjoy the ride and think about what you would do with 2 million dollars. It’s not as much of a big deal nowadays since we have so many millionaires running around, but I’d instantly throw half of it into savings and I’d use another chunk to buy a bunch of video games and maybe a small pizza store so I could walk in and get free slices whenever I wanted. It’s a tough call since they are so many variables, but it would be a good problem.

Overall 7/10