Eight movies in theaters, with ten movies otherwise, with one repeat, for a total of seventeen reviews. A decent month, but nowhere near as good as July. One obvious blackmark.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
The best TMNT movie I have seen possibly ever. The CGI one from the ‘00s I never saw from start to finish, but people said it was great. Also, another animated one from the ‘10s people told me was good, but haven’t seen it. I have some nostalgia for the Jim Henson’s Creature Shop live-action films from around the early ‘90s, but they have problems nostalgia clouds the judgement of those who hate the Michael Bay-produced ones much more. The inherent goofiness of the premise works much better in animation. To quote The Weekly Planet podcast, everyone in this movie is in their grub era (the two Australian mates who run that podcast just saw it recently due to release schedules.) What makes this movie stand out is the style. Background characters are very ugly, making it endearing in its way. I didn’t like the redhead erasure with April O’Neil, something they have already done before this movie, but her character itself wasn’t bad. Her design was, but I got over it. What I didn’t like is that she projectile vomits multiple times in the movie, one of which is remixed. Disgusting. This is an A to A+. Might go up if I watch it again before I write my end of the year article. They wasted Gus Fring as Baxter Stockman, though. He got like one scene. I enjoyed the interplay of the TMNT as they apparently had them record their lines largely without a script at the same time in the same space, so the dialogue felt very natural. They really felt like best mates that spend almost every second of their waking lives together.
Meg 2: The Trench
F. This movie, clearly made for the Chinese box office and little else, was so damn predictable and boring. We got almost no shark action, virtually all of it in the last 15-20 minutes of the movie. The blatantly obvious main bad guy, clocked her from across the room the second she showed up, dies off screen! They have a character you will come to loathe as a heartless thunder jerk, and they don’t even give us the satisfaction of seeing her death! One of the three (yes, three) main villains is one of the deaths they spoil in the trailer. I knew it was coming because it is one of the better deaths in the movie, but the trailer spoiled it! Jason Statham isn’t bad, but this movie is a PG-13 largely bloodless pile of garbage with a few cool deaths marred by a boring plot involving corporate espionage for a large part of the first and second acts. And some of the coolest deaths in the movie don’t even involve sharks. There’s these dog-sized amphibian lizard things that get a few cool scenes, but there’s also a kraken. The shark-caused deaths are virtually all in the third act and out of nowhere. They just mention they’re near a busy resort island right before a major feeding frenzy happens. None of the heroes get killed by the sharks. None of the people who survived the first movie die in this one. Plot armor is everywhere!! Skip it. As most Americans already did. The coolest death in the movie, as a final thought, is telegraphed very hard but doesn’t directly involve any marine life or animals of any kind. And if that sounds like a problem, it is.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Movie of the month goes to this delightful period piece horror film that probably needed a marketing crash course. It failed hard at the American box office. Every other country this came out it either removed “Last” from the title or added Dracula to it (or both.) Telling people that most if not everyone will fail to stop the threat doesn’t get normie viewers’ butts in seats. Not making it clear that this is an adaptation of a chapter from the original Dracula book (this is obvious about five minutes into the movie) in the marketing means people won’t automatically expect Dracula. I loved that Dracula was in his grub era in this movie. He never looks attractive. He looks like a horrible monster of the Nosferatu variety even when wearing a “human disguise,” which seems to just be a Londoner style trench coat and hat. A+. If you enjoy period pieces, horror movies, and/or Dracula movies, this movie will scratch that itch. It is loaded to the gills with character actors you probably don’t know by name but have seen in other stuff. It’s a real fun time.
Retribution
Everyone except me seemingly hated this movie. This was the only $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie in the month of August. The next one is happening the evening I am writing this, Labor Day. It’s not an awful film, but it is very predictable. Who is doing the car bomb Liam Neeson finds himself in was pretty obvious the second I saw the actor’s name in the opening credits. I won’t spoil it, but there is literally no one else it could have been unless the antagonist was not in the movie prior to the reveal. And the movie just sort of ends. Like it ran out of money after three different explosions probably ate away at the budget? Liam Neeson, pulling off his usual grub era, slumming it in an action movie almost no one will remember by the end of the year. I just didn’t hate it. Jeremy Jahns absolutely despised it, giving it his worst rating. This is a B- to me. It didn’t offend me enough to fail. It isn’t any more than it ever claimed to be. It didn’t try to be a great movie. And it isn’t. But it didn’t suck. The plot is minimal, but Liam Neeson is very good for what his character has to convey. It also doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a pretty short movie. This is a movie designed to be streamed on Netflix.
Strays
An R-rated raunch comedy about foul-mouthed dogs going to do a horrible thing to a bastard who deserves it. It is well-cast. The cameos from the limited human cast are great, as well as a few voice cameos from actors playing animals, mostly dogs. One in particular was really damn good, from both ends. They spoiled the great human cameo in one of the trailers, the TV ad one. For some reason… I saw it while watching a show on Hulu, which I’ll talk about more below. This movie does spoil most of the best scenes in the trailer. They keep doing this to comedies, so this isn’t a “this movie” specific problem. I’d rather they use lines that didn’t make the final cut for the trailer. This is still fun, though. B+ to A-. I’d see it again on streaming no problem. I’d rather not spoil the movie for those that don’t want it spoiled, so let’s move on…
Blue Beetle
Much better than it probably should have been, but the movie’s biggest problem is that it feels like the sequel to a Ted Kord Blue Beetle movie we never got. Ted Kord is an unseen character in this movie. In the comics, he was the second Blue Beetle. He hung out with Booster Gold a lot. Booster Gold is my second favorite DC superhero, second only to Plastic Man. Ted Kord was created around the time DC bought out the comic book company that the original Golden Age Blue Beetle belonged to. The same company that Peacemaker and The Question came from. All three were lazily changed last minute for the best comic book of all time, Watchmen. They tease it in the mid-credits, but Ted Kord has been missing for an unsaid amount of time, probably a decade or so. We don’t even really know how old he is, as his daughter is probably a twentysomething but her age is also never said. He has a clear ’80s aesthetic based on the equipment they steal from his abandoned mansion, but this movie takes place in modern times, so at least thirty if not forty years later. A very tech-forward part of Florida, it appears. Like neo-New York but Miami, maybe? The Blue Beetle of this movie, from a very working-class background, is the third one from the comics and premiered there in like 2006. A lot of nanobot-type stuff, which was very popular at the time. Played very well by Miguel from Cobra Kai. George Lopez is also really good as the conspiracy theorist fun uncle. Basically, what if Alex Jones was a tinkerer mechanic-type but also played by George Lopez. The movie has plenty of conveniences, but the main villain is good. The secondary villain, who does the big third act CGI “same vs. same” battle that is seemingly in every first movie for every superhero movie ever, was better and more terrifying before he got the Halo-lookin’ rip-off armor. B+.
The Hill
I actually saw this the day before I’m writing this for a second time, with my fiancée. I saw it with my mother while visiting family the last full weekend in August, as it came to her local AMC but not mine. And she wanted to see it. It is a trite at times, overly positive biopic about a minor baseball figure with an inspirational story. I figured he never “made it” made it, as he did not have a Wikipedia page prior to this movie coming out. Maybe he has one now. I didn’t check. Dennis Quaid, who is playing Ronald Reagan later this year, is excellent as the morally conflicted deeply religious pastor father of the main character. There’s a character in this movie for longer than he probably should be. It turns out he is a country music star who performs the end credits song (which wasn’t even written for the movie,) pretty solid banger. I bought it on iTunes the day I’m writing this. I think the movie is too long, spending a little too much time when the main character is young. It’s just over two hours. They easily could have shaved fifteen to twenty minutes from it without really losing anything. B- to B.
The Equalizer 3
This probably would have been movie of the month had the movie I did give it to released when it should have been, this October. A to A+. Denzel is back, baby!! Much better than the second movie, which had a weird political thriller plot that doesn’t really fit with Denzel’s character at all. Maybe better than the first one, but I’m not sure. Have not seen that one in a long while. Denzel’s action is so deliberate, especially the build-up. He’s clearly the personification of “[FREAK] around and find out.” He tells the people he takes down prior to that pretty convincingly not to do what he will inevitably have to deal with in righteous fury, but they never listen. You get the sense he has retired but actions beyond his control that he feels morally obligated to take care of force his hand as he’s the only one capable of stemming and stopping the threat. This could easily be the last one in the series, but I’d love another one. Washed the bad taste of the second one right out of my mouth. There is a character that didn’t need to be in the movie, but it is telegraphed pretty clearly why she’s there, which they make blatantly obvious by the end. An actress I didn’t even realize was her until I watched Jeremy Jahns’ review. She grew up! Fans of Denzel’s action films will understand what I just said.
EVERYTHING ELSE
What We Do in the Shadows has concluded its most recent season since I last wrote, although I didn’t technically watch the final two episodes of the season until the first of September. It goes back to the status quo, as this series is known to do in its season finales. Matt Berry continues to be awesome, as he virtually always is. The rest of the cast is good to annoying, but that is what it is. Also on Hulu, I watched the miniseries Dopesick, about the corrupt pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. Michael Keaton won four different acting awards for just this show. Insane. Quite good but also depressing, as the company greatly abused institutional trust in the FDA and doctors in general to push a drug they knew would spiral out into an addiction crisis. Just pure evil while raking in billions. My fiancée and I also started Netflix’s Painkiller, which also covers Purdue Pharma. So far, not as good, but we haven’t finished it yet. I watched many episodes of Monk, mostly with my mother. It is my third favorite show of all time. Just so good. Peacock’s Twisted Metal, an adaptation of the mostly PlayStation video game franchise, was much better than it ever should have been. I think the second season will probably be better than this, but the worldbuilding and main character were both very well done. My only knowledge of the lore of this world is the episodic single-player campaign from the 2012 video game, which followed three “protagonists” of the series from previous games, but with a fresh take. One of them shows up near the end, the most famous one is mostly a side character, and the third one, if he is alluded to, it is very slight. Well-casted and well-written but there’s not a lot of car-based mayhem. I didn’t expect much from it, but it easily soared above my expectations. The repeat this month was Sisu, which I showed my parents while visiting them. I knew my dad would have a problem with the gore (even the heart scene in Rat Race made him squirm,) but my mom greatly enjoyed Nazis getting killed.
One of my favorite political satires of all time, Thank You for Smoking put Jason Reitman and Aaron Eckhart on the map. Easy A+, watch it if you haven’t. Based on a book written by William F. Buckley, Jr.’s son of all people.
I had never seen The Ring. Corrected that deficiency. It is good, but the ending sucks. B+ to A-. I won’t spoil it, but that ending is so cheap. Blatant sequel bait. Just absolutely unearned and made the entire middle of the movie pointless.
I also finally saw Purple Rain. I had never listened to the eponymous song either. Prince was just not someone my parents played growing up. For whatever reason. I’ll probably pick up the extended soundtrack at some point. It is really good. The plot is very bad, though. It is a wonderful soundtrack with the most threadbare of plots. Prince plays very much not a good person, physically abusive to his girlfriend. And, since this was the time for it, an appreciated topless scene completely out of nowhere. Phoebe Cates would be proud. A B- to B movie with an A+ soundtrack.
Up is an A+. It will make you cry at least twice. My fiancée had somehow never seen it. It’s amazing. If you haven’t seen it, just watch it.
The Mask of Zorro. The Antonio Banderas one. Should have been Selma Hayek as the love interest, but Doug Walker must have been happy with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Anthony Hopkins was slumming it in his grub era as he is bound to do occasionally. A fun time. A- to A.
What a profoundly depressing movie. Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated movie to ever win Best Picture. The MPAA must have had some goofy standards at the time because there didn’t even seem to be naked breasts in this movie, as I cannot even recall if there were any. The subject matter is very dark, but this movie would barely get an R rating today. And that might only be because of the language. This is a C. It isn’t awful, but I never want to watch it again. The ending is just so badly telegraphed and sucks. Just depressing. Stupid main character is stupid the entire movie and doesn’t really seem to learn anything to make him not be a dumbass. His awful choices lead to awful outcomes. The acting is very good, but there’s very little joy in this movie. It is worth watching for what the movie is, but that’s about it.
Fall was a bottle episode of a movie also surrounded by awful choices. People who rock climb recreationally have to have a death wish. Especially if they tell zero people where they’re going! There’s a twist near the end that is really goofy and makes a large chunk of the second act not make much sense, but the movie is well-acted and well-structured. A- to A.
This was a movie I initially avoided because a mutual on Twitter said it was bad. I enjoyed it, though. The Beanie Bubble was interesting, even if the conceit was almost surely not based on many real events or people. Well-acted and well-written, but clearly the filmmakers hated the founder of Ty. B+.
Jeremy Jahns mentioned in his review of Retribution that it was very similar to Phone Booth. I noticed it by happenstance in my recommended media on Hulu, so I decided to check it out. A much better movie than Retribution. And less than an hour and a half, oddly. Usually only see that with animated movies, especially stop motion. A well-paced, well-acted, well-written thriller. A to A+.
And that’s everything. September’s major releases look sparse, but there’s one I am absolutely stoked for. I have already seen two movies in theaters this month already, with a third coming later today. It is only the fourth day of the month on the day I’m writing this. I see a lot of movies, if you hadn’t guessed by now. As the prophet Teddy once said: If you don’t know me by now…
