War for the Planet of the Apes: This is probably the finale of the new Apes movies. I never saw the first one with James Franco but apparently he made a smart chimp named Caesar who could talk. Then in the next movie the "simian flu" wiped out much of humanity while the apes hid in the forest. Ultimately one ape conspired to attack humans. Which brings us to the "war" that's not really a war. The apes are attacked by a group of humans led by Woody Harrellson. He eventually captures and enslaves all of the apes except Caesar and a few others. These apes find a nearly hairless one who can talk who's also the annoying Transformers-style comic relief. It was an OK movie but not nearly epic enough to be a "war." Kind of a missed opportunity at the end when the apes resettle somewhere. It would have been a great time for them to enter New York and show the Statue of Liberty like in the 1968 movie. But nope. (3/5)
The House: Will Farrell and Amy Poehler are a couple who want to send their kid to a fancy college. She won a scholarship from the local town council, but a jerk on the council (Nick Kroll) embezzles the money and rescinds the scholarship. So Farrell and Poehler team with their gambling addict neighbor to start an illegal casino. Because that's what you'd do, right? And then start bilking their neighbors out of money. Hooray? It gets complicated when a real gangster (Jeremy Renner) shows up and wants to muscle in. A fairly blah comedy that wasn't extremely funny but not mind-numbingly awful. Maybe in 20 years there'll be a Rifftrax or MST3K version to really make it funny. (2/5)
The Hitman's Bodyguard: It's basically Midnight Run only in Europe. Ryan Reynolds is a disgraced bodyguard whose ex works for Interpol. After her prisoner (Samuel L Jackson) is nearly killed, she asks Reynolds to get the guy to the Netherlands to testify at the trial of a Belarus president (Gary Oldman). For most of the movie I wondered why they needed to bother since testimony from a professor had already been thrown out because there wasn't evidence to support it. Though I don't know when you need physical evidence to back up witness testimony. But it turns out Jackson does have some physical evidence too. Anyway, they have to take
American Assassin: I was hoping for more from this movie, but it was a pretty dull action movie. A guy named Mitch (Dylan O'Brien) is proposing to his girlfriend when terrorists show up on the Spanish beach and start killing everyone. Mitch's fiancee is killed but he isn't; afterwards he gets all pissed off and tries to infiltrate the terrorists. But the CIA intervenes and recruits him for a special squad led by ex-SEAL Stan (Michael Keaton). And then there's just a lot of relatively standard action movie stuff with training and spying and covert missions to stop a rogue agent trying to build a nuke. There's one woman on the squad but instead of developing a romantic subplot the movie has Mitch waterboard her instead. Nothing says loving like waterboarding! The title itself is misleading as Mitch isn't really an "assassin." He's a counter terrorism agent. It'd be like saying Jack Bauer from 24 was an assassin. But I guess "American Counter Terrorism Guy" didn't have the same ring to it. (2/5) BTW, something we all learned from MST3K: Never name your main character Mitchell. 🙄
Valerian: Long before this came out I knew it would flop here in the States. Old French property? Check. Made by French guys? Check. Corny looking aliens and effects? Check. Unappealing lead actors? Check. And sometimes, just sometimes, like once in a blue moon, this Grumpy Bulldog is right and this was that time! So yeah there's like some aliens whose planet was destroyed and their princess beams her memories to Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) who's a huge douche with an annoying partner Laureline (Carla De...whatever, the lame Enchantress from Suicide Sqaud) whom he keeps asking to marry. Then there's a lengthy bit where they go to "the Big Market" that's in another dimension you can only see with special goggles and whatnot to rescue some weird little animal. There's a weird bulldog-looking guy they have to steal it from, who swears revenge and yet never appears again. Then they go to "Alpha" which is like the International Space Station only 700 years later after it was set adrift by Rutger Hauer in a pointless cameo during the credits. And there's a jerk military guy (Clive Owen--remember him?) who you know is evil because he has his own entourage of killer robots. He wants the little animal and stuff. There's an especially annoying detour that goes on for like 30-45 minutes where Laureline is kidnapped by primitive aliens on the station and Valerian goes to rescue her by going to a nightclub managed by Ethan Hawke and starring Rihanna as a shape-shifting alien. And after they save Laureline from being eaten they jump into a trash chute, reminding everyone of Star Wars, except the walls don't start closing in on them. What was the point of that whole sequence? It had NOTHING to do with the main plot. It was just a lot of sexist, colonialist bullshit that probably played better in the 30s or whenever Valerian was popular in France. But as a compliment it's still probably not as fucking stupid as Jupiter Ascending. So there's that. (1.5/5) BTW, in a self-indulgent bit the bulldog alien and Valerian borrow lines from writer/producer/director Luc Besson's Taken. You know, that bit in all the previews where Liam Neeson says he'll find the guy and kill him? Only it's reversed with the bad guy saying Neeson's words and Valerian saying the bad guy's words.
2 comments:
1.5? You were generous. I think I would also have to place Jupiter Ascending below it though.
The Hitman's Bodyguard didn't look like it broke new ground which is why I skipped it in the theater.
Amazon Prime keeps changing out the RiffTrax they offer, so between that, Pluto, and downloading them, I've been watching almost one a day for the past several months. Never too much RiffTrax or MST3K!
I've only seen War of the Apes, and I agree with your review.
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