2015 Movies Grumpy Bulldog vs Tony Laplume

Last November Tony Laplume had gone over a bunch of 2014 movies on his Film Fan blog and since he wouldn't allow comments (and still doesn't) and I realized I had also reviewed most of the movies, I put together sort of a Siskel & Ebert thing showing his review vs. my review.

In June he did 2015 movies, so let's do it again!  Yee-hah!  And again I'll try to use actual reviews whenever possible so I'm not changing my opinion after the fact, but some like Star Wars or Ant-Man the review I wrote was too long so I'll just kind of sum it up.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (Laplume)

rating: *****

review: For me the sequels started out with a significant bang.  Admittedly, I'm not exactly square with a lot of mainstream opinion, particularly about the Star Wars saga.  I loved the prequels, and I loved the rest of the sequels, too, but didn't much care for Rogue One, which is the only recent entry fans actually did like.  I loved the new characters instantly, but what really seals it for me is that thing that made everyone instantly love the trailer: Harrison Ford's return as Han Solo.  I thought even his death was handled perfectly.  Too many people accept the simplest way of describing a thing to be the only way to view it, and of course Force Awakens has parallels with A New Hope.  But the results are very different.  I'm a huge admirer of J.J. Abrams as it is, so the fact that he got this assignment at all was absolutely best case scenario.

Me:

After another 10 years without a real movie (just the Clone Wars animated movie) and the bad taste left by the prequels in general there wasn't a high bar for Episode VII.  Perhaps owing to how Disney rushed this into production after buying Lucasfilm, the story winds up being a faded copy of Episode IV.  There are a lot of things that don't make much sense:  Poe getting "thrown from the wreck" and somehow falling out of his jacket; the Millennium Falcon being there for years with no one noticing; Rey being able to fly it almost instantly; going to lightspeed inside a hangar and through a shield (why didn't they just do that in Rogue One?)...but there was potential, which Rian Johnson squandered because he wanted a gritty and "real" epic space opera--an oxymoron if there ever was one.  Don't get me started. (3/5)

The Hateful Eight (Laplume)

rating: *****

review: Quentin Tarantino has been able to assemble absolute dream casts throughout his career while also pursuing talent he himself sought out that was otherwise being ignored.  Eight is as close to an all-star Tarantino cast as he's gotten, led by Samuel L. Jackson, whose breakthrough film was Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and Kurt Russell, star of what too many dismiss as a minor Tarantino flick, Death Proof.  Famously, Tarantino initially thought to shelve this script when it leaked, but thankfully he thought better.  Unlike other period films he's pursued this one doesn't much worry about its place in history, but simply allows Tarantino to settle into the characters he's created, and there are few writers in any medium who creates as vivid characters as he does.  An underrated pick for best film he's yet directed.

Me:

I don't really like Quentin Tarantino movies but I've watched most of them.  This is the 8th one I guess and like Django Unchained it takes place in the late 19th Century.  A bounty hunter is taking a woman to Red Rock, Wyoming to hang, though he could have saved us all about 3 hours if he'd just killed her.  I mean the reward is "Dead or Alive" so it's the same either way, but it's some kind of point of honor with him.  Anyway, there's a blizzard and they have to stop at a "haberdashery" or inn, where there are some other people.  And then people start dying and secrets are revealed.  It all moves at a snail's pace, with lots of excess blabbing because critics told Tarantino he's good at dialogue.  There's also an excessive amount of blood and gore to make this akin to a torture porn movie.  For some reason there's a narrator after about 90 minutes, which really makes no sense.  Cut it about in half and it would be OK. (2/5)

Self/Less (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: Tarsem caught everyone else's attention with The Cell, a visual spectacle starring Jennifer Lopez just before she became Jennifer Lopez, but it was The Fall that continually captivates me, and I have been following his lamentably sporadic career ever since.  Self/Less also has the virtue of starring Ryan Reynolds, whose career instincts generally seem to intersect with my viewing interests.  Reynolds often chooses roles in which the person he's playing is someone other than he actually is, for a variety of reasons.  This one is a richly textured role in a truly impossible situation where he's trying to reclaim his life, bringing forth his perennially underrated dramatic chops.

Me:

OK sci-fi thriller where Ben Kingsley is sick and transplants his memories into Ryan Reynolds.  If it had been me it would be Ben Kingsley transplanting his brain into Jennifer Lawrence (I almost literally did that in the first part of Transformed Into a Bimbo Too.  Anyway, after that it sort of turns into a combination of The Bourne Identity/Legacy with a little Robocop thrown in.   It's good and not entirely predictable. (2.5/5)

The Martian (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: I honestly thought we were going to enter a golden age of Matt Damon as a movie star, as in him becoming a reliable top box office attraction, after this one.  That didn't really happen, but the results are still pretty magnetic in this adaptation of one of the viral literary hits from that time.

Me:

This was my second-favorite movie of 2015 after The Force Awakens, though in retrospect maybe it would now actually be on top.  After a bunch of flops, Ridley Scott scored a winner with this and Matt Damon provides all the charm and charisma he never had in those Bourne movies.  Really the whole thing works because of Damon's charm and charisma that keeps this castaway tale from being too dreary or dull. (4/5)

The Revenant (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: Everyone now thinks of this as the one where Leonardo DiCaprio has that encounter with the bear, but it's also the role that finally snagged him the Oscar, and gave Tom Hardy his closest shot at mainstream legitimacy, which of course he accepted in one of his most unrecognizable appearances ever.

Me:

I finally got tired of waiting for this to show up on cable and just Redboxed it.  Was it the best movie of last year?  Meh.  I mean I certainly didn't enjoy it like Star Wars or The Martian.  It's your basic tale of survival and revenge.  In the 19th Century(?) in the wilderness, Leo DiCaprio is mauled by a bear and left for dead by the nasty Tom Hardy, who for added measure kills Leo's half-Indian son.  From there Leo crawls around, goes over a waterfall, eats raw buffalo, falls off a cliff on a horse, and then goes all Empire Strikes Back on the horse to shield himself from the cold.  All so he can inevitably track down Tom Hardy.  The end is reminiscent of Gladiator, though not with as good of music. A well made movie but not one you're going to watch over and over. (3/5)

Legend (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: If you remember, Hardy had that shot for a movie we'll reach a little later in this chronicle, but there was also this gangster flick in which he plays brothers, which ended up being dismissed "because we'd seen that movie before."  Which is crazy, because no, nobody had.  But this was also the point at which everyone seemed to conspire in dismantling the old Hollywood system of, y'know, movie stars.

Me: 

It's funny when a true story turns out to be a lot of cliches.  You wouldn't think true stories could be cliches but then it's probably "true" in the Aaron Sorkin biopic-writing sense.  This is a story about two gangsters in London who were twin brothers.  Reggie is the more normal one while Ronnie is crazy and also homosexual.  Both of them are played by Tom Hardy.  Then like I say it's a lot of gangster movie cliches.  There's a girl who marries Reggie but of course realizes the gangster wife life is shit.  He tells her he'll get out of the gangster life but of course he doesn't.  There's a cop on their tail and there's conflict between the two brothers and so on.  Other than the twin brother angle nothing really stands out.  There's certainly nothing legendary about it.  Mic drop! (2/5)

Tomorrowland (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: If you want the poster child of modern Disney, you only have to look at the inexplicable rejection of this movie, the most recent attempt by the studio to create something of its own.  And, I guess, the last time Geoege Clooney was a movie star.

Me:

I might have gone to see this in theaters but never got around to it.  Anyway, it's the movie based on the old Disneyland attraction.  What I like about the movie is how it questions our increasingly bleak worldview.  I mean when the most popular books, movies, and TV shows are all featuring apocalyptic and dystopian scenarios it's hard to believe in optimism. Where's that can-do spirit that was so pervasive in Star Trek?  Or in the earlier days of science-fiction?  The movie is good then at reminding us that we should try to solve problems instead of whining about them.  This was something good about The Martian too, in how everyone banded together instead of arguing and finger-pointing like what happens after every school shooting.  Anyway, the irony is the movie itself features an apocalyptic/dystopian plot in that the guy running Tomorrowland thinks we all need to die.  I'll admit I didn't pay attention through the whole movie, which was kind of a problem.  Something shallow is that the girl playing the teenager who teams up with George Clooney looked like she was thirty.  The intro got a little annoying too in "let's start here" "no, let's start here."  Just start somewhere!  Anyway, it was OK and if you really like old-timey sci-fi then it's fun for that too.  Probably a good thing Disney bought Star Wars for the scenes in the old toy shop where they have lots of Star Wars props.  (2.5/5)

Ant-Man (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: I honestly don't believe any movie in the MCU has nailed the MCU formula better than this introduction of Paul Rudd's Scott Lang.  Except maybe the sequel.

Me:

The long-gestating Edgar Wright movie finally came to the big screen--without Edgar Wright for the most part, though he got a writing and EP credit.  I saw a video on YouTube that hilariously compared this to Iron Man and it really does follow that formula, only the hero is an ex-con not a billionaire.  Like Iron Man succeeded largely thanks to Robert Downey Jr, this movie works mostly because of Paul Rudd being able to walk the tightrope between action movie and family movie and managing to make a criminal likable. (3/5)

Joy (Laplume)

rating: ****

review: David O. Russell had finally built himself into one of Hollywood's most significant directors when he chose this project as a star vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence.  The result is everything it should have been, except a project that let him keep that spot.

Me:

I saw a preview for this I think last year when I watched The Martian, but the preview gave me no idea what the movie was actually about.  There's Jennifer Lawrence and she's a mom...or something...and there's Bradley Cooper and Robert de Niro so it must be a David O. Russell movie...but anything beyond that I had no idea.  Finally it was on HBO and I watched most of it.  Basically it's the story of the woman who in the early 80s invented the Spin Mop or whatever it's called; it's a mop with a detachable cloth head and rolls up with a handle so you don't have to get your hands wet trying to wring it out.  She faces a lot of adversity trying to get her invention to the public.  Big Mop didn't want a mop that could be reused; they'd rather you buy a new one every year.  Finally she convinces Bradley Cooper to put it on QVC, but it doesn't sell until she goes on to demonstrate it herself.  But that's not the end of her troubles.  It's a decent drama about a subject you probably didn't know or really care about. It really just needed some better marketing.  (3/5)

The Peanuts Movie (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: Sometimes these things will be filled with movies I really just need to watch again (and somehow I didn't even manage that when I was spending recent months wading through that back catalog).  But I suspect doing so would improve my opinion of these particular results.

Me:

It's cutesy and nonthreatening, like pretty much all the TV specials and comic strips.  Lovable loser Charlie Brown is on a quixotic quest to win the heart of a red-haired girl, but as always the best part is Snoopy.  There's a subplot where he's writing a story about trying to save Fifi, a French poodle terrorized by the Red Baron in WWI.  Really, next time just make the whole movie about Snoopy. (3/5)

Ex Machina (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: One of the prototypical modern cult classics, propelled by a fresh cast including Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander.

Me:

I saw this in a theater in Louisville with my brother and his wife.  It was really good if you like a smaller, slower kind of movie.  The pacing reminded me of the remake of Solaris.  In this case some Richie Cunningham looking guy is invited to the bunker/mansion of a billionaire software guru who reveals he has built an android with artificial intelligence.  But there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.  The end was just brilliant with a really great twist.  It's not playing in a lot of theaters (especially by now) so be sure to check it out on Redbox/digital download. (4/5)

Sicario (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: This one became a full-blown phenomenon, and further propelled Denis Villeneuve to Hollywood royalty, and yet its ambiguities are such that the apparent lead character is overshadowed by two characters even the sequel (not directed by Villeneuve) is uncertain that we should cheer them on, even when one of them is Benicio del Toro in a role worthy of his talents.

Me:

An FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is drafted onto a team that is illegally going to go into Mexico to take out a couple of drug dealers.  Benicio del Toro is a sicario (or hitman) who is working for the Americans (temporarily) for his own reasons.  It's OK but felt a little slow.  And really Emily Blunt sucks at fighting.  She gets choked out by the new Punisher, shot by del Toro, and wrestled and almost choked out again by Josh Brolin.  She really needed that fighting suit from Edge of Tomorrow. (2.5/5)

Terminator: Genisys (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: It's the popular thing to dislike every new Terminator movie past the second one, to find some reason to utterly dismiss it, so it really doesn't matter what you've heard or personally think of this one, it's already obvious.  But popular opinion isn't always right.  Another entertaining entry in the series.

Me:

This was a soft reboot where everyone except Schwarzenegger was recast.  To explain why Arnold looks older, they had him go back in time to Sarah Connor's childhood to protect her, which had a creepy Time Traveler's Wife vibe.  The rest wasn't terrible as it brought in a lot from the previous movies, but in the end it just didn't work for people.  The one thing that didn't make sense was at the end Sarah and Reese are in 2019 and haven't had sex yet, so how can John Connor be born to lead the resistance? (2/5)

Spectre (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: The third Daniel Craig entry in the Bond series left me cold, and circumstances left a considerable gap in my viewing of this fourth one, and so I'm probably still processing it.  But for me, there's little question that his are the entries that will, at least to this point, best stand the test of time, once we stop worrying so much about protecting older material.

Me:

This was written to be the last appearance of Daniel Craig as Bond and presumably Sam Mendes as director.  There are a lot of little Easter eggs to tip the cap to previous Bond films, like at the end when Bond drives off in the car from Goldfinger.  As with most of the Craig movies it's a lot of chase and action scenes strung together with a few beats of quiet inbetween.  I've always thought Craig is a lot better in the non-action scenes.  Anyway, this felt as if it were 4 hours long. I'm pretty sure it wasn't.  (2/5)

Ted 2 (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: I've developed this weird thing about seeing sequels without having seen the original, and this is one of them.  It's pretty much exactly what you would expect.

Me:

The first one was OK but this just felt so goddamned lazy.  Most of it is recycled Family Guy jokes and celebrity cameos.  Mark Wahlberg was the star of the last one but this time he's just the sidekick to Seth MacFarlane's talking teddy bear, which is not for the best.  Really hoping it didn't make enough for a Ted 3. (1/5)

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: It's more popular to think of it as the one where Rebecca Ferguson joins the ensemble, but I tend to lament it as the one where Jeremy Renner takes a huge step back after having briefly threatened to take over in Ghost Protocol.

Me:

Seemed pretty much the same as the last one.  What happened to the women of that one?  There was a woman on the team, right?  And wasn't there the woman from the third one at the end working as a nurse or something and Tom Cruise was going to see her?  Neither one shows up here.  Anyway, seemed impossibly long. Boom. (2/5)

Fantastic Four (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: "There's never been a good film version!!!" is what you're always going to hear, but of the three that've been released to date, I like 'em all, including this effort to give the team a more youthful appearance.  The only problem with Miles Teller's Reed Richards is that he necessarily takes a passive role in the proceedings, since the rest of the team has to catch up with him eventually, even though the movie clearly pivots around him.

Me:

I don't think this was nearly as bad as many people claimed.  I think it's one of those cases like 2003's "Daredevil" where it became a cause celebre to hate on the movie.  I'm not saying it's a great movie either, but it's not anywhere as terrible as "Batman & Robin" or "The Spirit."  It's not even as bad as Ang Lee's "Hulk."  If you can pretend to understand why teleporting to another dimension gives people superpowers, then it's a reasonably OK story. (2/5)

Mad Max: Fury Road (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: This is the one everyone went absolutely crazy about, and so of course it features as minimal a role for Tom Hardy as possible, surely the only Mad Max film yet produced, with his name right there in the title, to be able to say that.

Me:

I never watched the original three Mel Gibson movies, the last of which was like 30 years ago.  This isn’t a reboot even though Mel Gibson has been replaced by Tom Hardy.  Since the last movie was like 30 years ago you might think they’d do something to fill you in a little, but nah.  The video game commercial before the movie actually was more helpful setting up the world of Mad Max than anything in the movie.  But um there’s an apocalypse and now water and gas are precious commodities.  There's some freaky dude called Immortus Joe who has a bunch henchmen who look like Fester Addams.  They capture Max early on and use him for a mobile blood bank when Joe’s right-hand woman Furiosa (Charlize Theron) decides to make off with Joe’s favorite concubines in a “war rig” which is a tanker with water and gasoline.  There are two questions I have:  if the women are in the tanker, wouldn’t they suffocate?  That’s what happened in a crappy movie about blind bank robbers I watched; they tried to hide in a hollowed out tanker truck and died.  And Max is hooked up to a blood line for the better part of a day and can unhook it without even being woozy—then proceed to punch a shitload of guys and blow up a bunch of shit.  How much blood does that dude have?  More than the average person that’s for sure.  Despite that his name is in the title, Max is more of a secondary character in this.  He has less personality than most of the vehicles.  There are some cool action sequences though. (2/5)

In the Heart of the Sea (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: Based on the true story that inspired Moby-Dick, this is one I unabashedly just need to watch again.

Me:

This is supposed to be the story that inspired Moby-Dick.  I fell asleep before it even got to the white whale. (1/5)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (Laplume)

rating: ***

review: Hugely ironically, because I'm no big fan of his, but Joss Whedon did exactly what Joss Whedon always does with this one.  I honestly think the only reason it's not popular is because audiences were disappointed not to find Thanos in it.  But it proved integral to later developments in the MCU anyway.  Eventually fans will just view it as another entry in the series.  For me it's just par for the course.

Me:

I didn't like it all that much.  It's OK but I think the problem right from the get-go is that this is a placeholder movie.  I mean the end of Avengers introduced Thanos so everyone was psyched for the Infinity Gauntlet thing but then they announced Age of Ultron and that the Infinity War would be the third movie.  So really this movie was always just to bridge the gap.  Besides that is just the whole weight of the Marvel cinematic universe, so that really most of the movie feels like it's just setting up stuff (Wakanda, Infinity Stones, etc.) for down the road.  I'd give it a solid B or (2.5/5)

So there you have it.  I think this time around I was harder on most of these movies than Laplume was.  You might think from this and the 4th of July post that I'm picking on him or obsessed with him but really he's one of the few people I know who still blogs much.  If you don't blog or only blog like once a month it's kind of hard to find material to respond to, innit?  Just saying.