I have been a fan of improv comedy for decades. From the Christopher Guest films to Whose Line is it Anyway, I have always lapped up improv. So seeing the synopsis of this movie with improv at the heart of it, I was in on Deep Cover.
Sadly, this was a scripted improv comedy/adventure that flied in the face of the artform.
The cast was interesting with Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed. Toss in Sean Bean and Ian McShane to make this cast pretty good.
The main three characters are tossed into a story in London criminal underworld by the police to try to use their improv skills under cover.
I just did not grasp this film. As I said, the idea that the improv is all scripted makes it feel too forced. It seemed all they really had was “Yes, and…” and it did not work for me.
2.4 stars
With that, the June Swoon 4: Two a Day comes to a close. Thirty days and sixty movies! I avoided using any in the theater movies for the “It’s Now” films even though I had set the precedent up that I could. The two a day format was harder than I thought it would be. The last week or so got harder to find the movies to watch and I got in a stretch where there were some bad films. Thankfully, I broke out of that run and finished better.
We have arrived at the final day for the June Swoon 4: Two Day. The final movie for the 2024 films (“It’s Then, Now”) is a Liam Neeson film called Absolution that I watched on Hulu.
A lot of Liam Neeson films are similar over the last few years and they have titles that are anything but distinct. This movie had the same feel to it. The title “Absolution” seemed just as random as many of the other films. It i snot memorable.
However, Absolution does take some different steps in the story to set itself apart from “Retribution,” “The Ice Road,” “The Marksman,” “Cold Pursuit,” “The Commuter” and such.
According to IMDB, “An aging gangster attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past, but the criminal underworld won’t loosen their grip willingly.”
This summary from IMDB does not touch upon the seminal fact of the story that made this Liam Neeson performance different than all the others. Since it is not mentioned here, I will avoid spoiling it and say that this one fact really adds to the typical character that Neeson plays.
Neeson’s co-star was Yolanda Ross and she was excellent in her role. I thought the scenes with Neeson and Ross stood out from the rest of the movie and I wish there had been more of this.
I also liked the young actor Terrence Pulliam, who played Dre, Neeson’s estranged grandson. The two of them also had some good scenes that gave Neeson’s character more depth than it would have had. Pullian does not have a ton of dialogue, but he played the scenes well with his facial features and looks.
Some may think that this story was too slow, but I liked the pace of the film. It gave us a chance to get into the character Neeson was playing and connect with the choices he had made and the regrets that were swallowing him.
There was a series of weird scenes with Neeson and his father (Josh Drennan) that seemed to be in a different movie, but these scenes did not derail the film for me.
Absolution was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I did actually like a lot of what was there. It has a 55% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a shockingly low 32% audience score. I think it is much better than that.
Episode 10 of the second season of Poker Face was probably my least favorite of the season so far.
It featured the story of a man Rodney (Jason Ritter) who wanted to get “pumped up” for a class reunion and tried to get the owner of a local gym, Brick (Method Man) to get him some of the “good stuff” that he was selling to the other gym members who were making more progress than he was.
When the man, who worked as a health inspector, discovered that the “good stuff” was mother’s breast milk, he was angry and ready to report him. Rodney and Brick fought and Brick accidentally hit him in the throat with a weight. He set it up to look like Rodney had been lifting weights without a spotter and had a terrible gym accident.
Here comes Charlie.
Charlie and her new friend Alex (Patti Harrison) began to have doubts about the story being told by Brick and, even though Charlie wanted to turn over a new leaf and start to mind her own business, she couldn’t help herself.
I just did not find this episode very engaging. I did laugh as Charlie had been locked in the sauna by Brick because she was trying to get a message to Alex via smartwatch by doing a sequence of exercises that included heel raises, arm circles, lunges and push-ups. This was meant to spell HALP.
I found this to be a bit of a step back for Poker Face, although a crime solving partner was new for Charlie. There are two more episodes of season 2.
The second film of the penultimate day of the 2025 June Swoon was on Amazon Prime and it was an action/political thriller starring Viola Davis called G20.
The G20 is is an international forum of both developing and developed countries which seeks to find solutions to global economic and financial issues. (g20.org). It stands for Group of 20.
This movie has the leaders of the G20 facing a group of terrorists who take over the G20 summit. The leaders looked to President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) because she had extensive military service prior to her election. Sutton helped battle the terrorists through the halls of the fictional Grand Diamont Hotel in South Africa.
There is no way around it. This movie is stupid. It is stupid in the way that what Viola Davis does would NEVER be allowed for any sitting US President to do. She is shooting weaponry, fighting hand to hand and battling the forces opposing her. Absolutely NEVER would this happen. So it is as unrealistic as any film could be. It is not unprecedented for a movie president to take on terrorists (for example Harrison Ford in Air Force One), but President Sutton does a whole lot more here.
If you can get past that and just allow the stupidity to get by you, this is not the worst movie I have seen. Silly? Yes. I do like Viola Davis and she carried herself with a swagger in this movie that made you believe that she was the most powerful person on the planet. She does a great job as action hero #1.
Our lead villain was Rutledge, played by Antony Starr. Starr is a much better villain as Homelander in the Boys. Here he feels too much like a dime store Hans Gruber from Die Hard. He had a strange plan involving the world’s currency, making him just an “exceptional thief.”
There is a fun group of ensemble cast including Anthony Anderson, Ramon Rodriguez, Marsai Martin, Elizabeth Marvel, everyone’s favorite Phil Coulson- Clark Gregg, MeeWha Alana Lee, Douglas Hodge, John Hoogenakker, Joseph Steven Yang and Theo Bongani Ndyalvane.
If you can accept this as just a dumb action movie, you might get a kick out of it. If you think of it as a political thriller that features the US president, the flaws come out pretty easily. Viola Davis is a kick ass either way.
The penultimate day of the June Swoon 4 saw me head over to Hulu for a movie listed there called The Order.
The Order was directed by Justin Kurzel and starred Jude Law and Nicolas Hoult in a film dealing with the FBI vs. White Supremacists. This movie is based on the non-fiction novel The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt.
According to IMDB, “In 1983, a series of increasingly violent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations and armored car heists frightened communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. As baffled law enforcement agents scrambled for answers, a lone FBI agent (Law), stationed in the sleepy, picturesque town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, came to believe the crimes were not the work of traditional, financially motivated criminals but a group of dangerous domestic terrorists, inspired by a radical, charismatic leader (Hoult), plotting a devastating war against the federal government of the United States.”
I was impressed with the performances of Jude Law and, especially, Nicolas Hoult. Hoult was extremely sinister as leader of the Order, Robert Matthews. Nicolas Hoult lost himself inside this role and delivered a chilling performance. I think this bodes well for Hoult’s soon to be role of Lex Luthor in the upcoming Superman movie in July. Jude Law played well opposite Hoult too.
It is a sad tale that there are people who feel the way these characters do in The Order. I don’t understand why people have to approach others with hate because they have something different about them. Movies like this remind us how far we still have to go.
June is almost gone. It went really quickly as it always does during the summer months. I have just over a month and a half before I have to go back to work.
This past week my official comic collection count broke 18,000. I am so pleased that I can actually tell you what my number is. I am so happy about getting my collection organized a few years back and EYG was a big motivation. I love my CLZ app which puts the books in order and counts them.
Books this week:
Nightwing #78-100. This is the pack of books I got from eBay that officially put me over the 18,000 number. I decided to start picking up the Nightwing book and I went back to grab as much of the Tom Taylor written books as I could. I actually love Taylor from his work on a short series called Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It was like 14 or 15 issues and it was some of the best Spidey writing I have ever read. Tom Taylor understood Spidey so well that I was sad when the series ended. I really enjoyed his take on Dick Grayson too and I was really engaged with this book and the great villains Heartless and Blockbuster.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #34. “God War Part III” Written by Cody Ziglar and art by Marco Renna. Federico Vicentini & Rachelle Rosenberg did the cover art. Miles continues with his war in the name of Anansi against Ares. Honestly, this storyline has not been my favorite one so far. I do like Hercules guest starring, but this all feels just too much.
Predator vs. Spider-Man #2. Written by Benjamin Percy and penciled by Marcelo Ferreira. Cover art was done by Paulo Siqueira & Ven Nitro. The Predators are on earth looking for their rogue predator and Spider-Man is in the middle.
Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1. Written by Eliot Rahal with art and cover art by Phillip Sevy. A new Mad Cave book dealing directly with the “nuclear football” carried by the President of the United States. It had a thriller feel to it and I loved this one. Another hit from Mad Cave for me.
Spider-Boy #20. “Chapter 3: With a Little Help From My Friends.” Written by Dan Slott and art by Paco Medina. Cover art was done by Paco Medina & Edgar Delgado. Spider-Boy’s book comes to an end with this issue. Spider-Boy and Spider-Man make up from their forced fight last issue. A bunch of guest stars make appearances in Bailey’s final issue.
Dark Pyramid #4. Written by Paul Tobin and art and cover art by PJ Holden. The Dark Pyramid book has really gone weird and wild. This is the penultimate issue of the series and I am just not sure what is going to happen. I never would have guessed the bizarre twists this book would take back when Hooky Hidalgo disappeared in issue one.
Minor Arcana #8. Written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Letizia Cadonici. Cover art was done by Jeff Lemire. The big reopening falls flat and Teresa is out and about. And who is this Wayne fella? I do love Jeff Lemire’s work and this has been very consistent.
The Thing #2. “The King of Yancy Street Part Two.” Written by Tony Fleecs and art by Justin Mason. Nick Bradshaw & Rachelle Rosenberg. Bullseye arrived on Yancy Street and is taking on The Thing. Hammerhead is here too. Aunt Petunia’s baby boy is taking on the criminal empire with Kingpin as well.
Justice League Unlimited #8. “All Hail Grodd.” Written by Mark Waid and art and cover art by Dan Mora. The Gorilla Grodd storyline comes to an end with a bunch of Justice League members from across time coming to help stop the Legion of Doom. It seemed as if those out of time JLers are stuck in this timeline. What is going to happen?
Moonshine Bigfoot #3. Written by Mike Marlow & Zach Howard and penciled by Steve Ellis. Moonshine Bigfoot is such a fun book. It is the X-Files meets Duke of Hazzard. This has been one of the more enjoyable Image books lately. Such a creative idea to put a bigfoot in a car as a moonshiner. This is also a penultimate issue.
Incredible Hulk #26. “Soldier and Flame.” Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and art by Kev Wilson. Cover art is done by Nic Klein. Bucky Barnes gives Charlie a warning that the Hulk is dangerous and that she needed to find Banner. Hulk and Charlie had some disagreements and split apart. How will the Hulk take this?
Rocketfellers #6. Written by Peter J. Tomasi and art and cover art by Francis Manapul. Rae gets suddenly sick and has to be rushed to the hospital. And the big takeaway from this issue is that you should just not mess around with Rex, the Rocketfellers’ dog.
Void Rivals #20. Written by Robert Kirkman and art by Conor Hughes. Lorenzo De Felici did the cover art. Solila is facing Darak’s father and the rest of his guards. Darak was there conflicted as heck.
Hyde Street #7. Written by Geoff Johns and art by Ivan Reis & Danny Miki. Cover art was done by Ivan Reis & Danny Miki with Brad Anderson. Pranky wanted to capture the one and only Matinee Monster. Pranky can turn into a werewolf I guess. Hyde Street has been a fun horror themed book over the last seven issues and it looks to be continuing on.
The Department of Truth #31. Written by James Tynion IV with art by Letizia Cadonici. Cover art was done by Martin Simmonds. This felt like a totally different issue of Department of Truth as the main focus was a monster/killer called The Hatman. This did feel outside of what we were used to for this series, and it was kind of refreshing. James Tynion IV is another writer that I trust completely.
Out of Alcatraz #4. “Whiskeytown.” Written by Christopher Cantwell and illustrated and cover art by Tyler Crook. Yet another penultimate issue this week as there are five issues in this Oni Press story. It is enjoyable every week as we follow along with the escapees from the inescapable prison.
Assorted Crisis Events #4. Written by Deniz Camp and art and cover art by Eric Zawadzki. This being an anthology series, some issues do not work as well as others. However, I can say that this was definitely my favorite issue of this series so far, and possibly my favorite issue of the week. Time flies. I loved the color design of this issue and the story was tremendous. I hope more of this series is as high quality as issue four was.
Universal Monsters: The Mummy #4. Written and drawn by Faith Erin Hicks and the cover art was done by Faith Erin Hicks and Lee Loughridge. The latest of the Universal Monsters mini-series closed with the end of the Mummy. The look of this comic worked really well for the tone they were going for, but the story was not my favorite of the Universal Monsters so far. Still, it is a solid four issues and I am excited about the upcoming Invisible Man.
Feral #14. Written by Tony Fleecs with art by Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez. Cover A art was by Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. I also got Cover B which had art by the same pair (Silver Medalist). Our cats have found their way into the pet shop but have realized that there is a whole new society inside that they have to adapt into. Not sure it will last for long.
News from the Fallout #1. “Chapter One: Red Snow.” Written by Chris Condon and art and cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love. Oh, I loved this new series from Image Comics. More story about the possible nuclear fallout of a bomb, and what exactly would happen to the people who had been exposed. This is beautifully designed and the black and white made this feel special.
Ultimate Spider-Man #18. Written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Marco Checchetto. Marco Checchetto and Matthew Wilson did the cover art. Peter Parker is once again reunited with harry Osborn. Harry comes to see Peter with news and the pair return to New York to take care of business. Little did Peter know that Richard hitched a ride with them to see Black Cat. A perfect example of hormones getting a teenager in trouble.
Sleep #2. Written, drawn and cover art by Zander Cannon. I also picked up the cover B which was done by Tim Seeley (Gold Medalist). Sleep has been a great book so far as the mystery of what is going on in this town when Jon is asleep is excellent. Jon gets himself arrested so he can be in the jail cell when he sleeps. I am guessing that will not prevent anything in particular.
Spider-Man & Wolverine #2. “Spider-Man vs. Wolverine.” Written by Marc Guggenheim and art and cover art by Kaare Andrews. Earlier I talked about how Tom Taylor really understood the character of Peter Parker (and hence Spider-Man). Here seems to be a book that has zero clue about Peter. Spider-Man and Wolverine fight over the possibility of Logan having killed Peter’s parents. Peter goes quite feral in this book, screaming that he was going to kill Logan. I just kept thinking that Peter would never do this and that, even if he would have gone after Logan, he would not have been trying to kill him. Very disappointed with this book.
Fantastic Four #33. “Fantastic Four Hundred and Thirty-Six Quadrillion.” Written by Ryan North and penciled by Cory Smith. Cover art was done by Joshua Cassara & Dean White. Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state, then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait... Bazinga. The FF head back to the Big Bang to try and fix Ben’s powers cause it… It all started with the big bang, bang!
UncannyX-Men #16. “The Voice of Darkness.” Written by Gail Simone and art by David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio. David Marquez & Matthew Wilson did the cover art. The Dark Artery story comes to a close with this issue as the X-Men face the people of the dead city, Penumbra. Thanks for coming Man-Thing!
Deadpool #15. Written by Cody Ziglar and art by Rogê Antonio. Taurin Clarke did the cover art. This is Legacy number 350 for the Merc with a Mouth and served as the final issue of this run for Deadpool (who will be back very soon in a series called Deadpools and Wolverines). There is also a back up story here with Deadpool Samurai by writer Kasama Sanshiro and artist Uesugi Hikaru. It is from the back of the book forward like the anime that it followed.
Other books this week: Dark Honor #2, The Seasons #5, Conan the Barbarian #20, Absolute Martian Manhunter #4, Blade Forger #4, Green Lantern Dark #5, When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee #5, and Mr. Terrific Year One #2.
Quick Hits: The Doctor Doom storyline continues with both Superior Avengers #3 and Doom Academy #5 coming out this week. Doom Academy is the final issue of that said book. I do enjoy the Strange Academy kids so I look forward to them returning in the future. Crush Depth#4 is another penultimate issue as this undersea story gets even crazier this issue. Absolute Wonder Woman #9 keeps diving into Greek mythology as Diana finds herself facing off with a minotaur. Two of these are now over as In Bloom #5 and Who are the Power Pals #4 end their runs with fun issues. DC, looking for brand new ways to get us to buy Absolute #1 issues, have reprinted Absolute Superman #1, Absolute Wonder Woman #1, and Absolute Batman #1 once again, but this time with a Mark Spears connecting cover on each (Bronze Medalist). The three covers together are a thing of beauty without a doubt. There is also a New History of the DC Universe #1 out this week with all kinds of cool little tidbits. This is the NEW history. Wouldn’t that be an oxymoron? More serial killer action with You’ll Do Bad Things #4 came out this week. Ms. Marvel and Legion continue their romp through the X-Men history (could this be like the NEW history DC is talking about?) with Giant-Size Age of Apocalypse #1. Not sure how I feel about any of these books with Ms. Marvel. I do love me some Kamala, but this feels, at best, meh. I did pick up the foil variant of The Death of the Silver Surfer #1. It was just a pretty looking cover. Finally this week, We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us #4 has some explosive realizations inside.
This week we have two episodes of Win or Lose featured the mother-daughter duo of Vanessa and Rochelle. We get two completely different perspectives of Vanessa.
In the eyes of her daughter Rochelle, her mother seems to be self-indulgent person who is only ever on her phone, paying more attention to her followers than she is to her daughter. Because of that, Rochelle had to adopt a much more parent identity than she should have.
However, Vanessa had a much more difficult and responsible life than Rochelle ever expected. It truly gives us the look at a character in two completely different ways.
I really enjoyed how this story came full circle over the two episodes. The show took the story first from Rochelle’s POV and wound up with her in a certain location and then we saw Vanessa’s POV of the same time frame and how they ended up together at the end. It was an outstanding way to show how even two people who love each other can see and react to different things in a different manner, as well as not see the struggles of the other person. In Rochelle’s episode, she saw her mom as very superficial way and Vanessa saw Rochelle in an idolized manner. Both were only partial what they were like.
This series so far has been just tremendously well written and entertaining. It has laughs and the depth of characterization is surprisingly great. We are halfway through the series so far with episodes 5 & 6 next week.
Squid Game Season Three dropped on Netflix yesterday and I was able to binge it on Saturday and what an emotionally ragged trip this show took us on over the last six episodes of the acclaimed Korean series.
If we are really being truthful, season three of Squid Game really should be considered the second part of season two, as season two left us with a huge cliffhanger and very little to nothing resolved. Season Two Part 2 or Season Three is really semantics, so who cares that much?
Season two had spent a lot of time building the characters participating in the Squid Game up, so we had connections to them and that we cared about them (or despised them, as the case may be). I guess we should have known that they were building up these characters in order to rip our hearts out in the last season… because that is exactly what happened.
Honestly, there were a few characters that I believed would survive this season because I couldn’t believe that the show would be that cold hearted. Unfortunately, the show could be that cold hearted because practically every character that I thought “no way do they kill them off” got killed off.
Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae) was the one I was sure would survive, but the show had a fate for him planned out. He was truly our hero of the show and he showed what an honorable man he actually was. His efforts to save the baby, as well as others along the way, made him the show’s breakout character.
Geum-ja was another character that I thought for sure the show would not kill off, and then she hanged herself, after stabbing her own son to prevent him from killing Kim Jun-hee moments after she had given birth. That round of hide and seek was just horrific and filled with tension and anguish. Hyun-ju was another who I was sure had a great chance of being safe, but she did not make it out of the hide and seek, despite the fact that she found the exit before anyone else. She returned to get Geum-ja and Kim Jun-hee, whom had been together the whole game, only to get killed from behind by Myung-gi, right in front of Jun-hee and his daughter.
The jump rope section was also just rough and showed the worst in the players of this game. In fact, the worst of them kept making it through and the characters that I cared about kept getting killed off. I felt satisfied by the end with the deaths of those rotten players though.
However, the VIPs arrived to watch the games and they all had zero accountability at all. Man, I really wanted those VIPs to pay some kind of price for their cavalier attitude toward the games and their downright cruelty and wickedness. Nope, they see the ending of the games when Seong Gi-hun threw himself off the large pillar to save the baby and the VIPs are just never seen again. I really wanted someone to burst into the room and blast them all with some automatic weapon.
Who would guess that Cate Blanchett would be involved in the recruiting for more Squid Games in the world? She made a cameo as an American recruiter playing ddakji with some guy in an alleyway.
The last ten-fifteen minutes was spent wrapping stories up, giving us some ideas on what the few surviving characters were doing, specifically those secondary characters, such as Seong Gi-hun’s daughter.
This was a rough final season as so many of the characters that we had bonded with are killed rapidly. As I said, I really wanted more of a final ending that does not make me think that the Squid Games could be brought back or continue on as the show outright implied. The VIPs needed some kind of comeuppance for me to feel completely satisfied. The sacrifice made by Seong Gi-hun was beautiful and packed an emotional wallop.
The new animated musical on Netflix, K-Pop Demon Hunters, had a lot of buzz and because of that, I moved it into the June Swoon. I also was hoping that I could break the streak of disappointing or downright bad movies that I was on.
I am not a fan of K-Pop music. Nothing against it, but I am completely aware of it. It always felt manufactured to me with boy bands and the such.
I have to say, the music of this movie was sensational and worked so well with every note it used.
According to IMDB, “A world-renowned K-Pop girl group, as they balance their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as bad-ass demon hunters, set against a colorful backdrop of fashion, food, style and the most popular music movement of this generation.”
The animation on the film was superior. It looked fabulous. The imagery and the colors stood out with every shot. The story itself was a little sparse. Yes, it was a fairly typical story of overcoming personal drama to form together with your family.
I am evidence that you do not need to be a K-Pop fan to enjoy this movie. I thought it was really a fun movie that moved at a brisk pace. It looked great, sounded great and had some wonderful action. It has everything.
I was going to go to see Babygirl at the end of last year, but something came up that caused me to not go. At that point, I put it on the list for the June Swoon. It was available on HBO Max and today was the day that I finally watched it.
I just did not like this movie.
According to IMDB, “Romy, the head of a large company, accustomed to managing people, becomes the plaything of young intern Samuel. The rules are simple: she obeys all his orders, and he keeps her secret. But the passion that escapes outside the office threatens to destroy them both.”
I want to start out by saying that this is a truly brave performance by Nicole Kidman. What it exposes to her as an actress is a passion for her work and her commitment to the role. The underlying insecurities of Romy had to be difficult to play and she does it with a flourish.
I did not enjoy the story. I found it dull and I was not interested in all the sex scenes that they showed. The scenes were very intense but I just found most of it uncomfortable.
Antonio Banderas was great in his supporting role. Banderas has been a great performer over the last several years as he has found a bunch of great roles and has excelled in them.
All I heard from everyone was that Star Trek: Section 31 was terrible. That is was the worst Star Trek movie ever made.
It starred Michelle Yeoh, so it can’t be as bad as they say, right?
Amazingly, somehow, it was worse.
I should have just trusted everyone who said this was terrible.
I pulled this up on Paramount + and it did not take me very long to realize that it may be the worst movie of the year.
I am not a Trekkie, but I can understand why they all despise this movie. It does not feel like a Star Trek movie. It feels like a cheap, low budget sci-fi film with a messy plot and a dirty feel. I would never guess this was a Star Trek movie, except for a few of the mentions, such as a Vulcan. That Vulcan did not act like any Vulcan I ever heard about though. Why did the Vulcan have the bad Irish accent?
The film looked terrible. It was dumb, storywise. The acting was not good, even from the Oscar winner, Michelle Yeoh, who seemed like she was just going through the motions.
Listen to what everyone else tells you. Don’t watch this movie. It is one of the worst of the year.
In 2022, a surprise horror film was released in January involving an AI robot named Megan that turned into a killer. It did not seem like it was going to be anything worthwhile, but turned out to be a big hit and was very entertaining. It became so successful, a sequel felt like it was destined to be released. That sequel was released this weekend.
M3GAN 2.0 was very much different than the original. The original was a horror film whereas this sequel is basically an adventure comedy/tech thriller.
Sadly, this was nowhere near as entertaining as the first M3GAN, as it was much more convoluted and silly. Silly is not a negative overall, as the entire concept does fall into the campy category, but this is not campy enough to make the film more than just a bad movie.
According to IMDB, “Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma, resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation in order to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech.”
The whole story with Amelia, the other killer robot was messy and nonsensical. These people recreated M3GAN for some reason despite her being a murder robot. The whole mess of the story just did not work for me.
The film was two hours long and that should just never be. Ninety minutes, tops for this. The fight scenes were fine, but shaky at times, which is not a personal favorite.
So much nonsense. I nearly lost my mind when M3GAN broke into a musical number. I mean the dancing earlier at least made some sense narratively. I felt just like Allison Williams did in the scene. She wanted out of there. So did I.
The June Swoon has been on a bit of a down swing. It happens every year as we go through stretches of movies that are not very good. We’ve been luckier this year than before as we have had some really good films. Then there was Hitpig.
Hitpig was an animated movie from 2024 featuring a strong voice cast with a poor script. The humor is forced, the story is predictable and the dialogue is cringy.
According to IMDB, “Hitpig is a pig hired by humans to bring back their escaped animals. It’s not easy, but it’s a living. His latest hit is Pickles, a naive but vivacious elephant who has escaped the clutches of an evil Vegas showman. Though Hitpig initially sets out to capture the perky pachyderm for big cash, the unlikely pair find themselves on an unexpected adventure criss-crossing the globe that brings out the best in both of them. Set in a futuristic cyberpunk world, Hitpig proves sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Berkeley Breathed’s wild imagination comes an adventure about learning that sometimes what we want isn’t what we need“
The voice cast was stacked. The cast included Jason Sudeikis, Lilly Singh, Flavor Flav, Rainn Wilson, RuPaul, Anitta, Andy Serkis, Hannah Gadsby, Lorraine Ashbourne, and Charlie Adler.
The animation is good and the colors and character designs are well done. Little kids probably will enjoy the bombastic nature of the story and will be distracted by the look. Unfortunately, I need more in an animated movie than this offers.
I have been waiting for this movie to drop price on Fandango at Home before I purchased it. Then, just before the June Swoon is getting read to conclude (four days remaining) Until Dawn went on sale.
After watching it, Until Dawn was not on sale enough.
Based on a 2015 video game, Until Dawn is a survival horror film with a million jump scares and a bunch of horror tropes and cliches.
According to IMDB, “One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.“
I couldn’t care any less about these characters. Because I couldn’t care less about them, I was bored as the jeopardy surrounded them. The film was chocked full of jump scares but none of them were anything but your typical jump scare. There as little thought behind them.
The concept itself had some possibility, but it also removed most of the drama, since we knew they would basically return at the end of the night. How did this work? No idea.
And the biggest crime here is that the killings were so dull, I am having trouble remembering any of them. Maybe the film just never grabbed my attention.
I did not like this one and I am glad I did not go to the theater to see it.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 