Although I was not a huge fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980s, I did love Jesse “The Body” Ventura, from the WWE, so I loved the classic 80s action movie, Predator.  Because of that, I was excited when I heard that they were doing a new Predator movie directed by Shane Black, called The Predator.  I liked most of Black’s work and I thought this would be a nice blend of action and character work.

Nope.

This was awful.

A regular predator arrives on earth with an unknown mission and he comes into conflict with the group led by American sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook).  It took out that team, but it was captured. leaving McKenna alone and looking to be crazy.  As evidence, McKenna took some equipment from the predator and mailed it to his own post office box, which mistakenly ends up in the hands of his estranged son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay), who is on the Autism spectrum (and apparently genius level).  Rory is able to trigger the gauntlet that had been sent and accidentally tips off the super Predator that had been in pursuit of the smaller predator.

Meanwhile, McKenna wound up on a bus heading to an asylum but he was conveniently  on the same bus as a group of crazy soldiers called The Loonies.  When the storylines converged, they teamed up to try and prevent the predators from doing whatever they were going to do.

The film is needlessly convoluted and confusing in many points.  There are bunches of storylines going on at any one point in the movie and the film touches upon them and drops them willy-nilly throughout.  There are many times that the narrative structure felt more like a mishmash of scenes instead of a well thought out plot.

Not that Schwarzenegger’s Predator was a deeply involved story.  It was the story of a hunter creature stalking and killing a group of well armed men.  It was a slasher horror flick masked as an action movie.  Either this new film did not know what it wanted to be, or, worse yet, knew what it wanted to be and did not understand the basic component of what makes a successful Predator movie.

There were too many jokes.  Scenes were dismissive and played for comedy.  Very few of the jokes worked, even with the remarkably funny Keegan-Michael Key as one of the Loonies.  Key’s character just did not work for me, and any enjoyable scenes with that character was strictly from the talent of Mr. Key.  And above all else, despite there being many quips and one-lines, there were none like “I ain’t got time to bleed.”

The action was fine, but unremarkable.  There were actually several scenes where it looked like an old eighties film, and not in the good way.  The CGI and effects were hit and miss, which is inexcusable at this time in movie history for a big budget movie.

The cast was adequate, but nobody truly stood out.  Olivia Munn was fine in her role, but casting her as a scientist was a bit of a stretch for sure.  Sterling K. Brown’s Traeger was a dull villain whose motivation was confused at best.  I hated Thomas Jane’s character of Baxley, whose character trait apparently was that he had Tourettes syndrome.

The film had a lot of noise and a lot of gunfire with little purpose behind either.  And there felt as if there were no stakes at all because nobody had any fear or concern or emotional ties to anything that happened.  When Jacob Tremblay takes the Predator helmet that hi dad mistakenly mailed him and used it for a Halloween costume, the mask activates on its own and kills somebody.  That does not seem to bother Tremblay’s character in the least.  No one has any normal human reactions to what is happening around them and so why should I care if any of them are in danger?

The Predator is a mess of a movie and I really disliked my time watching it in an IMAX theater.  It did not look good, had average, at best, performances and tried to juggle too many plots where one or two would have sufficed.  The Predator was not a good film.

1.5 stars

Jennifer Garner stars as She-Punisher.

What?  She’s not?  I thought she might be Francine Castle since her film here is basically the exact story of Frank Castle, Marvel Comics’ Punisher.

But no, Peppermint does not feature the debut of the She-Punisher, but it may as well have.  Garner stars as soccer mom turned psycho terrorist Riley North, who returns to her home five years after seeing her husband (Jeff Hephner) and her sweet daughter (Cailey Fleming) gunned down in front of her by a drive by shooting.  The perpetrators of the crime, despite being identified by Riley, are set free by a crooked system of a judge, district attorney and defense attorney that have been bought off by crime lord Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba).  Riley disappears for five years, turning herself into a revenge seeking murder machine.

I actually liked this more than I thought I would.  It is not a good movie, as much of what it should have done was skipped.  Jennifer Garner was outstanding as the grief-stricken psycho.  You could both relate to her and be amazed at her ability to murder people.  She hit the emotional beats here well and she played this character as slightly unhinged, which helped make sense of how a normal person could become this mass murderer.

The biggest problem of the film was that the real culprits that I wanted to see her take out in her quest for revenge was the people directly involved in the murder of her family and the subsequent cover up in court.  However, of these characters, we only see her kill the judge and one of the shooters (there were three) and that shooter we see get his before we even knew what was happening.  It was the opening scene and it was not as powerful as it could have been had we known what he did to deserve it.  Even still, they could have kept that as an opening scene if they had not killed all of these others off screen.

The worst one was the lawyer defending the shooters, played by Michael Mosley.  This guy showed up at her house after the shooting to try and buy her off and when that did not work, he tried to intimidate her and he wound up using her medication against her.  This guy was the biggest slimeball in the whole movie, but his death was off screen, covered by a line of dialogue.  In a revenge film, I want to see the people I hold responsible get theirs.  I don’t just want to hear about it at a later date.

Most of the movie was focused on the pursuit of Riley against the big boss Garcia.  That was fine, but I really would have liked less of that and more of killing that lawyer.  Or, at least, the other two gunmen.  Instead, they are just dead within the first five minutes after the flashback and it has no emotional response from the audience.

The action itself was good, but not at the same standard of a John Wick.  There were some things that Riley North was able to do that felt like credibility was being stretched too far.

There was nothing new in this movie, but it was an alright shoot ’em up film for what it was.  It could have been a much better revenge film, but the movie does not understand whom the audience wants to see get theirs.

2.85 stars

The next installment of a prequel to the Conjuring series came out this weekend with The Nun, which followed behind the pair of Annabelle movies.  The Nun made an appearance in the Conjuring 2 film and became an iconic scene.  It felt like a good idea for a spin off.  However, feelings can be deceiving.

The Nun is a horrid horror movie.  It was just terrible with so many problems in it that make horror movies cliched and boring.  I fought to stay awake through much of the movie and I found it to be just one of the worst films of the year.

After a nun apparently committed suicide, Rome sent Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate in Romania.  They also, apparently, send a nun who had yet to take her vows, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), with him.  Once in Romania, the pair met the man, Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), who had discovered the nun’s body.  The trio realized that the location of the “suicide” was a place where a great evil had taken root and they had to stop it from gaining a foothold in the world.

There were so many scenes here that were just so terrible, and most of them were simply strung together as a series of seemingly unconnected events.  There were just so many ridiculously bad scenes throughout that this movie was such a waste of a good creature.  Actually, you do not see the Nun herself much in the movie.

Without spoiling, the ending sequence was so unintentionally hilarious that I could not even get the laughter out.  I sat there with a shocked expression and my mouth agape.  I don’t want to spoil, but I am going to include three words to make you understand what I was watching:  “flushing the toilet.”  You’ll know when you see it.  And what led to that moment of levity was perhaps the stupidest way for this to go down.  So bad that it might make you spit.  (Hint, hint)

Taissa Farmiga was fine as Sister Irene, but she was not able to elevate the material any higher than what was here.  Frenchie was not the worst character because he seemed to embrace the cheesiness of the character and played it as a silly, cartoonish character.  And then what happened to him was disappointing.

The Nun was a terrible movie with little to no redeeming quality.  I hadn’t even mentioned the scene with the buried alive priest.  Ugh.  Just not worth the time.

0.75 stars

I had been hoping to see this movie for quite awhile, but this past week’s Top 10 Show made me even more interested.  Matt Knost, one of the co-hosts of that podcast, listed American Animals as his number two movie of the summer and he said that he nearly placed it at number one.  That rave was fresh in my mind when I happened to find it at the iTunes store.

While I might not put it at number two on my list of summer movies, there is no denying that this film is something special and worth every minute of its run time.

In this true story, four intelligent college students from Kentucky plan out one of the most audacious robberies in U.S. history as they tried to steal several million of dollars worth of rare books from the special collection section of the library in broad daylight.  The film focuses on the four young men and their involvement in the caper.

The film was shot in an original style, part documentary featuring the real life people and part re-enactment as actors took on the roles of the real students.

Leading the cast was the spectacularly chaotic Evan Peters as Warren.  Peters brought such a sliminess to Warren and yet he had that charisma that makes you understand how he could convince two others to join them.  Warren and Spencer (Barry Keoghan), who portrayed a certain innocence that felt corrupted by what happens in the movie, plotted out their plan for the heist before realizing that they needed to have help.  They recruited former classmate Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas (Blake Jenner) to fill vital roles in the heist.

As events began spiraling out of their control, the four students found themselves in way over their heads without any real way out.  What was thought as being fun and adventurous turned into stress and guilt-ridden compulsions.  As their perception of the situation became more realistic, each man had to face their role in the crime.

Ann Dowd played Betty Jean ‘BJ’ Gooch, the librarian in charge of the rare books. The fact that there was just one individual librarian overseeing the books propped the crew up, making them believe that this was going to be an easy heist.  It turned out to be anything but.

The story takes some unbelievable turns that prove why the old cliche “Truth is stranger than fiction” became a cliche in the first place.  What at once seemed to be a simple and fail free crime turned into a cluster quickly.  And the improvisational skills of the thieves were certainly not well developed.

The film felt like two separate films.  The first half was up and exciting, with great music to match.  Any time I can hear Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” I think it is well worth it.  Add in Ace Frehley’s New York Groove and the soundtrack is awesome.  However the second half of the movie highlights the characters’ panic and frustrations, bordering on deep regret.  This feel is compounded by the interviews with the real culprit.

The film also plays with point of view as Spencer indicated that he was not sure what exactly he had seen or how he remembered what was going on.  The film brought that out as a element of the story and it made the film feel even more like a documentary.

This was an extremely well acted, overly original, fantastic heist movie that becomes more than just that.  It is a look at the mind of these four students who believe they are doing something exciting and adventurous, but they discover quickly that the lives of big time art thieves may not be what they are cut out for.

Thanks Matt for the recommendation.

4.75 stars

Sci-Fi epic.  Road film.  Family drama.  Heist film.  Coming of Age tale.

There are a lot of genres that the new film from directors Jonathan and Josh Baker, Kin, could fall into.  Unfortunately, it seems like the film tries to be way more than it is capable of being.

Young Eli (Myles Truitt) is a kid in trouble at school and with his adopted father (Dennis Quaid).  Eli is out salvaging metal for scrap when he comes across a crime scene with men whose heads had been blown off.  While there, he finds a weird blaster/gun of some kind and takes it with him.  Meanwhile, Eli’s older brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor) is being released from prison owing money to a bad man named Balik (James Franco).  Balik tells Jimmy that either he brings him the 60 thousand dollars or he may collect it from his father and brother himself.  This pushes Jimmy to make some poor choices.

Jimmy does not yet know that his little brother has a weapon that will level the playing field for them moving forward.

I will say that there were some things that I did like about the movie.  I really liked the performance by Myles Truiit.  He showed me that he was very capable of leading this film.  He was believable and engaging, making it easy to root for him.

I wish I could say the same for Jack Reynor’s character.  I hated the brother character so much.  He was selfish, immature and the choices he made put everyone into danger.  Even at the end, it wasn’t that Jimmy learned any lasting lessons.  He took advantage of every situation, whether or not something tragic happened and, in my eyes, he failed at his attempt to prove his love for his brother.  I did not buy his last minute redemption in any manner and it was only through a conveniently timed deus ex machina that he survived at all.

Speaking of that ending, it was just out of nowhere and was totally against most everything that had happened up to this point.  It felt completely out of place in this movie and any goodwill that the film may have built up prior to this was completely lost with this five minute scene.  It made no sense even after the surprise cameo took off his Idea Men (Animated Tick reference) helmet and was able to finally speak clearly.

The trailers made this film feel as if the brothers Johnny and Eli would really form a strong bond after Johnny was released from prison, but that did not happen.  Heck, the brotherly bond was a complete failure in my mind.  I would even say that there was more of a connection between Eli and the stripper Milly (Zoe Kravitz) the brothers meet half way through the film.

Kin has some positive about it, but there is so much that ruins those positives that by the time you give up rooting for Jimmy and the ridiculous sci-fi ending happens, you have checked out of the early positives.

2.5 stars

Unfriended meets Mystic River.

This film falls into the next “big, new” genre of movie making, in the same vein as found footage was, which is called Screen Life.  Screen Life is a genre where your story is told by characters staring at a screen, usually that of a computer, and surfing the web across the different well known platforms that everyone uses.  This is easily the best version of this genre to be made yet.

In the film, David Kim (John Cho) realizes that his 16-year old daughter Margot (Michelle La) has gone missing and he tries to do whatever he can do to help the investigation by searching through her social media presence.  Some of the things that he discovered led him to believe that he did not know his daughter as much as he thought he did.  Detective Vick (Debra Messing) is assigned to the case and she has to try and reign David in.

This movie truly transcends the gimmick of the genre.  This is more than just the pieces of the sites like Facebook and Instagram or the Apple apps and techs that are available.  The reason this is more than what you see is the mystery of exactly what happened to Margot.  As David is searching through her laptop for some kind of clue, we the audience are able to be looking too.  The mystery is compelling and has plenty of red herrings to keep you off balance.  I usually see through these mysteries pretty quickly, and, though I had some suspicions, I had not determined the truth prior to the reveal and any film tat can do that for me is a winner.

John Cho, who spends most of his time acting with a computer screen, is absolutely fabulous as the desperate dad who has to go through a gamut of emotion.  From fear to loss to guilt to shame, Cho shows them all.  The character of David slowly breaks down as the movie progresses and everything that they try winds up as a dead end.  He carries the darkness of the movie with him with every possibility that ends up wrong.  However, he is also very smart and I love some of the scenes where he figures something out and how he reveals how capable he truly is (hacking into his daughter’s Facebook is one example).

Most of the film comes directly from the point of view of David, looking on the computer,looking on the social media, talking on the phone.  The only negative I have about the film is that, in the third act, that point of view gets a little muddled as some of the expansion of the techno uses seem to isolate David from the POV.  We see a police interrogation room and we see some network news coverage that feels like the POV shifted.  Although that did not ruin anything for me, I did feel the shift ever so slightly.  It still worked for me in the end.

Searching is an amazing film that kept me on the edge of my seat, hoping to discover what had happened and had me wishing/hoping that this would not end with sadness.  I really had no idea where the film was heading and that is a true bonus in today’s cinema.

4.9 stars

I have seen a lot of hate for this movie, including some people calling this the worst movie of the year.  I am not sure what version of this film they were watching because, in my opinion, The Happytime Murders is a decent comedy.  It was far better than I was expecting after hearing so much hatred directed towards it.

That does not make this a great movie, because there are definite flaws here, but I spent most of the film being entertained and laughing.

In a world where puppets and humans live together, there was once a children’s television program called The Happytime Gang.  Unfortunately, the cast could not handle the sudden success and fell on hard times.  Years later, the show was coming back in syndication and the cast was set to make big bucks.

Trouble was, someone started killing the mostly puppet cast members.  One of the cast members was Phil Phillips’ brother, Larry.  Phil was a current private investigator and a disgraced former police officer, the last puppet allowed to be a police officer. With his brother’s death, Phil got involved in the case, along with his former partner Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), who had a falling out years prior with Phil over a standoff that went horribly wrong.

The promotion for this movie wanted to make sure that they were clear that this movie, despite having puppets in the starring roles, was not meant for kids.  It is a crude, crass film with many sexual and drug jokes.  And while I agree this is not for children, The Happytime Murders was not the crudest and most raunchy film I have seen.  In fact, I would say, with the exception of a few notable scenes, that the high percentage of The Happytime Murders was more about puppets swearing, puppets smoking or puppets being inappropriate.

In fact, the movie was more of a noir type detective style film, like many of the 1980s films (complete with voice over).  I can see this film as being if Who Framed Roger Rabbit met Sausage Party.

The mystery of the murders that was happening was actually reasonably engaging for me as was the enigmatic moment from Phil’s past that, not only cost him his badge, but also any future puppet theirs.  I thought Phil ( who was brought to life by legendary puppeteer Bill Barretta) and Melissa McCarthy were great together.  I bought everything between the two of them.

The film was pretty funny, but I do think that the funniest parts of the movie had already been released in the trailer.  The silly string scene, of course, is the most risque part of the film.  Do all of the jokes hit?  Absolutely not, but I would say that more that not, the jokes were successful.

The film raises some ideas such as puppets being considered second class citizens and must deal with racism everyday.  While the idea was brought up, it was simply never paid off.  It was a side that could have elevated the film to more of a satire status instead of a simple buddy cop movie with some dirty jokes.  Unfortunately, the racism bit along with most of the movie stayed on the superficial level without going very deep.

Brian Henson, son of EYG Hall of Famer Jim Henson, directed this movie and it was released by HA (which stands for Henson Alternative).  You could feel that there are some scenes that Brian wanted to include as a jab at the Muppets, which he could never do this type of movie with.  Despite that, the puppeteering is amazing in the film and remains at the top level that any Muppet movie would be proud to include.

You may think that the joke of puppets dropping the F bomb and having sex will get old after awhile, and I can understand why some people may make that criticism.  However, I found the story itself interesting enough to keep me invested in what was happening, even if the swearing puppets would not maintain throughout.  This type of humor has never been a personal favorite, but I think this was done well enough for me to enjoy it as the story was better than I anticipated.  Again, I do not know why this film has gotten so much hatred in the critic corner, but I thought it was a fast and fun 90 minute film.

If you like raunchy humor, there is enough here to scratch that itch.  If that type of humor offends you, you may want to skip over The Happytime Murders

3.4 stars