Camp Cold Brook

I love Chad Michael Murray; all I ever see is Lucas Scott no matter what the context and it makes me happy. Even in this by-the-book awful horror movie about the crew of a ghost show given one last chance to make a great episode or they get cancelled and they find ghosts, too many ghosts in fact, and they are mean (this does seem to be oddly specific for a movie trope, but trust me, there are hundreds of these movies with the same basic plot). The only reason I watched this particular horror movie that gives no indication that I should expect good things from it was because it's been too long since I saw my favorite Scott brother. To his credit, CMM does the best he can here, really the whole cast is at least decent (even Sinjin fro VicTORIous is okay) and they are trying their very best to make something out of the pile of crap they signed on for. The effects are terrible (the worst CGI smoke I have ever seen), they do this annoying thing in a scene where there is a jarring transition between the regular camera and "selfie" that they do only in that scene and never again, the score is unwelcome and overpowering (to the point where CMM says "I know you guys heard that" and the only thing I heard was the BONG BONG from the score) and often implying things that aren't happening (often the score is telling us that we are supposed to be seeing a ghost or whatever and nothing is happening). All of that is pretty standard for a movie of this caliber. I'm used to these movies being D+ technical showcases, but where a movie like this can shine is with the story. I know I complained about the main plot being a trope, but I love "Ghost Show finds real ghosts" and I love abandoned anything (although for a camp that has been abandoned since the early 90's, the lack of graffiti or, at the very least, broken windows is suspicious) so I was already on board; it didn't last long though. The movie is 90 minutes (including credits. It takes 30 minutes to get to the camp. I get it, you want to establish the characters and give CMM a sympathetic background, but a third of your movie? Really? Just get to the ghosts and stuff, I don't care about his wife or his children that definitely have two different mothers because they looks nothing alike. I don't need to know that this is their last chance to keep their show on the air; just go, just go do it. We have roughly an hour for all of the Camp Cold Brook stuff and what we get is very disappointing. Firstly, the story is very confusing, both the story of the camp and the actual plot of the movie. I feel like there was supposed to be half an hour of world building that they just threw away. The ghost's motives are very suspect and how they work in this universe makes even less sense. If a ghost wants someone to help them, why is murder the first thing they can think of to convince them. If I am a ghost and I want CMM to help me, I'm not going to poison his canteen and light him on fire; if he is dead, he can't help me (unless I'm trying to make him a ghost as well, but I'm not sure how much one ghost can aid another ghost). Regardless, it's all pretty boilerplate and uninteresting, there is nothing you haven't seen a thousand times before. What is kind of unique is the revelation that they save for the last 15 minutes of the movie. If it was better executed (and not relegated to the final 15 fucking minutes) it could have been interesting, but here it just sets up one of the worst endings I've ever sat through. The ending is incredibly unsatisfying, confusing, and stupid. Hell, I'd even advocate for using the standard movie ending that 85% of horror movies use and become even more of a cliche than use the one they wrote. Again, the acting is perfectly fine and I know these actors are doing the best they can with this garbage script, but no one is saving this; you could spend millions casting Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, and the reanimated body of Philip Seymour Hoffman and not even they could rescue this shipwreck. It's awful.

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat kind of feels like if you gave Asylum a big budget with the caveat that they have to really try, no Alien Vs Hunter or Sharknado, they have to make a real move. Let's start with the cast. Josh Lawson (in a huge departure from his role as Tate in Superstore) is the highlight; he is what DC tried to do with Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad. His portrayal of Kano isn't perfect, but he steals every scene he is in. This movie tries comedy a lot and the only time it ever works is when Kano is talking, only about half of his stuff lands, but he was the only character that had humor that worked. Really, Kano is the only character that I believed in at all. Our main character is pretty bland and his acting isn't great, but he'd be passable is this movie wasn't trying to be so serious. Liu Kang, played by a clone of Micheal Jackson, is easily the worst character here. Most of the other cast members do a pretty bad job, but he's the worst. It's like if you pulled a character out of the Star Wars prequels where no one ever had any emotion in their lines and their faces were blank the entire time. Scorpion and Sub-Zero are great, but they don't feel right when we move to current day. I was all about it when we were doing feudal Japan stuff in the beginning, but seeing them in a sad MMA gym just didn't click for me. The plot does a lot of that kind of thing, though, with most scenes just not feeling quite right. The main story line is barely half-baked and for a movie called Mortal Kombat, it sure doesn't focus too much on the actual Mortal Kombat event. It just kind of looms in the background, but is never really realized. We focus way too much on Cole Young and he's one of the least interesting parts. I get that they are going for a much more gritty and realistic tone than the previous iteration, but you can't tell me this is a serious movie and then make everything so goofy. 1995 Mortal Kombat was very stupid, but it was campy and charming. 2021 Mortal Kombat feels like we're watching something that needed another six months of production. The CGI is pretty awful in both, but in 1995 it was endearing, in 2021 it's distracting to watch Goro look like you lifted him right from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance; it looks really bad. With a movie like this, all you really need to deliver to get a passing grade is kick-ass fight scenes and Mortal Kombat delivers an appetizer. There are a few really cool moments in individual fights, but there wasn't one entire fight that left me satisfied. As Chris Stuckman put it in his review, it feels like a super hero movie where these guys are just wailing on each other and none if it seems to hurt. 90% of the time, when these people get slashed or stabbed or have giant boulders thrown at them, it's just a minor inconvenience. I appreciate that they used enough blood to earn that R Rating, but it's used all wrong (and in terrible CGI most of the time). A guy will get slashed and now there is blood flying out, but he doesn't react or move any different than he did before. All of the fights seem pretty random (random pairings in random locations) and none of them feel like they have any real weight other than Scorpion and Sub-Zero. All this is made even worse with the ending that basically rendered the whole movie pointless. I don't want to spoil it, but by half way through the movie, I'm wondering if they had plans for a sequel, because they are making some real big, universe altering decisions that would ruin any chance for a sequel anyone would want to see and then in the last fifteen minutes, they just wave their magic wand over the movie and I'm like "Oh, I see...... That's really stupid". Am I expecting too much out of a Mortal Kombat movie? A lot of people would probably say yes, but even if I focused on what specific things would I want out of a Mortal Kombat movie and but aside everything else (acting, cgi, story, score) I'm still underwhelmed. I don't think the fight scenes are that great and the fan service moments didn't enhance it for me, they only broke the immersion as they were so forced. I got to see a few of the characters that I'd grown to love in the video games, but they felt like cheap versions of what I'm used to. Again, maybe I'm wrong to knock the movie because I wanted to see Sub-Sero be more blue, Mileena to wear her mask and use her Sai more, and for wanting Goro to look like a badass and not a claymation figure. Even if I was only going to rate this as a Mortal Kombat movie, it just isn't what "my Mortal Kombat" is. There are little bits that I enjoy, but they are dragged down by a bad script, awful pacing, an under developed story with underdeveloped characters, terrible CGI, and underwhelming fights. Say what you will about the 90's films, but they were at least fun and sometimes kind of charming. I'll take campy Mortal Kombat over this any day.

Things Heard & Seen

Things Heard & Seen starts off with very What Lies Beneath (and maybe a little Sinister) vibes and I was on board. It is a poorly paced movie, with very long chunks were little happens and there are a lot of plot choices that feel cliche, but I was enjoying myself for the most part. I've never really been an Amanda Seyfried fan, but she was pretty solid here (James Norton was touch and go) and I didn't really have much of an issue with the acting overall. The cinematography was boring, but not intrusively so and the score was fine. Up until the last 20 or so minutes, this was a solid C+ movie; it's entertaining, but it needed some plot retooling and a little more polish from the director, but it was fine. The last 20 minutes kind of ruin it. Throughout the film, there are some goofy effects, spotty execution and explanation of the supernatural elements, and some pretty jarring tone shifts, but the ending combines all three and cranks it up to 100. I was content with the movie until we just fly off the rails with a very confusing, hokey, and poorly executed ending. I feel like everyone watching this movie can think of a better way to end it; heck, just eliminate the last 15 minutes and I'd be satisfied. Nothing here is well done enough to make up for that ending. It's a C+ movie with a D- ending. It feels like there is a message here that they are trying to push in lieu of working harder o the story, but for the life of me I can't decipher what they are trying to say; it's all so muddled. Things Heard & Seen is probably okay for a movie that was just plopped onto Netflix with little fanfare, but this would have been a box office bomb or a straight-to-DVD film otherwise. It's a bumpy, but not overall unpleasant, ride that unfortunately ends in a four car pile up.

Godzilla vs. Kong

eerily reminiscent of Batman V Superman. The acting is passable but the effects are not. For a $200 Million movie, this looks pretty bad; Kong looked way better in Skull Island and Godzilla looked better seven years ago. Kong is played way too campy and goofy. I appreciate that they don't spend too much time on the humans, but I wish we got more connection to the previous movies; other than Millie and Kyle Chandler there isn't anything linking us to any of the other three movies. This could easily be a stand alone movie because even Monarch isn't important. I can tell they accepted that this was going to be a big, dumb movie but I feel they under-delivered on the fun. Our big climactic battles the movie is named after were anticlimactic. A bigger issue is this movie's sense of humor, which we get a solid idea of with the first ten minutes of Kong waking up, stretching, taking a shower, etc. Brian Tyree Henry's character is a humor vacuum. For a movie that plays it's ridiculous plot so serious, it keeps pushing incredibly childish humor. I'd rather just watch Skull Island again.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

I feel like I was sold a Kaiju Gauntlet with Godzilla taking on all comers, but what I got was a very messy story with underdeveloped characters with underwritten motivations. Sure, there were some fun action scenes, but it was underwhelming overall. Every Kaiju feels like a placeholder and not a real character. Every human feels like a cardboard cutout that the crew dolly around the sets. A big step down from the previous movie.

Artemis Fowl

It takes them seven minutes to drastically change things from the books, when they tell us Artemis's mother is dead and then it gets so much worse from there. It's there movie, so if they want to race-swap characters, fine, but there needs to be a reason. Ideally, that reason would be that they have a great actor/actress for the role that is of a different race and not because it lets them tick a box. Nonso Anozie is an okay actor, but he is not Butler, maybe a Dave Bautista, I have to believe that this guy can rip people in half; they can't just be a big guy. I am not afraid of Nonso Anozie like I would be of The Rock or Vinnie Jones. They mess the ages of characters up with Juliet being the same age as Artemis and making Short look like a little girl, the sloppily combine the first two books without really understanding what people liked about them, they change characters' motivations and personalities and even their species and so much more. I could spend hours complaining about how they ripped the source material to shreds (which they absolutely did), but let's just put that aside and talk about the movie separate from the books. They start us with Artemis just being a jerk teen that has no idea of his dad's career and legacy and having exactly zero history is espionage or criminal things but at the end he tells us that he is a criminal mastermind. They tell us Butler is this brute that is incredibly strong and intelligent, but we never real see this. There are a handful of emotional scenes that we know are emotional because they tell us they are. They never really show us anything, they just tell us instead. Can I see Artemis make a masterful plan? Can we get a scene of Butler kicking butt? No, but they'll tell us about them. They never take the time to set anything or anyone up, we just rush, rush, rush. It's the first two books amateurishly smashed into an hour and a half. Usually, this is where I would say it feels like they just read the blurb on the back of the book and ran with that, but even the blurbs have more depth and information than this film. Even the CGI was rushed as it look awful. If you aren't going to world-build, at least give us some beautiful scenes. The acting isn't any better, even though we have a few great actors: Ferdia Shaw is comically bad and clearly needed more direction, Lara McDonnell doesn't hit the right emotions, Nonso Anozie is a blank slate, Josh Gad is good but not believable, and Judi Dench is surprisingly one-note. I read a review on Taste that said it fells like they shot the movie as a long trailer and that is spot on. Artemis Fowl shouldn't have had two book in one movie and certainly not in a 90 minute movie; 90 minutes should have barely gotten us half-way through the first book. If you haven't read the book and don't know the story, it's over just after it feels like it begins. Ignoring how they just skip the middle part of every character arc from the books, the skip the meat in-between the scenes. A perfect representation of this is when they have Josh Gad narrating to us that Artemis's father told him everything there is to know about Fairies while they show Artemis flipping through a book of "fantasy creatures", each page being a poorly drawn picture followed by four or five lines about the creature. My biggest issue is how quickly they will flip the tone of a scene. It goes beyond poorly timed joke insertion. We'll be full on adversarial, full on mortal enemies and then <SNAP> "Did we just become best friends?!?!". If you have read the books, don't even bother trying to refresh your memories before watching (which you probably shouldn't bother doing) because they are just going to crap all over them. If you have zero knowledge of the series, the writers of the movie don't have much more, so prepare to be very confused, bored, and constantly asking "Why" both because the scene makes no sense and because the choices the writers and director made make no sense. There are hundreds of YouTube videos that will explain why this is a bad adaptation and even more that will explain why this is a bag movie in general. It look bad, the acting is bad, the story and script are bad, the whole damn movie is just very bad. The only value this movie has is as a "So bad, it's good" movie. if you've seen the clip of Mulch pulling his jaw apart or Artemis getting the call from Opal, you've seen the highlights of the movie. They even have the balls to tease a sequel that has a less of a chance of of happening than the fairy world being exposed in our world. If you want a few laughs at the expense of a bad movie, go for it, but if you are an Artemis Fowl fan or want to watch an actual movie with film making value, run far away.

Underwater

Underwater begins like Poseidon Adventure meets Gravity, but without any of the flair those two have. Underwater is incredibly vanilla. I appreciate that we jump right into the action and shove everything into 90 minutes, but we really need some context for something. We really only have a vague idea of who these people are, what they are doing, and why any of this is happening. We keep hearing about the company that they work for, but we never learn anything about it. Nothing is fleshed out and I was begging for anything to anchor the story or the characters. It's an okay looking movie and there are some plot points I wasn't expecting, but everything else is bland; especially Kristen Stewart. I've yet to find a film where the praise she keeps getting is validated. I've only seen her play varying degrees of monotone, angsty Kristen Stewart. Sure, sometimes she stutters here, but I never got any emotion from her. The rest of the cast is okay, minus TJ Miller who really has no business being in movies at all. If you are one of those people who really enjoys big, dumb Hollywood movies, I'm not sure Underwater has enough going on to hold you attention, even for 90 minutes. If you are more interested in the technical aspects, story, or performances, you'll probably be underwhelmed. I was concerned to see the 90 minute run time (what non-comedy story can you tell effectively that fast), but it is both the biggest strength and weakness of the film. We start running within the first five minutes, but I wanted more about why we are running.

The Irishman

For a three and a half hour movie, The Irishman goes surprisingly fast. If it matters to you, I watched it in two parts (the first hour and then the last two and a half). Yeah, there were definitely some scenes of irrelevant dialog that really only work to establish relationships between De Niro and the other characters, but there weren't that many. Overall, the story was great, most of the acting was perfect, and it was very easy to get engrossed in the world of the movie and not really notice that it's over three hours long. I really only have three complaints. Firstly, as other have mentioned, even though they de-age the actors' faces, these are still elderly men and they walk and move like elderly men; they're too slow and clearly geriatric, but there isn't really anything you can do about that. The de-aging looked pretty good, but by my math, this mostly takes place in the 60's and 70's where De Niro's character is supposed to be in his 40's and 50's, but he still looks 60+ the entire movie. Sure, when he's in the nursing home he looks 80, but there is no way he's passing for forty during the Kennedy election. Really though, De Niro in general is my biggest issue with the film and the only thing that really drags the movie down. His character is supposed to have all these very complex emotions, but we only know that because the story makes it clear, never because of what De Niro is doing. He just makes that same stupid face the entire movie. If the idea was to have his character hiding his emotions, than congratulations because he doesn't show a single one. I've yet to see De Niro in a good role. When I watched Scarface, I though Al Pacino was pretty terrible, but he's great here and Joe Pesci is great in everything. The chemistry between any characters other than De Niro i amazing, but he actively ruins scenes for me. My only other issue is the same one I had in Goodfellas in that I feel like they are expecting me to know more about the material than I do. They do a great job laying out what is happening and how the many characters fit into the story, but way too often I'm seeing someone on screen who is clearly an important player, but I have no idea who the Hell they are. There are a lot of characters that kind of just breeze through every once in a while and if they aren't Ray Romano, I don't instantly remember who they are. Historically, it all clicks, but I was born in the 90's so I really don't have a lot of history with the JFK plot and they weren't really giving me what I needed to fully grasp what was happening; it wasn't enough to derail anything for me, but I'm still a little lost as to what all was going on in that section. Also, who is De Niro talking to? We see him in the nursing home telling this whole story to someone, but I have no idea who. I don't want to spoil anything, but there is a scene in the last 30 minutes that kind of brings the entire framing of the movie into question. Obviously, most of my issues are either nitpicky or personal preference. The Irishman is a solid ride that doesn't really feel like a three and a half hour movie (except for the last half hour where the story is pretty much over and we just circle the drain for too long). The obvious comparison is to Goodfellas and while I feel like I understood The Irishman's story better and I probably learned more here, Goodfellas is better on every other front. Goodfellas was way funnier, the story was more compelling, and I loved so many more of the characters (and there was less De Niro).

Hero

I really wanted to love this film. I've been watching a lot of "best cinematography" YouTube videos and Hero keeps coming up, so with zero knowledge of the plot, I ordered it. While I do agree that the movie is breathtakingly beautiful, everything else let me down. All of the acting is incredibly wooden and every conversation is very dry. The plot was interesting and I was on board for the first half, but the second slowed down to a crawl and I got bored. The fight choreography was pretty cool, but it quickly got goofy. I don't mind the unrealistic 1 vs 30 fights, but they lost me when people start flying. I watched the movie for the cinematography and I got what I wanted from that, but I really wanted the whole package and I really only got great cinematography.

The Game

Another movie that's incredibly hard to discuss without spoiling anything and this is definitely a movie that you want to know as little about as possible. I got The Game confused with Wall Street (not sure how, they only have Micheal Douglas in common), so it was all new to me and I wouldn't have had it any other way. It's a David Fincher film, so of course the movie is beautifully shot and there are some great cinematography moments. What is going to be debatable is the story, which is going to lean really heavily on your ability to not over think things and fully embrace suspension of disbelief. For me, it worked for the first 100 minutes and then it just pushes things way too far and I could no longer silence the alarm in my brain screaming "That's just not how things work! What about ________ and ________ and why don't they ___________ or what if _____________ had happened?". If we just end the film six or seven minutes early, we'd eliminate all of my biggest issues