Review: San Andreas

by Trent Crump
★★

- I saw this on a regular-sized theater screen in 2-D.

There have been two big booms of disaster films in cinema history.  One lasted the whole of the 1970s and the other lasted through the last half of the 1990s.  Where the 1970s ones such as The Poseidon Adventure, the Airport films, Earthquake, The Swarm, etc. focused on big Hollywood stars both of the classic golden era and new trying to survive, the 1990s ones were about singular family units trying to survive or scientists trying to survive after their warnings go unheeded.  It's commonly suggested that the 1970s disaster films were better, as they had good, proven actors, and a lot of them.  This allowed the films to have the excitement of watching things get destroyed, not letting the audience know who was going to die and when because all the actors were big names, and allowed us to have some believable character development too.  The 1990s films were all due to the fact that with advancements in special effects, we could more convincingly and cheaply destroy things.  Sadly, San Andreas is more in the vein of a 1990s disaster film than a 1970s one.

San Andreas stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as Ray, a Los Angeles city search and rescue helicopter pilot.  He's good at what he does.  However, his family had a tragedy some time ago, and he's chosen not to deal with it.  This makes his wife leave him and she's now moving in with a really rich dude and serving him divorce papers.  The rich guy, Daniel Riddick, a building designer, seems like a good enough guy.  Seriously, the characters are so thin, this is about all I can say about him.  Meanwhile, Ray is supposed to take his daughter to college, but alas, an earthquake strikes the Hoover Dam area, ruining the dam and sending lots and lots of water rushing into the area.  Present at the dam was a Cal Tech scientist named Lawrence, played by Paul Giamatti, who is working on earthquake predictions.   The data he gets there shows him that this quake was not going to be the last.  There will be more, they will be bigger, and there's nothing they can do to stop it.  And in no time at all, an earthquake hits Los Angeles.  Right as Ray is told to take his chopper and help Nevadans, he turns tail and goes to rescue his wife with city equipment.  (The whole movie I just kept thinking, "Guy is gonna get so sued by the city.  Probably gonna get many years in jail.  This is unethical.")  Oh, there's also a British guy (Hugo Johnstone-Burk) and his little brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson, the kid that played Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones.) who meet up with Ray's daughter Blake (Alexandra Deddario) and become her entourage once the initial LA quake hits.  I guess they're there for comic relief and child-in-danger suspense?  From there on what story we have becomes pretty unimportant as the movie shifts to as much destruction and mayhem as possible.  I personally did not mind that as I was expecting nothing else, but destruction does not a well crafted movie make.  However, this means that some characters that are set up early on just disappear without a word and don't really come back into the story.

The movie is directed by Brad Peyton, who before this did only two movies, both aimed at the grade school crowd.  Cats & Dogs 2: Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, the latter of which he also worked with Dwayne Johnson on.   This is not a great resume, but it's not horrible either.  It just shows that he's competent with special effects films, and he doesn't pick the best scripts.  The script was a bit surprising though, coming from Carlton Cuse, writer of such televison as Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Bates Motel, Lost, and Nash Bridges.  He knows how to write, but this is not his best work. 

Yes, there is a tsunami too.

The earthquake scenes are some of the best put to film.  Granted, we haven't really had a big budget film about an earthquake probably since the last 1/3 of Superman in 1978.  It's pretty awe-inspiring to watch.  For a PG-13 film, it was pretty graphic in a deceptive way.  Someone gets smooshed and the camera would turn away right as you'd expect to see something really graphic.  For once, graphics were no problem at all, and in fact, they made the movie, such as it is.

So if you want little more than wanton destruction and people falling from buildings or buildings falling on them, this movie is a good bet for you.  It's what I wanted, and I got it.  But if you want believability, good characters, or even good acting, look elsewhere.  The family storyline is cliched and the dialogue/delivery is cheesy as it gets.  I'd say it's about on the level of Twister when it comes to disaster films.  However, it's not as memorable, and it doesn't have Bill Paxton or Cary Elwes, which is a shame.  No, instead we get a Kylie Minogue cameo.  Yay us?

Review: Tomorrowland

by Trevor Kirkendall
★★½

Brad Bird is a filmmaker who has earned my respect by crafting such original content in the world of animated films such as “The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles,” and “Ratatouille.” He stepped into live action features with enormously impressive franchise installment “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.” I can’t think of too many filmmakers who have hit it out of the park with their first four feature films like Bird had done. This is why I had such high expectations for his latest film “Tomorrowland.” There’s no way a film directed by Bird that looked this magical could possibly be bad, right? But it was indeed good. Unfortunately, that’s the only adjective I can describe it as: good. Quite a bland and unimpressive word choice, right? Well, it is a little bland and not overly original, but it’s not a bad film. It’s just good.

Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is an optimistic high school kid who doesn’t buy into all the doomsday scenarios (polar ice caps melting, upcoming nuclear holocausts, etc.) her teachers feed her on a daily basis. She thinks that if we act on it as a whole, we can stop these things from happening. She believes this so much that she doesn’t want to see NASA dismantle all their launch platforms, forcing the end of space exploration and having her father (Tim McGraw) lose his job. She breaks in to the launch facilities nightly in order to sabotage the cranes taking it apart. But then she’s caught and arrested.

Once she’s bailed out, she’s handed back her personal belongings including a weird looking pin. When she touches it, she’s magically transported to a fantastic futuristic looking world that she can’t get enough of. However, the pin’s abilities soon wear off, so she goes in search of where this mysterious pin came from. Her search leads her a young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) who is from Tomorrowland, the mystical place Casey has seen. Athena urges Casey to find a man named Frank Walker (George Clooney) who was once kicked out. Together, the three must work together to get back to Tomorrowland in order to save it, and quite possibly the world at the same time.

That’s pretty vague, but I don’t want to ruin whatever surprise you might find here. “Tomorrowland” is a pretty fun movie, in a 1970s/80s Spielbergian sci-fi kind of way. Bird’s influence from Spielberg is on full display here. You’re taken to place that doesn’t exist in this world, and that’s something that’s always fun about going to the movies. There’s that certain childlike wonderment that Spielberg has always been known for. Although Casey is a bit older than Elliot was in “E.T.,” the two share similar qualities in their desire to know more about the unknown.

But this is the part where “Tomorrowland” fails to capitalize on a fantastic opportunity. Casey only catches a glimpse of Tomorrowland and then spends the remainder of the film trying to get back. So you end up spending most of this film – that looks to be very spectacular in terms of its vision and ambition – in our own world. Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily, but it’s probably not what you’re expecting to see. In 130 minutes of run time, it takes almost 60 for Clooney’s character to really appear, and even more time to get the excitement going. Sure, it has exciting moments running up to a climax, but there’s far too much set up happening here.

Bird would rather spend his time setting up the theme to his movie rather than actually wowing us with the visual aspect and an even move memorable story. I appreciate the story, of course, but there seems to be too much dedication on the exposition here. That entire plot pays off in the end, but in a slightly disappointing fashion: “Tomorrowland” uses all that plot and all that backstory to load up a 10-ton hammer of a theme and smack you right in the face with it. There’s absolutely no subtlety in the message this film is trying to get across to its audience. It’s the type of message I remember hearing all my teachers in elementary school try to convey every Earth Day. Which makes sense, since this film is probably geared toward a young crowd.

But I can’t appreciate the theme of the film when it’s delivered in such an obvious way where it almost assumes the audience isn’t smart enough to see what the movie is trying to say. The film could have used a little trimming of the exposition and this theme still could have some across just fine. I don’t have an issue with the stance the film is trying to take, but it’s just too much and delivered in a very heavy-handed fashion.

Again I’ll say that Brad Bird is a filmmaker who has earned enough respect over his career for me to take notice of whatever movie he’s releasing. I just have such a hard time with this one because of how obvious it is that Disney is trying to nonchalantly sneak in a social message here. I can’t see that being Bird’s idea because he’s never shown that side in any of his other work. But that aside, “Tomorrowland” is still a very fun movie; it just takes a little bit of time to get going. I expected more from it, but what we get is still a film that has a lot to enjoy. Kids should like, and it’s easy to follow and understand. It just won’t be as memorable as some of Bird’s other work. I’ll probably have forgotten about it by this time next week.

Review: REM by MTV

by William Hill
★★½

The rock music documentary is an unsteady ground. It usually celebrated an artist while clarifying the usually rumor ridden histories of the musicians behind the songs. Sometimes it tells the completely untold stories behind a band that never really caught on. Going into REM by MTV,  released in 2014 but played through Fathom Events, I was confused by what about REM necessitated a documentary film. This confusion doesn't stem from any bias against the band, but rather from the fact that I've never met a dedicated REM fan in my life,  even while working in a record store.

Told through an assembled collection of old interviews and concert footage, as well as some still photos, REM by MTV tells the story of the alternative rock act from their roots as a band coming together in Athens, Georgia, recording several albums and finding success in throughout the late eighties and in the nineties. Almost all of the interviews are with the members of the band itself, and there are very few people from outside of their management that were there to tell the tale. On the positive side, it plays as a collection of personal stories, usually funny and heartfelt, and makes the guys easy tor relate to; a small town boys do well story, if you will. However, aside from a collection of hospital visits in 1996, there is little challenge to their rise to stardom. 

What REM by MTV tells us about the members of REM is that they took what they could do with music and pursued it, and avoided the pitfalls of drug abuse and egotism that often destroyed other successful bands. While this is a great moral for any musician to follow, it makes their story play out like fluff against other documentaries, such as Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, where the storied power trio almost destroyed their career while sticking to their guns, only to come out of a dark period of their career to great success. There is no apparent challenge, and as a result, there isn't much of a narrative to the film, but rather a collection of short stories.

And while the stories can be entertaining, the pacing is shot as a result. A lack of cohesion is produced by what boils down to a film born of little other than editing. The interviews are all archival, drawn from old MTV footage, and, from what I can tell, little was filmed new for the film. The story is assembled and pieced together, but doesn't have a definitive idea of what it wants to do other than say "hey, these guys wrote some songs, made sociopolitical statements, got major surgery, and recorded some new music in the past few years".

This is disappointing, given that the personalities within REM were unique enough in their own right that a documentary about the people rather than the band history could have been much more interesting. Michael Stipe's eccentric personality could have been at the forefront of the story, especially since he was often the most interesting voice on screen, rattling off sheer madness from time to time, and is probably the most pretentious person in the group. Mind you, I agree with a lot of his sentiments about songwriting. 

Given the quality of other documentary films about rock musicians, it's a shame to see that REM couldn't have received the same treatment, but I'm not sure that they could have either. The simplicity of their history and the lack of great personal or professional difficulty makes their documentary a mediocre one at best, saved only by a great sense of humor displayed by the members of the band and admittedly decent pop tunes driving the plodding narrative along. It's probably best left to hardcore REM fans, wherever they may be. As for the average listener, you'd be best catching up on their back catalog and maybe reading some articles about them. The interviews collected for the film are probably all on YouTube anyway, as sad as it makes me to suggest that.

Review: Good Kill

by. Joe Moss
★★

With the release of "American Sniper" this past December, it now seems that many filmmakers are going to be jumping onto the 'America at War' bandwagon. "Good Kill," written and directed by Andrew Niccol, feels just like this--a film whose sole purpose is to continue to tap into the heartstrings of the World by showing what the War on Terror around the world does to the people who are in the action...albeit, not on the field of battle rather form the new platform, Drone Warfare.

Major Egan in the kill zone.

Major Thomas Egan (Ethan Hawke) is a disgruntled jet-jockey who has been transitioned into piloting the for the new drone warfare program. He is not happy about what was supposed to be a single tour of duty that has ballooned into three tours in Las Vegas. He longs for the feel of the jet-stream below him and the tactical satisfaction that would bring. He's not truly connecting to the fact that what he is doing with a joy-stick and a video monitor is 'real,' he misses the physicality of the turbulence and the presence of 'being in the moment.'  Then, when the intel community (CIA) decides to step in and direct mission removing all the normal safe-guards, all hell breaks loose--emotionally and temperamentally.

Molly Egan (January Jones) is the traditional stay-at-home military housewife who is juggling the troubles that come with a father who is ne'er present and a son who resents this from his father. She is there to help deal with the emotional fall-out from Major Egan's job, but we really do not get much else from this character. In fact, she is almost a non-entity for most of the film and comes of as basic plot filler, rather than a supporting cast member.

Molly and the Major, emotional disconnect?

Ethan Hawke portrays Egan with a lot of brooding, pouting, drunken malice. Which does provide a basis for the what the character is going through internally as retaliation for the events that he is forced to participate. Nevertheless, this was not Hawke's best performance considering the last few years we have had multiple Oscar-worthy occasions on which to better judge his abilities ["Boyhood", and "Before Midnight"].

I blame this lack of connection on both an anemic script and tragic lack of direction. Andrew Niccol probably needs to have a little more background information on the inner workings of the drone tactics before undertaking writing and directing a film centered around such. This movie is truly a one-man show centered around Egan and his inner turmoil, and I feel that that lack of supporting cast development, coupled with the direction took away from ever truly feeling emotionally connected to Major Egan. This could be due to the fact that I have already seen this movie done fantastically in Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper." Bradley Cooper's performance drew the audience into the film with his depth of emotion--not the stoic, near emotionless portrayal provided here by Ethan Hawke--and my personal belief is that Clint Eastwood's own military experience during the Korean War affords him a much better take on a realistic view on military film portrayals.

Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (Trevor)

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★★

You know that sour taste you've had in your mouth since you first watched “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?” Say goodbye! Thanks to George Miller’s long brewing follow up to the popular series “Mad Max: Fury Road,” you can finally rid yourself of that taste. This film will mercilessly smack your person with a force so strong you'll lose that little spot in your brain reminding you how cheesy that film was.

Gone are the battles inside an over-inflated jungle gym, and the long, arduous sequences of walking across a desert with kids. No, “Fury Road” gives us the Mad Max we want to see: unabashed and over-the-top high-octane chase sequences set against the backdrop of a nightmarish post-apocalyptic world. How much more over-the-top can you get than a guy standing on a platform attached to a vehicle playing a guitar hooked up to 20 feet of speakers and amps? 

Also gone is Mel Gibson in the title role. Instead, we have Tom Hardy (“The Dark Knight Rises”) taking the reigns of the legendary Road Warrior. When Max is captured by a group of bald and pasty-white desert dwellers, he’s taken to a place called the Citadel ruled by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who harvests breast milk, breeds with his wives, and hoards a vast water supply from those who live there. Max is turned into a “blood bag” for one of the many War Boys of Joe, Nux (Nicholas Hoult).

Meanwhile, Joe is sending out Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to drive a war rig across the desert to pick up some more oil, still a precious commodity in these films. What Joe soon learns is that Furiosa is running away from the Citadel and taking with her Joe’s five prized wives who want to escape his perverse clutches. Joe goes after her along with his army of war boys (including Nux with his blood bag Max attached to the front of his car like a hood ornament). What ensues is 120 absolutely relentless minutes of nightmarish absurdity that only the twisted mind of George Miller could dream up.

“Fury Road” is an complete and refreshing action film. At a time when every major studio in Hollywood is making action films to sell products outside of the actual film, Warner Bros. shows up with this masterpiece that proves big budgets and insane visions can still show off the artistic possibilities of film. There’s a lot of disturbing imagery coming at you from every direction which might turn away an unsuspecting viewer, but everything about it is very much in line with the original visions of Miller. It feels like a “Mad Max” movie every step of the way. It never feels like an idea hijacked by studio executives and twisted up in order to sell more t-shirts, Happy Meals, or anything else they could slap Max’s face on.

Miller has waited a long time to bring this to the screen and it's well worth the wait. There’s no nostalgia thrown back to the days of 80s cinema. “Fury Road” stands by itself, on its own very tall pedestal towering over its predecessors and over every other action movie of the last decade or more. Some 80s movies that go through the whole reboot process try to retain some of that same charm. But “Fury Road” isn't an 80s film, and Max isn't just a character of the time period anymore. Filmmaking technology is vastly improved since the "Thunderdome" days, and Miller uses it to his advantage.

The chase sequences are overblown but in a very cohesive way. Shot lengths are short to keep the pace of the film at a frantic level, but you’re never lost in a completely discombobulated mess of edits. A lot of thought and care went into constructing these sequences, from the actual filming to the masterful editing by Margaret Sixel and Jason Ballantine. Unlike the “Transformers” or “Fast & Furious” films - where all the edits are strung together in a way that completely lacks clarity - “Fury Road” is smart in it's construction. Never once do you feel lost or confused as to who’s fighting whom or who’s chasing whom. And Miller never relies on CGI to bring his film to life. "Fury Road" is filled with practical effects throughout the film giving it a much more realistic feel. CGI is only used to enhance the backgrounds, but never lead the action. I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to see a filmmaker in 2015 go out of his way to not use CGI to show epic action sequences. 

Hardy is a perfect Max. He doesn’t imitate Gibson’s iconic performance; he makes it his own. He plays the Road Warrior a bit more rough around the edges. The script doesn’t provide him much dialogue, which shouldn’t come as a surprise seeing as Max isn’t exactly the most loquacious of cinematic heroes. While Hardy is a terrific Max, it’s Theron’s Furiosa who owns this film. She is the hero leading these five wives to freedom. And the wives aren’t exactly the typical damsels-in-distress either. Each one is tough in her own way, especially Rosie Huntington-Whiteley who plays Joe's favorite wife, Splendid. But Theron commands this movie from the moment she steps on screen. Her character is Miller’s way of showing us that women in action films are completely capable of pulling the vast majority of the weight, and don’t have to be seen as a sexualized object of attraction in the eyes of the protagonist.

Gosh, how was Miller able to get away with all this with $150 million invested by a studio? Movies like “Fury Road” don’t happen in the studio system anymore. It’s all about additional marketing. There's nothing else to sell here, except for Junkie XL's incredible soundtrack, Blu-ray releases, and tickets to future “Mad Max” films. I don’t know how else to convey my praise for this film, other than saying that George Miller may have just made one of the finest action films of all time. I don't want to get ahead of myself; time will tell on that one. But when we think about the likes of “Die Hard” or “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” as some of the all time greats, I have to think we'll be talking about “Fury Road” in the same breath one day. What Miller has done here is the work of a cinematic visionary at the top of his game. “Fury Road” is a masterwork, the kind of spectacle that screens in movie theaters around the world were meant to showcase. Too many filmmakers these days are making movies and releasing a chaotic mess to the public. Who cares, as long as the studios can sell toys, right? Thank God George Miller has returned. And he brings with him a new gold standard.

Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (William)

by William Hill
★★★½

Resurrected decades after most people have gotten beyond Thunderdome, George Miller's Mad Max returns with a new star and a fresh coat of dirt. It's a bizarre sight,  these pale,  hairless men driving hacked up cars from the fifties and beyond in pursuit of Tom Hardy and a prosthetic enhanced Charlize Theron through the desert when placed against the modern landscape of dull gray action films. After watching it,  I'm still not sure if I've woken up from this glorious dream. an eighties film series has returned, not as a reboot,  but a pseudo sequel,  and one that isn't obsessed with constant references and reminders that you're watching a Mad Max film.

No, he doesn't talk like Bane.

Tom Hardy plays Max Rockatansky, the Road Warrior, etc., replacing Mel Gibson in the role, hitting the road merely trying to scrape up enough gasoline to keep driving. It doesn't take long for Max to hit trouble, when the Wild Boys fire a rocket into the back of the V8 Interceptor, and takes him out of commission. This is when we get our first glimpse of the Citadel, a society that is stockpiling water, growing plants in a dead world, and most importantly, run by King Immortan Joe (the names get more ridiculous than this). Immortan Joe keeps a house full of wives for himself, until they are sprung by Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron. Max is brought along for the chase by War Boy Nux as a blood bag, where he is strapped to the front end of a car, and his blood is fed to the driver along a chain.

What follows for the rest of the film is essentially a two hour chase scene, and the film rarely lets up. The variety comes from the various desert settings, which include a tornado filled dust storm, and a muddy waste in the dead of a cold blue night. Immortan Joe, The Pig, and The Bullet Farmer all posses various vehicles with their own touches and threats, and I don't recall a single threat being repeated for more than one scene. What's impressive is that despite going almost nonstop for over two hours, it doesn't lose the tension, largely because the film still goes with a three act narrative, and something is actually happening, even at the height of the action. 

Most impressive of all is the subtlety of both Hardy and Theron's performances. With very few words, it's easy to get a grasp of what they want and why, where they are coming from, and the weight that they are carrying throughout the film. Tom Hardy even has some facial inflections and annunciations that remind me of Mel Gibson's performances, and that's a feat in itself. It is almost as if the role never changed. Between roaring engines, gunfire, and explosions, the story is quietly told, and it's a great, if simple, tale. The unanswered questions leave a lot of room for the already announced sequels to approach, and given the level of skill Miller displayed here, I am ready for him to put me behind the wheel of another war machine. 

Characters aside, the film pulls no punches visually. There isn't a single vehicle that isn't massive, derived from more than once machine, and sometimes even covered in metal shards. I will refrain from sharing the most absurd of these design choices, because, I swear to you, it must be seen without prior explanation. The Wild Boys, a pasty tattooed lot who are seeking Valhalla, The Pig, an overweight monster of a man with an ornate gold covering on his nose, and the King, Immortan Joe, are all exemplary costume designs. The desert setting gets a few redressings throughout the film, all of which are spectacular. A few key shots of the Citadel seem to pay homage to the classic 1927 silent film Metropolis, and that is not something I expected when I walked into the theater.

The unsung hero of the film is the brilliant score from Junkie XL, calling on a swashbuckling orchestral score with splashes of metal guitar and pounding war drums. Every vehicle has its own distinct sounds. The soundscape for this film is monstrous, and supports ever crash, explosion, gunshot and metallic scrape from beginning to end.

If could critique anything negatively is that when the film does slow into a quieter moment during the late second act, it's somewhat abrupt, given the constant drive of the narrative prior to and after these scenes. However, the story doesn't bore, and these scenes add another layer to the surreal setting, so it is quickly forgiven. I think that these scenes are just as good as the rest of the film, but I can see where some would laze in the lack of octane. Some also may find the more bizarre aspects of the films not to be to their tastes, but that is of no fault of the film. Strange as any one aspect of the film may be, it feels like a natural part of the untamed land.

George Miller's return to Mad Max is a glorious return to a higher grade of action films, rife with smart cinematography, practical effects, absurd comic book style, and characters worth caring about. It's everything that made the original films memorable with a few new tricks to spare. Paired with an excellent score, brilliant performances, and some interesting hooks for the sequels to come, Fury Road is a path worth travelling.

The Worst Films

by William Hill

Last week, I went to the RiffTrax Live screening of Tommy Wiseau's film The Room, one of the many candidates for "The Worst Film Ever Made". It wasn't my first time seeing the cinematic abomination, nor will it likely be my last. The Room is noteworthy not for being one of the most bland stories ever to be told, but for being filmed in such a way that viewers aren't exactly sure what they are watching. It's rife with questionable dialogue, awful performances, a complete lack of narrative cohesion, and gratuitous nudity that makes the viewer question whether or not they are watching late night cable television instead of an actual movie. And if you'd like to know if you should see the encore screening on May 12th, well, you should. The commentary from the RiffTrax crew is among their best work, and the film itself demands to be seen.

And yes, it's a film you should see, because it is so unbelievably bad.

I guess this deserves some explanation.

There are so many definitions to "bad movie" that it's become a terrible qualifier for how we describe movies. Twilight is indeed a very bad movie, but mostly because its a boring, nonsensical love story where neither of the leads are in any way likable. You can understand what is happening in the story, but the discerning moviegoer will probably not care. It's bad because it's not worth discussion. Manos: The Hands of Fate is a bad movie because there is barely a story, it drags endlessly through the same two sets and nothing really happens. It's forever going to be a notoriously bad film, rather than forgotten like a bad film of Twilight caliber. Both of these films have received the RiffTrax (MST3K for Manos) treatment, on and off of the big screen, and they are some of the groups most famous work.

But then you have films like A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth film in the classic action series starring Bruce Willis. This was a big budget sequel and suffered the hands of the critics. It was a poorly shot collection of action set pieces without the one-liners and likable John McClane seen in the first four films. Instead, we get drunken-fallen-back-off-the-wagon-while-reuniting-with-another-child-because-it-worked-in-the-fourth-one John McClane, and his irritating, whiny, I doubt he was actually a spy, son. It was a cheap cash in, and the film that took the spot for the worst movie I saw in 2013. Most people have already forgotten about it, and moved on.

Also in 2013, the internet was enraptured by news of a Syfy original movie called Sharknado, featuring such...erm...actors(?) as Tara Reid. It was touted one of the worst movies that people had ever seen. A sequel has followed, and both films will have received the RiffTrax Live treatment by the middle of this summer. Clearly there wasn't any attempt to make Sharknado  a good movie. That's not what Syfy does with their monster movies. But they promoted the fact that this was a bad movie, and it has become a legitimate hit for Syfy.

I watched Sharknado. I expected it to be bad in a way that would be hilarious. After all, I watched previous awful Syfy movies for that same kind of entertainment. It would be a chuckle or two about how bad it was, and I'd move on.

Sharknado failed to entertain. On every level.

Let's face it. Sharknado barely deserved to be discussed. You can talk about how bad it is until you're blue in the face, but no one was trying to make a good movie on that set. After all, they cast Tara Reid. It's a shameless piece of trash, and this is coming from the guy who told you to see The Room.

Where Sharknado shirks comparisons to films like Birdemic and The Room is that it was an attempt to make money on the fact that people love an entertaining bad film. The Room was Tommy Wiseau trying to make a serious drama. Between his awful script, lack of filmmaking knowledge, and a cast of mediocre actors at his command, we get a film that is hilarious because it constantly surprises the viewer with moment after absurd moment and dialogue that doesn't sound like it was written by a human being. Birdemic was a zero budget monster flick by all means, and it shows with its GIF bird attacks, and it looks like it was shot on someone's cellphone. Manos was a fertilizer salesman's attempt at getting in on the movie business. Twilight...was not a good book, but they were trying to capitalize on the tween readers who related to the cold heartless cardboard soul that was Bella Swan. All of these movies had the best (or financial) intentions in mind when they stomped their way into our minds.

A bad movie can not be made just for the sake of making a bad film. What comes of these films is mediocrity, and nothing else. This kind of bad is merely forgettable, and deservedly so.

So skip watching Sharknado 3, and watch Birdemic on Netflix, or hit Rifftrax for a download of their live presentation of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Knowing what makes a movie bad can make the best movies all the sweeter. 

Review: Maggie

by Trevor Kirkendall

★

The whole zombie thing is getting a little played out now. Yes, I am a fan of “The Walking Dead” but even that isn’t as zombie-centric as it once was. The creative minds behind that show can see it getting washed up and are trying to keep the series alive by hooking you into the characters. In film, you’re starting to see a move away from the whole post-apocalyptic landscape where people aren’t really sure what’s happening and struggling to survive. “Warm Bodies” and “Beth” are a couple examples. Now we can add Henry Hobson’s feature film directorial debut “Maggie” to that list. The film features an interesting premise, yet has no idea exactly what kind of film it wants to be.

Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) stars as the title character Maggie who is bitten by some kind of zombie while she’s run away from home. Or maybe she’s in school. It’s never really explained. In the universe presented to us, the process of becoming a zombie takes about eight weeks. The government has also been able to get a handle on the outbreak and forcing infected persons into quarantine right before they turn. This allows infected people the chance to go home and get their affairs in order. Maggie is brought back to her non-descript Midwestern farm by her father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Back home, Wade tries to make Maggie comfortable. His wife – and Maggie’s step-mom – Caroline (Joely Richardson) is a little apprehensive about having her there. Who could blame her? Maggie has gross wounds all on her body with bloodshot veins running down her arm and up her back. But Wade insists on keeping her there as long as he can. He doesn’t want to take her to quarantine when it’s time, and Maggie doesn’t want to go there either. So they hang out at the house waiting for the weeks to pass.

Just knowing the plot of the film should be a clue that this isn’t going to be a moving and uplifting film. It’s a dark and depressing story and everything about the film matches that tone. The dominate color on screen is gray, and it always looks like its about two minutes away from a torrential thunderstorm. The music matches the dark and unapologetic story. I guess what I’m trying to convey is that it’s really depressing and you never get a break from it.

Director Hobson is new to the world of feature films. Scan over his history on IMDb and you’ll notice that he’s done plenty of work as a main title designer in film, TV, and video games. (Including  the main title sequence to  – big shocker – “The Waking Dead.”) Not to be condescending here, but a feature film is centered on emotions that actors must convey to the audience. Title sequences do not. He must have missed that note because these characters are given absolutely nothing to work with.

Hobson seems much more interested in the tone and the visuals of the film than his characters and the story. You can make a great film that’s visually stunning but lacks plot, but your visual element must be the star of the film. Here, it just looks sloppy and ill conceived. Hobson and his cinematographer Lukas Ettlin are on the same page here with their love for close-ups and their overuse of the focus pull. Ettlin appears to use natural lighting in all his scenes like he’s Emmanuel Lubezki. The only problem with this tactic is every scene is shot with overcast and stormy skies so there’s very little light to work with. Did I mention these two love their close-up shots? Half the movie is shot right on top of the actors’ heads with handheld cameras and during drawn out dialogue exchanges. Back and forth and back and forth cutting between the actors. It’s boring and lacks the artistic qualities of more seasoned veterans. Or newcomers who know what they’re doing.

Schwarzenegger and Breslin are tiresome and play their characters about as flat and emotionless as the walls of a newly constructed home. You can never tell if you’re supposed to sympathize, empathize, or just be completely indifferent to them. I get Wade is supposed to be sad that his young daughter’s life is coming to a close, but why? He might as well have been a neighbor. There’s nothing in rookie writer John Scott 3’s script to give us any reason to feel sorry for the situation at hand other than the music and the tone letting us know this is a sad moment. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be sad for characters just because the script says I'm supposed to be. That's cheap and lazy.

There are very few redeeming qualities in “Maggie.” It’s a compelling concept, but it’s executed poorly. You don’t ever want to watch a movie and hope that the sick and dying girl dies, but that’s the exact emotion I was feeling with about 20 minutes remaining. Mostly so I could get back outside where it wasn’t quite as dark. It feels like Hobson, Scott, and Ettlin got together and decided to make a 95-minute movie about all the emotions running through Travis Coates’ head as he was about to shoot Old Yeller. But everyone hates that part, so why would you want to make an entire movie about that one moment?  The concept could probably work in more able hands. But with these filmmakers, "Maggie" dies a slow and agonizing death that would have been better left on the paper it was written. 

Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Trevor)

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★

Marvel Studios deserves a good bit of credit for concocting a grand plan and sticking to it. I’m not sure studio head Kevin Feige even realized how big of an empire they would build when they first drafted their plans. And everything just keeps getting bigger. The centerpiece of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the mash-up adventures of all the stand-alone characters: “The Avengers.” The Summer Movie Season of 2015 begins with the second all-star film “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The film features everything people loved about the first one with a much larger cast, but ultimately offers nothing new.

“Age of Ultron” opens with our team of heroes already assembled going after Loki’s scepter from the first film, which is being held and experimented with by the last holdouts of Hydra. Here, we meet two of Hyrda’s test subjects, the Maximoff twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), whose backstory leads them to hate Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.).

With the scepter recovered, Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) use it to try and create a type of artificial intelligence Tony has been working on. He envisions this program being used for peacekeeping purposes that would one day render The Avengers as obsolete. Initial tests fail, but it ultimately takes hold within the computers at Tony’s house and puts itself into one of Stark’s iron robots. Thus, the birth of Ultron (James Spader). He learns from the Internet that humans are bad and must be destroyed. He enlists the help of the Maximoff twins to help with his diabolical scheme. Our team of Avengers must stop Ultron and the Maximoff’s before they destroy the world.

Of course, the movie wouldn’t reach its full two-and-a-half hour run time without tons of plotting exposition in between the highly stylized, CG-filled action sequences. There’s also a ton of bro moments with Stark, Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). We also get some more back-story on Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) that seemingly comes out of nowhere. There’s even some dark back-story and a little love interest for Agent Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).

“Age of Ultron” is loaded to the brim with so many characters and so many different stories that it feels like it might just break the hard drive it was created on. But from the early concepts behind these films, how could anyone have thought they were going to be clean, polished and concise? That’s what the stand-alone movies are for. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” remains the best film Marvel has produced because it’s the only film in the studio’s history to work off a script with a complete beginning, middle and end, and actually pull off the high-octane action sequences effectively. It’s also the only film of the bunch that didn’t necessarily feel like a superhero film, but rather a political thriller with superhero as the protagonist.

“Age of Ultron” takes everything that Marvel has done in its past and doubles down. The action sequences are grander and longer. The in between sequences of exposition are more drawn out and detailed. The disposable army of clone soldiers – I mean, Ultron robots – is bigger and faster. Okay, now I’m just getting picky with that remark. Writer/director Joss Whedon actually has improved upon the things that flawed the first film. Yes, there’s a lot of down time he fills with exposition and back-stories, but there are some moments that genuinely do feel like a heart felt attempt. Are these moments necessary to advance the plot of the film? Not really, but he wants to give these characters a little more humanity. Suddenly, Hawkeye in particular doesn’t seem like just a waste of space with a bow-and-arrow. It ultimately feels forced and out of place, and increases the run time considerably.

Whedon has also cleaned up his direction of the combat sequences this time. I’d be worried if he didn’t. “The Avengers” was bogged down by moments where everything was happening so fast that you couldn’t tell what’s going on. “Age of Ultron” is that way too, but they’re not as prolonged. He doesn’t stick with the same moments for nearly as long, given everyone a little more time to process what’s happening. Christopher Nolan experienced the same thing when he got involved in the action genre. His fistfights in “Batman Begins” are so muddy compared to what he accomplished in “The Dark Knight.” Same thing applies here with Whedon. Remember, this is only Whedon’s fourth film. (And I may have just committed a cardinal sin by mentioning a DC film in a review about a Marvel film. Oops.)

As big and grand as “Age of Ultron” is, it never feels like it’s overwhelmingly crowded. There are always a lot of characters on screen and there’s different stories coming at you from different directions, but it’s never more than you can process. This isn’t the work or a filmmaker trying to completely mess with your mind and senses, but rather the work of studio and filmmaker actually working well together for a change. Whedon respects the source material so much that he doesn’t want to offend anyone by leaving anything out. (Although, I’m sure there are things people want to see included, but won’t.) Whedon and Marvel have gone hand-in-hand thus far in this highly successful experiment that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He leaves the film and story in good hands moving forward as he won’t be involved in the future films, at least not as a director or writer. He’s set up a lot of high expectations for fans of this studio’s work, and he leaves us with a film that will likely meet the expectations of almost all in attendance. It doesn’t offer up anything new or revelatory to the series, but it does offer us the same amount enjoyment that this studio has become famous for delivering.