The Self-Satisfied DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE Has Laughs Aplenty But Is Slightly Less Than Specturb

Now playing at every multiplex in the multiverse:

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
(Dir. Shawn Levy, 2024)

Here it is – the long-awaited MCU entry #34 in which the merc with the mouth meets Mutate #9601 in the balls-out bromance for the ages. That is, the iconic characters, the ironic Deadpool, and the angry Wolverine - portrayed respectively by Ryan Reynolds, and Hugh Jackman - team up for what’s being billed as a “multiversal meta comedy,” and as the only Marvel movie being released in 2024, it has a lot riding on it.

 

This is something this heavily self-referential, and self-satirical sure-to-be summer blockbuster calls attention to a lot. Deadpool even snarks, “The multiverse? It’s just been miss after miss after miss…” at one point as the super twosome get deeper into their adventure, which I’m gonna to try to describe without too much detail. Also, I’m not gonna spoil all the cameos, and supposed surprises in store for those that are way into this sort of thing.

 

This is because it’s a purposely convoluted maze of scenarios involving Deadpool’s dying timeline, which he has to try to save via Wolverine as he’s the timeline’s anchor being, but, of course, he died at the end of LOGAN. No matter, our wise-cracking ant-hero locates, through a wacky montage, a Logan variant, who he presents to Mr. Paradox (Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen seemingly channeling Tim Curry, or maybe Richard E. Grant), but he’s deemed the “worst Wolverine” so they are cast into the Void, where most of the movie plays out.

 

The Void is a funny visual concept as it’s a ginormous desert wasteland littered with the relics of disintegrated timelines with the weathered 20th Century Fox logo half buried in the sand, and it’s the setting for Deadpool and Wolverine’s big brawl, which is deftly choreographed, but lacking stakes as they both are regenerative creatures and can withstand major gashes and stabs.

 

From there the movie takes its cues from such inspirations as PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES, MIDNIGHT RUN, and 48 HOURS to give us the gruff buddy road trip through encounters with Professor X’s twin sister, Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) in her lair that happens to be in the suit and skeleton of Ant-Man’s corpse (“Paul Rudd finally aged,” Deadpool quips); and dozens and dozens of Deadpool variants, which our titular duo battle in a highly stylized slo-mo sequence set to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” 

 

This is to all stop the destruction of all timelines by Mr. Paradox, or maybe the MCU themselves as this movie seems to be admitting through all the witty asides that the franchise has been majorly stumbling since all that Infinity stone hullabaloo ended with Iron Man dying ‘n all. 

 

It’s true that the MCU has suffered through some subpar entries as of late, and this film shows it’s fun to dance on the graves of the franchise failures, but a lot of the inside jokes, and quick quips didn’t land with me as hard as some of the other folks at the press screening I attended. Maybe I should have boned up by watching previous X-MEN and DEADPOOL movies. 

 

But that’s just the thing – according to the many lists of “what to watch before you see DEADPOOL 3,” that have recently appeared online, there are like ten movies to see before you can get every reference or call-back in this movie. This is one of the reasons there’s been such Marvel malaise of late; with all the interlocking movies, and series – only the hardcore can keep up to properly appreciate these multi-layered efforts.

 

Lately, I’ve been trying to get a new portmanteau going: specturb – a combination of spectacular, and superb. As in “the INSIDE OUT sequel is simply specturb” (which it is). As much as I think fans will dig DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, and will largely find it hilarious, I found it slightly less than specturb. It lives from laugh to laugh, but its self-satisfied sense of self-satire made me smirk more than actually chuckle.

 

However, for its entertainment value (it’s fun sized!), especially on the scale of post ENDGAME MCU, this is a winner overall, and I bet this weekend’s audiences will eat up Reynolds and Jackman’s not-so-odd coupling, and will ask for seconds.

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FREE GUY: Fun But We’ve Seen Every Bit Of It Before

Now available on streaming services including HBOmax and Disney+

FREE GUY (Dir. Shawn Levy, 2021)

When movies are overly formulaic they often lead to overly formulaic reviews.

FREE GUY is one such film as it has many critics describing it as THE TRUMAN SHOW meets WRECK-IT-RALPH. Other titles that have been thrown into the premise mash-up are THE LEGO MOVIE, PLEASANTVILLE, and even THEY LIVE. 

After identifying those influences, or direct steals, reviews will move on to the all the pop culture references that are layered through this addition to the stuck-inside-a-video-game premise. The story being that Ryan Reynolds stars as a perfectly content background character (a bank teller in a heist scenario) in a popular interactive Grand Theft Auto-style video game, who becomes aware that his world is virtual. 

Reynold’s Guy (yes, his name is Guy) was clued into this revelation via his infatuation with Molotov Girl (Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer), a leather clad, cool-as-ice biker chick, who is a video game designer named Millie in the real world. Millie, and her programmer pal Walter (Stranger Things and Ozark’s Joe Kerry) had their source code for a game called Life Itself stolen (hey, shades of TRON!)by Taika Waititi as the arrogantly goofy Antwan, an evil CEO of Soonami Studios (I like that name). So our heroes, Guy, Millie, and Walter work together to claim their destinies, and free the cogs of Free City. Or something like that.

Oh, and this is the part of the review that acknowledges the sideline characters Buddy, played by the super affable Lil Rel Howery, who makes the best of his typical black best friend part; and Mouser, Walter’s wise-cracking Soonami co-worker played by Utkarsh Ambudkar. Both guys aid Guy in the game gags department so they are worth mentioning.

But it’s the rapid outpouring of pop culture references that are the real stars here. FREE GUY out-metas Reynold’s DEADPOOL flicks with Easter Eggs involving the MarvelVerse, THE SHINING, Pac-Man, Pokémon, Doctor Who, STAR WARS, Q*Bert, THE MATRIX, Jeopardy!, Rick and Morty, GROUNDHOG DAY, Mortal Kombat, READY PLAYER ONE, and even Diff’rent Strokes, among maybe dozens and dozens of other nods.

The fabric of all of these not-so-hidden touchstones that make up FREE GUY is patched together with so many familiar elements that it’s impossible to imagine the movie holding together without them. When Guy wields a STAR WARS lightsaber in a climactic battle with the arm of The Incredible Hulk in a scene featuring the theme from The Greatest American Hero, it’s supposed to be funny due to the audience’s recognition of these things, but it’s a cheap use of expensive aesthetics that probably only gathers a quick giggle because no clever comment is being made.

I ignored this movie when it was released last summer, as I suspected it was a noisy collection of movie and gamer clichés, but moviegoers lapped it up to the tune of over $300 million. I can understand that as it’s not without its charms as a busy yet breezy action comedy directed by Shawn Levy, whose career is mostly filled with feel-good rom coms, and family-friendly fare.

FREE GUY, even as a derivative amalgam, is fun, at least superficially. It would be more fun if we hadn’t spotted all of the references before, but maybe kids who haven’t seen all the movies, TV shows, and video games that make up its DNA will dig it. Nah, I bet that they’ll even sense that it’s so not its own thing.

And that’s my formulaic review of FREE GUY.

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DEADPOOL 2: Very Familiar Formula, But Funny Enough

Now playing at a multiplex near everybody:

DEADPOOL 2 (Dir. David Leitch, 2018) 

Ah, Deadpool. You remember Deadpool, right? C’mon, you know him – he’s Marvel’s most meta character whose wise-cracks, crude antics, and bloody kills carry him, and us, through another familiar round of explosive action sequences.

And that’s what we’ve got in this follow-up to his 2016 debut, which I then called “the most hilarious Marvel movie yet.” This sequel doesn’t top the original, but it stands nicely beside it as it contains roughly the same amount of genuine laughs.

Ryan Reynolds, who also co-wrote and co-executive produced, again brings his extreme snark to the quipping anti-hero - anti-hero because he ends up killing more people than he saves – who we first become re-acquainted with as he attempts suicide via lying a top several big barrels of fuel and flicking a cigarette in the air to fall into one of them and blow himself to bits - which he does.

Of course, this being Deadpool, we know he survives this, but before we see his fate, Reynold’s Wade Willis (Deadpool’s real name - keep up!), tells us through voice-over that six weeks earlier he was on top of the world going on globe-trotting missions, and planning to have a family with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), but (Spoiler!) she’s killed by some goon, and Deadpool loses his mojo big time.

A James Bondian credits sequence, or joke credit sequence, as no real names are displayed only lines like “Starring somebody who obviously didn’t want to share the spotlight,” follows which amusingly features a perfectly overwrought power anthem called “Ashes,” sung by Céline Dion (that’s right).

After that, Deadpool sulks in misery around his friends from the first one - taxi driver Dopinder (Karan Soni), and bartender Weasel (T.J. Miller), but is given a new chance by the also returning Colossus (a CGI-ed Stefan Kapicic) to become a member of the X-Men, but as a trainee as he keeps getting reminded, mostly by, again another returning character, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who now has a girlfriend, Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna).

On Deadool’s first day on the job, he encounters a 14-year-old boy (Julian Dennison) named Russell who calls himself “Firefist” and is threatening to burn down his orphanage, the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation, because he was abused by the Headmaster (Eddie Marsan at his ghastliest). At the stand-off, Deadpool breaks the X-Men’s rule of not killing anyone, and is captured along with Russell and taken to a prison for mutants called “The Icebox.” 

Meanwhile, in a very TERMINATOR-esque scenario, a mercenary mutant named Cable (Josh Brolin) from the future travels to the present to avenge the death of his wife and kid who he traces as being the work of Russell/Fire Fist. After a massive, chaotic prison break setpiece, Deadpool realizes his calling is to protect the kid from Cable, and, with Weasel’s help, recruits a crew to get him out of prison.

The team, which Deadpool dubs “X-Force” despite its derivativeness, that they assemble includes Terry Crews as Bedlam, who can manipulate electrical energy; Lewis Tam as Shatterstar, a really arrogant alien; Zazie Beetz as Domino, who says her power is being lucky; Bill Skarsgard as Zeitgeist, whose super power is spewing acidic bile; Vanisher, who’s invisible so they don’t know if he’s really there or not; and Rob Delaney as Peter, who has no powers, but saw the ad and thought it’d be fun.

A big over-the-top, and all-over-the-place sequence (which sort of reminded me of MACGRUBER) involving the X-Force assaulting a prison truck, transporting Russell, and other mutants, introduces (Spoiler?) Juggernaut, a giant ogre that was first introduced in “X-Men” comics in the ‘60s. Juggernaut, who is credited as being played by “Himself,” goes up against Colosus in the third act which takes place at the Essex House, where Deadpool bargains with Cable for 30 seconds to talk Russell out of killing the headmaster. 

Yes, a lot of these plot points, and a lot of the jokes, can be seen coming, but the film, directed by stuntman/filmmaker David Leitch who co-directed JOHN WICK, moves fast through them with a high ratio of gags that land hilariously. Of all of the many one-liners, I think I liked “I was fighting this caped badass, until I found out that his mom is also named Martha” the best. 

Despite its satiric trappings, Reynolds actually gets to effectively flex some dramatic chops a few times in scenes involving his lost love. Brolin puts in another strong stoic performance as Cable, coming right on the heels of his stand-out work in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, which is referenced here in a Thanos joke because of course it is.

DEADPOOL 2 is another round of more of the same. More riffing on WOLVERINE, more mockery of genre conventions (“tell me they got that in slow motion”) and the competition (“So dark. Are you sure you’re not from the DC Universe?”), more self-criticism (Deadpool calls out “lazy writing” more than once), and more ironic song cues including Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” and “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” from “Annie” playing during scenes of stylish violence. There’s even another jab at GREEN LANTERN, something Reynolds will likely be making fun of for the rest of his life.

But because the movie is consistently funny throughout I can let all this familiarity slide, and I bet audiences can too.

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March Film Babble: LIFE & THE LAST WORD

I’ve been too busy working on a book project (more on that later) to babble much these days about movies, but here’s a few films I’ve seen recently that I’ll weigh in on:

LIFE (Dir. Daniel Espinosa, 2017)

It’s often been said that ALIEN, is a “haunted house in space” movie, and that’s certainly the case with this movie which takes Ridley Scott’s 1980 sci-fi classic, and mixes it with Alfonso Cuarón’s GRAVITY.

LIFE concerns a crew made up of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, and Olga Dihovichnaya returning from a mission to Mars on the International Space Station with a soil sample that contains a single-celled organism.

The organism, which is named Calvin by schoolchildren in a Times Square ceremony back on earth, quickly grows into a multi-celled Flubber-like creature that starts killing the crew members one by one.

That’s basically it for the plot, as it’s all about the familiar fight for survival tropes that keep trapping the remaining cast members at every turn. There is some genuine suspense, and some stellar effects, but I found a great deal of tedium to be in orbit with these one-note characters.

I will give kudos to the dark, twisted ending, despite the fact that it could easily set up a sequel as the idea of a LIFE franchise makes me cringe. But since this film flopped at the box office, it doesn’t look like that’s something I have to worry about.

THE LAST WORD (Dir. Mark Pellington, 2017)




If you didn’t get enough of Shirley MacLaine as a controlling, crotchety old woman that everyone in town hates in Richard Linklater’s BERNIE, then this is the movie for you.

MacLaine plays Harriett Lauler, a wealthy, retired divorcee who wants to shape her legacy by getting newspaper obituary writer Amanda Seyfried to craft her eulogy before she’s dead.

This leads to all kinds of cutesy-ness, with MacLaine’s Harriett mentoring an underprivileged black 9-year-old (AnnJewel Lee Dixon), becoming a DJ at a college indie rock radio station, and sticking it to the suits at the advertising agency that screwed her over.

It’s one of those movies where everybody appears to be a familiar face.

There’s Gedde Watanabe, best known as Long Duck Dong in SIXTEEN CANDLES (don’t expect a gong here), as Harriett’s gardener; there’s Tom Everett Scott from THAT THING YOU DO! As Seyfried’s editor, Joel Murray (Bill’s brother of many credits, but you may know him best from Mad Men) as Harriett’s former colleague, Thomas Sadoski from The Newsroom as Harriett’s radio station manager, Phillip Baker Hall as Harriett’s ex-husband, who has one of the film’s better scenes; and, yes, that’s Anne Heche as Harriett’s estranged daughter, who has one of the film’s worst scenes.

The script by first time screenwriter does have ambition at times so there are moments of wit and honesty, but more often it feels like TV melodrama sprinkled with hot or miss one-liners.

The irony in this movie about a woman wanting to be fondly remembered when she’s gone, is that MacLaine should have no such worry. She has an impressive filmography including a few of my favorite films, like THE APARTMENT and BEING THERE, so a lightweight piece of cheese like this won’t hurt her legacy at all.

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DEADPOOL: Marvel’s Most Meta & Most Hilarious Movie

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

DEADPOOL (Dir. An Overpaid Tool, 2016)

In its first few minutes, in which we swirl around the chaotic imagery of a frozen bridge-set action scene involving a car crash, Marvel’s latest superhero movie declares its intentions by way of an ultra satirical take on the standard self-serious opening credit sequence that we’ve all been through a billion times.

That is, the shiny text that glides through the freeze-framed craziness doesn’t relay any actual names, just snarky labels such as that the film stars “God’s Perfect Idiot,” “A Hot Chick,” “A British Villain,” “A CGI Character,” “A Moody Teen,” was “Produced by: Asshats,” and most amusingly “Written By: The Real Heroes Here.”

Now, I must confess that I am fairly comics illiterate and had not heard of the Deadpool character, who I understand is a super anti-hero (or a anti-superhero?), until rather recently. This is despite the fact that the character, or his alter ego Wade Wilson, appeared in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, also played by Ryan Reynolds.

But Reynolds himself has stressed that the character in WOLVERINE is “not the Deadpool we are representing in this film, in any way shape or form.” So DEADPOOL, based on the Marvel comics character that first appeared in the early ‘90s, is its own origin story told by its wisecracking, fourth wall breaking protagonist, making it the most meta Marvel movie yet.

Reynold’s Deadpool, while still caught up in the mayhem on the bridge from the opening scene, stops time to tell us that his tale starts off as “love story.”

In flashbacks we see Wade, a Special Forces operative turned mercenary, fall for Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin), a prostitute with a heart of gold, but, after some racy sex scene snippets, a diagnosis that he has terminal cancer gets in the way of their relationship’s development. Wade leaves Vanessa to seek treatment, and takes part in an questionable experiment that turns out to be a series of torture techniques conducted by our “British Villain,” Ajax/Francis Freeman (Ed Skrein), and his assistant Angel Dust (Gina Carano).

Wade goes through this ordeal thinking that it will turn him into a superhero – “Please don't make the super-suit green... or animated!” – but it leaves him deformed and mutated. However, he does have the power of regeneration so there’s that.

With the help of his best friend bartender, Weasel (T.J. Miller), and a montage, Wade names himself after a bar bet on his life, suits up as a masked crime-fighting vigilante, and sets his sights on hunting down Ajax and getting him to cure his hideous condition that has rendered him, in his words, a “butter face” (you know, “A girl with an exceptionally hot body but an exceptionally ugly face. ‘Everything but-her-face is attractive.’” – Urban Dictionary). Not sure I really had to quote that definition, but there you have it.

Joining Wade/Deadpool’s fight is X-Men mutant Collosus (Stefan Kapicic), and a new character, (well, new to me) Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who are funny enough, but don’t really add a lot to the proceedings.

The hard R-rated DEADPOOL is more than a laugh-a-minute affair; it’s more like a plethora o’ laughs-a-minute from the opening shot to the final stinger (seriously, stay to the bitter end).

Screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese really give meta-joke meisters Phil Lord and Chris Miller (THE LEGO MOVIE, the 21 JUMP STREET movie series, The Last Man on Earth) a run for their money here.

Reynolds, who’s one of the film’s producers, redeems himself for the superhero fail that was GREEN LANTERN, with his displays of quick-on-the-draw wit, and martial arts skills that he has obviously done some deep training to attain. He just may have put in the greatest comic lead man performance in a superhero movie ever (it might be a tie with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man though).

First-time director Tim Miller, who hails from an animation/visual effects background (SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD and various video games), provides exciting bursts of full blown filmmaking here. It’s a damn fine debut for somebody who’s credited as “some douche” and “an overpaid tool” in the aforementioned credits.

The superhero origin story formula is still present, but it’s re-invigorated by the ultra irreverent handling of the usual elements here. Film fans are most likely aware of the “Honest Trailers” that the site Screen Junkies has produced, in which a beloved movie gets a factual dressing down. DEADPOOL functions as its own Honest Trailer that takes itself apart. Such moments like when Reynold’s Deadpool notes inside of a flashback: “Fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break - that's like 16 walls!” attest to that.

Marvel’s superhero movies are essentially comedies, but the foul-mouthed, crude, raunchy, and violent as f*** DEADPOOL takes the self awareness factor to the next level. It’s the most hilarious Marvel movie yet, even though it’s not really a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (it's a Marvel property but it isn’t owned by Disney, so it’s part of Fox’s X-Men universe), and a welcome breather from franchise fatique. Nice to finally meet you, Deadpool. Here’s hoping you don’t wear out your winning welcome.

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A Bunch Of Blu Rays & DVDs That Have Been Stacking Up

I haven’t posted as much as I would’ve liked this summer because of two big distracting factors: #1. My wife and I moved from our house in Raleigh to Clayton (roughly 20 minutes outside of Raleigh), and that was really exhausting. #2. I’ve had a few health issues over the last few months including an inflammation and a blood clot – and that’s been pretty painful.

While I’ve been recovering I’ve been making my way through a bunch of Blu rays and DVDs that have stacked up in my office over the last few months. Most of them are from the world of VOD (Video On Demand), and had either limited or no theatrical release, so you may not have heard of them. Most of them aren’t very good either, but there were a few halfway watchable ones. Let's take a look at a handful of 'em, shall we?

First up, there’s Philip Martin’s THE FORGER, starring John Travolta as, yes, a master art forger who makes a shady deal to get an early release from prison, but in return he must pull off “one last job.” So it’s a heist movie, and with Christopher Plummer as Travolta’s father, and Tye Sheridan as Travolta’s dying son both in on the caper, it highly resembles FAMILY BUSINESS, a less than stellar ‘80s comic thriller that starred Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick in the grandfather-father-son roles. 

Set in Boston with bad accents to boot, THE FORGER is a competently dull collection of clichés that’s a good example of how much Travolta’s been treading water in his film career since, well, probably HAIRSPRAY (his hair was more realistic in that too). It also resembles FAMILY BUSINESS in that it deserves to be forgotten.

Another fail of a thriller follows - this one coming from Canada - Atom Egoyan’s THE CAPTIVE starring Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson, and Mireille Enos. Reynolds and Enos play a couple whose daughter is kidnapped by a pedophile trafficking ring. Dawson and Speedman play a pair of detectives that are on the case that lasts over 8 years. The more than capable cast try their darnedest, but the material is crazy convoluted, and the score by Mychael Danna overreaches as it annoyingly builds suspenseful strain on top of suspenseful strain only calling attention to how unsuspenseful the whole thing is. The fractured narrative that skips back and forth in time just makes it confusing too. A murky misfire on every level. Next!

Matt Shakman’s CUT BANK is a more inspired thriller than THE CAPTIVE, but it’s no great shakes either. The directorial debut of Shakman, who has directed episodes of scores of notable TV shows including Six Feet Under, The Good Wife, Weeds, House M.D., and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it stars Liam Hemsworth as a small town dreamer – dreaming of getting out of the small town naturally – who accidently captures the murder of the local mailman (Bruce Dern) on videotape. Hemsworth hopes to use the reward money offered by the U.S. Postal Service to finally escape with his girlfriend (Teresa Palmer) from their dead end existence there in Cut Bank, Montana, but, of course, things aren’t that simple. 

John Malkovich as the town’s sheriff, and Billy Bob Thornton as Palmer’s father have their suspicions, and a creepy taxidermist who everybody thought was dead (Michael Stuhlbarg) starts looking into the matter as well. It twists and turns through a mess of schemes and scams in the tradition of both the movie and TV show versions of FARGO (Shakman directed two eps of that too), but it never twists and turns itself into anything but a watchable throwaway. Shakman should stick to TV.

Henry Hobson’s MAGGIE, another directorial debut, is one of the few here that got more of a theatrical release (it actually came to my area), and it’s obviously because of its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s another zombie apocalypse scenario, with Schwarzenegger as a farmer in the Midwest taking care of his daughter (Abigail Breslin) who’s been bitten. 

The father struggles with how to handle the situation as the country doctor (Jodie Moore) tells him he has three options: take her to quarantine; give her a drug cocktail that leads to a slow, painful death; or “make it quick.” It largely feels like a stand-alone episode of The Walking Dead - one of the uneventful ones on the season set on the farm maybe - but it has a nicely restrained performance by Schwarzenegger in his uncharacteristic role, there’s a lot of genuine effort by Breslin in embodying her infected character, and the eerie grey tone is effective. I got fairly bored in the last half hour, but fans of the genre and of Ahnold will probably be more into it.

At the beginning of this just under feature length (68 minuntes) documentary a scroll tells us that HATING OBAMA is an attempt to document the pure hate towards President Barack Obama while asking the central question: “Is Obama hated more for his policies or because he’s black?” It’s a fair question, and there’s some interesting chitchat from a bunch of articulate talking heads here, but Marquis Smalls’ doc doesn’t elaborate on anything we didn’t know already. It mainly plays like a greatest hits of the times Obama has been disrespected, touching on such incidents as when Republican House member Joe Wilson yelled “you lie” during the President’s Healthcare speech, with interspersed commentary mostly from supporters who do indeed think there’s racism at play.

There is significant time given to some anti-Obama voices, such as conservative political activist Derrick Grayson and Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, but it’s telling that at the end writer/director Smalls shares with us his poll of all his interviewees and 82% of them approve of Obama. A doc like this can’t help but be biased, but the thesis needs more work. HATING OBAMA is a watchable, well constructed conversation of a video essay, but it has no real conclusion - it just throws the question back at us at the end.

Finally, there’s Michael Almereyda’s CYMBELINE, which is another one of those gritty modern adaptations of Shakespeare much like Baz Luhrmann’s ROMEO + JULIET, Ralph Fiennes’ CORIOLANUS, and Almereyda’s own HAMLET, as this re-unites the director with that film’s star, Ethan Hawke. The setting is again New York, but this time in the world of urban gang warfare with the ever crusty Ed Harris in the title role of the king of the Briton Motorcycle Club, who are battling the corrupt cops of the Roman Police Department. Hawke plays the villainous, agitating Iachimo, Milla Jovovich plays Harris’s queen, Anton Yelchin is her son, and, of course, there’s a pair of star-crossed lovers - Dakota Johnson (FIFTY SHADES OF GREY) as Harris’s princess daughter and Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) as her secret commoner husband. 

All the film's dialogue comes from the original text, albeit trimmed down to the essentials, and it’s fun to see folks like John Leguizamo (as Badgley’s servant) put such effort into their recitations. The old school manner of speaking is an amusing anachronism in this Brooklyn crime-lord context, but you really have to pay attention to follow it or it can get pretty confusing - especially with all the bloody, layered plotting. I appreciated several of CYMBELINE’s set pieces, particularly one in which Jovovich sings Dylan’s “Dark Eyes” (much in the manner of Patti Smith’s version), but it’s far from an easy, entertaining viewing. Like his HAMLET, Almereyda’s take on the Bard here is initially an interesting experiment but one that’s hardly essential.

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An Extremely Skippable R-Rated Switcheroo

THE CHANGE-UP (Dir. David Dobkin, 2011)

Let me just start by putting this out there – I like both of these guys.

Jason Bateman is an effective everyman who has shined in a string of lame ass comedies (this summer's HORRIBLE BOSSES isn't bad actually), and Ryan Reynolds can be obnoxious sure, but there's a good actor underneath all that smarm (see last year's BURIED if you don't believe me).

But this gross-out switcheroo puts their likability to the test. The premise of body switching was tired back in the late '80s, and smothering it in profanity and loads of disgusting pee, poop, and porn jokes does nothing to freshen it up.

In the first couple of minutes of the film there's a baby feces scene that unfortunately sets the terrible tone. I won't go into any detail, I'll just say that so much of the movie consists of things that most people would pay not to see.

So we have Bateman as a settled down family man, Reynolds a hard partying womanizer living in Atlanta (the location really doesn't matter except in skyline shots and a few minor references - it could've been set anywhere) who drunkenly one night when peeing in a fountain say in unison "I wish I had your life!"

The next morning they wake up and are in each other's bodies and have to deal with it - and so do we.

Bateman's wife doesn't believe them, and they find that the fountain has been moved so they are stuck in this filthy FACE OFF predicament for a few weeks until they find out where the Zoltar Speaks machine, sorry the fountain, was moved.

The only slightly amusing factor is Bateman and Reynold's mimicry of each other's amped up antics, otherwise this is a profoundly unfunny experience that just makes you feel sorry for everybody involved including Olivia Wilde (COWBOYS AND ALIENS) and Alan Arkin who luckily is only in a couple brief scenes.

This hasn't been the greatest summer for comedies, but this is the lowest of the low. Even if you're looking for a air conditioned reprieve from the current extreme heat, I'd opt for sweating. The stench with that is so much more bearable.

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BURIED: The Film Babble Blog Review

BURIED (Dir. Rodrigo Cortés, 2010)

After cool retro Saul Bass-style opening titles a pitch black screen greets us. We hear heavy breathing and thudding. Finally Ryan Reynolds lights a zippo lighter and we're right there with him - trapped in a wooden coffin buried underground.

Reynolds panics, sweats profusely, claws at the wall, etc. A cell phone at his feet rings. He retrieves it with some difficulty to find that its an Arabic language model. Reynolds calls every number he can think of mostly getting answering machines before getting somebody on the phone from the Hostage Working Group in Iraq voiced by Robert Patterson.

That's right - Reynolds is a non-military working stiff truck driver buried alive in a war-torn Iraq in 2006.

Reynolds is told on the cellphone by a man (José Luis García Pérez) who denies being a terrorist that he has until 9:00 PM (just a few hours) to get his embassy to pay $5 million dollars for his release.

There are some abstract shots through the darkness surrounding our protagonist but the bulk of the entire film takes place inside the coffin.

We never see any other face but Reynolds but there are few recognizable voices on the other end of the phone besides Patterson including Samantha Mathis and Stephen Tobolowsky.

It would be tempting to joke that Reynolds couldn't act his way out of a sealed coffin because years ago I would've loved seeing Van Wilder get buried alive, but his performance is truly excellent here.

It's a convincing and emotional tour de force that kept me riveted from start to finish. It's also admirable that he chose this project as a welcome change of pace from rom coms like THE PROPOSAL and action tripe like WOLVERINE that has been dominating his career.

As chilling a scenario as could be imagined, BURIED is a grueling unpleasant experience in a lot of respects but its such a vital and gripping minimalist nightmare of a movie that it really shouldn't be ignored. It's the right time of the year for a fright and here director Cortés's Hitchcockian thrust really delivers.

"Buried" is now playing at the Colony Theater in North Raleigh. Consult the theater's website for show-times.

More later...

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE: The Film Babble Blog Review

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (Dir. Gavin Hood, 2009)

Warning: This review may contain Spoilers!

The title would best befit a comic book; I know that's the point but it's clumsy as a movie title even for a big blustery comic book movie like this. 


No one will use the full title though, I'm sure as Hell not planning on on using it again from this point onward. The film itself gets off to a clumsy start with a cold opening set in 1800's Canada with our wolfish hero as a kid (Troye Sivan) witnessing his father's murder, or who he thought was his father - you see, it's complicated. The kid has the infamous bone claws which can protrude from his knuckles at will and he's working on the screaming: "no!!!" at the sky in a ascending camera crane shot, something he'll be an ace at a lot later in life. 


Lil' wolf boy and his likewise indestructible brother (Michael-James Olsen) run off into the night and into seemingly every war in history as they grow into Hugh Jackman and the fierce growling Leiv Scheiber. This montage credits sequence recalls the jaunty sweep through time opening that WATCHMEN employed but here it comes off as more then a little forced.

After surviving a military style execution, the brothers, one good and one bad (guess which is which) are recruited by Danny Huston as a conniving Colonel who is putting together an elite team of mutant folk for a mysterious mission.


The supernaturally skilled group (including Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, Kevin Durand, and John Wraith) is immediately too much of a kill crazy crew for Jackman and he quits to live a normal life as a lumberjack in his home country. After 6 years of peace with a school teacher girlfriend (Lynn Collins) in an idyllic cabin in the mountains, Huston again appears to warn our constantly scowling protagonist that his former team mates are being hunted down and murdered one by one. 


We know, of course, that it's Sabretooth Scheiber and that a huge confrontation fight set piece is coming with him. It's one high octane fuelled fight action scene after another and, yeah, that's what I expected with all the players in place and the pulse pumping perfectly but inspiration was sorely lacking. 


There was not a single shot that surprised or excited me. The tried and true frantically running, or at one point walking casually, away from a gigantic explosion shot has been done so many times that it's beyond redundant here (you'd think that the countless Simpsons satires of said effect would've killed off this cliché). The plot is pretty standard stuff too with themes like revenge and betrayal banally balancing everybody's motivation. 


Still, the tone of the previous X-MEN movies is replicated convincingly and I'm sure many will find plenty of worth between the lines. Jackman undoubtedly owns the role with a presence that grows in every scene while the dynamic between him and Scheiber has a effective edge albeit being far from fleshed out. 


Because of the foul stench of early bad reviews I went in with low expectations and that definitely helped. It's not a badly made or boring movie by any means, just a mediocre super hero movie throwaway that I believe only fanboys will remember with much affection in the near future. 


Post note: Incidentely Scheiber and Huston have both played Orson Welles in previous projects. They're both listed on a post I did a year ago about Welles wannabes (May 5th, 2008).

More later...