2016 - THE LAST KING, a very entertaining action film

 This film is set during the Norwegian civil war of 1240.  Like most people in the United States and probably most of the world I wasn't aware the Norwegian's had a civil war.  The Birkebeinars, loyal to the King of Norway have to rescue his infant son the future ruler of Norway after the King is assassinated by some evil Norwegians.

 

The film is an extended chase with the men assigned to protect the infant king from the evil Norwegians being pursued for much of the running time of the film.  Interestingly the chase is mostly on some wacky long skis with one long pole used to steer these damn things. Just getting people to ski on these things is almost impressive as watching the exciting action scenes.

 

Also impressive is the location shooting in the snow and cold probably nobody's idea of a good time.  Bottom line, a great adventure film in an unusual setting.  You don't need to know Norwegian history to enjoy this film.

 

Written by Ravn Lanesskog, the running time is 93 minutes.

2016 - THE ACCOUNTANT, kind of absurd action thriller

With the internet suddenly full of movie trailer ads for The Accountant 2, it's probably time to take a look at the first film in what is apparently an attempt to turn future Accountant movies into an action series with Ben Affleck playing sort of an autistic James Bond.

Ben Affleck an autistic savant, is a wiz with numbers (he's an accountant).  He's also, a martial arts expert and an expert with firearms.  At times he works for the mob doing their books but at other times he's a secret high level informant for a member of the Treasury Department.  Affleck gets hired to check the books at a start up robotics company where he discovers embezzlement is going on.  This in turn leads to a group of hit men attempting to kill him and his female accountant helper in order to silence them of course. The female accountant is played by Anna Kendrick who looks like a midget standing next to accountant Affleck.   Little do these hit men know they are about to run into a real autistic killing machine.

The story is rather ludicrous, the action scenes are the usually shaky hand held camera mess and with the exception of Ben Affleck the characters are for the most part not really well defined.  The back story on how Affleck became a number crunching killing machine is essentially unbelievable.  Still when you take all of these things into consideration this is an entertaining action film even with all of this plot nonsense. 

 

The Accountant is blessed with a good cast even if a lot of their roles are small.  JK Simmons is Affleck's Treasury Department contact.  John Lithgow is the head of the robotics company, Jean Smart is his sister.  Jon Bernthal is a mysterious hit man and Jeffrey Tambor is a mob bookkeeper who teaches Affleck everything there is to know about sneaky accounting.  The Accountant is yet another example of a good cast really holding a movie together when the screenplay is not so hot.  Good actors have saved many a questionable movie.

The film was written by Bill Dubuque, the running time is 128 minutes.

2016 - SHIN GODZILLA, entertaining kaiju film

Toho has certainly gotten plenty of mileage out of their Godzilla films.  This is one of their better efforts.  After a bridge collapses in Tokyo Bay, the government attempts to figure out what the hell is going on.  As a giant creature emerges from the ocean and starts moving through Tokyo, the government endlessly debates the best way to handle the emerging crisis before the creature named Godzilla of course flattens all of Tokyo.

From the brief description above,  Godzilla is not the main focus of this film.  Instead an ineffectual Japanese government and their failure to mobilize the military fast enough or evacuate the population of Tokyo is the main focus of this film.  Government ineptness and stupidiy is very heady stuff for what is essentially your typical giant monster movie.  After a while it's difficult to tell where the greater danger lies, a giant lizard or an ineffectual prime minster and his cabinet.

 

This Godzilla film has the customary amount of big city destruction as Godzilla does what he does best, stomp on things.  As is usual in these Godzilla films the JDF (Japanese Defense Force) with all of it's weapons is unable to stop the monster.  Only a dedicated team of government officials and nerds who can think unconventionally can come up with a plan to defeat the monster.  Obviously the outcome is a given and the film makes way for yet another sequel in the series.

Toho has always been extremely careful managing this IP.  Shin Godzilla at the time of release was the 31st film in the Godzilla series.  The next film in the series Godzilla Minus One is excellent.   Since Disney Studios purchased the Marvel and Star Wars series, they have lately been fumbling around with how to manage them much less make good films.  It may be time for a visit to Tokyo and Toho studios for some move making tips.

The screenplay is by Hideaki Anno, the running time is 120 minutes. 

2016 - SKIPTRACE, action comedy from Jackie Chan

Skiptrace is the kind of film that Jackie Chan has been making since his big breakout successes which kind of started in the 1980's.  Chan once again plays his standard character of the Hong Kong cop taking on a major Hong Kong triad.  The film is loaded with a lot of action and Chan's typical physical comedy.  However time had started to take it's toll on this formula and on Chan himself.  Chan was 62 years old when this film was released and the years of stunts and tumbles had also taken it's toll on him.

There was apparently an attempt to bring some new blood to this film.  Renny Hardin an action director  from America was hired and for the second lead in the film American actor Johnny Knoxville was cast as Chan's humorous sidekick.  There is a lot of extensive on location filming in Hong Kong and more interestingly mainland China which is probably the best thing about this film. 

 

The film is loaded with Chan's usual stunts and he still goes through the fighting motions but he has definitely slowed down. This is hardly the same Jackie Chan of his classic film Police Story.  Nobody stays young forever and I sense a lot of stunt doubles were used during the action scenes in Skiptrace.  Chan being Chan he has also loaded the film up with lots of beautiful Asian and American women but never fear in Jackie Chan films all these relationships are very chaste.

 

Skiptrace clearly had a big budget and the director Renny Hardin probably staged the action scenes about as well as anyone could.  However Chan (who was one of the producers) has gone to the well one to many times with this setup and the whole film is kind of boring in spite of all the fighting and stunt work.

Written by Jay Longino and BenDavid Grabinski but it's essentially the same film Jackie Chan has been making almost his entire career.  The running time is 108 minutes.

2016 - TRAILER TRAUMA 2: DRIVE IN MONSTERAMA, more of the same from the previous Trailer Trauma films

Almost three and one half hours of film trailers for exploitation films, crummy action films and cheap horror films circa the 1970's and 80's.  Trailer Trauma 2: Drive In Monsterama is a stroll down a film world that has pretty much gone away now since the demise of the drive-in and the ascendancy of the streaming world.

 If you have a lot of time to kill and there are a lot of sleazy trailers to watch in this compendium,  this film might be for you.

 

203 minutes.

2016 - THE NICE GUYS, entertaining private eye film

To bad audiences stayed away from this very entertaining film that takes that old warhorse the private eye film and adds some amusing twists and turns to it. 

Ryan Gossling and Russell Crowe play private investigators who initially seem completely incompatible.  They team up to solve the case of a missing teenage girl and during the investigation find themselves part of a bigger conspiracy involving the auto industry.  In fact there is really a third member of this team, Gossling's 13 year old daughter played by Angourie Rice who it turns out is smarter than Gossling and Crowe when it comes to unraveling this mystery.

 

The writer/director Shane Black along with Anthony Bagarozzi knows his way around private eye stories with a twist of humor black or otherwise.  The film has some very funny and violent situations and even the bad guys get clever lines to say.

 

It's unfortuate the film wasn't more financially successful as it would have been fun to see another team up between Shane Black, Ryan Gossling, Russell Crowe and Angourie Rice. The running time is 116 minutes. 

2016 - SULLY, a hero for our times so they tell us

Good thing we have men like Sully Sullenberger or is it Tom Hanks on the job?  Sully effortlessly lands a plane on the Hudson River saving the lives of the passengers this all occured in about four minutes in real life.  In the movie Sully somehow this is stretched out to about and hour and a half of screen time.

The film was directed by Clint Eastwood in his typical straightforward approach to making movies.  Frankly the movie looks like a TV show most of the time.

Not only does Sully save the passengers he also takes on the mean Federal Government in the persona of the NTSB.  It seems the NTSB wants to hang Sully out to dry by proving he had enough power left in his engines to return to the airport and land the plane properly instead of crashing it into the drink.  But the government is no match for Sully who proves them wrong.  The implication almost comes off that we should take Sully's word for what happens and not investigate plane crashes as thoroughly as possible.  

Still a fairly entertaining film mostly because nice guy actor Tom Hanks holds the film together with another expert performance.  As seems to be the way with these true stories that get turned into movies the post credits scene shows the real life Sully and the passengers getting together for a reunion.  Somehow this just makes me want to see a good documentary on this incident instead of this usual jacked up Hollywood hokum.

96 minutes, written by Todd Komarnicki.

2016 - NOW YOU SEE ME 2 - sequel to a film I didn't see.

A sequel to a film I didn't see.  From what I can gather this is a team of crime fighting magicians who right wrongs and call themselves The Horsemen for some reason.

The team gets involved with a British crook played by the Harry Potter kid, Daniel Radcliffe who I guess isn't a kid any more but is certainly short enough to be a kid.  Anyway they have to steal a computer chip that can control all the world's computers. It used to be diamonds now it's computer stuff these days.

After lots of improbable adventures involving magic tricks we finally get to the big magic trick to trap the villains at the end of the movie which is quite frankly pretty lame.

Really when you get down to it, this is just Mission Impossible with some stage magic thrown into it.
The film is over two hours which is way too long for this kind of film.

129 minutes, written by Edward Solomon.

2016 - LION, another supposed true story

Another one of these films that is supposedly based on a true story.  The credit on this film says "adapted from a true story"  instead of "based on" which I guess is code for this film is more honest in it's true story intentions than is usual for these types of films.

A young Indian boy leaves his mother and is lost for the next 25 years.  He eventually is adopted by an Australian couple.  But he longs to find his birth mother and with the help of Google Maps he tracks her down. 

This film really goes for the heart rending stuff.  In fact it really piles it on.  However the film didn't move me very much.  I found the story a very cliche ridden mess.  I've seen this type of film before and I've seen it better done.  Frankly the cheering crowds at the reunion scene towards the end just seemed like to much.  Maybe it happened in real life I don't know.

The acting is generally OK but Nicole Kidman is the standout in the cast.  She really inhabits the role of the adoptive mother.  Kidman's been in the business a long time and is a real pro.  The film itself is just OK.

118 minutes written by Luke Davis.

2016 - LA LA LAND, a movie for people who haven't seen a musical

Well I have to give the director/writer Damien Chazelle some credit.  It takes some guts to film a live action musical in today's entertainment market.  Musicals only seem to exist in the movies if they are animated with lots of cartoon figures singing, singing, singing.   

Chazelle says that he was inspired by Demy's Umbrellas of Cherborough and boy was he ever. The ghost of that film hangs heavily over this one..  Chazelle strives for that magical quality Demy brought to that film but unfortunately it just seems beyond his grasp the story just didn't move me emotionally.

I think the chief problem here is that neither one of the leads are professional singers or dancers.  Sure they give it the old college try but they can't dance and Emma Stone just can't sing.  Ryan Gosling has a pretty thin voice but he seems to be able to pull off the singing part (barely.)

Chazelle wants to modernize the musical.  To this end he adds a downbeat ending to the film and then a fantasy ending sequence.  I just don't think this  comes off it just makes a long film even longer.    He just doesn't have the style and talent that Demy brought to the musical genre when Demy rethought and revised it in The Umbrellas of Cherborough.

128 minutes written by Damien Chazelle.

2016 - BRIGHT LIGHTS: STARRING CARRIE FISHER AND DEBBIE REYNOLDS - Carrie Fisher downer weekend part 2

Carrie Fisher downer weekend continues with this documentary on the relationship between Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds.  In a way this is almost a follow up to Wishful Drinking as it gets into more of Fisher's personal life but this time she throws into the mix  Fisher's aging mother Debbie Reynolds.  Reynolds was one of the last actors to go through the MGM star making factory.  She was definitely from the old school of Hollywood film making.

This film follows Fisher around as she takes care of her aged mother Debbie Reynolds, who is the real definition of an old trooper.  Reynolds continues to perform even though her health is slipping away from her as she entered into her mid 80's.

We get a look inside Fisher's home which it would be charitable to say reeks of someone who has become very eccentric.   The house is full of more weird junk and crap than is good for the soul.  Also of note is the proximity between the mother and daughter's homes.  Fisher is next door to her mother and appears to be her primary caregiver.  Watching this film one walks away with the uncomfortable thought that a mentally ill woman is taking care of her aged mother.

The film ends with Debbie Reynolds, with the aid of Fisher,  pulling it together to receive a life achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild.  It's tough to watch Reynolds the old movie star barely get through the ceremony but she does.

Overall this film has somewhat of a voyeuristic quality to it but since it was made with the cooperation of Fisher and Reynolds I guess they were OK with it.  However as a viewer, I'm not sure I needed to watching this depressing show.

95 minutes

2016 - INTO THE INFERNO, more Herzog ranting

When it comes to the subject of volcanoes, Werner Herzog would seem to be your man.  With that voice and his typical pessimistic view of the world it would seem that Into The Volcano would be a nice way to watch some great visuals and hear some sour commentary. 

However even for Herzog this film seems more disjointed than usual.  The pretext of traveling around to look at some of the world's greatest volcanoes is merely and excuse for some rambling scenes involving native tribes, bone collecting and a visit to North Korea for some reason.

As usual in a Herzog film the the images are very arresting but even the scenes of the massive volcano eruptions  can't compensate for the disjointed nature of this film.

Kind of a disappointment.

104 minutes

2016 - THE FINEST HOURS, based on a true story possibly.

Supposedly based on a true story of a Coast Guard rescue of a sinking ship.  This is a sincere attempt at a story about professionals under duress while doing their job in an extreme situation.  This is the kind of story that Howard Hawks could skillfully assemble in his prime.

The acting is fine, the film has a good cast.  Unfortunately something about the story just doesn't ring true.  I can't put my finger on what's missing in the film but it seems to me that the dramatic conflict of the rescue just doesn't ring completely true.  Somehow the little Coast Guard life boat crashing through the gigantic tsunami sized waves to rescue the crew of the sinking ship just doesn't look real.  The computer generated waves make the rescue look kind of fake.

Disney gambled that audiences would want to see this true story.  Unfortunately they didn't. 

117 minutes.

2016 - STAR TREK BEYOND, overblown version of a TV episode of the series

This overblown Star Trek film, the third in the restarted series is just another junky action flick.  Too bad, because the cast was just starting to come together as an ensemble.  Simon Pegg the actor who plays Scottie is a co-writer on the film so there is some attempt to inject some humor into the series this time.  Unfortunately there isn't enough humor in the galaxy to smooth over this contrived plot.

It seems that the USS Enterprise on a mission to rescue another crew trapped on an alien planet is lured in to a trap by some alien megalomaniac who wants some super weapon stored on the Enterprise etc.

Star Trek Beyond is yet another summer popcorn film which just doesn't know when to quit.  The film is overloaded with action scene after action scene.  There is a prolonged fight towards the end of the film on some improbable space station that just goes on an on and adds nothing to the story other than to make the film longer than it needs to be.

I would rate this Star Trek film about as good as a mediocre episode of the old series.  At least the old series could have knocked this plot out in about 45 minutes without all the over stuffed action scenes.  A real missed opportunity.

122 minutes, written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung.

2016 - CAFE SOCIETY, a very weak Woody Allen film

Woody Allen seems enamored with the Hollywood social life of the 1930's because his screenplay sure names drops a lot of old Hollywood stars which probably means nothing to a modern audience.

This is another one of those Woody Allen movies about star crossed lovers which ultimately ends with one of his typically melancholy endings.  The premise of the film is that Jesse Eisenberg travels to Hollywood, California to work with his uncle played by Steve Carell.  Eisenberg falls in love with Kristen Stewart but doesn't know that Stewart is having an affair with his uncle.  Eisenberg eventually ends up marrying Blake Lively who isn't exactly chopped liver.

All the typical Woody Allen cliches are here.  The black and white credits, the jazz music, the weird way all of his characters talk mouthing his stylized dialog etc.  The conceit in this film is that Kristen Stewart is a woman who is so attractive that she has two men who are head over heels over her.  Really the film needed a young Diane Keaton to carry that one off.

As usual with a Woody Allen film the production is top quality and the cinematography by Vittorio Storato is very good if maybe a little to heavy on the golden California sunshine look.

96 minutes, written by Woody Allen (who else).

2016 - BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, the extended version

Did somebody actually read the script for this film prior to shooting it?  The story is a muddled mess combining Lex Luthor, Russian terrorists, and Batman deciding the Superman is evil or something like that.  Honestly they could have taken a couple of issues of some DC comic featuring Superman and Batman and made a better and more coherent film.  

I chose to watch the extended cut of this film which I had read was a lot better than the theatrical cut.  I am starting to wonder where I read that because at 3 hours this film is still a mess and even more unforgivably a boring mess.  For a film with a couple of super heroes it's amazing how little action there is until around the last hour of the film.  To compensate for this lack of excitement during the first two hours of the film.  Several dream sequences involving Batman were added which make no sense and only make a long film seem even longer. 

The film is a setup for a Justice League of America film with appearances by Wonder Woman and Aquaman.  Good luck with that film.

181 minutes, written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer.

2016 - LONDON HAS FALLEN - a time killer about a killer

Terrorists are running amok in London at the state funeral of the prime minister  The President of the United States is in danger.  Good thing our top Secret Service agent Mike Banning is on the job.  If someone needs to be shot or as is Banning's apparent speciality sticking knives in people's heads, he's the man for the job.

This film is strictly a by the numbers action flick.  After about a half and hour of set up the action kicks in with non stop violence.  But for the most part this is just movie violence.  The action scenes are directed to titillate and aren't particularly exciting.

The conceit of the film is that the city of London is completely overrun by middle eastern terrorists dressed as London police officers.  In a way it's almost kind of an insult to the British government and security forces.  As usual the terrorists instead of being ex Nazis are now 3rd world Arab slime balls.

How does it all end?  Will the ruthless agent Mike Banning save the president or will the Pres get his head chopped off on Youtube?

99 minutes.