Delayed Reaction: Spies in Disguise

Premise: A superspy is accidentally turned into a pigeon while in the middle of a mission to clear his name.

 

I'm going to ignore the fact that I would've loved this as a live-action movie. Will Smith and Tom Holland's characters are modeled after them, and both are familiar with this kind of action movie. I get that the easier voice-acting paycheck is 90% of why they took these roles though. As an animated movie, I enjoyed this much more than I expected. Nothing about it is groundbreaking. The "lone wolf learns the value of asking for help" message is pretty standard. I do think they mixed a message of non-violence in pretty well. Given the silliness of animated movies, it's easy to underplay the physical violence of what's happening. This movie actually considers that, which is more thoughtful than most animated adventures.

 

Smith and Holland play off each other well. I think we'll all be poorer when Holland ages out of apprentice roles. For a clear A-star, he sure is great with characters who show reverence to other stars. It has a solid supporting cast too. Ben Mendelsohn has a great villain voice. I appreciate that Rashida Jones as the lead female character doesn't end up swooning over Smith's character. Reba McEntire is an interesting choice for the lead authority figure. It's a great choice, but I'd love to know the path that got them to her. At the very least, I assume Holly Hunter got a call, right?

 

I'd also like to take a moment to ask about what's going on with Karen Gillan in random supporting roles? No offense to anyone, but with her level of fame, she'd make more sense in the Rashida Jones role here. Yet she takes a small lackey role instead. Then, a few months later, she has a 10th billed role in The Call of the Wild. I refuse to believe these are the best roles she can get. Does she just like doing fun random character roles? Is she doing favors for friends? Whatever the reason, I'm a fan. I like when higher profile stars are like "that seems fun". Kind of like Brad Pitt's random assortment of comedy bit parts in recent years.

 

Anyway, Spies in Disguise won't blow anyone away, but it's a pretty enjoyable animated action comedy. The kind that's fun for one watch, however, parents with children rewatching it a dozen times will rightfully grow tired of it.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Premise: Demonologist couple Lorraine and Ed Warren investigate a demonic possession that may be responsible for a murder.

 

On paper, this is a direction I hoped the third Conjuring movie would go in. They established a franchise that is nimble enough to try out many horror genres. It felt like a waste when the first sequel returned to the haunted house angle. The third installment, The Devil Made Me Do It, moves to the tried-and-true realm of demonic possession. That aspect is nice. Seeing the Warrens in a new type of conflict is refreshing. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga continue to be great in the roles. I'm so used to seeing horror cast lesser-known performers for budget purposes or verisimilitude. It's refreshing to see real movie leads getting their hands dirty in horror.

 

I wish they'd move off the "this really happened" angle though. I know that the Warrens were semi-public figures who investigated some weird stuff. Throw an "Inspired by a true story" at the beginning of the credits. That's all I need. After that, just throw me into the world where all of this is real. I know I'm watching a horror thriller. I'm three movies into the franchise at this point. I don't still need scenes where Lorraine proves her psychic powers. I also don't need to know that the defendant got convicted of manslaughter in real life and lives happily now. Frankly, by the time that note card showed up on the screen, I'd forgotten that any of this was supposed to be true. That update just threw me back into Google mode to question the fidelity of the story. It hasn't hurt The Nun or Annabelle not being tethered to reality.

 

The Devil Made Me Do It is a nice move toward the nimble franchise I imagined with the first movie. It's not the best demonic possession movie out there, but it hits enough of the right beats to work.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Quick Reaction: Fun and Fancy Free

Not my favorite of the Disney package films. It was cool to finally see the Mickey and the Beanstalk story. That's spoiled though by the creepy puppeteer telling the story. I'm not one who is freaked out by puppets, but the whole set up seemed weird. Where are this girl's parents? Why did they leave her alone with this man controlling multiple puppets? Does she know how to leave? Just send me a signal if you need help! I don't get why there weren't a couple kids there are least. Then I can assume it's a party instead of a man putting on a show for one confused little girl. Am I reading too much into this? Of course. It still distracted me though.

 

I did like seeing Jiminy Cricket show up to introduce the Bongo story. I get that it's easier for Disney to just ignore its older characters rather than have the discussions about depiction and assorted "isms" that have dogged them for years, but I wish they'd lean back into the idea of a repertory group of recurring characters more. To immediately undercut my last point though, I spent most of Bongo waiting for something cancelable to happen. I don't recall anything inappropriate happening, but it sure felt like that was ready to dip into Dumbo crows territory at some point, right?

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Quick Reaction: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

I've opined before about how much I wish they'd bring back package films for kids. What better audience will you find for stories that require a short attention span? I'll admit I was a little disappointed with this, because I kept waiting for when in The Wind in the Willows Mr. Toad would drive to hell. I guess that's just part of the ride. It's nice to get some context for that park attraction though. The real draw for me though was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. That was one of my favorite stories as a kid. I still love how unresolved the story is, and I appreciate that Disney didn't try to change that. It's hard to complain about any feature that isn't even 70 minutes. It is a shame they couldn't've found one more story to do and cut together an 80-minute version of this. Even the length of the two shorts are they were felt a bit padded.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Swiss Family Robinson (1940)

Premise: A family sailing for America crash on a desert island and make a life there.

 

This just isn't as fun as the 1960 version. It's a little confusing, because both versions are on Disney+. The 1940 version was released by RKO, who was Disney's distributor in the 1940s, but that version isn't actually a Disney movie. You can tell when you compare the versions. The 1960 version has the fun production style, happy music, and bigger adventure. The 1940 version was from a studio that adapted public domain titles. It's surprisingly lively for a 1940 movie, but I think the 1960 version fully outclasses it.

 

I don't know how the book goes, but the ending of the movie really lost me. Who would choose to stay on the island?  The dad does make a decent point that people will start arriving now that the island is known, but doesn't that defeat the purpose? The joy of the island was getting away from society. If other people start showing up, aren't they stuck dealing with the same bullshit as before? I'm the wrong audience here, but I was not at all convinced of the allure of the island. Sure, maybe I could hang out there for a month. I'd need some more people though. What happens when the younger brothers start going through puberty? I imagine they'll hate the decision then.

 

Anyway, not a bad movie. Mostly a bit forgettable. I do appreciate the simpler story compared to the 1960 version. The performances are...well, Orson Welles was a fine narrator. There's really no reason to go back to this version though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: My Own Private Idaho

Premise: Two youths hustle their way across states and countries for assorted adventures.

 

River Phoenix is one of the great Hollywood "What if"s. He already had an Oscar nomination when he died at 23. It's hard to know exactly what he would've done had he not OD'd. He was getting into his music at the time, so he might've turned into a Jared Leto, only swooping in for the occasional movie between tours but still getting critical praise. It's not hard to see his career taking a path like his brother's, only with praise even earlier. I read somewhere that Leonardo DiCaprio basically has the career that River was set for. I think that's a best-case scenario, but from a talent perspective, that's entirely plausible. He's no doubt the biggest gone-too-early star I can think of until Heath Ledger.

 

My Own Private Idaho is a nice peak into where things were going for him. He and Keanu Reeves used their fame to help Gus Van Sant get this made. Both could've done much bigger projects, but they chose this episodic indie road trip movie that explores queer themes. I'll admit that this is a movie that I appreciate more than I like. Phoenix is great in the lead role. I don't think Reeves is that far behind. Reeves is a good actor but not a versatile actor and this pushes against his comfort zone. The paraphrased Shakespearean dialogue helps give the whole movie a surreal feeling. Much of the film is shot to keep the audience a little unbalanced. Like, there's probably a read of this movie that it's all a series of narcoleptic dreams of Phoenix's. I appreciate that the movie doesn't stick too much to a plot. It's more about the character relationships, and each chapter feels more representative than biographical.

 

I've always been a little hesitant to get into van Sant's more experimental movies like Elephant or Last Days. Or there's the Psycho experiment. I really like Good Will Hunting, and I'd like Milk a lot more if I didn't have a Sean Penn bugaboo. From what I remember, To Die For is pretty good too. And yes, I realize that I'm only naming movies in which he was the director and nothing else. Granted, even those include Finding Forrester and Promised Land. My Own Private Idaho is my first foray into him as a multi-hyphenate. I thought the movie relied a bit much on the style to keep it interesting. It's otherwise a little inert. I reserve the right to change my opinion once I get used to more van Sant movies that he wrote too, but this didn't do much for me.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Babe

Premise: A pig dreams of being the sheep dog.

 

Babe is a total sweet-spot movie for me. Similar to fellow 1995 movie Casper. It came out when I was 8. I'm certain I watched it a couple times if not more. Before rewatching it this week, I hadn't seen it in over 2 decades. I don't think I could recall a single specific scene. Just half memories. As soon as I started watching it though, it all came flooding back. The chapters introduced by the mice. The duck that acts like a rooster. James Cromwell's perfect performance. It's the coolest thing about aging: uncovering dormant memories. The only downside is that I think it only works for movies I saw at the right age. Too young and I have no memory*. Too old and my brain was too well formed. Like, I don't think it's simply a matter of needing to wait 25 years to rewatch a movie. As a kid, I'd rewatch the same movie over and over again, even if I didn't like it that much. Then, I'd never watch it again after returning it to Hollywood Video. As a teen or adult, if I like a movie enough, I'll want to rewatch it more than once a quarter-century. So, rewatching a movie like Babe or Casper is an uncommon sensation that's hard to reproduce.

 

*My parents still insist that I had a huge He-Man phase that I don't even have a fragment of a memory of.

 

Anyway, Babe holds up and gave me many great feelings, both from awakening dormant memories and appreciating how simply enjoyable the movie is. This is among the oddest Best Picture nominees in my lifetime. It is a children’s family movie with talking farm animals. It has a tidy plot and brief runtime (a hair over 90 minutes). There are some nice messages about non-violence and not pre-judging people. On paper, nothing about this says that it should be any better received than any other movie of its ilk. Like, why this and not Matilda if I'm just explaining the components that make the movies? Babe is a movie with a beautiful heart though, which is displayed all over the movie. In hindsight, wouldn't this have been the better Australian movie to award that year?

 

Babe also has a fun authorship debate. George Miller produced and cowrote the project. Toward the end, he lost his nerve and hired Chris Noonan to direct the movie out of a fear that no one would take this talking pig movie seriously. Babe went on to be a hit with audiences and critics alike. Even since, George Miller has claimed much of the credit, even though Chris Noonan got the Best Director nomination. It's similar to the Tobe Hooper vs. Stephen Spielberg debate about Poltergeist. Over time though, that one feels like more of a real debate. I mean, Hooper had a stone-cold horror classic under his belt before Poltergeist and Spielberg has hardly leaned into horror before or sense (depending on your definition of Jaws). I can see both their fingerprints on that movie. Meanwhile, George Miller is a highly respected director known for developing odd ideas into successful franchises, and Chris Noonan has only one other feature director credit to his name and has virtually disappeared. If Miller says he handed Babe to Noonan fully formed, I tend to believe him. That said, you could also convince me that Babe needed someone to filter Miller's vision through to make it more digestible. Like, Babe: Pig in the City, which Miller did direct, is nuts.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Annabelle: Creation

Premise: That disturbing doll had to come from someone.

 

I remember when the first Conjuring movie came out reading a review that was very excited about that room with all the objects the Warrens had collected over the years. The reviewer (Drew McWeeny, I believe) liked the idea of all the different stories they could tell with the items in that room. I believe the idea at the time was that it was a natural way to franchise the Warrens. Where most horror sequels are forced to find excuses to keep making the same movie, The Conjuring set itself up with a natural excuse to explore different kinds of stories.

 

The premonition did come true. I doubt this is what he was imagining though. The Conjuring has become a franchise that's 8 movies deep now. Annabelle has three movies. The Warrens just investigated another haunted house in The Conjuring 2 and have moved to a demonic possession in The Devil Made Me Do It. The other spin-offs have been for the creepy Nun and the loosely connected Curse of La Llorona. No more origins of other creepy objects in the artifact room. I don't even think they've added anything to the room*. It sure feels like the Conjuring Universe is wasting a good resource.

 

*I wrote this before The Devil Made Me Do It came out. I can confirm they added to the room in that movie at least.

 

I have little to say about Annabelle: Creation. The first Annabelle left little impression on me. I don't think the haunted doll is as dynamic as the Conjuring producers seem too. Creation is big on manufactured jump scares and transparently creepy production design. It's a decent date night horror thriller, I suppose. It could be fun with an over-reactive audience. It's pretty forgettable though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Somewhere in Time

Premise: A man finds a way to travel back in time to meet a woman from 70 years before who he has fallen in love with.

 

This is a weird movie. I want to adore it. There are aspects of it that could work like gangbusters for me. There are a couple foundational pieces that get in the way though.

 

I love the romantic idea of a man breaking the laws of physics and time to be with the woman he loves. I too can relate to the desire to travel back several decades for a chance with a 29-year-old Jane Seymour. I like the ways that the movie plays with the paradox of the time travel. It's also a clever way to do time travel that I haven't seen before. Basically, it's just immersion into the period and thinking hard enough about doing it. It's not scientific*, but it makes intuitive sense for what the movie is trying to do. Christopher Reeve and Janes Seymour are pretty lovely together. The score is terrific. These are all the pieces of an instant classic for me.

 

*Then again, Reeve's time travel method in Superman isn't any more thoughtful.

 

The problem I ran into is that the movie never really justifies the initial obsession. It doesn't convince me why he would be so profoundly and immediately obsessed with her. Also, given the one-sidedness of the relationship, it's downright stalker-ish. That's a big barrier to overcome. The movie attempts to justify it a bit with Seymour's character coming to Reeve in 1972 to tell him to come back to her. He's convinced to keep trying when he sees his signature in an old reservation book. It's still missing that initial spark though. Maybe if he found an old letter of hers or something, that could've helped. I just needed something to explain why he'd be so convinced that this relationship would be worth chasing.  Apparently, in the book this is based on, the Reeve character is dying of a brain tumor, which can potentially both explain the obsession and leave room for the time travel all being a delusion. I'm actually glad the movie doesn't include that, because I like the romantic notion of the time travel stuff really happening. It just really lacks a good a proper motivation.

I badly want someone to remake this movie though with someone like Domhnall Gleason and Rachel McAdams and...yep, I'm just making About Time again.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Breaking the Waves

Premise: After a terrible accident to her husband, a wife starts sleeping with other men by her husband's request as a way to heal him.

 

In my mind, Lars von Trier exists somewhere between Gaspar Noe and Terence Malick. He's got the provocation of Noe and the artiness of Malick. It's an interesting mix. I haven't seen many of his movies. Breaking the Waves marks only my second after Melancholia. Honestly, I'm pretty intimidated by most of his movies. I'm not going to just casually put on a Lars von Trier movie. Who just hits play on Nymphomaniac Vol. I on a whim?

 

Breaking the Waves seemed like the safest re-entry point for von Trier. I mean, it pulled an Oscar nomination for Emily Watson. Surely, if the pearl-clutching Oscar voters who embraced Babe just the year before could get Watson a nomination for this, it wouldn't be too weird. And it is interesting watching Breaking the Waves. For the first half of the movie, it's pretty normal. Almost dull. Watson and Stellan Skarsgard get married. He has to go away to work his job on an oil rig, where he eventually gets seriously injured. Sure, Watson is a little intense. She has the odd "conversations" with God, that sound a lot like Gollum talking to Smeagol and she's obviously co-dependent. About midway in, it takes the turn. Skarsgard tells Watson that since he can't sexually gratify her anymore, she needs to seek it out from other men. He thinks if she then tells him about it, that will make him stronger.

 

There's the Lars von Trier I was waiting for.

 

That part of the movie gets rather dark and twisted as Watson defiles herself more and more, at great personal cost. She's rejected from her community and eventually assaulted to death. I think von Trier does a good job of being provocative with purpose. While this story is weird, it doesn't feel like von Trier is doing this just because he thinks it'll get a rise out of people to see Watson defiled like this.

 

I'm more familiar with War Horse/The Theory of Everything-era Emily Watson, so this was a very surprising performance for me to see. She's excellent in her feature film debut...I need a minute to get my head around that. That's a hell of an introduction. It would be easy for her to go too big with the performance or move into melodrama. In the wrong hands, those "conversations" with God would be very silly. She keeps it all tethered to reality though. If anything from this movie was going to get an Oscar nomination, she's it.

 

I still couldn't separate myself from the thought that von Trier was making some decisions only to make an audience uncomfortable rather than just focusing on the right storytelling decision. So, I watched this movie with some distance that I couldn't resolve. It's good but pretty specific.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Waiting for Guffman

Premise: A town puts on a play for the celebration of their sesquicentennial.

 

I wish I liked the Christopher Guest style of heavily-improvised comedy better. I like This Is Spinal Tap, but it's not the classic to me that it is for others. Same for Best in Show. I want to like that movie more than I actually do. I had a similar opinion of Waiting for Guffman. I mean. What's not to like about it? Look at that cast: Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, and Eugene Levy (among many others) are some of the bests at what they do. They are excellent scene partners who know how to run with a bit. Throwing a local stage production of an original show is fertile ground for comedy.

 

I think what gets me, with Guffman in particular, is how much the movie feels like it's punching down. I feel like they are making fun of people who live in a small town, not these specific people in a small town. In Guest's other movies, the situations are pretty specific. To a large extent, it's people who walk into the situation and welcome it. It's people choosing to compete for a dog prize that means a lot to them. It's rock stars who get to be famous rock stars. In Waiting for Guffman, it's a Missouri local theater who think they could actually get attention from Broadway. I think that's what really killed it for me. I think about something like Bowfinger, where the people are just as delusional. What makes that movie for me though is that regardless of how mistreated Steve Martin and company are at the premiere of their movie, they get that moment of overwhelming pride when they see their movie premiere on the big screen. Instead, in Guffman, the lasting image for me is when these delusional people can't get the Broadway producer to show up.

 

Look. the movie is decently funny. It's got really talented people doing good stuff. The ethos of the movie lost me though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Premise: A fictionalized account of how Vermeer painted his classic painting that gives the film its title.

 

Oh yeah. It's Scarlett Johansson's other 2003 movie. She really built her reputation that year.

After making an impression in 2001 with Ghost World, her big breakout was 2003's Lost In Translation. She paired that later in the year with the more classically Oscar-baity Girl with a Pearl Earring. Even big Oscar fans have to remind themselves that she didn't end up with a nomination for either movie, but that combo established her as the next big thing. She appeared in several movies over the next few years. Some were critically applauded like her Woody Allen movies or The Prestige. It really wasn't until she joined the MCU in 2010 that you could justify why she was so famous. And she's only now getting her own movie in the MCU. Really, take out the Marvel movies, and Johansson had a very Angelina Jolie career for a long time. It's never really mattered though, because 2003 set the public narrative. And good for her.

 

There is a reason why Girl with a Pearl Earring is her "other" 2003 movie. It's a little stuffy and dull. Colin Firth and Johansson's sexual chemistry, I guess, was supposed to sustain the movie. Every scene with them begin distant to each other was supposed to be tense and charged. I didn't really get that though. The movie looks good. Nice costumes. Good attention to period detail. The cinematography even kind of feels like I'm watching a painting, which partly helped with the stillness. I was intrigued, because, thanks to the excellent documentary Tim's Vermeer, Vermeer is a painter I know a little about. However, there's only so much story they can eek out of "Vermeer paints a portrait of a house servant and his wife gets jealous and upset although nothing happens between them".

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Movie 43

Premise: A prank goes wrong and sends some teens down a dark web rabbit hole of raunchy comedy videos starring some of Hollywood's biggest names.

 

Nope. This movie is not for me. This is the closest I've come to turning a movie off before finishing it, and that temptation started less than 10 minutes in. This is simply 100% not my kind of humor. This movie is the brainchild of producer Charles Wessler, who is best known for his collaborations with the Farrelly brothers. The idea was to make a star-studded, raunchy comedy anthology. Sort of like Kentucky Fried Movie with Oscar winners. On paper, I kind of love the idea. Anthologies are fun. The cast is very impressive. I love how it was a chance for people like Elizabeth Banks to get a directing credit on her resume, so she could move onto bigger projects.

 

I just plain hate the comedy of this. I don't like gross out comedy. The first sketch is Oscar winner Kate Winslet as a woman going on a date with Hugh Jackman as a man with balls hanging from his neck. I wanted to throw my remote at the TV right then. And it really doesn't get better. Even the 4% on Rotten Tomatoes feels too high. This is a miserable, rightly rejected movie. I imagine there's some portion of the population that has this funny bone. I sincerely hope they got a kick out of this movie.

 

The most I can say positive about the movie is that there are too many talented people and too many jokes for none of them to land. I see the kernel of humor in most of the premises. While I never laughed, there were a few places where I thought "_____ almost got that joke to land." Like, Emma Stone has a part where she says "He was a wizard" that was a funny line read. That's...all I've got. This is a movie that no one should ever see. The best thing I can say about the experience is that if I'm ever close to seeing all of Chloe Grace Moretz/Kristen Bell/Jason Sudeikis/Emma Stone/etc.'s movie, then I'll already have this checked off the list.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Damsel

Premise: A pioneer in the old West hires a man to help him get to and wed the woman he loves.

 

This movie is for a very specific segment of movie fans. It's a Western. That's a genre that's more enduring than it is popular. But it's also a comedy. That's pretty niche, but I like a good Maverick (1994). It's a sillier comedy though. But not like a Blazing Saddles. There's more of an indie sensibility too. That's a super specific movie. It's also interested in taking the audience places where it doesn't expect. It's not the movie I thought it would be, and I appreciate that willingness to experiment.

 

At its core is a trio of strong performances by Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, and David Zellner. Pattinson really loves playing weirdos like this. It's strange how I've seen Wasikowska in many movies, but I don't have an idea of her personality from anything. That basically means she's a great actress, I suppose. It also means she's not a movie star, if you care to make that distinction. She's funny in this, in an exhausted kind of way. Not a nagging girlfriend. More of a Frank Grimes who can't believe the characters she's trapped with.

 

Sadly, the specific brand of humor didn't work that well for me. I feel like the screenplay was mostly written for a couple big moments rather than to sustain the nearly 2 hours. I really do like the boldness of those big reveals. They just weren't enough to sustain me.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Gods & Monsters

Premise: A fictionalized account of the last days of director James Whale.

 

There's a subgenre of Hollywood movies that I assume started from someone mentioning an innocuous fact about an old Hollywood person and a screenwriter just goes to town on it.

 

Like, I assume Gods and Monsters started from someone telling Bill Condon that the director of Frankenstein was gay and drowned in his pool. Perhaps Condon was at a friend's house who owned the pool or something. That was all Bill needed to flesh out an entire movie. I doubt it went exactly like that, but I don't imagine I'm too far off. Stuff like Hollywoodland or Ed Wood have a similar feel. It makes sense that they are often well-received by Oscar folks. One thing that's been true about every generation of Academy voter is that they love movies about movies.

 

Gods & Monsters should not be watched as a straight biopic. Some elements are true. Director James Whale was closeted, did die in his pool by likely suicide, and did draw many portraits of people in his later years. The rest seems to be fabricated but to good effect. Ian McKellen is great in the movie. It's weird to think that this, at age 59, was only the beginning of the biggest phase of his career, in terms of international fame. He went right from this to X-Men, Lord of the Rings, and being a true international icon. I'm probably under crediting his fame before 2000, but he undeniably rose a level in prominence by a significant amount.

 

I mostly think about Brendan Fraser's sillier or funnier work and forget that he occasionally dabbled in serious film before largely disappearing in the 2000s. It's a little surprising that he never got so much as a Golden Globe nomination as he was dominating the 90s.

 

Also, what's the normal way to see it was refreshing to see a movie with some penis in it? I really don't see a lot of male nudity in movies that isn't used for comedic effect. I certainly prefer female nudity if there's going to be nudity in a movie, but any move toward equity is fair.

 

I'll admit, I found this movie a little dull. It's more of a star showcase than a full movie, so the story is a little thin. McKellen staring into space is nearly enough to keep the movie going anyway, but I wish there was just a little more to grab hold to in the movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend