Delayed Reaction: Kate

Premise: An assassin who has been poisoned has a day to find out who poisoned her and make them pay.

 

I could focus on how much this movie is like a dozen other movies out there. It's especially similar to Gunpowder Milkshake in that both were released on Netflix, have grindhouse fight scenes, are led by a typically glamourous actress getting dirty, and have a child sidekick whose father the protagonist actually killed at the beginning of the movie. Kate is not a revelation. It's people applying a proven formula to make something familiar. However, I like these kinds of movies. I won't hold any of that against this. Needless to say, if you have little patience for this kind of movie to begin with, don't expect this to overcome your doubts.

 

Mary Elizabeth Winstead rules in this. That's not a surprise. She's a great actress and has been proving her action movie bonafides lately with Birds of Prey and Gemini Man. It is a bit of an odd casting choice though. I associate this kind of grizzled veteran role at least with someone in their 40s. There's a difference between Charlize Theron doing Atomic Blonde at 41-42 and Winstead doing this at 35-36. The amount that Winstead is lumbering in this makes me think of someone a bit more warn. Karen Gillan in Gunpowder Milkshake is a bit lither, so her being even younger wasn't quite as distracting. That's me really picking nits though. Winstead moves and fights like someone who has been doing this for a while. I never had a hard time believing her being able to kick ass, even though let's be honest, she's not an imposing figure.

 

I'm a sucker for a swearing, violent child in a movie, so of course I like Miku Martineau as Winstead's hostage-turned-helper. Similarly, Woody Harrelson is a great mentor-turned-villain. None of the character beats were surprising, but all this movie really needs is for the actors to understand the assignment (which they do).

 

The use of the Japanese setting does feel a little gawking at times. The neon glow of the city looks great in this kind of gritty beat-em-up. I am getting a little tied of filmmakers putting a white actor in the middle of Japan to show how extra it is. Granted, I'm seeing this movie because Mary Elizabeth Winstead is on the poster, not a Japanese actress I don't know, so I'm part of the problem. And the contrast is the point. Kate is part of a trend, not the chief offender.

 

As I said, I knew what I was signing up for when I started this and I got all those things. Cool fights. A badass lead performance. Colorful production design and lively sound. If Netflix wants to deliver one of these every six months, I'm nowhere close to skipping them yet.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Hero

Premise: After killing three deadly assassins, an unnamed hero is granted an audience with the king to recount how he did it.

 

I'll need some time to sit with this movie. It's good but it's not at all what I expected. My memory of this movie from when it came out was the trailer with the scene of all the arrows coming at Jet Li's hero. I think it used some of the scenes earlier in the movie of him fending off arrows too. I was expecting a batshit crazy martial arts spectacular. That fits with the fact that at the time, it was the most expensive Chinese film ever and came on the heels of the crossover hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So, I was underwhelmed with the movie to some extent. The movie that it is though is another kind of movie I love. It's a Rashomon of sorts, made at an epic scale, with a hell of a cast.

I think in time, I'll conclude that this movie rules. It's not like it's missing action scenes. Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Chueng, and company get to show off plenty. The "problem" is that I was expecting "holy shit" fights and got really competent fights instead. I'm a bigger fan of Jackie Chan-style actual stunts than choreography that mixes in impossible movements. And if there are impossible movements, the more audacious the better. Eventually, I'll warm to what Hero offers in that realm.

 

The rest of the movie is great. I love how it's all a meeting between the nameless hero and the king. It's a battle of wits, full of twists. At times it even felt like a logic puzzle. I'm for all of that. And it's crazy how much of the cast is people I actually know. Jet Li, Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, and Donnie Yen are on the shortlist of Chinese actors I could actually name and they're all in this. I'm thankful too that Miramax left it subtitled rather than dubbing it.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Police Story: Lockdown

Premise: Jackie Chan is a police officer trapped in a night club by a crime boss with a convoluted revenge plan.

 

This is not the movie I expected. I've been catching up on all the Police Story movies over the last year or so. The first three movies are very much of a piece. Recurring characters. Consistent narrative. Stunt-forward. There's a little tinkering with how serious the movies want to be, but that's about it. The fourth movie, First Strike fits in too, although it does drop a little continuity. After that, it seems like "Police Story" became more of a brand than a series. 2004's New Police Story, which I haven't seen, gives Jackie Chan a different character and is apparently much darker. Police Story 2013 (aka Police Story: Lockdown) again gives Chan a new character and is unrecognizable from the early movies. There's no reason to call this part of the Police Story franchise. In fact, I wondered if the title was a lazy translation, like when other countries will call Bruce Willis movies a Die Hard movie (ex. The Sixth Sense is Die Hard with a Ghost).

 

Ignoring how this fits as a Police Story movie, this isn't my favorite mode of Jackie Chan. I'm sorry. I like the stunts and the jokes. This movie is light on both. Instead, it's a pretty heavy thriller with fewer stunts than I've come to expect. It's still an action movie. It just lacks the "holy shit" stunts that I'm used to in Jackie Chan movies. By the end, the movie turns into a cool kind of Rashomon movie. It requires some sweaty plot mechanics to set up though and it's such a jarring shift that I had trouble enjoying it. I like the idea though. I wish they would've gotten to it sooner.

 

Jackie Chan is 67 and hasn't made a Police Story movie in 8 years. I think this means the series is done. It's a shame that it went out on a lesser note like this. It's a relic from a time before studios had masterplans, so the arc of the series does make sense. Luckily, there are about 100 other Jackie Chan movies I still have to get to.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Formula: Venom - 15 Minutes

 

It's hard to understand how we got here. Through a very confusing series of rights deals and ownership changes, Venom is a bonafide hit series. Sony took one of the coolest Marvel villains and not only turned him into a protagonist, but a comedic buddy premise. I hope whoever got this to work got a big promotion or payday, because it doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

So, here we are with a Venom sequel. Inevitably, it brings in the equally cool Carnage. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is still a reporter, making his chaotic relationship with his symbiote work. After an encounter with serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), Brock accidentally gives him the symbiote as well. And if you thought it was a problem when Brock had this insatiable entity, just wait until you see one with a deranged serial killer.

 

The most striking thing about this movie is how compact it is. It's only a hair over 90 minutes. It does the slightest bit of world-building, but the story is pretty streamlined. It's a dual narrative of Brock and Venom having a breakup of sorts at the same time that Kasady and Carnage get united with Kasady's psychotic true love (Naomie Harris) while getting bloody revenge on everyone who has wronged him. There aren't a lot of middle beats or distractions. The movie finds just enough time for Michelle Williams and Reid Scott as Brock's ex and her current partner respectively. It's a waste of Williams to some extent. At the same time, it's a nice paycheck for her for easy work, and I'm always happy to see her in anything. What's the harm?

 

The key partnership is Brock, played by Tom Hardy, and Venom, voiced with derangement by Tom Hardy. I suppose there's queer subtext to this. I'm not the authority on that. If nothing else, I think it's a depiction of a close and vulnerable friendship. This is such a weird and enjoyable duo. They really took the response to the lobster scene in the first movie and ran with it.

 

This isn't my favorite superhero franchise, but it's arguably the most unique one out there. And that's something. This movie feels like a throwback in its simplicity which is pretty refreshing. I think they could've gotten a little more out of Harrelson's Carnage, but since short changing him was in the interest of keeping the movie shockingly brief, I'll allow it. Seriously, a superhero movie under 100 minutes is such a unicorn.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Premise: Dora is a teen now and moves from the actual jungle to the concrete jungle before getting caught up in a new adventure.

 

(Club 50) I didn't expect to say this but, this movie's kind of great. On paper, it shouldn't be. It's a clumsy adaptation of a Nick Jr. show that I never watched. It's a very family-focused movie. Having just watched several other mediocre family movies this weekend, I sure wasn't expecting much. Look a little closer though. This is from the director of the recent Muppet movies. It's also co-written by Nicholas Stoller, who worked on those Muppet movies and has ties to the Apatow camp, directing and cowriting films like Neighbors, Get Him to the Greek, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall). The Muppets ties are very important to this movie, because it shows that these are people with experience loving a piece of family IP while also being able to poke fun at its absurdities.

 

This movie genuinely likes Dora (Isabele Merced). Wisely, they age the character up from 6 to 16, but they take a Brady Bunch Movie approach of making her someone who never left the TV show she began in. Dora fundamentally doesn't fit in a real-world setting, but instead of using it solely as a way to laugh at Dora, the movie also uses her for a message about being yourself. It's not subtle, but it's effective. Merced really is excellent as Dora. She uses the character's unrelenting exuberance like a Leslie Knope or Ted Lasso and it's impossible to resist.

The movie does eventually turn into a wannabe Indiana Jones movie which it is moderately effective at. The classmates that are stuck on the journey with her are a welcome counter-point to Dora. They react how real teenagers would to all this while Dora treats it like just another day. The film is helped by a solid adult cast. Eugenio Derbez plays the goofy-tagalong part better than the heel turn. He's ultimately not meant to be a threat, so it's fine that he's a bad villain. Michael Pena is unsurprisingly a scene-stealer as Dora's father. That man really is never bad. I can't figure out if I want him in 10 supporting roles a year or 2 lead roles. He's always great and I want him in everything I watch. As Dora's mom, Eva Longoria doesn't stand out as much. She's not as skilled at scene-stealing as Pena and there's not much on the page for either parent.

 

My pleasure watching Dora and the Lost City of Gold absolutely comes from my lowered expectations. I had a blast watching it though. I wish all films aimed at families were this good. It's funny and reasonably exciting. There's a star performance at the center. The filmmakers respect the source material while finding what's silly about it.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Upside

Premise: A rich quadriplegic man hires an untrained new caretaker.

 

(Club 50) This is a remake of the French megahit from 2012, The Intouchables. I'm glad I saw The Intouchables first, because it is the better movie and has a better star performance, but it's hard to watch The Upside without being fully aware of all the differences. It's an easy enough idea to translate from French to English. It's about this specific friendship dynamic. There's not much plot. I'm not offended by the idea of remaking the movie. While it isn't that hard to read subtitles, something is lost when watching something in a language you don't know. And the beats of the story aren't culturally specific.

 

In terms of a comparison, the big thing that The Upside is missing versus The Intouchables is that Omar Sy is a much different movie star than Kevin Hart. Sy was much younger than Hart. Sy relies more on charisma, and Hart is more of a comic persona. The thing that made The Intouchables lightning in a bottle, Kevin Hart doesn't have, even though he's not bad in The Upside.

 

The Upside was a hit, just not a phenomenon. Kevin Hart gives a more reserved performance than he normally does. I don't think he's got dramatic performances in him like Adam Sandler, but I like that he's trying to expand his range. The movie does need someone like a Bryan Cranston to made the quadriplegic role sing. It's a lot of face-only acting. I understand many of the calculations behind the changes in The Upside, but they were mostly less interesting. Cranston's life is a lot less messy. No kids and he's in love with his assistant/helper/manager (whatever Nicole Kidman is). Giving Hart the kid gives his character more of a direction.

 

The whole time I'm watching this, I could feel the filmmakers trying to navigate around "white savior narrative" critiques. The real-life story is imbalanced in tricky ways. The black man is the employee. The white man has all the money. However, the white man literally can't eat without the black man's help. Tricky power dynamics. The movie does sidestep the racial concerns as much as it can. When it has to address it, I think it mostly stays on the right side of the discussion.

 

The Upside is a great example of how no one really understands the formula to a good movie. The Intouchables is this screenplay and film that was pieced together until it worked. It was an original story (although based on real life). They got to build it from whatever odd story elements worked. The Upside, on the other hand, had a specific formula to work from that it tinkered with. I think of it like this. When preparing food, changing a recipe isn't as simple as making every step 5% different. Some parts should be left the same. Others should be altered. But it's not clear how much each step should or shouldn't change. In other words, The Upside definitely tastes like a good apple pie, but it's not my Grandmother's Apple Pie.

 

Side Note: The funny thing is, I only mildly enjoyed The Intouchables too. It probably sounds like I loved that movie the way I'm comparing it to The Upside.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Australia

Premise: A grand epic set in Australia in the years leading up to WWII.

It's shocking to realize that Baz Luhrmann has only directed 5 films so far. He made the campy delight, Strictly Ballroom in 1992. He brought his style to Shakespeare with 1996's Romeo + Juliet. He perfected his formula with the Oscar-winning Moulin Rouge! in 2001. He spent seven years making his epic Western, Australia. He took another 5 years to make the lavish Great Gatsby in 2013. And, when his sixth movie finally comes out, Elvis, in 2022, it will mark a 9-year gap. Granted, a lot of that gap went to running the record-breaking expensive Netflix failure, The Get Down. The man takes his time* and doesn't go small. His few films have made quite an impact. He's a brand unto himself.

Australia is when the brand started to sour. It's remembered in the US for being a bust. That's not entirely accurate at the box office. It made $200+ million in the worldwide box office on a $130 million budget, which isn't great, but could feasibly break even with video and rental sales. It really busted with the public and awards indifference. It earned a Costume Design Oscar nomination and nothing else of note. Reviews were mixed. And it just plain didn't make an impact on people. It's no one's favorite Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman performance. It's not even known as a famous bust. It's closer to The Promise than Waterworld in terms of its infamy. Honestly, I watched Australia as a lark.

 

*For some context, since 1992 Roland Emmerich has directed 14 movies. Michael Bay has 14. Chris Nolan has 11 and didn't even start until 1998.

 

So how is the movie? Well, it's Baz Luhrman making a classic Western. It's overly indulgent and way too long. The money is on the screen in the costuming, production design, and scope. The emotions are heightened. It's the best and worst of what Luhrman has to offer.

 

I do love Australian Westerns as a concept. It's the same idea as American Westerns but with different dynamics than I'm used to. I know all about the Native Americans. I don't know as much about the Aborigines and the "Stolen Generations". In that respect, the movie held my interest well. It did feel a lot like two movies stitched together; to the point that I fully expected there to be an intermission. I preferred the Western, cattle transport half to the WWII war movie half. Either way, it was a lot. I think the more focused version of the movie that was closer to 2 hours would've been better. As is, Australia isn't bad. It's just too long to be so unremarkable.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Abominable

Premise: A girl in China finds a Yeti and helps it get back home in the Himalayas.

 

(Club 50) This movie is 97 minutes long. Does anyone want to make a guess how far into it I got before I realized it wasn't Smallfoot, the animated movie from a different non-Disney studio about yetis that came out the year before this? I don't know the exact moment, but I remember nearly an hour in still wondering when Lebron James was going to show up. It should've been obvious as soon as I realized that Abominable's yeti didn't talk, but I am not a smart person.

 

I'm doing a catch up on some of the Club 50 movies I've missed over the last couple years. It turns out, I don't watch a lot of non-Disney animated movies and those make money. Watching them now, I'm reminded why I skip most of them. Abominable is perfectly fine. It's got that same How to Train Your Dragon or Home energy. Scrappy teen. Unusual creature. Some coming-of-age and a little adventure. It's hard to hate that. It doesn't really stand out either.

 

What I find a little more interesting is just how unnotable this voice cast is. Sarah Paulson is the biggest live-action star lending a voice. Eddie Izzard and Chloe Bennet are the only others I even recognize. I like that. In the Shrek and Shark Tale days, Dreamworks Animation got way too concerned with getting A-list stars for the voice cast, and often it distracted from the movie itself. The Abomination strategy a great way to save some money and keep the focus on the movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Angel Has Fallen

Premise: The president is under attack again, but this time our hero is being framed for the attack.

 

(Club 50) I think my relationship with this franchise is best summed up by the fact that I have no idea if I've seen the second movie, London Has Fallen. I didn't love Olympus Has Fallen that much. London was the 51st highest grossing movie of 2016, so it falls outside of my Club 50 requirement. It is the kind of easy movie I'd put on though while I'm working on something else. Reading the plot on Wikipedia is doing nothing for me, but I have vague images of London in my head. Perhaps those were from a trailer. I'm refusing to check my big list for the answer on principal.

 

Anyway, this is the third movie in the franchise and it's a bit of a turn. Instead of protecting someone from the inside of an attack, Gerard Butler is being framed. So, it's The Fugitive if Dr. Richard Kimble was special ops. For what it is, I have few complaints. This is an easily adaptable franchise. It's on an affordable budget level for the studio. This is the right size for a Gerard Butler movie. He's not an A-list star, but he is a capable leading man for a macho action movie. Literally every person in this feels right for this kind of movie. Morgan Freeman says yes to everything. Same with Nick Nolte. Jada Pinkett Smith and Lance Reddick are at that level where they can either being TV stars or supporting characters in movies. And Piper Perabo is at that really awkward stage for actresses. She's a known quantity but not getting roles made for her. She's in her 40s but always seems younger. If you put her with people her age, she looks younger than then, but if you put her with people 10 years younger than her, she sticks out. I realize what I'm describing is the exact problem with how Hollywood sees actresses, so I guess I'm part of the problem. What I'm really trying to say is this. When I saw that Butler was married to Perabo in the movie, I rolled my eyes at another aging action star getting a way-too-young wife. Then I looked it up. They're only 7 years apart. She just looks like she's be too young for him.

 

My biggest complaint about the movie is that I wish the idea of an exploding drone strike could've been saved for an ever better movie. That's a cool idea. And now, if I see it in a Chris Nolan movie, I'll think "someone must've watched Angel Has Fallen".

 

Angel Has Fallen, like the previous installments, is a fun second tier action movie. It's not filling a blockbuster-sized hole. It's no Michael Bay or Rolland Emmerich spectacle. It's right below those, and sometimes, I just want to watch a movie where shit blows up.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Worth

Premise: A lawyer takes on the job to figure out how to compensate the families of the victims of 9/11.

 

The elephant in the room is that this movie is Spotlight 2. It's set in Boston. It stars Michael Keaton with Stanley Tucci in a prominent supporting role. It takes place during and after Spotlight. It's a thoughtful drama about institutions failing people. There is no way for a person to watch both movies and not jump to comparisons. So, I'll get that out of the way. Spotlight is better, but Spotlight is one of my favorite movies. Worth will just have to "settle" for being a great movie. OK. Spotlight will not be mentioned again as a comparison point (hopefully).

 

I was curious about this movie ever since I heard about it out of 2020 Sundance. It sounded like the exact kind of wonky "people doing their damn jobs" drama that I've come to love over the last few years. The premise is so damn intriguing, coming at 9/11 from an angle I've never seen before. The idea is that the 9/11 attacks left a lot of companies exposed. Everything from the airlines to the city governments to the companies with offices in the World Trade Center were exposed to lawsuits from the families of the victims. There was a very real possibility that litigation from this could've crippled the US economy (and "let the terrorists win"). The best solution available was to set up a fund with the US government to pay the families who in turn would agree not to sue any of the companies tied to this. The question is, how much are the families owed?

 

It's an impossible question to answer, and Worth is all about Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) figuring it out and getting at least 80% of the families to buy in. There's a new complication around every corner. The movie doesn't have to work hard at all to set high stakes. They are baked in. Keaton is excellent following the expected story arc. He starts off believing that the best thing he can do is stay unemotional about the process with a formula to determine everyone's payout. Over time, he realizes that there are too many special scenarios and they have to look at each case separately. The movie oversimplifies that, but that's for the best. I don't need to hear 5000 different scenarios. I'm OK using a handful of people to represent the larger whole.

 

The movie is pretty packed with great performances beyond Keaton too. This is probably Amy Ryan's best dramatic role since her Oscar nominated work in Gone Baby Gone, yet it's a polar opposite kind of performance. Stanley Tucci is an ideal counter philosophically for Keaton's character. Similarly reasonable but wearing his heart on his sleeve. Laura Bernanti is perhaps a little broad, but she gets such a great conflict as the wife of a firefighter who was keeping a big secret from her. And there's Tate Donovan as a slimy lawyer who would've been played by Billy Crudup if not for that movie I said I wouldn't mention.

 

It's a bummer that this movie got released when it did. An early September release sure feels like Netflix is dumping the movie rather than rolling it out for end-of-the-year awards. I'd love to be wrong. I doubt I'll find 10 better or more prestigious movies this year than Worth. But this release sure isn't a great sign. I loved the movie. The only thing working against it, as I said before, is that it's not as good as Spotlight. Hard to hold that against it.

 

(Note: In hindsight, I understand that Worth got this release due to the 9/11 collection, but that still doesn't make it a good release time for awards potential)

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Premise: While investigating his grandfather's suspicious death, a teen boy discovers a home in Whales where there are - well - peculiar children with special powers.

 

(Club 50) This is about as middle-tier Tim Burton as it gets. It doesn't match any of his early highs (Batman, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood), but it escapes from the calamity of his later works (Big Eyes, Dark Shadows). It's Tim Burton applying his skills to something completely harmless and making it a little more distinctive. I can't muster strong praise or criticism.

 

It's a real shame that Eva Green came along in this phase Burton's career. Imagine wait she could've been in a Batman. She looks like someone Burton designed and she has a lot of experience making any character pop (Remember how awesome she was in the otherwise forgotten 300: Rise of an Empire?). Ella Purnell is a similar Tim Burton creation in the Winona Ryder or even Bella Heathcoate mold. Asa Butterfield is a little less obvious except Burton loves scrawny little outsiders, which Butterfield plays as well as anyone. Honestly, my only casting complaint is that casting Chris O'Dowd to play an American visiting the U.K. made my head spin. Let the man be Irish!

 

The plot is a little thin. I definitely see that the appeal of the movie was the titular home and peculiar children. The time loop stuff I mostly just ignored. And it bothered the hell out of me that they kept trying to use a crossbow. Jesus, the movie is mostly set in 1943. That had pistols back then. Just use one.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

 

Delayed Reaction: Ferdinand

Premise: A friendly bull refuses to be in violent bull fights but is forced to take part anyway.

 

(Club 50) I only recently learned that in bull fighting, they kill the bull. For 30+ years of my life, it never occurred to me that bull fighting was more than waving a red cape out of the way. I never thought a single bit past that. I was horrified when I found out. It's not like they kill the bronco after it throws the rider off at the rodeo (or do they?! I'm questioning everything now). I have no idea how this movie would've landed with me as a child. I think it would've disturbed me. I mean, I'm still not over Bambi's mom. So, kudos on Blue Sky Studios for taking this head on.

 

This is one of my Club 50 movies. That's my goal of seeing every top 50 movies at the box office for each year since I was born (1987). I just about caught up a couple years ago and have let the list build back up some. It's mostly kids’ movies that I've missed for obvious reasons. Ferdinand is a reminder why. I've never been a fan of Blue Sky's animated offerings. They are a little too focused on the kids most of the time. That too is the case with Ferdinand. Despite facing some serious topics, the movie remains thoroughly disinterested in the adults watching it, which is fine. John Cena is a surprisingly good voice actor. I enjoy Kate McKinnon doing her thing all over the movie. I realize that casting actual voice actors is a lost battle at this point, but it does seem a little lazy to cast Peyton Manning as a bull named Guapo in Mexico. Did we really need that?

 

There is more to the movie than I expected, which is nice. It's nothing special though. The animation didn't look that great. I know Blue Sky isn't spending Pixar money, but it all looked pretty bland. You could do a lot worse, I guess.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Zack Snyder's Justice League

Premise: It's that Justice League movie you've already watched, but longer and darker.

 

A large part of me wanted to skip this movie altogether. I haven't cared for a lot of DC's post-Nolan direction. The Justice League movie in particular was a failed attempt at an Avengers: a backdoor pilot that thought it was a crossover. I don't believe any other the issues with the movie were something that could be fixed with a new cut. Still, the "Snyder Cut" became a thing on the internet. While I don't encourage recutting the same movie until "it's right" as opposed to spending time making new content, I heard enough positive-ish reviews of this that I just had to know if it was better.

 

There are two analogies that I use a lot that came to mind watching this. The first is The Count of Monte Cristo. I read the abridged version of the novel in high school and adored it. Later, in college, I decided to read the unabridged version for fun. It was more than twice as long. Despite being that much longer, I couldn't tell you a single thing that the abridged version left out. I didn't dislike reading the unabridged version. It didn't feel like it was dragging or padding things out. Yet, I can't point to any added value with all the extra pages. The same goes for Zack Snyder's Justice League. I know it's a much longer cut. I couldn't tell you how it's so much longer though. I hardly recall anything of note that's in the Snyder Cut that wasn't in the original. I'm sure there is. There must be. And if I'm sure if I was someone who loves what Snyder is doing, then I'd welcome the chance to bathe in this world even longer. However, I got nothing out of it except an extra 60-90 minutes I couldn't spend watching something else.

 

The other analogy is one of my favorites. Say I get a 6% on a test. The teacher then let's me retake it, because I clearly had a brain aneurism the first time. I get a 60% the second time. That's a massive improvement. It's still a failing grade. That's where I stand with the Snyder Cut. I guess it's an improvement over the original (although the long length really hurts it. Efficiency is a key part of filmmaking). The new characters are better introduced. It has a more consistent look throughout. But it's not like it's a jump from good to great. It's a jump from 'meh' to 'Meh'.

 

Next time, let's just leave well enough alone. The Snyder movies were largely rejected even before he couldn't see his Justice League vision through. Man of Steel opened big with a small multiplier. Batman v Superman was ridiculed immediately. We collectively forgot about Justice League for a reason. Just because a portion of the internet is loud, doesn't mean a project is a good idea.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

(This is more a verdict assuming you've already seen Justice League. If you haven't, I guess this is the better version to watch.)

Delayed Reaction: Daddy's Home 2

Premise: Dusty and Brad's feud reignites when their fathers come to town.

 

Sean Anders is a director who is slowly growing on me. When you look at his movies in release order, it's mostly uphill. Early on, he had Sex Drive (2008) which was very forgettable and That's My Boy (2012), which I've never found the motivation to see. He got a little more polished with Horrible Bosses 2 (2014). That still mostly didn't work, but he used the stars pretty well. Daddy's Home (2015) did well with the Ferrell vs. Wahlberg thing, but I found it pretty tedious. Daddy's Home 2 (2017) I actually liked a little more. It made the conflict less combative and embraced some silliness in ways that weren't just Will Ferrell getting hurt. And Instant Family (2018) was an unexpected treat that I liked quite a bit. Apparently, he's doing a comedy next with Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, and Octavia Spencer that I think is a take on A Christmas Carol. I'm somewhat excited for that, given how he's been trending.

 

As I mentioned above, I kind of liked Daddy's Home 2. It's got obvious flaws. The jokes are a little geared toward children. There's little room for subtly and every story beat is telegraphed. I liked some of the relationships and jokes though. I'm a huge fan of the movie starting with Dusty and Brad as friends. That dynamic is so much more interesting: opposites who try to embrace what they like about each other. There's still plenty of room for conflict, but it doesn't sell out the central relationship of the movie. It's a lot of what I liked about Instant Family too. Bringing in their dads for hyper-versions of their personalities was a nice way to have their cake and eat it too. John Lithgow and Mel Gibson are great at these kinds of roles too. Lithgow brings some 3rd Rock from the Sun. Gibson brings some What Women Want.

 

After those four, the movie does have trouble with the rest of the cast. The kids are definitely an afterthought. I suppose that's expected though. I really wish Linda Cardellini had more to do. They've got an MVP candidate sitting on the bench for most of the movie. I get that the design of the movie isn't meant to focus on her in the same way that, like, Bride Wars isn't about the grooms, but it's such a waste. The movie is pretty awful about Alessandra Ambrosia, although I don't think anyone is under the impression that she's trying that hard to act.

 

I got a couple legitimate laughs out of this. The four men's reaction to the thermostat is wonderful. That is such a spot-on "dad" bit. It's funny how, as different as Ferrell, Lithgow, and Gibson are in this, they all unite about that topic. Also, after the turkey hunting incident, the daughter telling a nurse "I just shot a turkey and a man. Guess which one's dead?" is comedy gold. While not a great movie by any measure, the 21% on Rotten Tomatoes strikes me as lazily low.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend