Bad Superboy

“What if Superman is evil?”  That is the unholy premise proposed in the surprisingly gruesome superhero-horror movie ‘Brightburn’ from director/producer James Gunn (‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ 1 & 2).  While many will undoubtedly find the very notion that Superman, the tireless do-gooder who fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” can be an evil villain to be revolting and inconceivable, this latest subversion of one of our most basic assumptions is but the latest variation of what we’ve seen in other anti-hero treatments such as M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Unbreakable’/’Glass’ and the NBC genre series ‘Heroes.’

 

The story of ‘Brightburn’ is eerily similar to that of Superman.  A meteor crashed outside a farmhouse in Smallville, I mean Brightburn, Kansas in which Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) Breyer found a baby, whom they regarded as a godsend (or rather demonsend in this case) as they failed to conceive earlier and promptly named Brandon (Jackson Dunn).  Brandon grew and turned out to be a particularly gifted boy, not only smart but possesses heat vision, superhuman strength and can levitate off the ground.  Like the Kents, the Breyers were not disturbed at all by their “special” and precious boy.  Unlike the Kents, their parenting skills were sadly deficient in guiding Brandon on the straight-and-narrow path to their great detriment.

 

‘Brightburn’ is not for the weak of stomach.  This unabashedly R-rated gorefest has scenes that even made me squirm a little, including one in which a poor woman pulled a shard of glass impaled in her eye (and seeing through it afterwards in a reddish haze) and a man who literally had to hold his ripped-apart jaw together.  Overall, I like it for the very reason that it subverts our expectations and challenges us to see super-powered beings in a different and less idealistic light.  ‘Brightburn’ actually brings to mind another movie I enjoyed several years ago, ‘Chronicle,’ which tells a similar (albeit less bloody PG-13) story through the prism of adolescent angst.

Grade: A-

Hustle without Flow

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson attempt to strike comedic gold in director Chris Addison’s ‘The Hustle’ a female-centric remake of Frank Oz’s 1988 comedy ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine.  Lambasted by the critics (currently 15 percent rotten on RT, ouch), ‘The Hustle’ still managed to rake in over $65 million worldwide on a budget of $21 million in three weeks, proving that there’s a ready-made audience for bone-headed screwball comedies no matter how much the movie critics hated it.

 

As with Michael Caine and Steve Martin in DRS, ‘The Hustle’ is about two self-styled con-women who are worlds apart and couldn’t be any more different.  Josephine (Hathaway as the analogue to Caine) is a sophisticated cosmopolitan socialite in France who oozes charm and knows how to use all her assets to get what she wants, including setting up elaborate cons to swindle valuables from rich men with the help of a corrupt local policewoman.  Penny (Wilson as the female Steve Martin) is a wannabe hustler who’s new to the trade but is enthusiastic and relentless even as she’s unrefined and clumsy.  When the two unlikely allies scheme to hustle young software entrepreneur Thomas (Alex Sharp), they may have bitten off more than they can hustle.

 

Odd couple comedies usually are safe bets to be funny, but much of the humor in ‘The Hustle’ just isn’t and falls flat.  It isn’t so much that remaking DRS is a bad idea; after all, that movie was well received by the critics.  Rather, ‘The Hustle’ is hampered by a preposterous plot, forced situations that fails to tickle our funny bones and a lack of odd-couple chemistry between the two female leads.  All this doesn’t matter though, because in the end it still managed to hustle nearly $70 million out of us.

Grade: D

The Baba Yaga

Certain movies exceed our expectations of their commercial viability/sustainability at the box office and develop into franchises.  The ‘Transformers,’ ‘Fast & Furious’ and low-rent “jump scare” horror movies such as those from Lionsgate, Blumhouse Productions or Ghost House Pictures are just a few examples.  Now we can add ‘John Wick’ to the list.  What started out as a one-off, stand-alone revenge B-movie about an assassin who was reluctantly brought out of retirement because his puppy was killed by the punk-ass son of a Russian mobster has inexplicably evolved into a genuine worldwide box office phenomenon.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a bonafide fan of this R-rated “assassins-gone-amok” franchise reminiscent of those stylishly choreographed John Wu “Gun Fu” movies starring Chow-Yun Fat, which just confirmed a third sequel because JW3 has toppled ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (albeit in the latter’s fourth weekend) on its way to the top of the weekend box office.  After violating the most sacred edict of “The Hitman’s Code” in JW2 by killing within the protective sanctuary of the embassy, I mean Continental Hotel in New York City, John Wick is on the run for his life with a $14 million bounty on his head and every hitman and hitwoman within spitting distance gunning for him.  But seriously, don’t feel sorry for him.  Pity those other poor souls who thought they actually had a chance of taking him down instead.

 

Once again, Keanu Reeves lived up to his acting chops and delivered his lines in classic deadpan seriousness, but that’s perfectly fine because he’s simply being in character.  In fact, the grizzled John Wick is so cool and mellow in the face of life-threatening danger and hopeless situations in this bizarro world where assassins rule and can ply their trade without worrying about law enforcement that he might as well be the robotic “Terminator” played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  And like the Terminator, he is a killing machine without peer, racking up an impressive and blood-soaked bodycount that would even make other one-man armies like John Rambo, super spies James Bond/Ethan Hunt/Jason Bourne and John McClane hang their heads in shame.

Grade: B+ 

Pika-Marlowe

Back in 1996 Nintendo unleashed upon the unsuspecting world an addictive video game called Pokémon, featuring a cute and cuddly “pocket monster” named Pikachu, and the world had never been the same ever since for better or worse.  With The Pokémon Company managing the brand name, the Pokémon franchise developed into a worldwide phenomenon that still endures over 20 years later, with the recent Pokémon Go craze and now a live-action CGI-animated movie featuring the yellow lightning bolt-tailed Pikachu as a – I kid you not - gumshoe detective in a faux film noir setting.

 

The only reason I went to see the tame and family-friendly PG-rated ‘Detective Pikachu’ is because of my movie subscription with AMC, and maybe just a bit of curiosity.  God knows, I was never caught up in “Pokémon fever” or any such non-sense.  ‘Detective Pikachu’ is steeped in noir-ish “mystery” in a universe where humans and Pokémon monsters co-exist in a sort of symbiotic relationship wherein the Pokémon serves as a physical “familiar” of sorts.  They live harmoniously in the neon-lit metropolis Ryme City, founded by the fatherly entrepreneur and visionary Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy in a Pokémon movie, go figure).  When no-nonsense young insurance adjuster Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) reluctantly went to Ryme City in search of his missing father who may well be dead, he found himself swept into a world of intrigue, deceit and mystery.  With the help of Detective Pikachu and spunky young female investigative reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton), can Tim solve the case of his missing father played by Ryan Reynolds (who also voiced Pikachu)?  Yeah, as if we don’t know the answer to that question already.

 

For the Pokémon fans and kiddies, I’m sure ‘Detective Pikachu’ is a welcome new entry in the popular Pokémon franchise.  For the less initiated or those who never cared much for it (like myself for instance), it was a boring and mind-numbing slog whose 104 minutes running time seemed about 30 minutes too long.

Grade: C
 

There's Something About Fred

You got to hand it to him.  Seth Rogen, the “loveable” schmuck (unlike that annoying schmuck Jonah Hill for instance) who rose to fame with his friend Judd Apatow in the cult TV hit series ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ has a certain way with women whom by all rights should be way out of his league.  He knocked up Katherine Heigl in ‘Knocked Up,’ starred in amateur porn with his girlfriend Elizabeth Banks in ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ and made a couple more babies with Rose Byrne as his missus in ‘Neighbors’ and its sequel, thereby giving false hopes and unrealistic expectations to overweight thirty-something slackers the world over that they, too, can score hot chicks.  He’s done it again (high five everyone!) in his latest movie, the aptly titled ‘Long Shot,’ as the hot-to-trot US Secretary of State played by Charlize Theron somehow found his gruffy liberal journalist (think younger version of Michael Moore) the perfect aphrodisiac.

 

‘Long Shot,’ directed by comedy veteran Jonathan Levine (‘Warm Bodies,’ ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’), is one of those movies that must be seen to be believed.  Granted, there was a history between the two when they were teenagers in that Theron’s Charlotte babysat Rogen’s Fred Flarsky (yeah, she fell in love with a guy named Fred Flarsky) who had a crush on her, and “beauty is only skin deep,” but even so I find myself shaking my head with disbelief more times than I would care to admit, especially when she had a much better suiter in the guise of Alexander Skarsgård’s handsome and charming Canadian Prime Minister.

 

In keeping with the R-rated comedies he’s known for, there’s a certain level of raunchiness and gross-out gags (including a scene that’s reminiscent of the hair gel – in this case beard gel, oh boy! – scene in ‘There’s Something About Mary’) that some may find a bit embarrassingly uncomfortable.  That’s just the way it is with these Seth Rogen movies.  They make us believe for 90 minutes or so that ugly fat men can have their way with willing statue-esque beauties without being rich.  Yeah, right.

Grade: B- 

 

The Dream House of Nightmares

As you probably know by now, I’m a sucker for psycho-stalker flicks.  Just two months removed from 'Greta,' we get another in the form of ‘The Intruder’ starring Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy and Meagan Good.  I actually debated whether to see this one or skip it altogether but had some time to kill after work and an AMC membership allowing me to watch three new movies a week, so what the heck.

 

If you’ve seen the film’s trailer, you no doubt are aware that it’s about a young black couple (Ealy and Good) who bought an idyllic dream house in California’s Napa Valley because they wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city, only to find themselves terrorized by the seemingly charming man (Quaid) who sold them the house.  Events escalate in typical psycho-stalker movie fashion until things come to a head resulting in bloody violence and death (as to whose I’ll leave it to you to guess).

 

True to formula, ‘The Intruder’ delivers everything we would come to expect: a certain level of creeping suspense, escalating conflict, a pervy voyeuristic antagonist who seemingly appears out of nowhere and can go anywhere he pleases, and a satisfying if somewhat predictable conclusion when said pervy voyeuristic antagonist gets his just desserts.  So if you, like me, are predisposed to such movies you are likely to be much more forgiving than most of the professional critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Grade: C

The End is Nigh

Hard to believe I know, but it’s been over a decade since Disney/Marvel gave birth to the MCU we’ve all come to love with 2008’s ‘Iron Man.’  Over that timespan no fewer than 22 movies have been released, making this franchise the most popular and lucrative in cinematic history to date.  Alas, all good things must come to an end, the end of an era if not in the definitive sense, and so Phase 3 of the MCU draws to a close in ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ marking the conclusion of a chapter that included two of its leading and most iconic heroes, Iron Man as played by Robert Downey Jr. and Captain America as portrayed by Chris Evans.

 

It’s time to “avenge the fallen” in ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ the tail-end of the two-parter which began with ‘Avengers: Infinity War.’  As you will recall, A:IW ended with the Avengers and some of their allies failing to stop the Titan Thanos from doing us all a favor by solving Earth’s overpopulation problem.  All is not lost, however, as the movie hinted via Doctor Strange’s far-seeing prescience through the innumerable skeins of fate that there is one in 14 million possible outcomes (still better odds than hitting the Powerball jackpot, eh?) in which Thanos can be defeated, and that is indeed the epic story told in what turned out to be a 3-hour “love letter” to all that came before.  And ‘Endgame’ may well take its rightful place as the greatest superhero story ever told.

 

Notwithstanding all the supposed online backlash from Endgame’s plot-holes and “transgressions” including its disregard of the so-called rules of time-travel (including its own), the Captain America ending and its portrayal of Thor, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is easily ranked among the top 5 of the 22 films made so far.  Anthony and Joe Russo have done it again and proved why they are my favorite directors of all the MCU films so far (sorry, Joss).  ‘Endgame’ has it all: thrilling action, riveting melodrama, all-too-human characters we deeply care about, selfless heroism, noble sacrifice, heart-breaking loss  and triumphant redemption.  It is a profoundly bittersweet experience that pays respectful homage and gives nods to its predecessors and makes us await with impatience and anticipation for what is yet to come in the next phase of this irresistible cinematic universe.

Grade: A+