The Impact of Friday the 13th on Horror

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and something should have been written.  It's too bad that I treat my calendar like a collections officer, doing everything that I can to avoid contact while realizing that it will end up catching up with me.  Seeing as how I binge watched six Friday the 13th movies a few months ago, it is only fitting that I take some time to write about what the franchise added to cinema.

Nothing.  Practically nothing was added because of Friday the 13th.

The best argument that could be made is that it solidified the slasher genre of teenagers being stalked by a merciless masked man.  I could possibly accept this assessment for some films that would have come out in the mid to late 80s, which was eight to ten years after the genre actually launched.  Jason, the antagonist that is iconic with this franchise, was not in his marketable format until about halfway through the third movie.  That's 1982, eight years after precursors to the genre came out in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas.

Jason's recognizable form came five years after John Carpenter's Halloween, which is easily the franchise that created the idea of the mysterious and near unbeatable, looming figure that sets its murderous will against the hormone ridden subset of humanity.  The film that was closest to that format prior was Black Christmas, which focused on a sorority house.  The concept of the masked killer came predominantly with Michael Myers, although some may try and squeeze in a case for Leather Face from Texas Chainsaw.  While I will admit that Leather Face came first, it was John Carpenter's film format as a whole that woke up a generation of directors and copycat writers.

Basically, I don't think that Jason can be credited too much with the fad of that style of slasher killer.  According to Wikipedia (which we must take with a grain of salt) there were one hundred slasher movies released between 1978 and 1984.  Yes, Friday the 13th came out in 1980, putting it in a place where it could have heavily influenced other films, but, once again, it wasn't until 1982 that it had it's iconic visual nailed down.  If anything, it did add to the genre a higher kill count and emphasis on the uniqueness of kills.

However, it wouldn't hold any kind of crown for style of kills for long.  In 1984, Wes Craven brought the world the incredibly imaginative A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film with the slasher killer dwelling in people's dreams, leaving him outside of the confines of physics and reality.  Freddy Krueger was the opposite of what we had seen prior.  Gone was the silent, lumbering mammoth.  Krueger was thin and scrawny, with a trademark burnt face and, most importantly, a personality of the worst psychotic that revelled in tormenting people.  The killer now had a voice and undeniable personality, something that was not the norm in the earlier slashers.

It would be another four years before another slasher took a fresh and playful jab at the slow stalking style that Jason and Michael Myers became known for.  Nineteen eighty eight ushered into cinemas Child's Play, a slasher that appeared to be taking a mocking swing at the now redundant monsters of the genre.  The killer now was small and deviant, coming in the form of a child's toy that mimicked the My Buddy doll.  The film turned the tropes of the killer on its head and threw some much needed energy into the slasher sub-genre.

From here it would be another eight years before anything revitalizing happened to slashers.  Wes Craven would make his mark again with Scream, a self aware slasher that, like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Child's Play, seemed to take direct aim at just how boring and predictable movies like Friday the 13th had become.  This leads to what could be a great debate over who may have brought more to slashers, John Carpenter or Wes Craven.  Both had gigantic submissions, and, just like Halloween changed the landscape and caused knock-offs, so did Scream.  I honestly believe that a solid argument could be made for either of those two forward thinking directors.

As you can see, there have been some well known slasher franchises.  For the most part, each of the ones mentioned altered the game and took a new look at antagonist, formula, or both.  Friday the 13th really only added the increased kill count and style of kills, and the style factor was blown out of the water in 1984.  The overall footprint of Friday the 13th was just essentially building off of what was set up with Black Christmas and Halloween.  Not a lot of original thought came out of this franchise that was been clung onto by studios as a hopeful money maker as recently as 2009.

One neat thing did happen in a Friday the 13th movie.  In the fourth instalment, instead of having a screaming girl as the protagonist, it was this time a mother, daughter, and son.  It is not the best reviewed film of the franchise, but I thought the addition of familial bonds and loyalties added some flavour.  That being said, it's still not enough to recommend to anyone that they should spend time with this franchise.  There are just too many imaginative and boundary pushing slashers out there to watch.  While I am sure my podcast co-host Christopher Spicer is on Team Carpenter and would have you watch Halloween, I am on Team Craven and would push you towards A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Honestly, you can't go wrong with either.  People may call them dumb, but both Chris as I would argue that there is some thought to be found in both, something that you won't find with Jason,

REVIEW: Orbiter 9

About a month ago on The Movie Breakdown podcast, my co-host and I got into a discussion about which foreign markets are our favourites for movies.  We ended up both agreeing that South Korea has probably some of the most entertaining films coming out of it, but there was some discussion about second place.  I believe I tried to make a case for Spain, and my co-host, Christopher Spicer, brought the case for Chile.  In the end, we recognized that outside of North America, there are some incredible things happening in cinema.  This week on the podcast we are breaking down a Spanish film called Orbiter 9.  A lot is riding on this movie, seeing as how I tried to make a case for Spain.

Without going to far right off the bat, it needs to be said that this is the third Netflix original in just over two months that is about people looking to space for answers as Earth is no longer able to sustain humanity.  Even though each of the movies are quite different (The Cloverfeild Paradox, and The Titan), perhaps they need to look closer at the types of films they are releasing on their service and maybe space ones with similar concepts out a little more.  It was bad enough when in 2013 we had three end of the world comedies spread over the year (It's a Disaster, This is the End, and Rapture-Palooza).  This time we have the movies condensed even more, and it does start to get tiring.

It's not writer/director Hatem Khraiche's fault that there are other movies with a  similar idea.  It's a story that has been told before, but Khraiche adds in another element, that of isolation.  This is something that we saw in Duncan Jone's Moon, and Joseph Kosinski's visually beautiful Oblivion.  And, in the vein of those other two films, not all is as it seems.  And, just like Moon, because of the twists of the story, this movie is difficult to review.  I can't mention any specifics, really.  There is so much that I could say that would give things away, so I will have to be wildly vague.

What I can tell you is that Helena (Clara Lago) is alone on a ship.  Her parents left the vessel three years prior when the ship lost its ability to create oxygen.  It was a sacrificial move that would give Helena longer to live and a chance that someone may hear the distress call and come to fix the problem.  That's exactly what happens, and the engineer that arrives is Alex (Alex Gonzalez).  He is a young man, attractive, and the only human being that Helena has ever seen that wasn't her parents.  His arrival on the ship will save her life, and things will never be the same for her.

What I like about this movie is the basic concept, sadly something that I can't mention here.  I think it is clean and tidy, and while it may travel a few conventional roads in some areas, it kept from feeling derivative to me.  Khraiche and the base ideas of his story are familiar, but that doesn't stop him from creating an experience that is unique to Orbiter 9.  While the twists are fun, I would put them below Moon, which was truly a grand experience, and they would go above Oblivion, though.  While Oblivion was beautiful and its first half very intriguing, it did fall apart.

I wish that I couldn't say the same thing of Orbiter 9, but that's what happens.  It begins with so much promise and then I felt like the story telling was what made the second half less enjoyable.  It comes down to the writing, as I can't believe some of the actions and decisions of the characters (if you want to know if a room is empty, simply open the door.  Don't go to the adjoining room for some odd reason).  The decisions of the characters are easy enough to brush off initially, but it gets to the point where I lose all understanding of their motivations.  The finale baffled me.

That's the main let down of the film, but otherwise it is fairly solid.  I like the pace of the film, and the acting talents are agreeable.  Clara Lago does a solid job with her character,  Her performance was enough to make me interested in seeing her in more movies.  This isn't any sort of acting clinic being put on, not like last week's First Match.

Not being able to talk about much of the movie has left me with little to say.  I really wanted to recommend this film and make it another Spanish film I could champion, and it was on its way to being that.  The problem is that it just became too much of an issue trying to understand why people made certain decisions and did certain things.  If you're looking for a stellar time with a Spanish movie, check out the comedy Bomb Scared or the intense drama 7 Anos.  Both are on Netflix and are a wonderful way to spend your time.  Even better, Moon is still on there, and if you want to see why Chris and I have been champions of Sam Rockwell prior to him becoming an Oscar winner, there is no better film to see.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars

Thoughts on The Avengers

(I had to use this picture for Infinity War.  Confession time, I am a huge Dinklage fan)

We are now only two weeks out from Avengers: Infinity War, a superhero team up film the likes of which have never been seen before in theatres.  The first Avengers film ran amok through the box office with a success that ultimately changed the long term strategies for pretty much every major studio for years, up until 2017.  The allure of The Avengers was cross movie appearances from different heroes, and that sort of thing had never been done.  I think part of the success of the film was the fact that we had something completely new on our hands.

Avengers: Age of Ultron wasn't as big of a hit, and fell short of the first movie by $164 million in the domestic box office.  The novelty factor was no longer there, and, to be honest, we had been subject to a barrage of super hero movies in between these two team up flicks.  I would also say that there wasn't really anything to differentiate Age of Ultron and make it something ultimately special.  It was the same sort of format with starting off with a big action sequence and concluding with an overlong battle at the end that was held on an enormous scale.  To be honest, if I had to choose between watching Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Age of Ultron, I would instantly choose Civil War.  It was a much more memorable story, with the tension to the movie being a lot more personal.

Diminishing returns is something that is very real in Hollywood, with there only being exceptions to the rule every now and then.  Over saturation is quite real as well, regardless of many writers out there claiming it has no effect.  Taking an empirical look at the facts it is easy to conclude that this happens.  People need something special to make something stand out, and a  team up for the sake of a team up isn't good enough.  Just ask Warner Bros about that.

Infinity War is possibly in a position to do better than its predecessor due to a few things.  The first is that there will be a lot more faces added to the adventure.  We have the crew from Guardians of the Galaxy as well as Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange.  Throw in the immensely popular Black Panther and there are some very intriguing elements that are in the mix.  The second reason is that the aforementioned Black Panther has generated some incredible momentum for Marvel.  The film currently sits as the third highest grossing domestic movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), having made more money than Avengers.  I can't see how this won't be an massive factor as the film was a buzz factory.

I see Infinity War opening stronger than Black Panther, but ultimately falling short of the overall domestic gross of it.  For a major tentpole, Black Panther had an almost unheard of second weekend hold, only falling 44%.  I cannot see Infinity War holding up like that.  The last Avengers movie fell 59% it's second weekend, and while I don't think this movie will necessarily fall that much it will still be a steeper drop than Black Panther.

My main concern for Infinity War is the main baddie, Thanos.  My biggest problem with Justice League was that Steppenwolf was very obviously CGIed and that doesn't help anything out.  Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse was similar.  Computer graphics, when it's obvious, doesn't really get a villain off on the right foot, and Thanos falls into this category.  I honestly cannot take him seriously as he looks like something out of an animated film in amongst real people and backdrops.  Looking at the picture above, I just cannot get excited about that as the super villain.  I have always loved a great baddie, and Thanos isn't looking like he will be a good one.  That opinion is on looks alone, and I will watch the film with an open mind.  But appearances do matter when it comes to credibility.

Any issues that I have with Thanos are small when compared to the fact that we have the Russo brothers helming this movie, and they have proven to be masters at the game.  I absolutely hated the character of Captain America and thought he was a complete bore.  However, two of my favourite Marvel movies are Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Captain America: Civil War, both directed by the Russo brothers.  The brothers have worked on cult hit television shows in Community and Arrested Development.  The main thing that those two shows have in common is that they are populated with distinct characters that have their own unique share in the stories told.  I would argue that it is the exact same priority in a movie like Avengers.

In two weeks I will know where I stand on this movie, and in three weeks we will have a bit of an understanding as to just how much money this movie will make.  Disney is the studio that has the format for success in the realm of the shared universe, and they are sitting on a big money maker in this one.  Even though it is the biggest movie that they have done so far, I will be shocked if it makes more domestically than Black Panther.  Can I use this opportunity to once again point out a movie that didn't have recognizable male, white leads made more money than only two other movies?  Eat that, Ridley Scott.

Trailer Review: The Meg

Look out swimmers, surfers, bare buck bathers, parasailers, and all other aquatic revellers.  Something nasty comes from the deep.  Roughly three hundred poorly digitized, razor sharp teeth are fixing to rip through theatres come August 10th and bring the fear of the ocean straight to audiences.  Starring Jason Statham, Ruby Rose, and Rainn Wilson, The Meg brings a giant shark into modern waters to feast on boney humans.

On June 24, 2016, Jaume Collet-Serra's The Shallows was released and showed that a shark movie could, based on an appropriate budget, make money.  Shark movies had their course and haven't really been mainstream, movie theatre entertainment.  B-movie studio The Asylum had sparked a low budget spree of shark films since Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus.  It was a hoot of a movie, and saw a lot of films that came after with crazy plots from Swamp Shark (which I thought was a good deal of fun), to 2-Headed Shark Attack (which is forgettable), to Sharktopus (which was not as fun).  The culmination of all of this was in 2013 when Sharknado became a goofy pop culture event.  Even though there were a lot of shark movies happening, they weren't populating theatres.

After The Shallows came along, all of a sudden sharks were viewed as possible money makers.  I remember seeing an episode of the television show Scorpion (I don't make it a habit to watch that show) where evil sharks were afoot and someone was on a buoy,  just like in The Shallows.  Then we got 47 Meters Down which had a $5.5 million budget and was a profitable endeavour.  This summer, we have the largest of the large in a megalodon.  Humans are on the menu, and the trailer shows that this shark takes no prisoners.

The trailer uses an unusual music choice to let us know that this movie is going to be aiming at being fun and not taking itself super seriously.  That's a good thing, because the special effects do not look special at all.  There have been a lot of schlocky shark movies made, and I have seen a pile of them.  Judging from the trailer, having fun may be about all this movie has going for it.

A number of the shark attack scenes in the trailer are over the top looking, and, if you have seen Shark Attack 3 (and I highly recommend that you do), nothing will seem original about this movie.  We have Jason Statham thrown in there as the man to battle the shark, but will he be better at it than professional shark wrangler Thomas Jane from Deep Blue Sea?  That remains to be seen, but Statham can have a great presence in the right roles.  There isn't much of him talking shown in the trailer to let us get an idea if this is one of those roles that he will excel at.

According to Wikipedia, The Meg has a budget of $150 million.  I so hope that is off by a factor of ten.  Fifteen million is about as high as the budget for a movie like this should be, and the effects look like they came in at that price tag.  If the number on Wikipedia is right, then I think someone may have been in an altered state at the studio when this thing got green lit.  Well, a bit of research found a Forbes article that confirmed that huge budget.  I am honestly shocked and beside myself.  First of all, that is way too much money to throw at a b-looking flick such as this.  Second of all, where the heck did that budget go?  This is some Adam Sandler style money spending going on right here with presumably very little to show for it.

This isn't quite a trailer review.  It has morphed, and I apologize.  There is a chance, from what the trailer showed, that there may be some fun adventure to be had in this movie.  What it is, though, is the exact kind of movie that was popular five to nine years ago, movies on a cheap budget that were made for video or the Syfy channel.  Yes, there have been two examples of successful shark movies in theatres the past two years, but both of those movies combined didn't make enough to earn a profit for The Meg.  I smell a disaster washing up on shore on August 10th.

REVIEW: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Much in the vein of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the Natalie Portman produced Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a movie that is based off of a gimmick of something recognizable pitted against something supernatural.  Perhaps we have Twilight to thank for people feeling the need to reimagine created creatures of old.  The franchise practically neutered vampires, so why not take some interesting turns with fictional beasts.

The main thing that this movie has going for it, which is zombies intertwined with romance, is actually something that we have seen before.  Both Shaun of the Dead and Warm Bodies walked this line, and did so with style.  I will have some people arguing with me over Warm Bodies, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I liked it and thought that it did what it set out to do with personality and charisma.  Those two descriptive words, personality and charisma, are what elevated it, and they are exactly what is missing from the majority of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

The movie takes the original concept of the source material, follows it rather faithfully, and inserts a zombie apocalypse into the fray.  The young Bennet girls aren't just looking for mates, they are trained in the arts of bad assedness.  Zombies need to be on the look out, these girls are dressed for both the ball and for battle.  Lily James takes on the lead role of Elizabeth, the girl who is to cross paths with Mr. Darcy.  I am a fan of the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice.  I like the interplay between Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfayden.  He seemed like a jerk, they didn't get along.  Wonderful loath at first sight.

This 2016 attempt at telling this tale falls with the key relationship.  Mr. Darcy, played by Sam Riley, is a character whose super power  appears to be to bore the audience.  It is a flat, lacking performance that makes him a tortuous tool, causing me to check out mentally.  I don't believe the fault here lies with Riley.  In the last half hour of the movie his character finally has some emotion and Riley plays it well.  I think the problem is the writing and directing of Darcy that makes him to be so flat for the majority of the movie.

The entire movie, unfortunately, is fairly flat outside of the last half hour.  There are little spurts of zombies getting beat up by our young Bennet girls, and those scenes are a lot of fun.  The problem is that in between those scenes the movie falls into being faithful to the source material.  While this is a gimmick, I do believe it is a fun one that could have worked better.  Perhaps less worry about literal marriage between the two elements and more thematically being based on Pride and Prejudice would have been better.  The moments, well most of them, that are without zombies are dull.  This is where deviating from the source material some would have been good.  Director Burr Steers, who also wrote the screenplay, does well at the fun, campy zombie action, but isn't able to deliver the background story with much excitement.

There is an exception to this, however.  The role of Mr. Collins added quite a wonderful freshness.  I really enjoyed Tom Hollander's performance in the 2005 film, and I was worried that Parson Collins would be as uninspired as most of the other non-zombie related bits.  I was wrong about that.  Former Doctor Who star Matt Smith brought a delightful interpretation of the character, and I couldn't help but feel a lot of that performance must have been bits that were improvised by Smith.  The mere existence of Smith shows that the non zombie scenes could have still been fun.

Alas, though, they weren't.  As mentioned, part of the problem as an abysmal Mr. Darcy.  You also have such an energetic young talent in Lily James who could have brought a lot more to the role if allowed.  Knightley had so much zest and vigour in the 2005 film, and that energy from the Elizabeth character is missing.  Eighty percent of this film is a recreation of Pride and Prejudice, and it falls flat.  In a movie with such a crazy premise as this, the characters and their interactions should have been a great deal more ramped up.  We don't need straight forward Victorian drama in a movie about the living dead attacking the city of London.

It is thankful that there is a fun ending to this movie.  The action sequences leading up to it are so far in between and short that it was very easy to forget that this film was supposed to have fights and battles.  Heads get blown up, limbs get severed, and the pretty daughters kick ass.  The lead man in this film is not required to save the damsel, which was quite nice to see.

This is an unfortunate movie, because while it was based off of a gimmick that should have been a sketch in a variety show, there was some sense of promise that it could have been a laugh-filled, campy adventure with an unlikely backdrop.  It's desire to stick as strictly to the original tale as it did is what ruined the movie.  Perhaps with a different director with a different skill set, this could have worked.  It didn't here, though.  Movies aren't meant to be watched just for a satisfying finale, but as entertainment as a whole.  And, this goes to a number of films made in the last few year, movies should focus on being stand alone instead of using the final shot to set up a sequel that will absolutely never happen.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars

The Good from Gods of Egypt

I was originally going to sit down and write a piece about all of the bad things Gods of Egypt did as well as some of the positives from the film.  I'll be honest, this movie has gotten railed against so much that me taking some shots at it is completely unneeded.  It has only 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and pretty much got laughed out of theatres.  I would just be beating a dead CGI horse that bled gold if I were to pile on.  I'd rather actually talk about some of the things that this joke of a movie did right, things that really don't happen often in movies.

Before I get to that, I do need to gloss over how I believe it failed.  The budget was absolutely idiotic for the type of movie it was.  Sure it relied heavily on special effects, but there is no way it should have been produced for $140 million.  Yes, there was some success in sword and sandal movies in the remake of Clash of the Titans, but the sequel dipped a lot and other recognizable products in Conan and The Legend of Hercules both fell to the earth like a lead zeppelin.  Now, the budget really isn't something that can be critically criticized, but there are some other issues.  While I will be talking somewhat positively about the computer effects, there were some horrible choices made in its use by director Alex Proyas, such as choosing to circle around people while they were fighting, which turned out jerky and flawed.  As well, there were green screen moments that were ultimately horrible.  And finally, acting.  Brenton Thwaites just did not deliver anything in this movie other than a blank look of a child that he wore during every single scene.  As the main character, there was a complete lack of charisma.  Also, this thing is totally white-washed.  Haven't we reached a point where this doesn't need to happen anymore?

Those would be the serious issues around this film.  Honestly, it should have never been green-lit.  Anyone should have been able to look at the movie and realize that it was a little too nuts for main stream audiences.  But, it happened, and it was just another reminder to studio executives that wild and imaginative sweeping epics and operas are seriously difficult movies to make money on.  Recent examples of other failures of hopeful epics are Jupiter Ascending, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and A Wrinkle in Time.  Audiences have a hard time digesting crazy and 'out there' ideas.  Lionsgate, who is desperately searching for a franchise now that it no longer has Hunger Games is trying anything, and a lot of times they have been failing.

But, even through the piles of misguided trash that came with Gods of Egypt there is something remarkable.  It is not recommendable, but it never once bored me.  I had watched it a few weeks ago, and then watched it again this morning before writing this piece.  Neither time did I ever look at the clock or the run time to see how close I was to the end.  That's usually not something that happens with a film that only gets two out of four stars.

What Gods of Egypt had going for it is that it was never once ashamed of what it was.  So many movies try to do things ultra seriously, such as The Legend of Hercules, and forget that genres like fantasy and sword and sandals are all about fun.  I remember as a child watching Sinbad movies.  Even at six or seven years of age I was picking things out that didn't make sense and plot holes.  They weren't award winning movies, but they never intended to be.  They embraced everything that was wild adventure, and when a film does that it is so much easier to not judge it on what is realistic.  There is something so right about a director and movie that establish right off that the only thing they are interested in is unending fun.  These types of movies don't always work out, but they are almost never boring.

Gods of Egypt is quite the definition of madcap.  You have characters set against marginally passable digitized environments transforming into Scorpion King level creatures.  They fight, they bleed gold, and mortals are idiots.  The main character is a thief whose level of skill is established as being able to take a dress off of a rack to all of a sudden being some sort of expert tomb raider.  This sort of character progression is something straight out of Dungeons and Dragons.  Does any of it make any real sense?  Is this actually some sort of entertaining story?  Do either of those two questions matter when something is allowing itself to be as off the wall as this?

Director Alex Proyas displays an ability to ensure that the battles of giant, transforming ancient deities move along at a quick pace.  Part of why the movie is never boring is that it is insane.  The other part is the vision of Proyas that keeps scenes moving along and never staying too long in situations that lack energy or excitement.  This is the same skill that amazing action directors such as James Cameron and John McTiernan wield when constructing their films.  Proper pacing is something that has nothing to do with budget, so no film, from blockbuster to independent to experimental college film, can get away with messing this up.  That being said, it seems to be one of the most difficult skills out there in cinema, and it is something that isn't really recognized.  So, I would like to salute Proyas for showing that even in a film that fails on so many levels, it can still breeze by without feeling long.

Another aspect that Gods of Egypt nails is the acting.  Yes, I said Thwaites was a bore.  I don't remember him being dreadful in The Giver, but here he pulled a Sam Worthington.  Luckily for the audience, there were others who showed up to give it their all.  Acting can be one of the most important things in a movie.  It allows us to become lost in the greater story and live vicariously through an on screen agent.

In a movie like this, I feel that there are two wonderful ways for actors to treat their roles.  The first is to play it absolutely straight.  Sure the material is nothing worth taking seriously, but a talent that gets into a mindset that what they are a part of is crucial to the future of cinema can play well with the insanity that happens around them.  With The Asylum's breakout movie Sharknado, Ian Ziering did this.  He played the movie completely straight, refusing to show anything in his performance that indicated he didn't need to give it his all.  The performance was a wink that left audiences wondering if the movie was trying to be awful, or if it was failing at being good.  That kind of performance is what Kurt Russell brought to Big Trouble in Little China.  He played the role of an action hero bad-ass even though he was completely useless in the battles.  Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, while not that remarkable in Small Crimes, plays the air god Horace with this sort of straight edge delivery.  I'm sure he knew that this movie wasn't completely serious.  Hell, everyone on set would have known that.  But, the main thing is that he played it as though this was The Gladiator and it aided to the feel of the film.

The other effective way to people to deliver their roles in movies like this is to really ham it up.  I already referenced Big Trouble in Little China, so why not go back there for a second to recognize the work of the incredible James Hong.  Most people will recognize him as the host in the Chinese restaurant from Sienfeld, but this is a man who has had a long career and has had hundreds of jobs.  In Big Trouble in Little China John Carpenter gets Hong to give us an almost cartoony performance to install a deadly, yet ever comical, villain in Lo Pan.  One of the greatest recent deliveries in this manner is Eddie Redmayne's performance in Jupiter Ascending.  It honestly feels like he is the only person involved in the movie that knows what sort of film it should be.  Regardless of how mundane, derivative, and lacklustre the movie is, Balem Abrasax is full of life and energy, a job that makes me smile and reminded the audience that there should have been a lot more fun injected into that film.

Over the top performances are the perfect seasoning to schlocky films.  A number of months ago on the podcast that I co-host, The Movie Breakdown, we looked at the film Drive Angry.  It was another film that knew what it was, that it was nothing but insanity and fun.  Pushing that along was a master class performance from William Fitchner as The Accountant.  It's odd, but yes, there was someone who overacted more than Nicolas Cage in a Cage movie.  I'm not denying that Cage didn't bring it in Drive Angry, it's just that I personally think that Fitchner's job was even more nuts.

In Gods of Egypt we do not have crazy performances to the level of the people already mentioned, but there are some good, scenery chewing jobs in there.  Gerard Butler, who played Leonidas in 300, lets loose his swagger and charisma here as god Set.  He isn't worried about letting a bit of his Scottish accent illogically bleed into the voice of an Egyptian.  It's inconsistent, but it is also hella fun.  The remarkably talented Chadwick Boseman gets in on the act.  He plays Thoth, a god who is obsessed with knowledge.  It is a wonderfully campy performance, and sort of like Redmayne's.  Neither are in their respective films long, but both seem to make it known that they are going to make their screen time count.

Acting is key in these films, the ones that are far from the Zach Snyder mentality of needing to be brooding, grey, and serious.  Would Batman: The Movie worked as well as it did without the committed performance of Adam West and others?  I think it would have been a colossal mess without appropriate acting.  Without solid acting, a movie like Gods of Egypt can end up being a miss.  One of the reasons why this movie only gets two stars from me is because of the problematic performance of its lead.  Similarly, the remake of Conan was well on its way to being a three star recommendation because of it's absurd fun, but the lacking performance of Jason Momoa kept it at only two stars.  If he brought the same energy that he did in Justice League to Conan it would have been an outstanding adventure flick.

Finally, we have the double edged sword that is computer graphics.  This is a tough one.  Alex Proyas did good and bad things with computer generated images.  There was an over reliance on it, which I would argue is fine in a movie like this.  However, even though its fine to have some campy effects (such as people turning into crazy flying creatures), some times poor effects can harm the flow of the film.  I had mentioned the problems that came from the fight scenes at the beginning of the movie and how it caused jerky sequences.  Simply put, there were times when the reliance on computers for setting the scene took me out of the experience.

However, and it's a big 'however,' the special effects, and the lack of quality thereof, elevated the movie.  Would it have been as good if we had Michael Bay level transforming happening in this movie?  Absolutely not.  The effects needed to be this base level to amplify the type of movie this is.  I do think that making a few more sets would have been a smart idea for the movie, but it can't be taken away from the film when giant snake worms are cruising through the desert, breathing fire in a way that felt like the film was made fifteen years ago.  We get things like four time Oscar nominated actor Geoffrey Rush firing bolts of energy through the cosmos at a giant Los Angeles smog looking creature, all the while riding some sort of sail boat above a flat earth.

The unrefined nature of the special effects may not have actually been a purposeful tool deployed in this movie.  Heck, while I'm thinking that it didn't mean to be serious and is all about having fun, Proyas could have been trying to make a modern Ben Hur.  Because we did get third rate special effects it adds to the feeling of wanting to go full steam into the land of complete energy and fun.

There really aren't too many movies like this being made, and there's good reason for that.  They don't make money.  The idea of an updated Big Trouble in Little China is incredibly misguided.  People in the mainstream level don't get these sorts of movies.  Just look at what Last Action Hero did to Schwarzenegger's career.  People just don't follow.  Because of that, movies are made for the masses, they are serious with end of world consequences and big special effects.  They don't embrace madness (I suppose George Miller's Fury Road is excluded from that statement).  A movie that comes along that says to the world that it doesn't care about being serious and is just trying to embody a sense of madcap fun is a breath of fresh air.  Yes, I still don't recommend Gods of Egypt, but I applaud the spirit of it.  It failed at many levels and is a bit of a joke, but it is going to be memorable and a reminder that maybe movies don't always have to be super serious.

REVIEW: Happy Anniversary

Milestones in a relationship can be a lot of fun.  They are times to realize that you have lasted the test of time (provided that the milestones are more significant than the one week anniversary of the first date) and act as a celebration.  They may not mean much for everyone.  The only anniversary that my wife and I celebrate is that of our wedding, and a lot of times there really isn't anything special that happens.  In the movie Happy Anniversary the characters celebrate the three year marker of their first date.  Unfortunately for them, and I would suggest us as well, it isn't the smoothest of days.

Directed by Jared Stern, and written by him as well, this movie spends a day with an overly quirky and witty couple as they decide whether or not the relationship is over.  Stern has penned such movies disliked by me like The Internship and The Watch.  Don't count him out, though.  He also worked on the critically acclaimed LEGO Batman Movie.  In this movie, though, the main thing that stands out is the fact that Stern is unable to create realistic, consistent, and relatable characters.

In a movie when we are watching a relationship fall apart there must be something in there that causes us to root for them and want to see them together (Blue Valentine, anyone?  Perhaps that's not the best example...).  Sadly, Stern has absolutely no concept of how to make us desire to see this couple remain together.  The major problem?  His creation of Sam, played by Ben Schwartz.  Sam is the boyfriend, and ultimately only six minutes of the movie pass before we are shown that he is a miserable excuse of a boyfriend.  When his girlfriend Mollie, Noel Wells, brings up that she is not happy and tries to discuss her feelings Sam's response is, and I quote, "your feelings are f**king bulls*t."  That's verbatim what he says when his partner tries to be honest about what she is feeling.  He immediately indicates that what she is experiencing is not worth anything.

Sam's likability, or lack thereof, doesn't' end there.  When they are walking along Noel says that he won't admit when she's right.  He responds with, and I quote again, "stop being such a b*tch."  What a classy guy that we have placed in front of us.  Another wonderful thing that he says to her is, and yes this is a quote from the movie about cheering for a couple, "the only time I'll ever be happy again is when you're f**king dead."  Stern is perhaps trying to show that Sam is a flawed character, and there is no problem with creating flawed characters.  However, there is a point where the flaws are such that we know full well that Mollie deserves better and that Sam is a rotten person who should be alone for the rest of his life.

That's not the end of the writing issues.  Movies such as this one need to focus on the personality traits of the characters to show how their differences are causing rifts that they need to overcome.  Stern shows in this movie that he does not actually know the characters he has created.  At the beginning we are shown that Mollie is optimistic.  She believes in ghosts essentially because people are too good to completely disappear with death.  Forty minutes later that optimism no longer fills the narrative and instantly she is portrayed as incredibly pessimistic.  Sam says that not only does Mollie see the glass as half full, but she views the glass as full of poison.  And then, literally the final sentence of the movie, Mollie is once again the optimist and is telling Sam to stop being such a pessimist.  Throughout the movie we have thrown at us character traits that have never been shown in the film prior and are not consistent with what we have seen of the characters prior.  Suddenly an issue with Sam is that he cannot make up his mind on anything, which is only shown in flashbacks and is never present at any other point in the story.

This is supposed to be a comedy, but the characters here are such plot devices that it is hard to crack a smile at anything that happens.  While Stern would have us believe that we are watching a rom-com, what we actually get is evidence of a person without any actual clue as to what makes couples work, from their imperfections to what brings about charm.  Sam is pretty much irredeemable.  Mollie deserves better, and Sam deserves to eat cold beans each night while watching Merry Melodies on a cathode ray tube television on UHF.  Toss him away, we don't need him.  All of that being said, Schwartz and Wells act their parts well.  They can't help the fact that there is nothing realistic about what is happening.

Rating - 1 out of 4 stars