Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Dazzles, But Fails To Pop.

The Good: Decent direction, Good themes, Wonderful special effects
The Bad: Mediocre plot and characters, Some huge technical gaps
The Basics: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a beautiful film that never quite manages to excite as much as it seems it should.


This summer, there have been very few films I have gotten excited about based upon the previews. One of the few I went into with virtually no outside knowledge of was Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets. I saw a preview trailer for Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets and it looked intriguing. I knew that the film was based upon a graphic novel, but after reading The Coldest City (reviewed here!) to prepare myself for Atomic Blonde, I opted not to prepare myself for watching the movie by reading the graphic novel first. So, when I sat down to Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, all I was armed with was the information from the preview trailer and the knowledge that the opening-weekend grosses for the film were less-than-stellar.

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a film by Luc Besson and about halfway through watching the movie, I got to thinking that The Fifth Element (reviewed here!) took a long time to find its audience. The Fifth Element is generally considered a film that was produced before its time and I highly suspect that Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets suffers from a similar problem. When Star Wars (reviewed here!) was first released and illustrated a populated universe, many critics were flummoxed; films that have tried to create similarly creative and alien-filled galaxies seem to stumble in a similar way. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is very packed with creatures, devices and backstory, but outside the setting and themes, I found it virtually impossible to emotionally invest in the film.

Starting in 1975 with the first modules of the International Space Station being placed in Earth's orbit, the ISS expands over hundreds of years. The ISS is the site of first contact with aliens in 2150 and hundreds of years later, the station has been expanded to the point that its mass is no longer sustainable in orbit. It becomes known as Alpha Station and sent away from Earth. On the planet Mul, the peaceful, pearl-farming aliens are thriving and celebrating the environmental renewal when the planet is bombarded by massive pieces of military hardware and alien ships. Major Valerian awakens in a virtual reality program having just dreamed of Mul's destruction. Valerian, a law enforcement officer, and his partner (both on the job and in his personal life) Laureline, are tasked with recovering a Mul converter on the planet Kyrean. En route to the extra-dimensional Big Market on Kyrean, Valerian learns that he has been the recipient of external brainwaves, suggesting to him that he just received memories of Mul's destruction.

At the Big Market, Valerian and Laureline encounter the gangster Igon Siruss, who illegally obtained the converter. Valerian is in the process of stealing the converter when he recognizes the would-be buyers of the technology as people from Mul. After narrowly escaping with the super-valuable converter (which is the creature that made pearls on Mul), Laureline and Valerian journey to Alpha Station to defend the military leader of the humans. On Alpha Station, the pair learns that there is a growing irradiated zone on Alpha Station that threatens all life there. When the security council's meeting is attacked and Commander Filitt is captured, Valerian and Laureline go on a journey through Alpha Station to recover the military leader and in the process, they uncover a massive conspiracy surrounding the destruction of the planet Mul.

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a tough film to unpack; the spectacle of the movie is near-complete. Indeed, the only bad effect that I noticed was that when characters pet the Mul converter, the hand motions/creature movements do not quite line up. The special effects element of Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets are immersive and, occasionally, overwhelming.

The story of Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is far less-impressive than the effects, though the themes of the film are decent and experimental in a way similar to those of The Fifth Element. The characters are a mix of engaging and very obvious archetypes. Valerian is a young Han Solo, cocksure, womanizing, and by-the-book; Laureline is efficient, ethical and able to use judgement as opposed to simply following the rules. But Laureline is also the character who explores the nature of love in Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.

Dane DeHaan spends Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets delivering a performance that is identical to a young version of a well-known actor . . . I haven't been able to place it, but the entire time I was watching the film, I felt like I was watching someone else. Valerian is not poorly portrayed, but DeHaan plays him like himself playing the other actor playing the role. Cara Delevingne is good as Laureline, but Eric Lampaert's brief time on screen seems like Lampaert playing Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow for Thaziit and Ethan Hawke appears to be impersonating Mark McGrath for his part of Jolly The Pimp. Rihanna is surprisingly undistracting in the role of Bubble.

Despite the themes and the special effects, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a startling average science fiction action movie. While the film might age well, its time is not quite there yet and the film seems more like an academic exercise than a truly impressive and unique story of its own.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Atomic Blonde
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Baby Driver
Transformers: The Last Knight
Wonder Woman

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Slow Burn Of Atomic Blonde

The Good: Good acting, Good direction, Engaging plot, Good reversal
The Bad: Thinly-defined characters, Predictable plot progression/fight sequences
The Basics: Atomic Blonde might have burned itself up on the hype, leading to an under-performing opening weekend, but objectively viewed, it is an impressive film worth attention!


The prevailing wisdom in the world is that, given a choice between the two, a book is always better than the movie upon which it is based. There are exceptions to that rule, but often when they come up, the topic is hotly debated in fandom. A few months ago, I was drawn into watching the red band trailer for the film Atomic Blonde and the trailer was so compelling and intriguing that I hunted down the graphic novel upon which the film was based. The book, The Coldest City (reviewed here!), was insular, featured terrible artwork, and vastly prioritized the realism of its setting over the development of the characters involved. In fact, if anything, reading The Coldest City made me less excited about seeing Atomic Blonde.

Despite that, I eagerly attended an opening day showing of Atomic Blonde and the fact that it took me almost a full day to write my review speaks to the fact that the film has a density to it and requires some unpacking to truly appreciate it. In fact, Atomic Blonde is far better than its source material and it is a rare example of how those who are too tied to the original work upon which a film is based are likely to experience an initial disappointment with the movie.

Writer Kurt Johnstad adapted Atomic Blonde from The Coldest City and he found the absolute right balance of fidelity to the original work and fleshing the material out. The Coldest City is a short book - a fast read packed more with jargon than substance and development. Johnstad fleshes the bones of the book into a more-realized film by giving its protagonist, Lorraine Broughton, a genuine romantic relationship (Atomic Blonde is already being accused to having a gratuitous lesbian relationship, but the truth is Lorraine's relationship with Delphine allows Broughton to be humanized, fleshed out beyond her job and, frankly, is hardly as erotic as one might guess for having Charlize Theron naked) and fleshing out the film's primary antagonist with a truly brutal example of KGB tactics. Even better, Johnstad eliminates one of the fundamental problems with The Coldest City by referencing Satchel - the Soviet double-agent - immediately in the film (in the book, the first reference to Satchel comes perilously late in the narrative, creating an artificial and disturbingly forced reversal at the climax of the graphic novel).

The thing is, Johnstad's script is good, but it hinges upon the film's end because of the way director David Leitch directs the movie. Throughout Atomic Blonde, Johnstad gives obvious hints to how the book ended and it's tough to call it a "spoiler" as the book has been out for over five years. Leitch, however, insinuates the reversal at the end of the book through the alcohol in the film and as the film goes on, it is hard not to believe that the spies are not picking up on the Obvious Clue being left as to Satchel's identity. The reason that it took me so long to write my review of Atomic Blonde was that I spent much of the viewing annoyed at Leitch for directing the clue to Satchel's identity so obviously.

David Leitch, however, earns a lot of credit for his direction of Atomic Blonde; had I had faith that he was not simply telegraphing the end of the film, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more. And there is a lot to enjoy in Atomic Blonde, but the film is a slow burn, the opposite of Wonder Woman (check out why I assert that film gets worse the more one deconstructs it here!) - Atomic Blonde gets better the more one considers it.

Set in November of 1989, Lorraine Broughton is called into MI-6 Headquarters for debriefing. There, she is interrogated by Eric Gray, while the C.I.A. observer Emmett Kurzfeld looks on and Broughton's boss, C, observes through a double-sided mirror and records the session. Ten days prior, Broughton was tasked with going to Berlin to recover the corpse of James Gasciogne, an MI-6 agent who was killed by a Soviet spy. Broughton is tasked with both recovering the corpse, under the alias of a lawyer working for the dead man's estate, and recovering a list that Gasciogne appeared to have died for; a list of every spy working in Berlin.

After arriving in Berlin and discovering her identity has already been compromised when the Soviets attempt to kill her, Broughton meets with the surviving MI-6 station officer in Berlin, David Percival. Percival is believed to have "gone native" and operates a black market in Berlin intended to destabilize East Berlin by exciting the youth culture there. It does not take long after Broughton arrives for the list to resurface, but the mission is complicated by Spyglass, an operative who has memorized the list and needs to be extracted from East Berlin, Soviet operatives attacking and a French spy who develops a quick, passionate, relationship with Broughton.

Atomic Blonde is a well-directed film and one of the aspects I particularly enjoyed about the movie was that it was violent without being overly gory. There are numerous occasions when two characters are in a life and death combat situation and Leitch puts one character's back to the camera and allows the brutality or kill shot to be obscured. The film is populated by fast punches, surprisingly limited blood splatter and when characters are, for example, shot in the head, it often happens at a distance that is anything but intimate, making the violence and the fighting much more entertaining than unsettling.

Music plays a big part of creating the atmosphere of 1989 Berlin (on both sides of the Wall). The soundtrack for Atomic Blonde is an impressive blend of period-specific songs and remixes/foreign language versions of the songs. Similarly, the costumes are impressive.

Far more than being a style film, Atomic Blonde does a good job of making Lorraine Broughton interesting to watch. Broughton is characterized as a tough, all-business spy, but she is humanized by her relationship with Delphine, the French spy. Broughton lets down her guard with Delphine and the relationship she develops with Delphine allows Broughton to see the potential life she could have outside spycraft. And Atomic Blonde might be impressively erotic (I suppose it is to some people), were Broughton not already pretty bruised by their first encounter.

Charlize Theron is entirely convincing as Lorraine Broughton. Theron sells her character's aliases and her efficient, professional, coldness - she is a viable spy. In fact, the moment Theron gets the viewer to fully invest in her character's abilities and competence is when Broughton sarcastically observes, "I can read a fucking map." In a world that predates smartphones and instant connectivity, Theron realistically portrays a human asset. Sofia Boutella is fine as Delphine Lasalle, but she plays Lasalle like a reluctant spy; a woman who wishes far more she took one of her other job options. Regardless, there is no hint of her character from Star Trek Beyond (reviewed here!) in her performance in Atomic Blonde.

James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, James Faulkner, and Rolland Moller all give good supporting performances (though I spent much of Atomic Blonde thinking of Moller, "Sean Harris really has some range in this!") in Atomic Blonde. McAvoy is well-cast as the emotionally-confused Percival.

Ultimately, Atomic Blonde is an entertaining spy thriller that does a decent job of fleshing out a bare-bones idea in compelling ways, even though it still is somewhat plot-heavy and more concerned with action-adventure entertainment than making its protagonist truly well-rounded and compelling.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Baby Driver
Transformers: The Last Knight
Rough Night
Wonder Woman

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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About As Bad As The Rest Of The Franchise: Transformers: The Last Knight

The Good: Great cast, Most of the special effects
The Bad: Banal plot, Lack of real character development, Terrible lines delivered unconvincingly by great actors.
The Basics: Transformers: The Last Knight is not great, but it is more par for the course than being truly terrible.


Transformers: The Last Knight is out and the press for it has been pretty bad in general. I'm feeling like bucking that trend to argue that the cinematic Transformers has been pretty lousy in general and Transformers: The Last Knight is pretty much what one expects as opposed to being an all-out terrible film. Transformers: The Last Knight is bad, but lately I've seen far worse films.

Michael Bay has not been recreating Casablanca for the past ten years with the Transformers franchise. He makes films for Summer Blockbuster Season filled with explosions, computer-generated special effects, and direction that lasciviously passes the camera slowly over whatever female lead the film possesses. To be fair to Transformers: The Last Knight, there is far less of the camera exploiting women than in the four prior installments of the franchise. Unfortunately, there are more retcons that place Transformers and alien technology on Earth in the past and make the movie fit very poorly into any continuity with the others, despite the fact that more of the cast from the first three movies recurs in Transformers: The Last Knight.

Opening in Briton during Camelot, Merlin and Arthur enlist Transformers to thwart their enemies. Flashing forward to the present, some Transformers have taken refuge in other countries, while in America the teenager Izabella uncovers a downed Transformer in the ruins of a baseball stadium. Izabella is a homeless girl who is rescued by Cade Yeager. The pair are hunted back to Cade's junkyard by the American military. Colonel Lennox has become aware that the Decepticons under the newly resurfaced Megatron are hunting something that they believe Cade has.

Off Earth, Optimus Prime crashes into Cybertron, which is headed toward Earth with the planet's creator, Quintessa. Quintessa reprograms Optimus Prime to wipe out humanity and remake Earth into a new homeworld for the Transformers. The chase of Cade Yeager takes him to England where Sir Edmund Burton has been part of the line of humans working with Transformers to protect the Earth. Burton brings in Vivian Wembley, the last surviving descendant of Merlin, who has access to technology and information that sends her and Cade under the sea to recover an artifact that will allow them to thwart the Decepticons, Quintessa, and the ensorceled Optimus Prime.

Transformers: The Last Knight is exactly what one expects of a Transformers movie. The human characters are mundane, poorly characterized and deliver far more expository dialogue than anything that is clever and defines the characters in unique and interesting ways. Transformers: The Last Knight picks up after Transformers: The Age Of Extinction (reviewed here!), so it begins with the Transformers abandoned by Optimus Prime who flew off Earth at the end of that film.

Blending the main characters from the early Transformers films - Lennox, General Morshower, and Agent Simmons - with Cade Yeager and newer Transformers like Hound, Transformers: The Last Knight just continues the banal franchise with more explosions, more robot on robot fights and an absurd predicament that absolutely defies rational physics. Transformers: The Last Knight asks viewers to accept as credible that there is a scientist who denies the existence of magic and fantasy in a world with Transformers who fails to point out that a planet-sized object rushing toward Earth would completely destroy the Earth long before that object starts ripping apart the surface and extracting massive chunks of technology. Only the least-sophisticated viewer could believe that the Earth could survive in any recognizable way after the events of Transformers: The Last Knight.

Arguably the most disappointing aspect of Transformers: The Last Knight is that Jeff Bridges does not appear in the movie in any form. Astute fans will note that in Transformers: The Age Of Extinction one of the sound clips used as Bumblebee's dialogue was from The Big Lebowski. Transformers: The Last Knight is like a mini-reunion for The Big Lebowski (reviewed here!) with the return of John Turturro and John Goodman (albeit as a voice-only actor in the film) and the introduction of Steve Buscemi as the Autobot Daytrader. And that was the most exciting aspect of Transformers: The Last Knight.

Sir Anthony Hopkins is wasted as Sir Edmund Burton and it seems like the only reason he is in the film to get the venerable actor to call someone a dick and make other remarks that are well-below his usual level of diction. Stanley Tucci's cameo in the film is virtually unrecognizable and newcomers Laura Haddock and Isabela Moner add nothing significant to the mix. Marc Wahlberg is fine as Cade, but it seems like outside his physical performance, the main reason to have him in Transformers: The Last Knight is to pull off a scene where characters act amazed that Cade has been celibate for years.

The Transformers themselves are hapless robots in Transformers: The Last Knight with no clear sense of boundaries or sensibility. Optimus Prime is reprogrammed by his creator . . . but Bumblebee being willing to sacrifice himself and deliver lines in his own voice is enough to change his programming?! And Prime leaps back up to Cybertron with other Transformers not worrying that he'll simply be reprogrammed again and come back murderous again?!

So, Transformers: The Last Knight is just a pretty bad action adventure film that does the usual Summer Blockbuster Season thing that has been done by the franchise four other times and by far better movies many, many more times.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Rough Night
The Mummy
Wonder Woman
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Baywatch
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ten Years Ago, Jerry Seinfeld Advocated Slavery And Stereotypes In Bee Movie!

The Good: Decent animation
The Bad: Ridiculous stereotypes, Unlikable characters, Terrible overall theme, Predictable and hyperbolic plot
The Basics: Bee Movie is another terrible animated film that has an ultimately horrible message and reinforces stereotypes more than doing anything remotely entertaining.


Years ago, I discovered that some animated films get away with the most horiffic racism, sexism and stereotype-reinforcement when I sat down and watched A Shark Tale (reviewed here!) and it was painfully obvious to deconstruct what was in the film, as opposed to what the writers and producers hoped viewers would see. So, when my wife sat down to watch Bee Movie and she prefaced it with "this is one of the worst movies ever; it is so horrible!" I was ready to believe her, but I still went into it with an open mind. Anti-Semitic and essentially arguing in favor of a slave class, Bee Movie is one of the worst, most subversive films I've seen in a long time . . . even if on the surface it advocates for worker's rights and environmental balance.

Bee Movie was co-written by Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten (who had a delightful late-night talk show for a while that I quite enjoyed!), Barry Marder, and Andy Robin and it is somewhat amazing that it took at least four people to write a film that was so lacking in humor and managed to create something that on the surface was progressive, but has a truly horrible subtext. While the film is built on an obvious series of jokes based on stereotypes about Jews, lawyers and women, Bee Movie has a resolution that is unfortunately ambiguous and leads to a conclusion that appears to advocate in favor of race slavery!

In a bee hive, Barry B. Benson and Adam Flayman graduate from school and are assigned to the hive workforce. Barry wants to join the bees who leave the hive because he has a sense of adventure to him, while Adam wants to work in the hive. Barry goes on a flight out into the city where he learns about pollination and is nearly killed by getting stuck on a tennis ball. When it begins to rain, Barry ends up in the apartment of Vanessa Bloome, who saves him from her neanderthal boyfriend. Barry feels obligated to thank Vanessa, revealing to her that bees have the ability to speak and are fairly reasonable. Barry also discovers that humans are manufacturing their own honey, to the detriment of bees.

Barry and Adam sue the humans, charging that the companies that enslave bees to harvest their honey (while keeping the bees at bay using smoke) are illegally appropriating the by-products the bees create. When the lawyer for the humans, Layton T. Montgomery, goads Adam into attacking him, Barry must complete the case on his own. But winning the case and freeing the bees from human exploitation leads to an environmental disaster that menaces humanity! As bee society falls apart, the relationship between Barry and florist Vanessa Bloome is strained to the point of breaking. The bee and human must work together to save the world!

On the surface, Bee Movie seems to have a great message of the importance of environmental interdependence. The humans and bees in Bee Movie eventually learn that they must work together to protect the delicate balance of the Earth's ecosystem. That is an honorable message. However, the film begins in the hive and illustrates a rigid society that is ordered, well-controlled, and is somewhat oppressive, but ends in Vanessa's lower shop without any closure for the hive. The consequence of this is that it leads to a strongly implied horrible message for the overall film.

After winning the lawsuit in the human world, the humans stop using honey in their products, which frees the bees and menaces their orderly society. But the final scene of Bee Movie has Vanessa featuring "bee approved" honey in her flower shop. The problem with this climax is that there is no visible price on the bee approved honey and it is not clear that she is actually selling the honey, as opposed to giving it away. The problem with failing to close the loop on the hive story is that Bee Movie fails to illustrate that the bees actually profit from their work. The bees successfully stop humans from explicitly enslaving them and stop the humans from manufacturing and selling honey from fake hives created for the purpose of making honey. But, the bees go back to work to protect the environment, keep order in their society and produce honey that the humans then distribute and enjoy. The bees in Bee Movie do not evolve; they merely liberate some of their brethren from explicit slavery. Because there is no scene that illustrates that the bee approved honey financially or materially benefits the bee hive, Bee Movie implicitly advocates in favor of a slave society. The bees do all of the work and are kept under control and the fruits of their labor are used by a vastly more powerful group . . . without any explicit moment that shows them benefiting, this is a slave class that has been bamboozled into putting their seal of approval on their own exploitation.

This troubling ending comes at the climax of a film where the characters are unlikable, based on stereotypes and relationships that make no actual sense. The unlikable aspect of the characters is epitomized in the way Barry uses other people for his own gain. Barry is thrilled when a bear is willing to appear at the trial and act violent in order to benefit his case . . . but then, after the case, Barry disparages bears again. Barry is a user and a racist one at that! Ironically, the writers miss their chance to make a truly relevant social commentary on the way language has been misappropriated by having a lawyer accuse Barry of "playing the species card" when it was the perfect place to use the term "race card" accurately (as bees and humans are actual different races, as opposed to humans of different ethnicities!).

The relationship between Barry and Vanessa is just troubling. Vanessa is a human who seems to fall in love with Barry, the way he fell for her. When my wife shockingly asked, "How would that even work?!" and I came up with some creative ideas to answer that question, I got her to blush and tell me - well before I came to the end of my list - to please stop! Bee Movie is just ridiculous when one looks at the relationships in the film.

While the animation in Bee Movie is fairly impressive, the voice acting is merely adequate. Renee Zellweger goes in and out of dialects as Vanessa and Jerry Seinfeld descends into shtick as Barry.

The result is that Bee Movie is a truly terrible animated film that is not worth watching . . . even for its ten year anniversary!

For other animated films, please visit my reviews of:
Zootopia
Despicable Me
Shrek

1/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Worth The One Viewing: 10 Cloverfield Lane Is Interesting!

The Good: Performances, Mood, Plot development
The Bad: Limited concept appeal, Lack of genuine complexity, Mediocre characters
The Basics: 10 Cloverfield Lane is a clever glimpse back into the universe created in Cloverfield that works surprisingly well on its own!


Cloverfield (reviewed here!) is one of those films that I watched when it first hit theaters, reviewed, and spent no time beyond it considering. When the very first movie poster for 10 Cloverfield Lane was posted online, I rolled my eyes and thought that Cloverfield was a film that did not really require a sequel, so it seemed odd that the studio had bothered to make one. I wasted no time rushing out to see 10 Cloverfield Lane in the theaters (because one of the few things I recall about Cloverfield was nauseating angles on the big screen).

Now on Blu-Ray and DVD, I decided to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane because I like John Goodman and his presence in the film gave it an instant credibility. Besides Goodman's presence in the film, all I knew about 10 Cloverfield Lane before I sat down to watch it was that it was a very different film from Cloverfield. I envied the ambition of making a very different type of film from the "found footage" science fiction film to continue the franchise.

Michelle packs up a box of her possessions, leaves her engagement ring behind and drives off into the night. When her fiance calls, the call is disconnected moments before Michelle gets into a car accident. She awakens in a concrete room, an i.v. in her arm and her knee in a cast, handcuffed to the wall. After she manages to recover her smartphone from across the room, she is visited by a man who brings her food, crutches and the key to the handcuffs. He tells her that he intends to keep her alive and, despite what she says about her boyfriend, that no one is looking for her.

The man is Howard and he has a fully functional bunker where he is prepared to live out the catastrophic event that has occurred outside. Howard believes that there is either a chemical or nuclear attack, which has poisoned the air outside (as evidenced by two dead pigs within sight of the airlock door on the surface). Howard, Michelle, and a man named Emmett (who has a hurt arm) adapt to life in the bunker with Emmett revealing to Michelle that he saw what he believed was the attack and he fought to get into the bunker. Emmett helped Howard build the bunker and he believes Howard can help him survive. Michelle, convinced she heard a car above her bunker room, is unsettled by Howard. She remains unconvinced of the horrors outside until she tries to leave the bunker when a crazed woman, with a bloody face, tries to get into the bunker. Howard admits that he was responsible for Michelle's car accident and the two begin to bond over things like Michelle stitching Howard's head wound and going through the box of possessions Howard rescued from Michelle's car. After bonding for a bit, the bunker is shaken by something on the surface and Michelle has to go into the air ducts in order to restart the air filtration system. She is spooked, though, to find a message scratched into the glass of a window in the filtration room and an earring, which seems to belong to a local girl that Emmett knew went missing. Michelle and Emmett scavenge a shower curtain from the trash chute to build a contamination suit and gas mask to leave the bunker.

10 Cloverfield Lane is essentially a film that tries to keep the viewer guessing as to the nature of Howard's bunker. Is he a benevolent rescuer who accurately foresaw the potential of an impending apocalyptic event or is he a nutcase conspiracy theorist who has abducted Michelle? That type of film truly hinges on the characters in the film being interesting enough to carry long scenes of people simply interacting to make the viewer care as to what happens to them. 10 Cloverfield Lane does that well-enough to be watchable. There are plenty of moments in the film where the viewer is able to be immersed within the narrative of the three survivors in the bunker as opposed to simply thinking, "I wonder how this fits in to Cloverfield?"

John Gallagher Jr. is very good as Emmett. Gallagher might well be best known for his clean-shaven, upstanding, articulate character from The Newsroom, but in 10 Cloverfield Lane he plays a laborer who feel like he missed his chance to accomplish something. Emmett fought to get into the bunker and he plays fearful and ambitious and the character is just clever enough in some of the key, tense, scenes to be plausible. Gallagher is able to portray the wide range of emotions for the sometimes simple character very well.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fine as Michelle, but the truth is that Michelle is a very simple character. Most of Winstead's performance and time on screen is designed to make the viewer fearful for Michelle and Winstead does everything she needs to to make the viewer care. Michelle is vulnerable and the physical contrast between Winstead and Goodman is significant enough that the viewer worries instantly for her safety. As Winstead bugs out her eyes and breathes frantically, the concern the viewer has for Michelle intensifies.

10 Cloverfield Lane features a predictably diverse performance from John Goodman as Howard. Goodman has the range that keeps the viewer unsettled, wondering just who Howard actually is and what his motives actually are. Goodman plays Howard as alternately reserved and exhibiting a dangerous temper. Howard is an interesting foil for Michelle and Goodman finds the balance to play him to make him seem like someone who was shellshocked, but smartly prepared.

Ultimately, 10 Cloverfield Lane plays out as a somewhat predictable mindfuck. The film makes a final scene left turn from the drama-thriller that preceded it, but it works and is, at its worst, watchable.

For other works with John Gallagher Jr., please visit my reviews of:
The West Wing - Season 4
Jonah Hex
The Newsroom - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 2
The Newsroom - Season 3

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Michael Bay’s Latest Popcorn Blockbuster Is Everything One Expects . . . Except That It’s Not Terrible! Transformers: Age Of Extinction!

The Good: Decent new characters, Good special effects, Decent continuity and plot concept
The Bad: Formulaic plot, Ridiculous plot/character/directing conceits.
The Basics: More a predictable and unambitious continuation of the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Age Of Extinction is a mildly creative popcorn flick that undermines itself by playing to the worst conceits of the existing franchise.


Were it not for my place as a film reviewer, I never would have watched Transformers, much less all of the films in the recent cinematic empire that has made an obscene amount of cash in remarkably few years. Over the course of the past seven years, Michael Bay’s live-action, CG-effects loaded Transformers franchise has become one of the highest grossing cinematic franchises of all time and a staple of Summer Blockbuster Season. Regardless of my antipathy toward the franchise, Michael Bay’s latest endeavor into the Transformers Saga suffers more from an unimaginative script and a pathetic dependence on the more lascivious elements of the popcorn film than being actually, genuinely terrible.

In fact, outside the way Michael Bay uses the camera to virtually molest yet another female model – in this case one who is playing a minor child – and lamely recreates the familiar shots of convoys of hot, trendy cars that stick out wherever they go. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is actually the best of the franchise (so far), but the dependence on playing toward the lowest common denominator in terms of humor and style (are the only people who would appreciate a Transformers film really those who find a “whoo hoo girl” to be the ideal?!) undermine the quality elements that Transformers: Age Of Extinction possesses. And Transformers: Age Of Extinction actually has some worthwhile elements, most notably in the cast – which replaces Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Tyrese with higher caliber actors like Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Titus Welliver, and Mark Wahlbrg (replacing Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley with Nicola Peltz and Sophia Myles is more an even swap-out than an upgrade of any sort) – and the overall plot concept that put it above the prior incarnations of Transformers.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction does what very few popcorn movies do: it is steeped in the consequences of the prior film(s) in a way that makes the continuation/reboot of the franchise surprisingly compelling. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is a direct sequel to Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (reviewed here!) and the wholesale destruction in Chicago and the robotic carnage that happened as a result forces a complete redirection of the franchise. The first half of Transformers: Age Of Extinction is spent introducing new characters and wrestling with the problems left over from Transformers: Dark Of The Moon before the second half progresses the story with how irresponsible humans have led to an unholy alliance and a military/industrial complex that has made a bad decision which “the market” pushes into action before adequate testing. While Transformers: Age Of Extinction predictably lacks compelling character development on the front of the virtual characters, the human characters in the film are more than catch phrase-spewing tools; they have motivations that are more well-rounded and realistic than in the prior movies.

In ancient times, a massive space ship floats over Earth and releases technology that obliterates the dinosaurs. Then, five years after the attack on Chicago (which was the subject of the climax of Transformers: Dark Of The Moon), an archaeology team discovers wreckage of an ancient Dinobot (dinosaur Transformer). In Texas, Cade Yeager and his lackey employee, Lucas, go on a salvage mission where they find wreckage from a failed operation in New Mexico in the middle of a defunct movie theater they are considering purchasing (but cannot possibly afford). Yeager’s daughter, Tessa, is embarrassed by her father as the family struggles to afford her imminent college bills (not to mention the mortgage). But in the wake of a U.S. government team flushing out and destroying the Autobot medic, Ratchet, the head of the task force hunting down Transformers in the U.S., the CIA’s special task force director Attinger, steps up his hunt for Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime, unsurprisingly, is the truck Cade has stashed at Yeager Robotics. Attinger is working with a Transformer bounty hunter who is affiliated with neither the Autobots or the (now completely eliminated) Decepticons and after a disastrous raid on Yeager Robotics, Cade and his family (and Tessa’s boyfriend) are rescued by Optimus Prime. The Yeagers work with Optimus to find what has happened to the remaining Autobots on Earth and their search takes them to KSI, where Joshua Joyce is using the metal from which the Transformers are constructed and the frame of the deceased Megatron to build a whole new race of Transformers. Joyce’s Galvatron manages to hold Optimus Prime in check long enough for Attinger’s Lockdown to enter the fray. But when Lockdown abducts Tessa along with Optimus Prime (fulfilling the deal he had with Attinger), Cade and Tessa’s boyfriend – along with the remaining Autobots – infiltrate Lockdown’s ship on a rescue mission to try to save her and stop the Autobots from ending up as slaves for their original creators.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction is truly an example of “better ingredients, better product” in a lot of ways. For sure, the prior incarnations of Transformers featured acting and vocal talents from some respectable individuals – like John Turturro, Leonard Nimoy, Jon and John Malkovich – but the way Wahlberg, Grammer and Tucci are used in Transformers: Age Of Extinction illustrates a far better use of acting talent than the prior films.

For a film that deals with consequences of the prior movies, there is a strange disconnect between reason and the reality of the Transformers universe in Transformers: Age Of Extinction. Joyce is greedy and motivated by a desire to push ahead human technology using technology scrapped from downed Transformers. Oddly, Joyce is resource poor in Transformers: Age Of Extinction, which makes no reasonable sense. Devastator’s “corpse” alone should have given Joyce enough “Transformium” to build his new Transformers without ever having to hunt Cybertronian fugitives left on Earth.

The Transformers franchise is a film franchise built on the popularity of a toy line intended for boys from the early 1980s and the movies are generally considered “guy movies.” Unlike dramas that focus on deep emotions or romantic movies geared more toward women, “guy movies” tend to trade almost solely on spectacle. The men are manly (Wahlberg certainly fits the bill in Transformers: Age Of Extinction) and the ones who are not traditionally hot are traditionally powerful, which Grammer’s Attinger and Tucci’s Joyce easily embody. But the weakness of the “guy movie” paradigm continues in Transformers: Age Of Extinction with the role of Tessa Yeager.

Tessa is a generic damsel in distress and is something of a hot, idiotic “whoo hoo girl” who fills the requisite T&A component of the Transformers film. This is somewhat creepily executed in Transformers: Age Of Extinction because she is a minor, not particularly talented or smart in any useful way and spends her time in the film with older men, one of whom is her father. Tessa’s relationship with Shane Dyson is a generic plot point: Peltz (Tessa) and Reynor (Dyson) have no on-screen chemistry and their relationship is not presented with any sort or realistic passion or plot-based basis for a relationship. Attinger and Joyce have more on-screen chemistry and character-based reasons for their relationship than the film’s supposed romantic couple.

Before Transformers: Age Of Extinction degenerates into yet another “Optimus Prime and his CG-robots must stop Megatron” film, Michael Bay’s latest entry into the Transformers mythos is intriguing enough to be entertaining and is hardly as misogynistic or slapstick as the prior three films. The result is a popcorn film that is more predictable than disappointing and is hardly as frustrating to admit one has watched than the prior movies in the franchise.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
The Expendables 3
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
Behaving Badly
Some Velvet Morning
Happy Christmas
Snowpiercer
22 Jump Street
How To Train Your Dragon 2
Edge Of Tomorrow
Maleficent
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Echo Dr.
The Double
Bad Neighbors
Making The Rules

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Quietly Through The Eastern Front: The Monuments Men

The Good: Interesting concept, Decent acting
The Bad: No real character development, When you’ve heard the concept, you’ve pretty much seen the movie . . .
The Basics: Releasing after awards season, The Monuments Men is a splintered historical drama that fails to go beyond its one-line concept to make a film of enduring greatness.


George Clooney’s production company, Smokehouse Pictures, had a good 2012. Their film, Argo (reviewed here!) won the Best Picture Oscar and Clooney’s partner at Smokehouse, Grant Heslov, decided to use that cache to further his writing career. Heslov and Clooney co-wrote the screenplay for The Monuments Men, which was adapted from the book by the same name. What is intriguing from a production perspective is how Clooney and Heslov opted to hedge their bets for the 2013 award season. Smokehouse Pictures released August: Osage County (reviewed here!) in time to get the inevitable nominations for the Golden Globes and Oscars that Smokehouse wanted, but to not crowd the field, they held The Monuments Men off until February. February is one of two death slots for films; it’s the Friday night prime time slot for movie releases. In other words, for a company that has taken a simple-concept film and made it into an award-winner – as they did with Argo - it seems like a severe lack of confidence in their own production to release a film in February.

When watching The Monuments Men, though, the lack of push for awards season comes to make a lot of sense. Given the stellar cast, I was eager to watch The Monuments Men, which is why I was surprised at how poorly the film landed. The Monuments Men is a film whose concept is not expanded upon, developed, or enriched beyond the one-line pitch for the film. In other words, with my next line, the entire film is pretty much spoiled (or, if you’ve seen the trailer or heard anyone describe the movie, it’s pretty much done for you). The Monuments Men is about a group of art experts who infiltrate France and Belgium in 1944 as the Germans are withdrawing from their occupied territories and attempt to recover and protect any artistic antiquities they can find before the Germans destroy them. Based on historical accounts, The Monuments Men is not a riveting adventure like Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!), but it is a story worth telling.

Sadly, the lack of comparative excitement or sophistication makes for a poor film. The Monuments Men is a ridiculously simple concept presented with historical realism as opposed to a sense of dramatic tension. As a result, the film does not develop characters, it does not illustrate a team coming together for common purpose, it does not involve clever people piecing together clues to save antiquities. Instead, a disparate group of individuals are tasked with an assignment, they break into small teams, and target specific locations operating mostly on hope or common knowledge until one of the least important characters finally realizes a pattern that could have saved a lot of time and lives if only he had looked at a map and used his brain a year and a half (and an hour in filmwatching time) earlier.

As the Nazis advance through Europe, they collect and steal artwork. In Belgium, the painting set known as the Altar of Ghent is protected by Belgian clergy until it is stolen as well. When Frank Stokes learns that Hitler is planning to build the world’s largest museum, he convinces FDR to commit some men to recovering and protecting the artwork stolen by the Nazis before they can destroy it or get it back to Berlin. In Paris, Claire Simone is forced to work for the Nazi, Viktor Stahl, in order to protect the works of art captured in France. When Stahl withdraws, taking what art he can with him, Simone is imprisoned as a collaborator.

Stokes assembles his team of art scholars, including James Granger, Richard Campbell, Walter Garfield, Preston Savitz, the Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont, the Englishman Donald Jeffries, and the young German Sam Epstein, who enter France through Normandy (quite a bit after the invasion). They then split into teams to try to recover sculptures, paintings, and other artwork the Germans have hidden. As one team works with the priests who have hidden artwork through the war, another finds Stahl’s hideout and another goes searching for the sculpture of Madonna and Child. As the different teams meet with varying degrees of success in their mission, they manage to uncover more obviously recognized valuables, are put in harm’s way, and suffer casualties just as any other unit would. Reuniting, the team’s mission becomes more important as the Nazis begin a scorched earth policy on their stolen antiquities as the war turns inevitably against them.

The problem with The Monuments Men is that it truly is over the moment the concept is revealed; the details beyond the concept are presented in such a listless and undramatic way. The film is not about the characters, so when the team (and I use that term lightly considering how the group is split up almost immediately in order to cover more ground) suffers casualties, it seems much more inevitable than dramatic. It is hard to empathize with the characters, especially when a scene reveals a collection of teeth fillings from executed Jews. Yes, antiquities are exceptionally important, but losing a person or two who is trying to safeguard them seems diminished when one looks at a pile of fillings and realizes that innocent people were simply executed for being who they were. In simpler terms, The Monuments Men is about guys who signed up to risk their lives to recover antiquities and some lose their lives in the process, but that sacrifice is one they were prepared to make. The film does not develop the characters enough to make those deaths resonate with the audience. In fact, there is a sense that some casualties were pretty much bound to happen given the nature of the characters (they are not professional soldiers).

The acting in The Monuments Men is fine, but there is nothing extraordinary delivered by the amazing cast. Bill Murray is used to deliver comic relief, John Goodman plays an understated good guy, and George Clooney . . . he shaves his beard as quickly as possible so he’s recognizable as George Clooney. Matt Damon, Bob Balaban, and Cate Blanchett also appear in the film. The acting is fine; none of it is spectacular.

Argo was a pleasant surprise; it took an event that the entire world knew about (the Iran Hostage Crisis) and told a story most people did not know – how some of the hostages were snuck out of Iran by the Canadians. The thing is, because the story became public knowledge, Argo had only one way it could end, with the successful execution of the plan. Yet, Argo has a dramatic tension and narrative quality that makes one forget they already know how it will end. It is easy to become immersed in the moment of the film. Unfortunately, The Monuments Men never gets there. This (previously) untold story of a lesser-known part of World War II history does not have an immediately obvious resolution – the mission could succeed or fail – and it is told in an unremarkable and zestless way. Smokehouse Pictures banked on creating a historical document, which they did adequately, but they failed to make a great, or even engaging, film.

For other works with Bill Murray, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Zombieland
Get Smart
The Darjeeling Limited
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
The Royal Tenenbaums
Charlie's Angels
Cradle Will Rock
Space Jam
Saturday Night Live - Season 1

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an easy, organized listing by title of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Uninspired Prequel, Monsters University Disappoints.

The Good: The voice acting is fine, Animation is all right
The Bad: Dull and predictable story, Not funny, Not clever, Exceptionally formulaic character progressions
The Basics: Pixar’s latest box office triumph, Monsters University is likely to lose its staying power fast as audiences realize it is a movie utterly lacking in sparkle or originality.


When one watches a lot of movies, one quickly becomes attuned to the conceits of the various genres. Horror and science fiction movies have become such fodder for comedic parody because they have, largely, become so formulaic as to be unsurprising and utterly predictable. So, it is somewhat surprising when Disney/Pixar releases a new film that utterly defies the conventions of the genre. I’m not talking about the college buddy movie genre; Monsters University is so utterly formulaic in that regard that the premise could be written by a college freshman with just the basic line “We want to do a prequel to Monsters, Inc. that puts Mike Wazowski and Sully in college, where they are not initially friends. Seriously, a high school student could probably have pounded out the exact film Monsters University given that working premise. It is that predictable. No, I’m talking about the Disney animated movie genre. Monsters University certainly defies that, but not in a good way.

Sadly, Monsters University is without charm, humor, memorable music (it is not a musical), heartwarming moments or moments of visual spectacle. Unfortunately, Monsters University defies the traditional Disney conceits by creating a movie that is neither timeless nor significant, not original or even particularly memorable. And, it is worth noting that I enjoyed Monsters, Inc. (reviewed here!) and purposely did not rewatch it before taking in Monsters University so I would not be burned out on the characters or traditional issues I have with Disney’s animated “wonders.” This was a very pure viewing of Monsters University and as close to a review unbiased by the original as one could have while still knowing who the principle characters are.

Smaller than his peers at Frighton Elementary, Mike Wazowski nevertheless determines on a field trip that he wants to be a Scarer and attend the prestigious Monsters University. After sneaking into a child’s room from the scare floor on a field trip, he is given an endorsement by one of the scarers and is determined to make it in the future as a scarer. Years later, he successfully enrolls in Monsters University and enrolls in their scaring program. He hits it right off with his roommate, Randy, who is also training to be a scarer. One night, while Mike is studying, his dorm room is broken into by a giant blue monster chasing down a monster pig, the mascot of one of the other monster schools. He is James P. Sullivan and he instantly derides Mike for being in the scaring program because he is convinced that Mike does not have what it takes to be a scarer.

Sullivan’s trek through Monsters University hits a snag pretty quickly, though, when he tries coasting through Professor Knight’s Scaring class on his family name (he’s a legacy at the university). While Mike is booksmart, he cannot get any of the major fraternities to recognize him or his abilities, so he falls in with the outcasts. In order to prove himself worthy of remaining in the scaring program (and for Sully to get back in the good graces of Dean Hardscrabble), Mike and Sully team up with Squishy, Don, Terry (and Terri), and Art to try to help Oozma Kappa win the monster games. In the process, they become friends, Sully hedges his bets, and they all learn a very important lesson, blah, blah, blah.

Seriously, blah, blah, blah is part of the plot because the actual plot is so thin and short that the writers and director had to flesh the movie out with an extended sequence wherein Mike arrives on campus, a pointless twist near the end, and an adventure that follows the bulk of the plot (which is the monster games, which dominates the screentime of the film). As a result, the movie feels like a remarkably thin idea stretched out to reach just over a hundred minutes (probably because it would be virtually impossible to get people to pay for a 3-D movie at today’s ticket prices for the forty-five minutes worth of actual substance the film might have). The padding does not make a better movie. Instead, Monsters University presents one college cliché after another. In fact, the only one that comes to mind missing from the movie is the romantic subplot that would have pit Mike and Sully against one another for the affections of a woman.

There is nothing audacious on the character front. As a prequel, viewers already know that Mike and Sully will end up as friends. There is nothing incredible in Monsters University that illustrates the way they became friends was at all unique or compelling.

What Monsters University does have is a decent cast. The voice acting talents in the film are top notch. Led by Billy Crystal and John Goodman, the cast includes Helen Mirren, Steve Buscemi, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina, David Foley, Joel Murray and, very briefly, Pixar mainstay John Ratzenberger. All of them perform fine.

The only other note I have on Monsters University is on the animation. I recall being impressed when I saw Monsters, Inc. at the quality of the animation. I marveled at how every hair on Sully’s fur was rendered and appeared to move independently. Monsters, Inc. left me impressed. Monsters University did not. The animation did not seem as vibrant or spectacular somehow and the 3-D did not pop either.

In short, Monsters University, like Cars 2, seems to illustrate that Pixar needs to think long and hard about revisiting its most successful properties; not all of them are the cash cows they appear to be.

For other Disney animated films, please visit my reviews of:
Frozen
Wreck-It Ralph
Brave
Tangled
Toy Story 3
A Christmas Carol
Up
Ponyo
The Princess And The Frog
Bolt
WALL-E
The Incredibles
Lilo & Stitch
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Mulan
Hercules
The Lion King
Beauty And The Beast
The Little Mermaid
Lady And The Tramp
The Sword In The Stone
The Aristocats
Sleeping Beauty
Fantasia

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ending Charmless, The Hangover Part III Resolves The Franchise On A Downbeat.

The Good: The acting is fine, The action elements work.
The Bad: Not at all funny, Characters get substantially dumber than in previous versions, Does not feel fresh or original in any way.
The Basics: With The Hangover Part III, the franchise comes to an unremarkable, unfunny, action-adventure end.


My instinct when The Hangover Part III was released was to suggest that Jeffrey Tambor was having a very good month. After all, with Netflix releasing the long-awaited fourth season of Arrested Development (reviewed here!) and the cinematic release of The Hangover Part III, Jeffrey Tambor’s star is once more in a prominent position. But, fans burned through the new Arrested Development in hours and Tambor is in, at best, two minutes of The Hangover Part III. In fact, it is the abrupt death of his character, Alan’s father, that sets off the road trip that is the centerpiece of the Hangover franchise adventures.

The Hangover Part III promises viewers it is the end to the story of Phil, Stu, Alan, and (to a much lesser extent) Doug (and a much more significant extent Mr. Chow) that was begun in The Hangover (reviewed here!) and continued in a clunky way with The Hangover Part 2 (reviewed here!). While The Hangover Part III goes to great lengths to try to convince the viewer that The Hangover was the first part in an intended trilogy instead of a runaway summer comedy hit that was then exploited for two mediocre sequels, the relationship between the third film and its predecessors is much more flimsy than fans might want to admit.

First and foremost, in order to make the various conceits of The Hangover Part III work, much of the characterization established in The Hangover had to be thrown out. That is to say that The Hangover was essentially the story of three guys who are roofied, lose a night of their life and spend the subsequent day(s) desperately trying to assemble the clues to piece together what the hell happened to them so they can take responsibility for their actions and recover their lost friend. It’s basically two smart guys and an idiot thrown into a bad situation and acting as detectives in order to find a missing friend . . . with hilarious results. In The Hangover Part III, Phil (especially) and Stu lose most of their innate intelligence in order for their characters to abide by the conceits which allow them to be exploited by the villainous Mr. Chow. In fact, the moment Marshall, who was alluded to in a throwaway line in The Hangover presents the story of gold that was split up and stolen from him, the film heads in painfully obvious directions. If your audience is smarter than the characters and sees the villain’s plan immediately, it undermines the interest one is able to keep in the movie. Sadly, that is exactly what happens with The Hangover Part III.

Opening in Thailand, Mr. Chow makes a daring escape from prison. After killing a giraffe he just bought and causing a nightmare for his father, Alan is reunited with his “wolfpack” for his father’s funeral. Following the funeral, Doug convinces Stu and Phil to help him get Alan to a mental health facility in Arizona. Unfortunately, en route, they are hijacked by Black Doug’s employer, Marshall. Marshall is hunting for Chow, who stole some $21million dollars in gold from him years prior. Marshall keeps Doug as collateral and he tasks Stu, Phil and Alan with finding Mr. Chow. As it happens, Chow recently texted Alan and the trio finds him easily enough.

With Doug’s life in the balance, Chow tells the trio that he needs them to break into his old house to get the gold he stole from Marshall and the three do so . . . until the most obvious double-cross in the world. Set up by Chow, Phil, Alan, and Stu witness Marshall’s brutality and know that he is serious about killing their friend Doug. Tracking Phil’s phone back to Las Vegas, Alan hits on a pawn shop owner and Stu calls in a favor from Jade to track Chow to Caesars. There, the men confront Chow and chase him around Las Vegas with the goal of capturing him and delivering him to Marshall.

There is a noticeable change of tone in The Hangover Part III, certainly as it relates to The Hangover (the truth is The Hangover Part 2 was so forgettable that I cannot make comparisons now, years after its initial release); The Hangover Part III is largely not funny and for most of the film, it does not even try. Instead, this is a remarkably straightforward action movie with the occasional flat-falling joke thrown in. Given how the movie meanders back to Las Vegas and devotes time and attention to the characters getting excited about “Black Doug,” Jade, and the now not-baby “Carlos,” The Hangover Part III stands poorly on its own and instead strives to remind the viewer of the superior film they enjoyed years before. At its best, The Hangover Part III is a series of loosely held together allusions to The Hangover without (until the mid-credits scene) the usual everybody is drugged and wakes up to discover horrible things have happened conceit. Instead, The Hangover Part III is a remarkably straightforward hostage negotiation action adventure movie in many ways. It just happens that the main antagonist is a bit ridiculous.

What is not ridiculous is Marshall, played with usual greatness by John Goodman. Goodman manages to steal the few scenes he is in and add a real sense of menace (albeit somewhat predictable in the reversals he both initiates and is subject to) to The Hangover Part III. Goodman’s Marshall provides the film’s ticking clock and it is far more compelling than simply “man might be late for his own wedding.”

The rest of the acting is fine. Melissa McCarthy’s somewhat understated role as Cassie plays off the more familiar role of Alan well. McCarthy and Zach Galifianakis have decent on-screen chemistry. The others – Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Ken Jeong – reprise their roles well, but give the viewer nothing we have not already seen before. And given that The Hangover Part III is supposed to be Alan’s big emotional journey, Galifianakis is a bit underwhelming, but it is hard to blame him for it. After all, it is not Galifianakis’s fault that he does not repeatedly deliver lines about Alan being in mourning for his father. Instead, after the set-up and a casual reference to it in two subsequent scenes, the death of the most important person in Alan’s life has no resonating effect on the character. So, Galifianakis plays the role of Alan as he always has and he manages not to infuse the character with so much growth that we feel like we are watching It’s Kind Of A Funny Story (reviewed here!) again.

Ultimately, The Hangover Part III is an homage to itself and it succeeds in concluding the franchise in a very different, if humorless, way: may it rest in peace.

For other works featuring Melissa McCarthy, please check out my reviews of:
The Heat
Identity Thief
This Is 40
Bridesmaids
Gilmore Girls
White Oleander
Charlie's Angels
Go

4/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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