MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL Review

From the outset of director F. Gary Gray's (Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious) Men in Black re-boot one can gauge there is a certain indifference to the project and if not necessarily an indifference, but a lack of creative care towards the film. This can be gleaned from nothing more than the opening credits which only goes so far as to ape the font of the original without bothering to try and emulate the objective. The opening credit sequences of the Barry Sonnenfeld trilogy would each attempt to emphasize perspective in this world in which the Men in Black existed, whether it be seeing said world through the eyes of a flying "bug" or by actually playing with perspective so as to upend expectations and re-enforce that not everything is as it seems and furthermore, not everything is as we might assume. I recall these opening credit sequences because not only did they play into the story the rest of the movie would be telling, but they played into the themes of the whole series: that this, our world-no matter how big and alone it might seem to us at times, is actually only a small part of a much grander scheme. The majority of the first three MIB films take place in and around New York City and yet they do their best to emphasize time and time again how vast the universe is outside of themselves even if what is happening within the events of the film might have epic repercussions on this, our third rock from the sun. With MIB: International, despite going bigger in terms of operating on a global scale the film can't help but to feel much smaller-especially in comparison to that original film-both in terms of scale as well as its ideas. This is to say, the seemingly carefully plotted opening credits of the previous films are no more and have instead been replaced with text over the movie just as it would have played were the opening credits not present at all. This may feel rather finicky, but as it is noted that Gray and his team took little time to consider the legacy of the franchise and the little details that made the original so special-and more importantly, work as well as it did-it only makes it more clear as to why there isn't necessarily any care taken to carry said legacy forward in any meaningful way. Rather, MIB: International ends up feeling like exactly what it is: a rushed and uninspired riff on a proven formula that cares more about the how it's been received in the past as opposed to the why it was received that way in the first place.

THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE Review

Well, the time has come, but admittedly, it came a little quicker than I thought it might. The LEGO Movie brand has seemingly run out of gas in what is no doubt only its first act. Though it was just in February of this year that it seemed it was the LEGO brand, behind Marvel of course, that was having the most success in carving their own path out of a recognizable brand things have quickly changed with the rise of Wonder Woman and the misstep that is The LEGO Ninjago Movie. After blowing all expectations out of the water with The LEGO Movie directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, 21 & 22 Jump Street) set not only a precedent for any sequels and spin-offs that might come in the wake of their success, but they also set a very specific tone that has now served as the signature trait of that initial film, The LEGO Batman Movie from earlier this year, and now Ninjago as it attempts to be just as irreverent as its predecessors. Ninjago is different though in that, while the first film had the brand as a whole to market and LEGO Batman obviously had Batman as a marketing tool, Ninjago is a specific line of toys from the Lego brand that has made its way into a television show and now a feature film. The point being that, because it has narrowed the brand down into such a specific line of toys it has narrowed the appeal as well. That isn't to say that just because Ninjago isn't as immediately recognizable or notable as the brand's previous outings that it immediately carries less weight, but rather that it has more to prove to more people. The LEGO Movie itself had a lot to prove, but surprised everyone when it was able to balance its great sense of humor with real heart while Ninjago more or less seems to be piggybacking off that style rather than coming up with a unique voice of its own through which to convey its movie. It was always going to be curious how Warner Bros. Animation went forward with the Lego universe in terms of each of the films sharing a similar tone or if they would divert according to the toy line and/or type of story they were telling, but with Batman and now Ninjago it is pretty clear each "LEGO Movie" will follow suit in the self-aware and spoof-like nature of that original outing. While this isn't the worst thing in the world it already feels somewhat tired three films in and though the movie's trio of directors who have plenty of experience between them have done well to follow the precedent set by other Lego pictures they have done little to help Ninjago stand enough apart from them for it to be memorable.

THE BIG SICK Review

I love movies about stand-up comedians. There is something to the art form that I, personally, don’t believe I’d ever be able to successfully master and that is the factor of succeeding in such a fashion where it outwardly seems like one is struggling without actually struggling at all. Stand-up is very much an art that requires one to put their whole selves on the line and bank on the fact their personality is endearing enough for the majority of the audience to find appealing and latch onto. To do this one has to express a large amount of humility while simultaneously sparking a small amount of jealousy-jealousy in the way that the audience wishes they could channel and overcome their own life’s obstacles in the same way a given comedian seems to be doing by discussing them in front of a crowded room. One can’t succeed at the job too effortlessly or they lack credibility yet if the routine doesn’t come with a certain amount of effortlessness they seemingly lack the natural “it’ factor it takes to thrive; to stand out among a sea of other would-be storytellers. It’s a fine line one must walk in order to be able to pull off a certain kind of aura and it no doubt comes down to knowing one’s self better than others might ever care to get to know themselves i.e. exposing or opening one’s self up to their own shortcomings, faults, disadvantages-whatever it may be that people believe takes them down a few pegs from the pedestal they constantly hope to achieve as a person. By all accounts, Kumail Nanjiani is a fine stand-up comedian though I’d be lying if I said I’d listened to any of his sets prior to seeing his feature writing debut in The Big Sick (and no, I haven’t seen Silicon Valley either). This is brought up for the reason that those strengths Nanjiani plays toward as a stand-up have clearly crossed over to his screenwriting process as not only have he and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, crafted a heartfelt and rather eye-opening story around cultural differences in relationships, but they have done so by telling their story and to do this in an effective manner one certainly has to know themselves and be honest about themselves with themselves if that story is truly going to resonate. Needless to say, The Big Sick accomplishes as much rather well and, not coincidentally, does so with just the right amount of effortlessness so as to be both endearing to audiences in its quest and enviable to fellow artists in its craft.

FIST FIGHT Review

Going in with low to optimistic expectations there was no great weight on the shoulders of Fist Fight. It's February and Fist Fight is a comedy starring Ice Cube and what you get from Charlie Day in between seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-which is more or less the same Charlie Day, but likely a little less energetic and manic due to his more lax schedule. There was no reason to believe Fist Fight would be a memorable comedic experience and it isn't, but it isn't the cheap altogether crap fest it very well could have turned out to be either. Rather, Fist Fight is a comedy that understands its premise is outlandish and unrealistic from the get-go and thus never takes itself seriously as a representation of the public school system (though some aspects could certainly be interpreted as exaggerated issues) and thus ramps up the ridiculous with every scene-testing the limits of how far the individual audience member is willing to go with them. It would be easy to drop off of the ride at any point along the way, but Ice Cube and Day offer a funny and different enough dynamic that the two parallel arcs are interesting enough to watch develop and culminate for the scant ninety minute running time. Sure, the premise is slim and one can feel the ride straining itself a bit as it nears the inevitable third act, but with a one-two punch of climactic scenes that includes both an elementary school talent show as well as the titular fight (which more than delivers on its promise) there is plenty to be pleased with once the credits begin to roll and the bloopers begin to play. Of course, Fist Fight isn't the pinnacle of comedic filmmaking and it certainly isn't what Thomas Edison had in mind when he imagined what his motion picture camera might one day be able to achieve, but as far as comic relief it is exactly that-it serves the purpose it was intended for squarely. We know what Ice Cube excels at and we know what we're getting when Charlie Day pops up on screen and the best thing to be said for Fist Fight is that it plays up those two personas until it forces them to collide and while that may indicate there is nothing new to be found in either the story or the performances it does mean it features two charismatic and admittedly funny people doing what they do best-what's wrong with that? Not a whole lot in my humble opinion.

First Trailer for THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE

With the release of Warner Bros. The LEGO Batman Movie this weekend the studio has now went ahead and released the first trailer for The LEGO Ninjago Movie. Admittedly, I know nothing about whatever Ninjago is, but a bit of quick reading tells me that it is a line of sets produced by Lego. Using elements from their previous Ninja series I'm assuming this one moved a lot of units in the stores and thus the reason it has now produced its own entry in this ever-growing LEGO franchise that Warner Bros. Animation is turning over like hot cakes. Still, as I haven't played with Lego's in quite some time none of this tells me anything about what the movie might be about or what the story might entail. And so, Ninjago follows Lloyd (voice of Dave Franco) or L-loyd if you ask his father, who is a Green Ninja, who must team up with other ninjas to defeat Garmadon (Justin Theroux), the Worst Guy Ever, who also happens to be Lloyd’s dad. The trailer opens up making it seem as if this might be the first LEGO film where we're supposed to take things a little more seriously given the setting and ancient influences, but all of that is quickly dispersed when the film begins to play up the tropes of such movies. The bits given their moment here are solid and had me chuckling if not for the intent of the jokes, but the fact that Phil Lord and Chris Miller really did set a staying tone with that initial LEGO movie to the point that we'll now have two LEGO-themed movies in 2017, both of which look to be a blast simply by virtue of the fact they're well-aware of what they are. This isn't an epic action movie with sweeping landscapes or large battle scenes, but an animated movie with plastic figurines as the main characters and it would be silly to be serious. Taylor Swift‘s “Bad Blood” is a nice touch and it seems by reading the synopsis this first trailer gives away little of what story the film will actually be telling which is rather enticing and has me all the more curious to see how the film separates itself from what will have come before it. The LEGO Ninjago Movie also features the voice talents of Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Munn, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods, Jackie Chan, and opens on September 22nd, 2017.

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES Review

One might call Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates director Jake Szymanski's feature debut and to a degree I guess that's correct as this is his first film getting a wide theatrical release (and his first that runs over an hour), but Szymanski is no stranger to comedy or the space in which it occupies in Hollywood. In fact, Szymanski turned Andy Samberg's rather thin idea for a 30 for 30 parody, 7 Days in Hell, into a rather entertaining forty-five minutes last summer. All of this doesn't necessarily mean that Mike and Dave is anything more than one might expect it to be (it's not) and despite sounding like one of those straight to VHS American Pie knock-offs where you might find Tara Reid and the chubby kid from The Sandlot working not-so hard to earn a paycheck, Mike and Dave actually delivers on the promises and premise that have been set up in its marketing. Though it might seem obvious that 20th Century Fox would like to make something of a comedic brand out of Mike and Dave (Mike & Dave Go to London, Mike and Dave Take the World) it somewhat feels as if Szymanski and writers Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O'Brien feel the opposite. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is very much a contained story that gives our main cast of characters defined arcs that take them from one clear point in their lives to the next. What is nice about what both the writers and Szymanski do though is that they don't allow this transformative period to completely define these characters. The titular siblings are still very much who they were in the beginning of the movie at the end of the movie save for the fact they've learned a few lessons and earned some perspective. What I'm saying is that Mike and Dave doesn't turn into a fable of some kind where the intent of the film is to teach its characters and audience a lesson, but rather is more about the challenges and obstacles presented in a certain situation and how a specific type of person deals in the messes they've made. This is undoubtedly the films strongest trait in that it doesn't become wholly what we expect though it is mostly the obtrusive and familiar raunchy comedy you hoped it would be if you bought a ticket in the first place. That said, Mike and Dave delivers some modest pleasures for, despite largely adhering to the beats of the genre, it excels in hitting those beats through a likable and appealing cast.

GOOSEBUMPS Review

As a child of the nineties, as someone who was in fourth and fifth grade at the dead center of the decade I was completely immersed in the Goosebumps books. I can easily recall going to Wal-Mart with my mom every month and constantly checking to see if the new book was on the shelves yet. I would devour these books to the point of ridiculousness and their popularity was such that at this point in time even my fourth grade teacher decided to read one of author R.L. Stine's works of adolescent horror to the class so as to appeal to those who weren't on board with Tuck Everlasting. While the books meant a great deal to me and I was a big fan of the Fox Kids Saturday morning line-up at the time I was unfortunately never able to get into their live-action adaptations of Stine's stories in the TV series that ran from 1995 to 1998. There was all the excitement in the world for such a series, but once it premiered there was never enough to keep me coming back-unlike the books. And so, how would a live-action movie version of such stories be any different? Given I was also twenty years removed from the source material, would I even care if a Goosebumps movie did honorable service to the literature or was it time to move on and accept that whatever it was that made these books so captivating to so many kids on the brink of their teenage years in the mid-nineties was just an elusive quality never to be contained on celluloid? It turns out, all the material needed was a dash of meta-comedy that allowed the story to not only incorporate several of Stine's most popular characters, but Stine himself. With this opportunity to tell a brand new story rather than simply rehashing one of Stine's more popular titles the film is given a fresh idea that combines the likes of something akin to Jumanji or Zathura with the perfect balance of slightly off-kilter comedy and scary scenarios with over-the-top monsters that made the books so engaging. In short, this new Goosebumps film exceeded all expectations by delivering a fun and charming horror flick for kids that will undoubtedly be brought out every year around Halloween for a long time to come.

First Trailer for GOOSEBUMPS

If you're a kid who grew up in the nineties then odds are you read a Goosebumps book or two. If that first sentence is true odds are also pretty good you woke up on Saturday mornings to enjoy Fox Kids line-up of cartoons and other child's entertainment that, at one point, included a live-action adaptation of some of the more popular stories from the books. I remember enjoying it fine enough, but I also remember going to Wal-Mart in order to pick up the next book in the series every month or so. The consistency with which author R.L. Stine pumped these things out was rather insane. As hardly anything can be released with expectations of doing well without being based on an already established brand these days it comes as no surprise that we now have a new film adaptation of Stine's series, this time brought to you by the team who gave us 2010's Gulliver's Travels (remember that one?). Still, without holding anything against it, this first trailer for the kid-friendly horror comedy is somewhat surprising if not rather by the numbers. From this almost 3-minute clip it is easy to glean what story beats will be hit upon and what tone of humor is being chased, but all in all it looks pretty solid in terms of the idea of how to bring multiple characters and stories from the books to life while incorporating a semi-fictionalized version of Stine himself in the form of Jack Black. The monster designs look pretty neat and the trailer got at least one legitimate chuckle out of me, so here's hoping the film is more about the journey than the destination. Goosebumps also stars Amy Ryan, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell, Ken Marino, Kumail Nanjiani and arrives just in time for Halloween on October 16th.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2 Review

I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and maybe less impressionable, but while I found the original Hot Tub Time Machine to be humorous in its attempt at pure ridiculousness this sequel seems to be latching so hard to the absurdity of the first that it just falls flat on its face every single time it tries. I guess trying is maybe too kind of a word as it seems that is the last thing on the people behind this debacles mind as they contort and twist their way around one too many reasons why John Cusack isn’t back for this go around. I can’t say it really adds or takes away anything with Cusack not being present in the sequel, but more he was smart to stay away from it even if the truth is he wasn’t asked back at all. The funnier route to go would have been to publicly acknowledge how difficult the actor was to work with by having his friends in the film say how they never really liked him anyway and that he quit hanging out with them after they got back to the present and leave it at that. Instead, the script from Josh Heald, who also wrote the original and who has only penned one other film outside the hot tub franchise called Mardi Gras: Spring Break is doing nothing here but walking in circles and hoping the chemistry between the characters will be enough to elicit laughs from the audience. Instead, the friendships seem stale, the tone is beyond unenthusiastic and worst of all the movie just sits there with second rate components and characters who have no idea what they’re doing. This should be a sequel where, much like its predecessor, it exists simply to have a little fun or as an excuse to let off a little steam and laugh at something meaningless, but rather than simply go for emphasizing the camaraderie between the cast and letting these guys pre-defined senses of humor spill out over the presented outlandish scenarios both Heald and director Steve Pink bog them down in semantics of the plot and scenarios so forced we can't hardly buy into any of it being remotely funny despite the one thing anyone going into this should know is that it's all completely ridiculous. Ridiculous can be funny, but forcing laughs never is and that is Hot Tub Time Machine 2's greatest offense.