Review: HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1

     Remember The Postman? It was Kevin Costner's post-apocalyptic film where he delivers mail (and hope) in a ravaged America. I did watch it way back in 1997 when it came out on VHS but don't remember much about it. I do remember thinking that it was pretty good until he became the postman. Considering the film is called The Postman, I'm guessing it wasn't very good (and it won Worst Actor, Worst Director, and Worst Film at the 1998 Razzie Awards). But it was definitely bold. It was a 3 hour film about a guy delivering mail. You'd either have to be super rich or a big movie star to get something with that tag line greenlit. And Kevin Costner was, back in the 90's, anyway, a big movie star. Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, JFK, The Bodyguard, Bull Durham, The Untouchables, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The guy was, like, king of Blockbuster Video. They probably had a special section for his movies. But he wasn't just an actor. He famously went and directed and starred in Dances With Wolves and won the Oscar for Best Director (it also won the Oscar for Best Film). He went on to direct The Postman and Outer Range (a movie I didn't even know existed...what is it?). And while Waterworld seemed to be the apotheosis of box office gossip and an albatross around his neck way back when, he seemed to be doing pretty fine last year when he was making a cool $1.3 million per episode to star in the Yellowstone TV show that, at one point, was the highest rated show on cable. 

    Considering he could have just been an actor in Hollywood doing yearly movies for the rest of his life, but he chose to try directing movies that, let's face it, would probably never get made, he is, in a sense, a pretty bold dude. Granted, what's he going to lose if a movie like The Postman fails (it did)? His third house? His 7th car? 

    Which brings us to his latest bold maneuver, Horizon: An American Saga. Costner was pretty much forgotten in the 2000's and 2010's until he decided to do what every has-been actor does these days: try TV, since it's peak TV and Netflix rules and all of that, the movies are dead, etc. And Yellowstone was such a massive hit and made him so much money and he was, gulp, relevant again, he decided to dust off an old idea he had because he could actually make it. And, yeah, trying directing for the first time by making a 3 hour Pocohantas rip-off is pretty bold. Then following that up the second time directing with a 3 hour post-apocalyptic mailman movie is probably pushing it. But Horizon seems like Elon Musk trying to live on Mars in his lifetime nutjob realm. Costner's bold idea for Horizon was to make four movies, each one continuing to make up a 12 hour epic (presumably, as the first film is 3 hours). He would co-write, direct, and star in them all. And Chapter 1 would be released in theaters in June 2024 and Chapter 2 would be released in August 2024. This would happen while he's currently filming Chapter 3. 

    So how'd it all go? If you haven't read one of the various Hollywood online gossip/news sites in the last three months, not good. And considering Costner won a Razzie for Worst Actor multiple time in the 90's, it's safe to say that a lot of people really love hating on him for whatever reason. If you don't remember, Waterworld was mocked as being "Kevin's Gate" and "Fishtar" after the huge box office bombs Heaven's Gate and Ishtar. Before Waterworld even came out, all that anyone in the Hollywood press talked about was the ballooning budget, what a disaster, everything is on fire, the world is ending, it'll never break even. This seriously seemed to go on for years until the movie finally came out, was fairly entertaining, was the 9th highest grossing movie of 1995, and did, eventually, become profitable thanks to Blockbuster and TV rights and all of that. But for whatever reason, anyone writing about Hollywood fucking loves to mock, tease, deflate, tear down, and ream on Kevin Costner and his film budgets and box office receipts. Horizon has become the new Waterworld. And, unlike that film, Horizon seems to not become profitable. At least, not until Musk wakes up in his bed on Mars one day. And that's never happening.

    The budget for Horizon: An American Saga- Chapter 1 (what a mouthful) was supposedly $100 million. The big story is that Costner had to self-finance a lot of it, supposedly even having to lease land he owned in Malibu to do it. He did get New Line to put it in theaters, although, after Chapter 1 failed at the box office (it made $11 million in it's opening weekend and $27 million total domestic and $31 million total worldwide as of today, when it's already on demand on TV for $20), New Line decided not to release Chapter 2 in August, instead deciding to do something with it later on. 

    So the box office of Horizon is a failure. Everyone burn him at the stake! What I actually care about, and I think what movies like Heaven's Gate or, more recently, Killers of a Flower Moon, ultimately achieved, is that it doesn't really matter if, in the end, a good or even great film is a box office failure. The art could, eventually, rise up like a phoenix from the ashes of the naysayers and box office pundits and gossip rag hounds. 

    Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is, unfortunately, not that movie. Now, granted, maybe after I watch all four films and see the entire tale it may, possibly, probably not, though, be something more. But as a film, this first chapter is just okay, kind of boring, though it does have some great scenery and a few watchable sequences, namely the Indian attack on the Horizon settlement. The big problem is that, since this is a 3 hour film that's going to be continued into 3 more, presumably 3 hour films, there's a bunch of characters and storylines that don't really go anywhere yet. And the places they do go aren't exactly compelling. I will say that they got a few good actors that stand out. I could watch Sienna Miller and Dickinson's Ella Hunt stand around doing nothing and I'd be entertained. And it's always great seeing Luke Wilson. Kevin Costner on the other hand is awkwardly creepy in this considering he co-wrote and directed it and is playing a dude that ends up traveling with a pretty, blonde prostitute that's probably 30 years younger than him and willingly has sex with him for no money. 

    The story has a few various threads that can pretty much be summed up by Old West cliches. There's the town in the middle of nowhere that's attacked by Indians. There's the wagon train heading out west. There's the cowboy in a mining town with a whore house. There's gunfights. There's horse riding. I mean...if you love cowboys and Indians, this is your wheelhouse, and while Costner does have a knack for creating Westerns that feel like old-school Westerns, this is not some great masterwork or even something you'll be entertained by throughout. It feels too silly, too shallow, too off, like something is missing, that edge, that drama, that energy. 

    Kevin Costner quit the highest rated cable TV show that he was making $1.3 million an episode to star in to make Horizon. Yellowstone was him being a cowboy, in a modern Western, and he was a fucking star. And back then, the Western Dances with Wolves won him Oscars, fame, he was more than a movie star, he was suddenly an auteur. But maybe, eventually, the Western that brought him to the highest highs will also be the end of him. Maybe Horizon will finally be the death of the career of Kevin Costner. ** 

THE ACADEMY AWARDS NOMINATIONS (BEST PICTURE) REVIEWS

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: It's February 28th and I've finally seen all of the films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars. This isn't an easy thing to do lately ever since they've expanded the list of nominated films. It used to be just 5, now it's more (this year there's 10). If you really want to know what the "true" Best Picture nominations are, though, just look at who was nominated for Best Director. That means the real top 5 is Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall, Poor Things, and Killers of a Flower Moon. I haven't reviewed the Best Picture nominations the last two years because I never got around to seeing all of the films. I've still never watched Top Gun: Maverick, Women Talking, King Richard, or West Side Story...nor do I never want to. I did watch the first few minutes of West Side Story and turned it off when they started singing. Definition of cringe? And while I'm sure Women Talking is a good movie, I don't really have much of a desire to sit through it. And, of course, I don't really care to watch King Richard after the star beat a man, won an Oscar, then got a standing ovation. Really? As for Top Gun: Maverick? Ugh. Tom Cruise's plastic grin gives me nightmares. While I do love the Oscars, I also admit that I agree with Woody Allen and others that giving awards to art is fairly preposterous, as art is subjective and there is no "best." With that said, Killers of the Flower Moon was the best movie I saw in 2023 (I haven't seen everything of course). At 3 and 1/2 hours, I'm sure it could've been a total bore/slog for those that watched it in one sitting (I watched a little more than an hour of it each day for 3 days). But this is Martin Scorsese working at his best. The film looks stunning. It's so well made. And Leonardo DiCaprio is awesome in it. And the true story it tells is so nasty and intriguing at the same time. The final scene, with Scorsese himself breaking the fourth wall and entering the film to talk about what happened to the characters, is a bold move and a master stroke in my opinion. With him showing up out of the blue, we're suddenly confronted with a real person, not a character, and forced to realize that this actually happened, these were real people. Just a remarkable work of art and one of Scorsese's best. ***1/2

THE ZONE OF INTEREST: I'm totally sick of movies, books, and TV shows about WW2, Nazis, and Hitler. It's like...enough, already. We get it. Killers of the Flower Moon showed that, you know, there are other stories out there that haven't been told that kind of need to be. And, honestly, that's the only qualm I have about this movie. One of the best things about this movie is that it's the type of film that after you watch it you can talk about it for hours. Not just the fact that it's about the Holocaust, which of course can bring forth never ending ponderings and discussion, but some of the directorial choices done in this film. What's the point of having a movie about one of the top commanders of Auschwitz and not even show anything inside the walls of Auschwitz until a random cut at the end to the cleaning crew in the museum? Why is the Polish girl filmed in night vision? Why never give us any context behind certain scenes? Like the Jewish girl the main character is obviously raping? Or the gardener the wife is obviously fucking? Is the main character dry heaving on the dark stairwell supposed to tell us that his body is revolting against his terrible acts? When the main character mentions on the phone that the soldiers should stop picking flowers, is that a coded reference to raping the prisoners? And for a movie about one of the darkest chapters in history, this is one of the most gorgeous photographed movies I've seen recently. And the sound design and score are so menacing that the film plays out like a secret horror movie, all the horrific acts well hidden beyond the surface but nonetheless apparent. I thought this movie was phenomenal and I still haven't stopped thinking about it. It's so well done and yet so appalling at the same time. And for a movie that should be so utterly boring I was compelled the entire time. ***1/2

OPENHEIMER: This will win Best Picture, not because it's the best film, but because it's more of an entertaining, "Hollywood" movie than Killers of the Flower Moon or The Zone of Interest, which are more art house types of films that some people just can't get into (this is why Barbie was the #1 movie at the box office in 2023). At 3 hours, this movie flies by because writer/director Christopher Nolan made this into a full-throttle thriller with a fast pace and a propulsive score. Cillian Murphy is the star, but Robert Downey, Jr. steals the show as a politician. Nolan is a great filmmaker and I'm glad that he's finally going to win an Oscar. ***1/2

ANATOMY OF A FALL: This won the Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. While it's a good movie and it interested me all the way through, I don't think it's a great film. One huge problem is that the film is about a court case involving a wife who might have pushed her husband to his death...but we never actually find out if she did it or not. Really? You're going to have us sit through 2 hours and not even tell us what happened? I will say that women seemed to enjoy this movie more than men, perhaps because a woman directed it, a woman is the star and it's about a relationship from a woman's perspective. Sandra Huller, who also starred in The Zone of Interest, is really good in this as the wife. ***

PAST LIVES: The big problem with this movie is that it's about two childhood friends that finally reunite in person years later...and it's supposed to be sad that years later the girl is now a married woman and thus they will never be together and true love will never happen for them and it's heart breaking! The problem is that they were 8 years old when they knew each other. They weren't, like, boyfriend/girlfriend or teen lovers. They barely knew each other. They walked home from school together and played in the park. It would have been better if they had actually had a relationship when they were younger. Let's say they were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school. Okay, then years later when they reunite it would be extra sad because there was actually something that they lost. The point is unrequited love. The man longs for her and maybe if she hadn't moved to the states from Korea they would have gotten together and got married and had kids and all of that. While it's a good premise, I feel like they missed the mark in the regards of longing for something that never existed. I could be wrong, as some proclaimed this the best movie of the year. It's a fairly good movie, and sure, the ending is sad and it's well made and acted, but I feel like it could've been much better with the premise they were working with. ***

THE HOLDOVERS: What happened to Alexander Payne? It feels like he hasn't made a movie in years (Downsizing, in 2017, was his last picture). This is a good movie, albeit a little slow. Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa are both really good in this. The 70's aesthetic makes it look pretty cool as well. It's not a great movie or doing anything bold or interesting, but it's entertaining. ***

POOR THINGS: Yorgos Lanthimos is kind of like David Lynch. Most of David Lynch's films are unique, interesting, and original but most of them aren't really good movies. Lanthimos' films are definitely unique, quirky, and interesting, but they're not really great or anything. I might've liked Poor Things better if I hadn't read the book. Perhaps not knowing all the twists and turns and plot points might have made watching this more surprising or enjoyable. It's definitely stylish, as the film has a unique, steampunk type of look that can get a bit cloying at times. It did hold my interest throughout and Mark Ruffalo gives a great performance. The book is just a take on Frankenstein but with a female monster...and the film is pretty much just that. Beyond the over-the-top style, there really isn't much to this...except confirmation that Lanthimos is a total perv. **1/2

AMERICAN FICTION: I kind of thought that this film was supposed to be a comedy. Is it? It features a father that commits suicide, a sister that dies of a heart attack, and a mother put in a home because she has Alzheimers. Jesus! Are you laughing yet? It's definitely more of a drama, which is weird because the comedic aspect is really, truly, slapstick style. While it did hold my interest, and Sterling K. Brown is really great in this, it just felt tonally odd to be having this serious, family crisis type of a film with a plot that's suppose to be comedy. The ending is also really disappointing, as it builds up and then just peters out. It kind of feels like it has a lot to say but then ends up not saying anything. **1/2

BARBIE: I was disappointed with this film because I was thinking it would be like Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach's other good films, Frances Ha, Mistress America, and White Noise. It's sadly just a big, candy colored Hollywood movie. I thought it would be more like their weird, interesting, little indie films that nobody saw. I'm obviously in the minority, as everyone loved this movie and it was the #1 movie at the box office in 2023. There's a scene during the "I'm Just Ken" song when suddenly it cuts to an all-in-black choreographed dance off on a sound stage. That's weird, odd, intriguing, bold, unusual, and fun. Why wasn't the rest of the movie like that? *1/2

MAESTRO: This movie's a total bore. Bradley Cooper is excellent in this as Leonard Bernstein and the movie looks fantastic. I did feel, though, that I knew less about Bernstein after watching the movie. Did they think that everyone already knows everything he did, and thus only mention most of his life's history in passing? It focuses on his love life and not his work, which I guess would be fine if his love life was more interesting (it wasn't). The long, one-shot scene of him conducting in the church is great, but that's about it. *

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2024

1- MICKEY 17: Bong Joon Ho is finally back directing a new movie after he won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020 for "Parasite." I read the book that this film is based on, and it's fantastic. Robert Pattinson stars as an expendable clone in the far reaches of space on an ice planet in the future. The gimmick is that any difficult job the colony has they give to Mickey. If Mickey dies then his consciousness is just uploaded into a new clone body, hence why he's the 17th version. The book is pretty much a comedy and the main character is a Ryan Reynolds type of wise cracker, so who knows if they'll play up that sort of comedy with Pattinson in the film. Either way, I'm always excited to see what the best director working today has up his sleeve. 

2- NOSFERATU: I guess I was the only one on Earth who thought Robert Eggers' "The Northman" was a masterpiece and by far his best film. Oh, well. He's going the "Dracula" route with this adaptation of "Nosferatu" starring Lily Rose Depp from "The Idol" fame, Willem Dafoe, and Bill Skarsgard. At the very least, the film is going to look fantastic. 

3- FURIOSA: George Miller is 78 years old, so this might be his last film. Sadly, the trailer was practically all CGI, which is a shame. That's not too big a surprise, as "Mad Max: Fury Road" was infamous in how difficult and dangerous the production was. Still, Miller always delivers the crazy. This one is an origin story of Furiosa, this time starring Anya Taylor Joy. Chris Hemsworth also stars and it looks like he's just playing Thor. 

4- JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX: I didn't even like "Joker." But this sequel sounds batshit insane. Lady Gaga stars as Harley Quinn and supposedly this is a musical. Wha-wha-what? They can't be serious. They probably just said that because Gaga sings like two songs in it or something. I'm more intrigued about this then probably any other movie this year. And Lady Gaga has to do a better job playing Harley Quinn than Margot Robbie, who was just unwatchably annoying as Harley Quinn. Todd Phillips is directing this again. The first time he just did a copy mash-up of "Taxi Driver" and "The King of New York." What's he going to copy this time? Apparently Coppola's epic box office musical dud from 1982, "One From the Heart." Jesus Christ. I can't wait to see this disaster. 

5- ALIEN: ROMULUS: Fede Alvarez made a pretty good "Evil Dead" movie (it was perhaps the bloodiest R-rated film I've ever seen). How will he fare in the "Alien" realm? Considering the last good "Alien" movie came out in 1986, the odds are probably against him. This one stars "Priscilla" actress Cailee Spaeny and it takes place between "Alien" and "Aliens." Honestly, this is really the only movie I'm looking forward to this summer.

6- HIT MAN: The New York Times movie critic Mahnola Dargis already reviewed this and said it was one of Linklater's best. It stars Glenn Powell has a guy pretending to be a hit man. Every Richard Linklater film is at least intriguing, so this should be one of the year's better indie films.

7- CIVIL WAR: I feel so sorry for anyone that actually sat in a movie theater and watched Alex Garland's "Men." Especially if it was a packed theater. I'm also shocked that any studio read the script for "Men" and actually threw money at it. Garland is definitely an odd duck. He wrote "The Beach" and the script for "24 Days Later." He also wrote and directed one of my favorite films of this century, "Ex/Machina." But "Men" was just...out there (his novel "Coma" was also too weird). This one is basically what if Trump and the crazy Republicans try to actually take over the U.S. with a civil war. The trailer makes the movie look super expensive, which is kind of a surprise considering the partisan plot. Husband and wife Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst star. It looks pretty wild.

8- CHALLENGERS: I love writer/director Luca Guadagnino. "Call Me By Your Name," "Bones and All," and "A Bigger Splash" were all fantastic. His HBO TV series, "We Are Who We Are," was one of my favorite TV shows of the last five years (and nobody watched it or heard of it). His new film stars Zendaya as a tennis star caught in a love triangle with two men. Zendaya also stars in "Dune: Part 2" but I already named that the #1 Most Anticipated Movie of 2023 last year but it got delayed.

9- DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS: The Coen brothers broke up for no apparent reason, but it doesn't really matter because they hadn't made a good movie together in years. Ethan Coen goes solo with this film starring Margaret Qualley, Matt Damon, and Pedro Pascal. It's about a trio of girls ensnared in a bank robbery or something. Let's all hope this is much, much better than Joel Coen's solo directing debut, the ultra-bore "Macbeth." 

10- GLADIATOR 2: There are a ton of sequels coming out this year. Can you believe a sequel to "Twister" is coming out? The first one came out in 1994! Beating that is "Beetlejuice 2." The first one came out in the 1988. While I'm semi-curious about all of these belated sequels ("Gladiator" came out in 2000), "Gladiator 2" will probably at least be the most entertaining. I wasn't a fan of the first one (I called it an "epic disappointment" in my review), but I do like actor Paul Mescal and I do like gladiator fight sequences. This one also stars Denzel Washington. Ridley Scott is directing this. He's 86 years old. How did an 86 year old man direct a film? Did he just sit in a chair and occasionally tell people what to do while the crew really did everything? George Miller is a year older and he directed "Furiosa," so I suppose geizers can direct big-budget action movies. Scott just came out with "Napoleon." Maybe he discovered the secret to eternal youth or something.

THE BEST FILMS OF 2023

1- KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

2- 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL

3- THE ZONE OF INTEREST

4- OPPENHEIMER

5- TALK TO ME

6- OCCUPIED CITY

7- HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE

8- MENUS-PLAISIRS- LES TROIGROS

9- THE FLASH

10- THE CREATOR

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2023 REVISITED

1- INDIA JONES & THE DIAL OF DESTINY: Steven Spielberg probably made a wise decision not to direct another Indiana Jones movie. While nostalgia has made the surprising return this century of Twin Peaks, Evil Dead, and Star Wars at least somewhat palpable, none of those have been nearly as good as the original TV shows and movies. It probably would have been best to have left Indy back in The Last Crusade. While this movie is entertaining, practically the entire movie is special f/x, making it look more like a video game than a fleshed out, real movie. And while Raiders did have a box full of ghosts and Crusade had a thousand year old knight still alive, going back in time is just, well, fucking idiotic. You would think the script writers would have understood this obvious fact. **

2- DUNE: PART TWO: They delayed this to March of 2024 because of the writers & actors strikes that ended before this was supposed to come out anyway. They didn't fucking delay Wonka! What gives?

3- OPPENHEIMER: My second favorite movie of 2023 (Killers of the Flower Moon is currently my favorite). Even though it's 3 hours long, it moves at a hurtling pace. Just a fantastic, super entertaining film. And who would've figured that Robert Downey, Jr. would steal the show? ***1/2

4- BARBIE: Last January I said: First off, it's not some dumb, kid's, Hollywood romp. Sadly, that's exactly what it turned out to be. I figured we'd get the type of movie Baumbach and Gerwig have made their entire careers; a funny, amusing, quirky, interesting, fresh, indie type of film. Nope. If any Hollywood studio made a big budget Barbie movie it would have looked like this. It was also weird that Ken got all the good stuff (plot, lines, song) in a movie supposedly about Barbie. *1/2

 

5- WONKA: I did watch the first 15 minutes of this and was unimpressed. It didn't particularly get great reviews, so I'm not holding my breath when I eventually watch the whole thing.

6- THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES: They actually followed the book exactly, which is a bit of a surprise considering the ending is a total downer. Rachel Zegler is great in this and I was thoroughly entertained. ***

7- THE KILLER: This movie was boring. There is one excellently choreographed and shot fight sequence, but that's about it. *1/2

8- REBEL MOON: While this movie at least held my interest and was somewhat entertaining, it looked so cheap, like it was a badly funded video game. I guess Netflix didn't give Zack Snyder the budget he wanted or something, because his last movie, that Las Vegas zombie movie, looked fantastic and expensive. **

9- BEAU IS AFRAID: The best I can say about this movie is that, for the first hour or so, it's at least interesting. The second half is a total, dour slog, though, leading to one of the most depressing endings in modern film. I'm really shocked that A24 gave Ari Aster such a gigantic budget for this after reading the script. *

10- GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3: This was also way too depressing. We just want jokes, action and fun! Not some animal cruelty plot. Good movie, just a bit of a downer. The Flash was by far the best superhero movie that came out in 2023, though. **1/2

Review: THE MARVELS

 

   Last week, Variety published an article about all of the recent problems at Marvel Studios. Ant Man: Quantumania was a box office failure even though it made $467 million worldwide. Jonathan Majors, who played Kang in that Ant Man movie and also in the Disney+ show, Loki, allegedly beat up his girlfriend and will probably be fired eventually by Marvel. The problem is that his character, Kang, was supposed to be the big villain in the next two Avengers movies. So do they just re-cast him? Or do they re-write the movies with a new villain? Marvel couldn't write him out of the current 2nd season of Loki because they weren't allowed to do re-shoots this summer because of the actors and writers strike. The other problem is that The Marvels, the latest movie, had terrible audience screenings and had to do re-shoots, apparently without the director, Nia DaCosta, because she already left to make something else. 

    With this article, and the tepid excitement surrounding The Marvels, everyone online has been touting Marvel to be dead or dying, that they're not cool or popular anymore, that everything dies, that it's all over, this is the end.

    Is it...really? It probably doesn't help that The Marvels isn't particularly a good movie or anything. Have any of the Marvel movies been any good, though? They've all been fairly entertaining, just big budget popcorn flicks to spend a Friday night watching and then forgetting about. They've never even hinted at being great cinema, nor did they really ever try to be. It also doesn't help that we're getting all this noise over a movie with the superheroes that nobody knows, Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel. If we were getting a Spider-Man movie or an Avengers movie with, say, Robert Downey, Jr. and other prominent Hollywood actors, maybe nobody would be complaining...and those would probably be big hits and counter any sort of negative publicity. So I don't think it's too surprising if a movie featuring Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel is shockingly not going to be a blockbuster nor a 4 star, Oscar contender.

    The Marvels is sort of a sequel to Captain Marvel, a movie that I barely remember. Brie Larson, who won an Oscar but will still never be better than she was in The United States of Tara, is Captain Marvel. That first film featured her origin. It also featured a special f/x, de-aged Samuel L. Jackson. It also featured the Skrulls, a shape shifting alien menace. Considering I don't remember the plot of that film, it probably wasn't very interesting. And considering I've been reading comic books since the late 80's and have never read a Captain Marvel book nor even vaguely remember seeing her before in print, I don't think she's exactly a well known or liked character, is she? I think Captain Marvel also used to be a man. And he also used to be Shazam, but I think DC couldn't use the 'Marvel' name going forward for obvious reasons. 

    So Captain Marvel is back and so is Samuel L. Jackson. Joining them is Ms. Marvel, fresh from her Disney+ show that came out last year. The one positive thing in The Marvels is Iman Vellani, who plays Ms. Marvel. She's just a hell of a lot of fun to watch. And her parents and brother, which are almost just as amusing, really are the standouts in this murky, stitched-together, slap dash mess of a film. 

    The plot, as usual in these Marvel movies, is basically just an evil Big Bad trying to gain power and rule but is, of course, thwarted by the good guys. I suppose there's a way to make this been-there-done-that plot interesting, but it's definitely not done here. The villain is a Skree, which are the alien race that have been battling the Skrulls for generations. Dar-Benn, the villain, is played by Zawe Ashton, and she's about as forgettable as a passing road sign. Her plot line involves her getting her hands on an ancient, mystical wrist bangle, which holds ultimate power. Ms. Marvel also has a wrist bangle. I mean...this is the best these 3 screenwriters could come up with? They've also added a third Marvel woman, who doesn't have a super hero name yet, played by Teyonah Paris. She has powers, though, and for no good reason, the movie starts with the three of the Marvel women trading places with each other inadvertently when they use their powers. This does produce a fairly inventive action set piece early on when the three of them are being zapped from a house in Jersey City to a galactic space ship in some far off galaxy to a space station orbiting Earth, all while fighting bad guys. 

    While the action isn't particularly awesome or anything, the one good thing the movie has is the chemistry between the 3 leads. They attempt to make this somewhat of a buddy comedy in spots, and it works so much better than any of the big, superhero action and Big Bad villain destruction that I would probably rather watch these 3 be in some sort of Bridesmaids type of romp. The movie is also, for whatever reason, kind of bonkers. I suppose the writers and director realized that superhero movies and Marvel movies have not only done it all before and gotten stale, but they kind of need to be shaken up a bit. In this sense, they've added some extremely far-out scenes like a world where the language is song, so everyone sings and dances to greet them. And there's also the cats that eat people.

    When the 3 Marvels arrive on the singing planet, the citizens, all dressed in colorful, playful garb, start dancing and singing...Iman Vellani joins in and starts moving to the beat, a big smile plastered across her face, seemingly having the time of her life, seemingly enjoying being in a big budget movie for the first time in her life. It's too bad the audience watching this isn't feeling as good as her. It's almost like she's pushing to make this a better movie, willing it to be something it isn't.

    And it isn't...because the point, which we realize at the end, is simply to come up with a reason to get The X-Men, whose movie rights are owned by Fox, not Disney, into the Marvel movie realm. This isn't a movie, really, it's a gimmick to create a reason for The X-Men to show up. A time/space reality rip shows up thanks to the Big Bad, and so we get another universe...which is...Fox's movie studio? And that's after Hawkeye, played by Hailee Steinfeld, shows up. 

    I guess the idea is to get the audience excited about these cameos leading to future movies and TV shows. How exciting is Kelsey Grammar voicing a special f/x Beast, though? 

    In The New York Times Book Review last week, there was a review of a new book about Marvel Studios. The reviewer mentioned something about how when these Marvel movies started, with the first Iron Man, the kids that were teenagers and went to see it and were excited about Marvel movies back then are all grown up now with kids...it's been that long. And really, the reviewer was right. Kids don't want to watch what their parents watched and what their parents thought was cool. Things change. Everything ends. While these movies might still be entertaining, light, forgettable fluff, the sheen is definitely off, the coolness is definitely gone, and any sort of excitement about the future of the Marvel Studios brand is definitely diminishing until one day maybe it'll be gone, forgotten, a ghost. **

Review: SCREAM VI

    

     You knew the Friday the 13th franchise was out of ideas when Jason went to Manhattan. Why did he travel from Crystal Lake to New York City, anyway? To see the sites? Or was it...to kill? I did watch that movie, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (what a mouthful), years ago, but only remember two scenes from it. One character was a boxer and he, shockingly, decided to take on Jason on a roof top with his boxing skills. Jason punched him and his head flew off. The other scene I remember was when Jason took off his mask and showed what his face looked like to two strangers on the street. The strangers were shocked! Sadly, the camera didn't show what was under the mask. I'm guessing that the film was supposed to be a comedy. Well Scream VI has Ghost Face going to NYC and it's not a comedy. Maybe it would've been better if it was? Who knows? Considering I still remember two scenes from a movie I probably saw 30 years ago, and probably won't remember a single scene from Scream VI in 30 years, it tells you something about how great this new Scream is.

    If you somehow forget, or live in a closet, or hate movies, or are pop culture illiterate, Scream from 1997 was a great film. It definitely rose above the typical horror/slasher fare, thanks to a plethora of things; the script, originally titled Scary Movie, by Kevin Williamson, was one of the best scripts ever written. And the actors they got were all fantastic to create quite the memorable flick. It was the pinnacle of stardom for every single actor in that movie. None of them did anything better before or after. But of course the sequels neutered the greatness of the first film. They did three quick, forgettable sequels and then Scream 4 showed up with a fresh cast of popular young actors. MTV made a Scream TV show that I enjoyed even though I was probably the only one on Earth that watched it. And then last year came Scream, the 5th entry, and now a year later a direct sequel. 

    In last year's Scream, we not only got a fresh tale of Ghost Face mayhem in Woodbury, but the old cast came back. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette all reprised their roles to no good effect. In Scream VI, they're scraping from the bottom of the barrel. Cox returns, but Neve Campbell wanted too much money. Hayden "Save the Cheerleader" Panetierre returns, although I totally forget anything she did in Scream 4. It tells you how awful the script for this new film is when you figure that Hayden Panetierre was a high school character in Scream 4 and they had to figure out a way to get her in this new movie so they decided to make her...an F.B.I. agent. Huh? 

    The story has two sisters in NYC because one of them is going to a fictional college there. They, along with their friends, survived Ghost Face in the previous film, and are now all conveniently living in the Big Apple. Fresh murders occur, a new Ghost Face killer is on the loose, and the big question is: who is it? Is it the hot, mysterious strange neighbor? One of the college roommates? The dad cop? A legend from the past? Does anyone really care anymore? 

    The big problem with these last two Scream films, co-directed and co-written by the same team, is that they decide to tie everything back to the original film. They both have a main character, Sam, played by Melissa Barrera, who's the daughter of Billy Loomis, one of the original killers played by Skeet Ulrich in the original. I get that this is a franchise, and acknowledging the classic original makes sense, but being stuck in the past can be part of the problem. They should have kept the original framework: a suburban town, a Ghost Face killer, murders, a whodunnit, but made everything new. Trying to recreate something great never works. One of the reasons Scream 2 was so dumb was because one of the killers turned out to be Billy Loomis' mother, played by Laurie Metcalf. Yes, the actress from Roseanne was a cold blooded murderer running around in a black cloak and a ghost mask. And yes, it was as idiotic as it sounds. 

    There are a few entertaining and well done sequences in Scream VI. The opener, done in every film, with a character getting a phone call from a stranger asking them about horror films then butchering them, is neigh impossible to mess up. This time we get a woman at a bar getting a phone call from her unknown Tindr date that leads to a pretty exciting opening. The other scene that works for a bit is the subway sequence: it's Halloween, so the stuffed subway is filled with a few costumed revelers in Ghost Face regalia. Is one of them the killer? Well...duh. 

    The major problem in this film, besides the borderline atrocious script, is that none of the characters are interesting. The one semi-big star (besides Courtney Cox...who was famous a century ago) is Jenna Ortega. She was in Netflix's popular Wednesday show last year, and also hosted SNL. She doesn't get much to do here, and no one gets any good lines to deliver. Melissa Barrera, the star, mopes around throughout the entire film. There isn't even a great, funny, zany, wise talking sidekick to deliver memorable laughs. And the ending with the big reveal and the big killing room finale, is the worst thing in the entire film. 

    Honestly, I kind of wished I'd have watched Jason Takes Manhattan again instead. *1/2