Review: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2

    I've pretty much forgotten about what happened in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie even though it only came out a few years ago. That doesn't say a lot about the current Hollywood super-hero surge. They do all tend to blur together, especially the Marvel ones. Cue the hero, the wisecracks, the villain, and the action finale with multiple explosions. But since we're heading into the summer movie season, it's hard to really complain. If you go to a packed theater on a Friday night with a raucous crowd, of course you want pure bliss entertainment. Who cares if a few years later what you saw is forgotten? You were there, you recall. You smiled. You laughed. You forgot about the trials and tribulations of daily life for two hours and left happy. Isn't that good enough? And that's pretty much what you're paying for if you see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It's fun, it's funny, it's entertaining, but it's also the same old, cliche-heavy spectacle you've seen from Marvel and Hollywood for years.
     I've read comic books since the late 80's and had never even heard of The Guardians of the Galaxy until the movie came out. Marvel was either really flailing for new movies to make or I was just oblivious. Either way, director and co-writer James Gunn, of Slither fame, made a fun, surprise hit of a movie the first time around. I can't remember the plot or the villain, but I do remember the characters, the 70's music, and that it was enjoyable. It was also a stroke of genius casting Chris Pratt, the goofy, ex-fat guy from the Parks & Recreation TV show. Now Pratt is a bonafide, buff movie star. Who saw that coming?
     Since the first film was a hit ($700 million worldwide!), this new one has gotten the red carpet treatment. Famous names: Kurt Russel! Sylvester Stallone in a one-minute, superfluous cameo! A bigger budget (even though 99% of it was filmed on a green screen set). And a hot release date (the first weekend of May). The best thing Marvel has done, though, is let James Gunn write and direct. It definitely pays off that Gunn wrote the script. While the story is so-so, the film has a ton of humor in it. From the quips to the physical comedy, a lot of this is genuinely hilarious. I somehow doubt that would have happened if this script was melded together by seventeen different screenwriters like it's usually done with these super-hero flicks.
     The basic plot in this film is the classic lost boy goes home trope. Chris Pratt is Peter Quill, a half Earthling that is part of the rag-tag group known as the Guardians of the Galaxy. He only knew that his mom was a human and his dad was some stranger from the stars. His father finds him and chaos ensues! It would probably help if you saw (and remembered) the first film. The old cast is back; Rocket Raccoon, the talking raccoon character voiced by Bradley Cooper that is half-amusing and half-annoying, Drax, the muscled alien played by the old WWE wrestler Dave Bautista (who gets all the funny lines in this one), Gamora, the green-skinned alien played by Star Trek's Zoe Saldana, and Groot, voiced, apparently, by Vin Diesel, who is now Baby Groot for some reason. Michael Rooker as the blue-skinned Yondu is back as well, and the evil blue-skinned cyborg lady Nebula played by Dr. Who's Karen Gillan returns (yes, in space everyone must have various colored skin...because it's cool!). If you have no idea who these characters are, then you'll be totally lost here. But the jokes are amusing and the film is entertaining, so it won't be a dull lost.
     By the end of this film, when an entire planet is exploding and ships are flying and shooting all over the place and everything is moving, the movie becomes a sloppy, silly mess. And if it's one negative in this movie it's that there aren't really any good action scenes. No great choreographed fisticuffs or awe-inspiring chase scenes. The film pretty much only works when it's dealing with hijinks and jokes. And the core group of characters are a truly entertaining bunch. I'd almost rather just see them bickering in a Seinfeld coffee shop than running around in space blowing things up.
     The best sequence in the entire film is the opening credits. While the gang is fighting a squid-like monstrosity in the blurred out background, the camera is focused on Baby Groot dancing to "Mr. Blue Sky" by E.L.O. while the credits slap onto the screen. It's kind of apt; there is action, but the focus is on the music, the comedy, the fun. A thousand people die in this movie but who cares? It's summer movie season! *** (out of ****)

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2017

1- STAR WARS EPISODE 8: The thing I'm looking forward to the most in 2017 is the new season of Twin Peaks on Showtime. But, alas, this is the most anticipated films, and so the new Star Wars will have to do. J.J. Abrams and crew did a fantastic job last time out at setting up a world filled with not only the old crew but new, interesting characters (except for the villain...Adam Driver is not villainous). It was also, gulp, a lot of fun. Rian Johnson is writing/directing this new one. Johnson does have some sci-fi and f/x work under his belt from Looper, but his best and coolest film with probably always be the teenage noir flick, Brick. The less we say about The Brothers Bloom, the better. I'm actually interested in seeing more of Rey's journey and of course it'll be nice to see Mark Hamill back for more than a few seconds and also to see Carrie Fisher's last work. And even though thanks to Disney I'll probably eventually be sick of Star Wars, right now I'm still an excited fan boy. Bring it on.   

2- KONG: SKULL ISLAND: King Kong is awesome. So why aren't there more Kong films? Maybe they realize that you can't do better than the original so why try? Either way, here's a new one, set in the 1970's (probably to explain why Google Maps didn't reveal the island). A group shows up at the island and...what? Fight Kong? Who knows? Who cares about plot? It's John Goodman and Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hiddleston on Skull Island. And it looks awesome.

3- JUSTICE LEAGUE: Even though I'm excited to see this, it'll probably be an epic mess. And since we've already seen Batman and Superman together in a film...so what's so great about this? Well...it's The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman as well. It's DC's version of The Avengers. Which means this'll be huge. Or will it? Everyone except me and Steven Rea hated BvS. Affleck was a laughing stock post-Gigli until Argo and then he decided he liked being a laughing stock so he went and did a Batman movie. But Affleck is great as Batman. Gal Gadot is an awesome WW. The problem is they've brought back director Zack Snyder again, regardless of his track record. But this is the type of movie that going to the movies is made for. A packed house on a Friday night, raucous crowd, action, laughs, special f/x galore. It'll be a spectacle at least.   

4- ANNIHILATION: This is adapted from the first book of a trilogy. I only read the first one, and while it's good and interesting, it's also a copy of the great movie Stalker, from Andrei Tarkovsky, which was also based on a book. Both are about a government quarantined mystery zone that people venture into. This new film has Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But the reason I'm anticipating this is because Alex Garland is writing/directing it. Garland wrote 28 Days Later and made Ex-Machina, two of the best films to come out in the last twenty years. I expect great things from this, unlike Blade Runner 2049, which didn't make the list.

5- ALIEN: COVENANT: Fuck Prometheus. Just give us xenomorphs killing humans in space. It isn't difficult. Is it? Prometheus made no sense, but the end was promising when they charted course to the planet that apparently is where the aliens are. I guess this is a sequel? The trailer looks awesome. Can Ridley Scott still direct a good movie at age 78? Will Danny McBride being in this movie make it less scary? There hasn't been a good Alien movie since 1986. It's about time for one. 

6- SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING: Even bad Spider-man movies are pretty good (re: Spider-man 3). The character, villains, and world are so great that, really, it's tough to mess it up. But this new one with a fresh cast actually does look like a hell of a lot of fun. Tom Holland's Spider-man was the best part of last year's Captain America: Civil War, and his scene at home with Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark was hilarious...so it's a good thing that Robert Downey, Jr. is back as Iron Man in this film and Tom Holland as Parker gets to star. Plus there's Michael Keaton as the villain, Vulture, the fact that it's Peter Parker in High School, and sidekick Ganke from the comic books is in it, albeit re-named. Should be one of the better summer popcorn flicks.   

7- VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS: Writer/director Luc Besson's last big-budget, sci-fi spectacle, The Fifth Element, was pretty to look at but mostly awful. That was twenty years ago, so perhaps he's learned his lesson. And he hasn't made any great films since then, but Angel-A was good and, let's face it, even Besson's bad movies are usually more interesting than the best Hollywood movies these days. This new one is based on an old French comic book about aliens and time travel and galactic warriors and worlds. It stars super-model/actress Cara Delevingne, singer Rhianna, and the kid that played Harry Osbourne in The Amazing Spider-Man, Dane DeHann. It looks wild and weird and just what you want out of a summer film.

8- T2: TRAINSPOTTING: The gang's all back...21 years later. Sequels usually suck, but at least they've brought back the same writer, producer, director, and stars. And Trainspotting was one of the best movies ever made. That sequence that starts with Mark Renton necking in the back of the cab set to "Atomic" by Sleeper and ends with all three dudes at their respective flats having sex is still one my favorite scenes in film. Trainspotting is just one of those movies that feels like an adrenaline rush while watching it. So, really, good luck recapturing that magic. But it'll be fun to see them try. It's said to be loosely based on the book sequel, Porno, which I heard was just awful. Let's just hope it's more of an Empire Strikes Back than a Clerks 2. 

9- THE DARK TOWER: This Stephen King book, The Gunslinger (which is book 1 of the 8 part Dark Tower series) came out in 1982. Crazy that it took this long to be adapted, as even very short King stories have been made into movies over the years (remember Graveyard Shift?). And who knows if we'll ever see any of the sequels, but this is a start at least. Matthew McConaughey is the villain, The Man in Black, who's pursuing The Gunslinger, played by Idris Elba, across a bizarre, fantasy land. The co-writer and director is the Danish Nikolaj Arcel, who directed the foreign version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and also the very good A Royal Affair that had Alicia Vikander and Mads Mikkelsen. So they have a good director, a great cast, and a fairly interesting novel to work with. What could possibly go wrong?   

10- THOR: RAGNORAK: The second Thor film was one of the better Marvel films to be released amidst their current surge. This one is big, though, because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. When you figure in the usual Thor cast (Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Chris Hemsworth) plus Cate Blanchett and Jeff Goldblum, the budget for actors must be $100 million. But fuck budget, actors, and whatever lame plot this has. The only reason I want to see this is because they got Taika Waititi to direct it. Wait, what? He is, without a doubt, one of the best writer/directors out there. He worked on Flight of the Conchords, directed a handful of The Inbetweeners episodes, and made two of the weirdest, funniest, coolest films of the past few years (What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople). I have no idea what he's doing directing a mega-budget, Hollywood film, but I don't care. I expect greatness.

THE BEST FILMS OF 2016

                                                              1- Girl Asleep

                                                           2- The Nice Guys

                                            

                                           3- Hunt for the Wilderpeople

                                                  

                                                         4- Sing Street

                                           

                                              5- Everybody Wants Some!!

                                                         6- Finding Dory

                             

                    7- Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them

                                                       

                                                              8- Moana

                                                  

                                 9- Morris from America

                                                      10- The Wailing

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2016 REVISITED

1- ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY: After those awful Star Wars prequels, pretty much any new Star Wars would look like the greatest movie ever made. But I'm glad to say that so far, Disney is 2 for 2. This new one, another prequel, is very entertaining. There's no light sabers or Jedi in it and, honestly, I didn't even notice or care. *** (out of ****)

2- BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE: I'm probably one of the few people on Earth that enjoyed this film. But, c'mon, Ben Affleck is a perfect Batman. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman was awesome. It was big and dumb but a good popcorn extravaganza nonetheless. And admit it; Nolan's Batman films were not comic book films. This is a comic book film. ***

3- MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIARS: Haven't seen it yet. Reviews were average. It does look awful, however. And perhaps it's time to finally admit that Tim Burton lost his touch.

4- FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM: Yes, it's fantastic. I think the reason is obvious; J.K. Rowling wrote a great script. Which shouldn't be a surprise, as her post-Potter work, The Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo's Calling, were both great. This film is fun but also dark and has the best last shot of any film in 2016. ***1/2 

5- THE NICE GUYS: Perhaps the most entertaining film ever made. I rarely laugh out loud at anything but I'm still chuckling at that "hat rack" line. This was, obviously, super unoriginal, but just so much fun it didn't matter. Too bad it was kind of a bomb because I want ten sequels. ***1/2

6- HAIL, CAESAR!: A dud. The Coen's haven't made a good movie in years. This was just dull and went nowhere, although the musical number in the saloon is mildly amusing. *1/2

7- X-MEN: APOCALYPSE: Reviewed. **1/2

8- CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR: Entertaining in spots but surely one of the lesser Marvel films. New Spider-Man, Tom Holland, stole the show. Which bodes well for the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming. **1/2

9- STAR TREK BEYOND: A shocking disappointment. How do you fuck up a Star Trek film with this stellar cast and a decent story? I guess blame J.J. Abrams, who left this franchise to do Star Wars: The Force Awakens. New director Justin Lin, famous for directing some of the Fast & Furious films, really dropped the ball on this. A lot of this film is just an incoherent, special f/x blur. *1/2 

10- SUICIDE SQUAD: Another mega-disappointment and probably the worst film of 2016. Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn but they didn't give Jared Leto's Joker enough to do and the script is atrocious. I loathed director David Ayer's last picture, Fury, so I guess I shouldn't have expected him to work wonders in the capes genre. Still, a competent writer/director like Joss Whedon could've easily knocked this out of the park. *

Review: THE GREAT WALL

     Another year ends, and with its close comes the critic's time to ruminate on the good, bad, and ugly of the previous year while hopefully looking forward to the new films on the horizon that will, unfortunately, probably underwhelm us. I, obviously, haven't seen everything that came out in 2016, nor ever will, but I remember fondly my favorites. As it stands, Shane Black's super-entertaining The Nice Guys, is still my favorite film of the year. The other ones I loved were Hunt for the Wilderpeople, White Girl, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Everybody Wants Some!, The Wailing, Finding Dory, and Sing Street. Two so-called masterpieces, Moonlight and La La Land, were good but not great, and a ton of mega popcorn features like Star Trek: Beyond, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange, and Captain America: Civil War, were average to awful.
     2017 looks to be a huge year for us fan addicts mostly because a new Star Wars is coming out (although, thanks to Disney, a new Star Wars film will come out every year for the foreseeable future). There's also a new King Kong, a new Blade Runner, and a new Joon-ho Bong film (my current favorite director). When the dust settles at the end of 2017, though, there's already one surefire worst film of the year candidate. If you haven't heard of it yet, well, it's basically Matt Damon fighting monsters on the Great Wall of China...and what could possibly go wrong with that movie?
     When the first trailers for The Great Wall hit, the internet trolls went wild. What the fuck was Matt Damon doing in a Chinese movie? Are there no Asian actors out there? They have to get an American face? What the hell is wrong with the world?
     At the end of the day, every Asian actor on Earth should be thanking God they weren't cast in this mess. The Great Wall is so awful, so ridiculously bad, that it would fit perfectly on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Which means it does have some merit...if you consider it a good thing to be the kind of film you watch and make fun of and laugh at and wonder who the hell actually let this piece of crap into the world? It seriously should be banned in most countries. Who ever has copies of the film right now should burn it on the spot and save the world, and Matt Damon, the embarrassment.
     The biggest disappointment in all of this is that Yimou Zhang is an awesome, prolific, and pretty famous director. He's known for making poetic, lush, beautiful psuedo-kung-fu films like Hero, The House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower. With The Great Wall, though, the studio system seems to have chewed him up and spit him out because it certainly doesn't have any poetry, any semblance of artistry, nor any world class art direction. So what happened? Why is this just atrocious?
     The Great Wall kicks off with three white, English speaking dudes in the desert in China in ancient times. Matt Damon is one of them, silly long hair, beard and all. They end up at the Great Wall of China while looking for gun powder. Why is there a Great Wall of China? Oh, yeah, because a comet hit a mountain and unleashed lizard-like monsters that attack every sixty years. Huh? Bring on the battle scenes of cartoon special f/x monsters fighting an army of Chinese men and women! Bring on scenes of these soldiers beating drums for no good reason! Bring on scenes featuring Willem Dafoe cowering in the shadows (yes, he's in this movie, too, although I'm sure he wishes he wasn't)! Bring on Matt Damon being a better fighter than every single Chinese warrior!
     This short, ninety minute film, is pretty much all battle scenes. It definitely reminds me of the battle scenes in the second and third Lord of the Rings films. The sequences where orcs and trolls and dragons are attempting to scale castle walls and fortified fortresses? The Great Wall is pretty much that, albeit with worse special f/x, which is odd, since doesn't technology get better over time? 
     This all means that somebody somewhere saw The Lord of the Rings and wanted to re-do it but their own, fresh way. And I suppose getting a big time star and big time director to do it makes sense, but there's problems with who they picked. Damon does not fit in here. Neither does Yimou Zhang. This is a big budget, silly, preposterous, popcorn summer film. It's not an art film, not a sweeping epic. Zhang is a master at making kung-fu fighting look like a colorful, sumptuous display. It's rather difficult to showcase any sort of kung-fu with frigging monsters. Not to mention that they're about as scary looking as something out of a bad Anime TV show. Hell, Matt Damon's fake beard is scarier than the monsters. And you know what's even more frightening? Matt Damon is gonna have to go on talk shows to promote this piece of shit!
     Welcome to 2017!
     1/2* (out of ****) 
   
     
    

Review: DOCTOR STRANGE

 
   After the awfulness of Suicide Squad, I think we're all a bit wary of dipping our toes back into the super hero movie world. But, alas, there's no escaping the realm of caped/masked avengers and their ilk these days. Did you know that movie studios are already working on a two-part Avengers film, a Ben Affleck directed Batman flick, and a Justice League movie (Johnny Depp's battered ex-wife is now Aquaman's wife!). And I'm sure you already caught the teaser trailer for next summer's Guardians of the Galaxy sequel (which, apparently, steals all of it's music from Reservoir Dogs). So, if you go to the movies, just give in already. And now the newest super-hero movie is here. It's time to accept your movie-going fate.
     Doctor Strange is, to put it mildly, kind of scraping the barrel (I think, when watching all of these B-super-hero films, in the back of our mind we're always wishing we were just watching a Spider-Man or Batman movie instead). Last year, when Marvel started a new Doctor Strange comic book with the super star team of writer Jason Aaron and artist Chris Bachalo, I admitted that I've been reading comic books since the late 80's and have never read a Doctor Strange comic. So...who is he? What's his deal? Why's he been around since the 60's and has never been in a film before? All good questions. And after seeing this movie and reading the comic book I can tell you: he's not very interesting.
     The movie does what anyone would do when writing a new super-hero movie. A) introduce the back story, B) introduce a villain, and C) have said villain and super-hero fight at the end. Duh. I guess if you wanted to make any of that by-the-numbers stuff work in a new, fresh, super-exciting way you could either totally screw with the blueprint and forge something bold and original or just make one hell of an awesome movie that follows the blueprint. Doctor Strange is, sadly, neither. It's entertaining, forgettable, forgotten. But it does achieve something that most popcorn movies should, at the very least, be: watchable. There's your tagline! "Well, I watched it." Which is to say, what more than most people did while viewing Suicide Squad...which was probably more a combination of, "I suffered through it," and, "I survived the barrage."
     Benedict Cumberbatch, psuedo-weird American accent and all, stars as Doctor Strange. He's a brilliant, amusing, full-of-himself surgeon who has a cute female doctor friend played by Rachel McAdams. His character is so much like Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark that I was constantly wishing that, somehow, a world could exist where they had actually cast Downey here. And while Cumberbatch does not have the gravitas of Downey, he's fine here and quite amusing in parts. After a car accident, the doctor is battered so he looks to ancient magic to restore him. Cue the silly Rocky-esque training sequences. Instead of, you know, hitting the gym there's...magic! Magic with the magician The Ancient One played by Tilda Swinton. Yes, Doctor Strange is a magician. That's the catch. A magician super-hero! After he learns all about magic he ends up battling the evil magician, Kaecilius, played by the always awesome Mads Mikkelsen (who would have thought that Mikkelsen was once playing a drug dealer with a tattoo on his head failing to get it up with a hooker in Denmark in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher and now he's, like, a big American movie star? Crazy!). Strange also has his zany sidekick, Wong (who, surprisingly, steals the show...I want a TV show with just Wong and Doctor Strange hanging out), and his magician friend, Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who's really slumming it here (remember his starring performance in 12 Years a Slave? Well, Hollywood doesn't).
     And that's pretty much what this movie is; a bunch of magicians fighting to save the human race. Which, honestly, sounds a lot more exciting than it is. The one thing that is cool about this movie are the special f/x. For no real good reason, the villain likes to control time, space, and gravity. So we get a lot of pointless action scenes of upside-down buildings and rooms folding inside and out. Basically, someone watched Christopher Nolan's Inception and thought it was cool enough to steal from. But it literally makes no sense (not that magician super-hero's make sense of course). Why does the villain try to stop Doctor Strange by moving around buildings and freezing time and all of this visually cool crap? Is there not, like, a death spell? Where's the cruciatus curse when you need it?
     One of the better action sequences in the film occurs when Doctor Strange is on a hospital gurney while McAdams is attempting to revive him but, of course, Doctor Strange's mental/ghost mind is secretly battling a villain to the death on another, unseen plateau. But the best part is the joke that runs through the film about Wong only having one name like Adele or Beyonce. It's a throwaway thing, an amusing side anecdote that has a great climax. And this playful comradery only made me pine for the much more engrossing Sherlock Holmes TV show, which it was announced this week is returning on January 1st. Cumberbatch looks like he's truly having the time of his life on that show while in Doctor Strange he's just another part of the machine, a well-oiled, big budget Marvel super-hero movie created simply to print cash. It's an entertaining popcorn film but it's light as air, there and gone, a blip on the radar. And is this all we deserve? Us minions? **1/2 (out of ****)
     
     
     

Review: BLAIR WITCH

     It's been sixteen years since the second Blair Witch film hit theaters...so one has to wonder, why is the third film coming out now? Obviously, this film isn't really for me, the grizzled veteran that saw and loved the original back in college. This film is one of those new, fresh, hip re-makes for "the kids." The studio covertly named the film The Woods until Comic-Con in July when they revealed that it's in fact a new Blair Witch film. I guess this coverage worked, as even The New York Times published an article in the front page news section about this bait-and-switch. The free, three-week early screening I attended was filled with mostly younger college kids and I was already emailed the chance to see it again at another free screening. On the 7 train in Queens on my way out to the U.S. Open I spotted a big poster at one of the stations for it. This means they're probably spending a lot of money to market this and create buzz. Will any of this matter? If you remember, the original went on to be the highest grossing independent film at the time with no stars and little marketing (I remember having to drive out of my way to see it because it wasn't playing at the local theater). It also spawned the hand held camera point of view horror film. But the sequel, Book of Shadows, was a bomb with critics and at the box office and it took sixteen years for this new third film to come out. I suspect that director Adam Wingard, who made the fun/scary You're Next, was such a fan that he jumped at making this. It's kind of sad to disappoint that, realistically, this new film, simply titled Blair Witch, is basically a re-make that seems fairly pointless in the end.
     Back in June when I heard that Wingard had a new film coming out I watched the trailer. It featured kids running and screaming in the woods and it was called The Woods and it looked intriguing. I'm a fan of Wingard, as You're Next was one of the better slasher pictures to come out in the last few years and The Guest was entertaining. When I learned that this new film was actually a Blair Witch sequel I was even more interested. After all, if anyone could make a good Blair Witch film it'd be Wingard. And I also have a soft spot for The Blair Witch Project. Besides making a spoof film with my brother titled The Darien Witch Project (Darien is the brat daughter from The Last Boy Scout, as if you didn't know), I also gave the original film four stars and named it the best film of 1999. And it was genuinely the last film that scared me.
But what was this sequel going to be like? The original had three people and a camera and it showed nothing. You didn't see the witch. The scariest thing was one of the characters standing up facing a basement wall. The sequel went a little bit further in the gratuitous nudity/blood vein...but it still never showed the witch. Would this new one have an actress in creepy, old-woman make-up running around? Would limbs and heads be flying through the air?
     The new film is basically a re-make in that's it a group of twenty year-old's filming themselves as they go camping in the haunted Maryland woods. The one caveat to make it part three and a continuation is that the one character is the brother of the girl, Heather, that went missing in the first film. This new crew has state-of-the-art tech, too. Ear-piece cameras, night vision cameras, and a useless drone. What they also have are two local hicks that go with them to help them find Heather. If I haven't mentioned the new character's names, well, there's a reason. The set-up characterization is atrocious. Do I care about any of these people? No, but I should if it wanted to be a compelling film. The two local hicks are so over-the-top ridiculous and silly they belong more in an SNL skit than a scary movie. And the biggest problem is that everything set-up never gets paid off. The one girl cuts her foot and it becomes infected. Okay, so there's going to be a great scene of them having to cut her leg off? Or, no, her whole body gets infected and she becomes possessed? No, the pay off could have been a lot better. And the hikers have a drone. That's cool. When it lifts up in the air maybe it catches sight of a house or a person in the woods or chimney smoke or...should I be the bearer of bad news that the drone is fucking pointless? The other problem is the actual witch. The woods are haunted but you can't show the witch, that's been established in the first two films. So what do you do? They have mysterious sounds in the woods in this new film. Trees falling. Loud footsteps. But why do the footsteps sound like a giant or Bigfoot? Alas, it's never revealed. There's also flashing lights which are, what? UFO's? They do go with the less-is-more approach, but they do show some glimpses of strange things in the corner of the screen and behind a tree in the dark. The only good part of the film is the climax, which, when it finally occurs, is welcomed with open arms. I will say that the filmmakers did a good job at ratcheting up the tension at the end. The final flurry is fairly scary, albeit a little bit too little too late. And by this point, three films in, shouldn't we be sick of seeing characters suddenly knocked down while filming and yet never learning what knocked them over or grabbed them? I guess what I'm saying is that the original film did the don't-show-anything so well that there's no point in trying to recapture that magic. It's time for a gore-fest with a scary witch actually on screen. That wouldn't be The Blair Witch Project of course, but it'd be something wild and new. Maybe get Rob Zombie to direct it and we'll all be happy. ** (out of ****)