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Fall Movie Catch-Up
The Incredible Shrinking Wknd - An indie film clearly made with no budget (and originally in Spanish) that I watched because it’s got a time-loop. It’s...not great. It tries to hit the beats from Groundhog Day (in a cabin the woods) but doesn’t give the audience enough information and doesn’t actually give the protagonist enough character or enough growth. There are also random events that don’t figure into the larger story or actually pay off—two of the friends kiss her at random points but nothing comes of it; she gets a nail in her foot (and it’s established that her body doesn’t re-set with the loop) but goes on long hikes in subsequent loops. This wasn’t a winner, unfortunately.
Boss Level - Frank Grillo gets caught in a Groundhog Day loop where ridiculous assassins sent by his ex-wife’s boss kill him. Fortunately, he’s former spec ops and is well-trained at murdering them back, especially when he gets to practice every day. This doesn’t take itself particularly seriously and the science is the usual nonsense, but it’s at least internally consistent nonsense. And overall this is a fun, vaguely video game-themed action movie with lots of explosions and a moral about the true meaning of family.
Venom: The Last Dance - Wow, what a goddamn mess of a movie. Our best guess was that there were at least three writers, one who wrote the Eddie/Venom buddy comedy dialogue (delightful!), one who came up with cool CGI action sequences (Venom horse!), and one who wrote the framing story about Knull and the Codex (really, really stupid!). Why did Dr. Paine even appear in this movie and why did she have so much backstory, when she did nothing of importance? Why bother with a stinger about Knull when 1) Venom won so he’s still sealed away and 2) It’s not like they’ll have any sequels to use him in. Who’s going to fight him? Madame Web and Morbius? If you liked the previous two movies, you can enjoy this by fast-forwarding through any scene Eddie isn’t in.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - This was fascinating, especially having rewatched the original movie recently, because it’s much more reliant on the intervening decades of which characters became breakout fan-favorites than on the plot of the original movie. The Maitlands (remember them, the main characters of the original?) barely get a line about what happened to them and Beetlejuice gets a LOT of screen time. That said, they packed this with too many subplots that end up barely mattering and filled the rest with fanservice. It’s too busy a movie for how little actually happens, if that makes sense. Oh, and the “MacArthur Park” sequence at the end is way too long and does not, in fact, recapture the magic of “Day-O.” I support Winona Ryder getting a paycheck at every opportunity; but frankly this was mostly only worth it for Catherine O’Hara and William Dafoe chewing scenery.
Transformers One - This was fun! How well does the continuity work? Who cares! There are no squishy humans, everything is brightly colored so you can tell what’s going on, there are awesome Transformer battles, and it remembers that it’s both a call-back for us middle-aged fans but also a cartoon for kids.
Boss Level - Frank Grillo gets caught in a Groundhog Day loop where ridiculous assassins sent by his ex-wife’s boss kill him. Fortunately, he’s former spec ops and is well-trained at murdering them back, especially when he gets to practice every day. This doesn’t take itself particularly seriously and the science is the usual nonsense, but it’s at least internally consistent nonsense. And overall this is a fun, vaguely video game-themed action movie with lots of explosions and a moral about the true meaning of family.
Venom: The Last Dance - Wow, what a goddamn mess of a movie. Our best guess was that there were at least three writers, one who wrote the Eddie/Venom buddy comedy dialogue (delightful!), one who came up with cool CGI action sequences (Venom horse!), and one who wrote the framing story about Knull and the Codex (really, really stupid!). Why did Dr. Paine even appear in this movie and why did she have so much backstory, when she did nothing of importance? Why bother with a stinger about Knull when 1) Venom won so he’s still sealed away and 2) It’s not like they’ll have any sequels to use him in. Who’s going to fight him? Madame Web and Morbius? If you liked the previous two movies, you can enjoy this by fast-forwarding through any scene Eddie isn’t in.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - This was fascinating, especially having rewatched the original movie recently, because it’s much more reliant on the intervening decades of which characters became breakout fan-favorites than on the plot of the original movie. The Maitlands (remember them, the main characters of the original?) barely get a line about what happened to them and Beetlejuice gets a LOT of screen time. That said, they packed this with too many subplots that end up barely mattering and filled the rest with fanservice. It’s too busy a movie for how little actually happens, if that makes sense. Oh, and the “MacArthur Park” sequence at the end is way too long and does not, in fact, recapture the magic of “Day-O.” I support Winona Ryder getting a paycheck at every opportunity; but frankly this was mostly only worth it for Catherine O’Hara and William Dafoe chewing scenery.
Transformers One - This was fun! How well does the continuity work? Who cares! There are no squishy humans, everything is brightly colored so you can tell what’s going on, there are awesome Transformer battles, and it remembers that it’s both a call-back for us middle-aged fans but also a cartoon for kids.