Month: August 2023

ADMR – Retribution – Nothing in this movie is impressive – 1.75/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 29, 2023

Average Dude says: Absolutely nothing impressive in Retribution

Retribution is the latest offering from Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions. At the wheel is Liam Neeson, a veteran everyman action star. Why do we love him so much? I think it’s because he could be us. He doesn’t have tatooed muscles popping out of his second-skin v-neck shirt. He can’t (I presume) do the splits between two chairs. No leaping, twirling wirework in his movies. No martial arts training. He’s just a dude with ‘a very particular set of skills’. I have a very particular set of skills but they probably wouldn’t help me in a close-quarters battle with tree-trunk biceps, insane flexibility or the average Asian assasin.

Liam, Liam, Liam…what have they Taken from us?

Yet, for whatever reason, most of us like Liam Neeson. Taken let us believe that, if our daughter somehow ran afoul of the absolute worst, darkest, fast-pass to hell souls on earth, we could take any hit, any pain and still rain merciless wrath down ‘pon them and sleep like a baby afterwards. In fact, the Aslan’s share of Neeson movies do similar service. Average Dudes doing above average shite for the most bestest of reasons. It’s pretty much a given that this is an inherent element of his movies.

But O. M. G…just make it good

The premise of Retribution is that Neeson plays a workaholic businessman from company X that is particularly skilled at convincing investors to give him insane amounts of money. What does company X do? No idea. But when shite starts going south, his job is then to convince them to stay the course and not cut bait and curse their losses. No new cinematic ground, that’s for sure.

Also, there appears to be a series of car bombings going on around the region that foreshadow the protagonist’s dilema. But aside from one, none seem to be connected to said dilema. Huh? What the frick? But away we go anyway.

Don’t make me turn this bomb around!

Neeson, the emotionally distant father and husband, has to take his two tweenage kids to school. We the audience are inflicted by their cliche’d and unremarkable acting as the bickering siblings and disrespectful angsty adolescents. Boredom begins to set in.

Then, the real ‘action’ (uh huh) picks up as a hidden phone rings and is answered. The villain is now established by way of voice modulated threat of incineration and the ominous promise ‘I’m always watching’. Okay, sure.

Now that you have the setup…

What follows is about an hour of cat and mouse between villain and victim, but only if the cat was advanced in years and about 30 lbs overweight, and the mouse was the emotional equivalent of your computer mouse. Every performance in Retribution was as bland and forgetable as the average male high school substitute teacher. Which actually seems hard to do, given the stakes of the whole movie. I feel like I might have been a tad bit more invested in current events if I were sitting on fiery death that could be set off because of a bad burrito dinner.

As in almost any suspense movie of this nature, part of the fun is trying to figure out who the villain is before the end of the movie. I won’t tell you who that is, but given that there were less than a handful of characters to choose from (if you include the children) I don’t think you will have a problem with it. In fact, all doubt is pretty much erased long before the final reveal. Ugh.

what’s in a name?

I’m even having trouble reconciling the title of the movie with exactly what element of it pertained to actual Retribution of any kind? It’s like the producers asked ChatGPT to kick out a list of menacing words to title an action movie and this one was near the top.

I’m going to give Retribution a 1.75 out of 5. The one thing I liked about this movie was that it was short, clocking in at 1 h 30 m. And thanks to lackluster acting, it still seemed long and bloated. Having been in such gems as Chronicles of Narnia, The Grey, Rob Roy et al, it’s sad to see Liam Neeson resort to shlock this bad. You were Zeus, for cryin’ out loud! C’mon, man! I know you have a particular set of skills. I just really hate that you are not that particular about what movies you use them in.

Maybe I can sneak into Blue Beetle for a half hour or so.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Blue Beetle is a mish-mash of other successful movies and ultimately fails miserably- 2/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 22, 2023

Blue Beetle bugs me

I’m not going to pull any punches here, gonna hit you with it right out of the gate. Blue Beetle is not a good movie. It’s not horrible (see the Meg 2 for horrible). It’s just…not good. And in its not goodness, it exposes an awful – and hopefully brief – direction for Hollywood. I’m putting this hot take out there and it might get me in trouble. But that’s okay. It’s not said with any malice whatsoever and predicated on my iron-clad promise to tell the truth.

Blue Beetle was created primarily with the Latino community in focus. To back up that assertion, I would point out that there was, as far as I could see, one single non-Latino star – Susan Sarandon (we’ll get to her later). There were countless references and asides that went over my head and who knows how many I didn’t even know I should be wondering about. Even the credits were overwhelmingly – almost exclusively – Latino talent. I’m not saying that Latino actors and industry workers are bad. There are tons of movies featuring Latino talent that are amazing. Encanto, the two Spiderverse movies, Stand and Deliver, both Zorros, I could go on and on. I’m saying that aiming it at them is not necessarily a recipe for success. It feels like pandering and it often excludes the largest viewing demograph out there, which almost always results in lower box office numbers.

But it gets worse. Blue Beetle tried to make this movie about Latinos by drawing from elements of other successful movies. This only served to give it a terminal identity crisis. When I say it is a mish-mash, I’m not kidding. Here are those receipts as promised:

The Green Beetle

At first, I felt like I was watching a retelling of Green Lantern. Okay, not a successful movie, granted. But the comparison is fair. An alien artifact drops to earth and gets to decide who it wants as its champion. At least the costume was mostly not animated. On the downside, it clearly looked rubber. Pick your poison, I guess.

Iron Beetle

The aforementioned Blue Beetle scarab was technological in nature. Once selected, our hero has to learn how to fly and appropriately use his new tech. He also has a Jarvis-like AI entity attached (literally) that he talks to in his very Iron Man like display in his helmet. Or mask. Or nanotech. Whatevs.

The Blue Panther

What seemed to me to be the most glaring and out of place ripoff was the spiritual plane that Jaimie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) entered to chat with a relative. Where the ‘Great Veldt’ from Black Panther was applicable to the culture and adequately fleshed out, Blue Beetle seemed to randomly jam it into the story. It was unexpected and didn’t quite fit the ‘family’ narrative for this movie. Not that more was needed. The importance of family was well established early on.

Milagro-fina

Jamie’s sister Milagro Reyes (Belissa Escobedo) was a wise-cracking second banana that possessed all the annoyance of Awkwafina without any of the charm (there was a moment of literal bathroom humor that I’m only slightly ashamed to say I laughed at).

As for the rest of the movie, Blue Beetle clearly followed the superhero formula. Soulless villain pursuing world-conquering power (Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Black Panther, Age of Ultron, need I go on?) In Blue Beetle, the villain was corporate in nature and portrayed by Susan Sarandon in a performance as lacking in effort as I have ever seen. Was it really that awful? I’m afraid so, Janet. Funny how the only caucasian person in the movie was evil and rich but whatevs. It’s kind of cliche at this point.

So, what was there to like about Blue Beetle? There were a couple of mid-points (I can’t really call them high points). George Lopez played Uncle Rudy, a seminal MacGuffin on which much of the plot relied. I dig him because he’s not affraid to make fun of himself and Latino tropes without debasing them. We should all be so self-effacing and willing to laugh at ourselves.

There is also Nana Reyes (Adriana Barraza) who first seemed like a very generic throw-away character but was a clever reminder to not judge a book by its cover and also respect the wisdom and experience of your elders. That’s all I’ll say about that. I’ll let you discover this gem on your own.

There’s not much else to say about this hodge-podge of other superhero flicks except to say that, in every instance, it was done much better. Once again, the sum of the refurbed parts does not a greater whole make. Even though I saw this coming, I still feel like I’ve been crane-kicked in the face.

And also, it’s not bad to make a movie highlighting an underserved segment of society. But this movie didn’t do it well. That’s its greatest downfall. I’m giving Blue Beetle a 2/5. And will someone please explain to me what was going on with the claymation and why it should have been entertaining? Thanks in advance.

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Post Review comment: A lot of reviewers I follow (ALWAYS after my own review, btw) have given this movie high marks. I don’t get that, myself. But since I am open to considering all opinions (especially conflicting ones), I wanted to present that to you all. In the end, I think I’m more ‘One Of You’ than they are (or have become, maybe that’s more accurate). And being one of ‘us’, I’m invested in not being swayed by anything other than ‘what do we enjoy?’ Challenge me in good faith and we’ll discuss! ~ Average Dude

Movie Reviews

ADMR – The Meg 2: The Trench is super shallow – 1/2 out of 5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 15, 2023
2 Comments on ADMR – The Meg 2: The Trench is super shallow – 1/2 out of 5

The Meg 2: The Trench ain’t deep

Rodman Philbrick is an American author whom I had never heard of until I Googled quotes about bad things. He once wrote “I don’t suppose anybody really knows how bad a thing can be until it actually happens.”. A generic truth that could have been written specifically about The Meg 2: The Trench. Me sitting through this movie actually happened and I didn’t really know how bad it could be. But oh, how I know it now.

Full disclosure, I suspected badness from the git-go. I saw Meg the first back in 2018. It was an August movie, which was strike one. Everyone knows that movies released in August and February are almost exclusively poop-trash (with the notable exceptions of Guardians of the Galaxy – August 2014, and Deadpool – February 2016). Those months are the movie ‘dead zone’. The Meg was as ‘meh’ as ‘meh can get, a total throwaway show. I literally only remembered that Jason Statham and a big shark were in it. But, because I love you all THIS MUCH, I took a bullet for you with The Meg 2: The Trench. Greater love hath no man…

Because of legal representation…

The Meg 2: The Trench again starred Jason Statham and Cliff Curtis (and a few others that I’ve been informed by their lawyers I must keep out of any reference to this movie). Once again, they are called to ‘the trench’, a super deep pit with a layer of super-cold water that keeps the super shark from menacing the oceans, lakes, streams and public swimming pools of earth. That’s science. This time around, the intrepid gang has somehow captured a female meg and is keeping it in a lagoon like Shamu. For study, of course. And apparently training. And this is the point where I knew things were going to go terribly, terribly wrong for me.

The Meg 2; The Trench starts out as a fairly benign, formulaic monster movie in the vein of Rampage, Kong and the like. Well-meaning scientists want to study this wonder of nature because climate. Nefarious forces embedded in the group of good-guys scheme to subvert the science for financial gains. Deckard Shaw/Handsome Rob/Lee Christmas/Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham always plays the same guy, which I’m totally good with) just happens to be visiting his Meg the First pals when the evil cabal plans come to fruition. Hi-tech adventure ensues (which was a total waste of Statham’s kick-@$$ action style, which I am NOT good with) and the evil cabal is thwarted. The End.

Except it wasn’t. To the detriment of everyone involved.

Had The Meg 2: The Trench ended there, it would have been exactly what I expected from a B movie second pass released in August. But for reasons unimaginable, the movie devolved into Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. I’m guessing here…I never saw that Sci Fi channel masterwork even though it starred Debbie Gibson (Shake Your Love) and Lorenzo Lamas (star of I have no frickin’ idea).

To further up the ante, we have a school of super sharks threatening a nearby vacation paradise. Now, I know it seems illogical to point out that being ON LAND would be kryptonite to the salt water assassins (there are some other trench-dwellers that have legs and can breathe oxygen because science). But we watchers had long abandoned anything like logic. Or coherent story-telling expectations. Or self-esteem.

I could truly go on and on with examples that seem to suggest that this movie was actually written by a 5th grade class’ suggestions pulled from a hat. I think you all get the point. The overuse of conveniently available MacGuffins is mind-boggling. Worse, these MacGuffins were also created by 5th graders who got D’s in science. If I hadn’t already checked out by the third reel…

RIP Handsome Rob…

I love me some Jason Statham. Even though he is the same guy in all of his movies, I still take notice when I see his name on the marque. I loved Hobbs and Shaw. Fight me. So, seeing Statham jetison every ounce of work integrity he had by signing on for this chum bucket movie just hurts the heart. I don’t know how or if he can bounce back from this. Maybe if he saves the life of Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell.

Sometimes bad is good. But not today

I watched the movie Machete way back in 2010 (Sept 3, which is still in the Dead Zone). That was a rare, rare bad movie that was so bad it was good. It’s a highly subjective category but I feel safe in proclaiming Machete as such if viewed under the right circumstances. It almost feels like that’s what The Meg 2: The Trench was going for. Sadly, that was never going to work.

If I am pressed to find something that I liked about this movie experience, I’m going to have to cheat just a little. I saw this on Cheapskate Tuesdays at the 10 AM showing. I was one of two moviegoers in the building that early and the only one in my theater. It was nice. The smell of old and new popcorn. The squeak of my arm on cool theater seats. The whisper of my sneakers on the carpet. The muzak that sounded overloud in the empty lobby. All of these things were memories of the best jobs in my youth. So awesome.

I am giving The Meg 2: The Trench a .5 out of 5 (if there had been even one gratuitious boob in it, the number would be 0). At least the little yorkie in reel 3 survived and that’s worth a .5. I implore you…if you like Jason Statham movies at all, avoid this at all costs. Together, we might be able to save a career.

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ADMR – Haunted Mansion mostly wastes great actors, BUT… 2/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 9, 2023

I’ll be up front about this…I went to Haunted Mansion because my beloved wife wanted to see it. Maybe because she had been to Disneyworld (I haven’t been) and it brought back some rememberberries. Whatever. I try to be a good husband (You’ll have to ask her if I succeed. Hint: it’s a ‘yes’) so off we went. And I think this is going to be a fairly short review because, quite honestly, there is not a lot to talk about here.

The story was as bland and generic as a PG 13 kids scary movie could possibly be. That order would be Goosebumps, then Haunted Masion. Far, far above would be Army of Darkness and so on. If Goosebumps is the most ‘kiddie version’ scary movies can get, then Goosebumps could reach up and tickle the tootsies of Haunted Mansion. In short, it was not scary. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Take your nanna with a severe heart condition, it’s fine.

Haunted mansion…Ya basic

And if the story was this basic, the dialogue did nothing to enhance the experience. I kind of feel like this script was written by scab writers during the LAST writer’s strike back in 2007. That this movie had SO MANY great talents that were given SO LITTLE to work with is staggering to me. The sum of this movie’s parts actually detracts from the whole because we kept waiting for a beloved actor to give us something to enjoy and it never came. In fact, were someone to tell me that the script was written by a soulless AI chatbot, I would not be shocked. Not. One. Bit.

Let’s do a roll-call of superb talent totally wasted in Haunted Mansion. Rosario Dawson. Owen Wilson. Dany DeVito (this one hurt me physically). Tiffany Haddish (well….). Jared Leto. And Jamie Lee Curtis! Girl, you are a horror movie veteran, some would say the First Lady of Horror. No excuse, JLC. Ya got none.

Here comes the BUT

HOWEVER…while the aforementioned talents were phoning it in and collecting a paycheck, there were a couple of exceptions that actually stood out. I thought LaKeith Stanfield turned in the best performance of the lot, including an emotional moment that was far and away best in show. Also worthy of praise is Chase Dillon, who plays Rosario Dawson’s introverted son with as much emotional range as the limited script would allow.

Haunted Mansion continued the current Hollywood trend of shoehorning cameos into their movies. It was nice to see them but the delight that I used to have when a famous face popped up unexpectedly is waning. It was bound to, I suppose. If we can count on Hollywood to do anything at all, it would be to beat a dead horse. Embarassingly and shamefully. We aren’t there yet but it’s coming, make no mistake. And it’s really sad that these little surprises meant to be after dinner mints are actually the most satisfying part of the whole two hours.

Anyway, here they are: Dan Levy ( I went to parties last year dressed as David Rose. My wife was Moira. We go all out for Halloween). Winona Ryder. Hasan Minhaj. Jo Koy. And Marilu Henner, who had slightly less screentime than her Taxi co-star. Slightly.

I wish that I could give you all more of a reason to see Haunted Mansion but unfortunately, this one will strictly be for your pre-adolescent kids. It didn’t even have anything shoved in as a little sumthin’-sumthin’ for parents (have any of you watched Bluey? I can’t lie, I love that kiddie show). I recommend going to a matinee with reclining seats and maybe taking a nice nap. Haunted Mansion gets a meager 2/5.

And this year’s Halloween costumes in our house will be EXCELLENT. Take my word for it.

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ADMR – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Indy is still the BEST – 3.5/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 1, 2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Sooooo…I have to issue an apology to you all. I am guilty of listening to certain segments of the MSM that preached the cinema heresy of boycotting a movie over someone else’s politically driven opinion. And in doing so, I almost missed seeing Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Worse, I undoubtably coerced some of you into skipping it, as well. This week, I offer my whole-hearted mea culpa. And as weird as it might sound, I have both Barbie and Ben Shapiro to thank for correcting me.

I listen to a lot of movie reviewers. I copy none of them and all of them in some small way. I learn how to do some things. But mostly, I think I learn how NOT to do things. I learn that my opinions of a movie don’t have to match someone else’s views. I hone my critical thinking skills and as part of my process, I am reminded to also look at it through my positive lense. That’s the goal, anyway.

Being an Average Dude, I sometimes eff up. In the case of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, I effed all the way up.

Got to eat my own words…and they are bitter, bitter, bitter…

If you look back a few weeks, you’ll see that I did a non-review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I stated without the slightest bit of self-awareness (or maybe it was way too much self-awareness. I’ll think on it later with beer in hand) that I had heard all the negative chatter about Indy’s last ride and that there was no way on this planet earth that I was going to take my daughter – whose nickname is Indy – to see what was for sure going to be a massive insult to one of the greatest action heroes ever to grace the big screen.

Let it not be said that I don’t admit when I am wrong. And I was very, very wrong.

The truth about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Watching Barbie reminded me to not listen to all the negative chatter (some of which came from Ben Shapiro) and form my own opinions. Do the work, Dude. Shapiro also went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and found it ‘delightful’. Ben was wrong about Barbie. Might he also be wrong about Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny? Time to check myself, lest I wreck myself. And I’m oh so glad I did.

The opening thrill-ride was everything you would expect from an Indiana Jones movie. Edge of your seat action, fisticuffs, whips, German bad-guys from WWII, humor, ‘splosions…all of the stuff that the Average Dude loves. The de-aging CGI was not perfect but certainly good enough. I think if they had done a better job of de-aging Ford’s voice it would have been excellent. The plot established, the MacGuffin’s introduced, the cast of characters set. Boom, boom and boom.

Jump forward to current Indy, circa summer of ’69. An aging, depleted Indian Jones, now facing a lonely retirement, is thrust back into action one…last…time. Seems like Fate has a particular fancy for Indy and is fond of bringing old, unresolved adventures back to get some closure, just like in Last Crusade. Thanks, Fate.

So many underused stars

Of the co-stars in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Phoebe Waller-Bridge had the most screen time. I haven’t seen her in anything else, though I’ve heard Fleabag received positive aclaim (I can only watch so much, ya’ll). Glad to report that she didn’t upstage Indy, as was previously reported. Her character was fairly likeable if a bit of a cad. Mad Mikkelson was his usual professional self. I’ve yet to see him in a movie where he wasn’t pretty much that same self. Toby Jones, I like him very much wherever he appears. He’s one of my favorite second bananas. He took an almost throw-away character and breathed what life the script allowed into him. Nice. Same deal with Antonio Banderas. And it was great to see Boyd Holbrook show up again. I really dug his bad-@$$ characters in Sandman and Logan. He was just as BA in DoD with what screentime he was given. And special nods to Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies.

In my own defense, I can easily see how some of the negative chatter would have been true had this movie been released as it was originally intended by Kathleen Kennedy (this is factual). That version would have been an insult to George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and everyone who ever loved the iconic character. And an insult to my daughter, as well. Phooey and pishaw to that.

The subsequent rewrites, re-shoots and re-scores saved Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny from a fate much, much worse than death (how I hated the death of Han Solo. His blood is also on Kennedy’s hands. Factual). What we were treated to was an exciting send-off for Indy. And though it wasn’t a perfect one, it was satisfying enough.

I’m giving Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a solid 3.25/5. Was Harrison Ford too old to pull this movie off? Yeah, a little, I think. I’ll be interested to see how they handle him as the new General ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross in the MCU. Nobody likes to see an actor age-out of the roles that brought so much joy. And Ford is, above all, an action star. Anybody remember ‘Sabrina’? I rest my case.

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