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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes…help me make it make sense

Looking over the options at my local moviehaus this weekend, nothing really jumped out at me as a ‘must see’. Challengers? The trailers make it look like it’s a hot chick cucking not one, but a pair of dudes. Pass. Tarot? Abigail? Not a fan of shock horror flicks. I outgrew them around Friday the 13th number Infinity. Unsung Hero? Meh. Not Another Church Movie? Don’t get me started. So that really only left one choice…Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Okey Dokey.*

In fairness, the Average Dude is always up for a post-apocalyptic survival flick. I introduced Mrs. Average Dude to The Walking Dead and spent the next 2+ years going back through 11 seasons of TWD and all the spinoffs** so I may be fully mentally pre-disposed to think about what comes after we’ve finally sh!te ourselves into oblivion. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is post-apocalyptic, in a different way. But not in a good way. I have…questions…

Maybe I just see too many movies. Nah, that can’t be it

I have to admit, I had to go back and watch bits of the previous movies to get my brainbone back in the groove for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. I remembered that Caesar was the primate hero of the story up to now and they prevailed over the humans. That’s about it. I guess that the movies just weren’t that memorable. I believe that’s true and I believe I know the reason why. But more on that later.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes picks up a couple hundred years after the last PotA movie. Apes have created clan societal structures (although we only see two of those) and have apparently domesticated eagles. Okay, I looked it up and I guess it can be done.

Even so, I don’t think humans barely out of the stone age were domesticating eagles. But whatever. The eagle clan (or whatever they call themselves) have some vague memory of their simian forefather Caesar, but not of his message. His teachings, if you like. Still, they live a peaceful existence.

Contrasting them, just on the other side of the tunnel is a clan (I think they were called the valley apes?) who were only spoken of in hushed, panicked whispers. In the halting, grunting speech of the eagle clan, other apes bad.

I wonder if dolphins suffer like this?

Enter Noa, the son of the eagle clan leader. He’s brave, inquisitive and haunted by the lack of love shown by his father. This drives Noa to take bigger risks (literally) and climb to greater heights (also literally) to impress dear old dad. It’s a story as old as time and apparently applicable to any higher evolved brainbone.

Just because I hand out no spoilers doesn’t mean you can’t see what’s coming

I won’t reveal anything further on the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes story, but it’s pretty predictable to anyone who has seen the trailers.

The question everyone asks is ‘Did the Average Dude like it?’ Here’s where I come to the ‘more on that later’ part.

I didn’t hate Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. It was passable. But just like the other PotA movies for the new era, it just wasn’t that memorable. And I think the reason why is that it lacked any real emotional connectability. Try as they might to make ape-clans human-without-being-human, they really succeeded an creating ‘meh’. It missed a human element that the semi verbal apes just could not provide.

These apes showed the worst parts of being a dominant species and failed at making them truly emotionally relatable. I don’t know how you show human-like emotions on a CGI ape face, but Kingdom did not find a way. It’s doable, I imagine. Heck, Wall-E did it and he only had two googly eyes and less vocabulary than the apes had. Grunting conversations do not make for compelling emotional content. Noted.

They just don’t make ’em like that anymore

Visually, Kingdom of the Plane of the Apes was awesome. The reclaimed planet was beautiful at a distance. There were just so many plot holes and questions (which I can’t go into without spoilers) that still need answering if we indeed care enough about this story to want them answered. Which I’m not sure that I do. There were several callbacks to the original PotA movies that I really liked and I realized that I remember more about the 1968-73 series than I do of this one.

So, sadly and predictably, I can only give Kingdom of the Planet of the Ape a 2.2 out of 5 bananas. I won’t be eagerly anticipating the next installment (I hear that there are 9 total planned). I’m sure I’ll go, because I’m dedicated to all you average dudes and dudies like that. I just hope this isn’t me by the end of this journey…

*I loved Fallout so much, I have added Okey Dokey to my daily lexicon… Every Okey Dokey from Season 1 of Fallout

**If you’re a fan of TWD, you already know that ‘The Ones Who Live’ is a great addition and well worth the watch!

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Dune: Strike One

As I’ve probably mentioned, I tried a couple of times to watch Dune part 1 on streaming and failed. The first run, I had my phone on my lap having a text convo with my football group as I started it up and found that I had questions at about the 30 minute mark. Realizing I needed to start from scratch, I bailed. Dune is a movie you have to be intentional about watching. You gotta pay attention. Because even paying attention, it’s a lot. Learning the differrent cultural names and biases takes a minute. If you aren’t into Dune immersion then you probably wont enjoy the 5 hr 10 minute (parts 1&2 total) running time.

There can be only one

The next attempt to watch Dune I was more intentional, having made sure my phone was not within reach. Unfortunately, the Average Doge had other ideas on how I should be spending my time. And as anyone who knows me can tell you, the Average Doge rules all. Strike two.

I’ve always been a third strike swinger

But on our third attempt at watching Dune, all the cosmos aligned to give us a 2 hr 35 min stretch to let the world of Arrakis wash over us. We were impressed and engaged and excited to see where Dune pt 2 would take us. Dune the first was fresh in our minds as we headed off to our Saturday night date night at our moviehaus. And that’s where things didn’t take a turn where we were expecting one.

A classic example of too much of a good thing

Dune pt 1 set the table for what we expected to be a clash of amazing proportions. House Atreides, House Harkonnen, the Fremen, the Emperor, the other families of power all vie for control and position. Assasins. Superpowers. Romance. Giant monsters. All rushing towards a final conflict. What more could you hope for?

Apparently, hoping for a final conflict was too much to ask.

Dune is more like Game of Thrones than Star Wars

What I forgot from the original Dune we got way back in the 80s is that it’s not a finite story. It’s a multi-novel epic more akin to Game of Thrones than Star Wars. And it looks like the goal here is to hook a generation into following along as the writers and producers bring us the whole journey, two and a half hours at a time. Not a bad idea, for sure. But here’s where they’re going to lose me and lots of others.

It’s a lot to take in, just like GoT. What’s NOT like Westeros and Co. is that there just isn’t an equal balance of action and interaction. Of plotting and playfulness. Of levity and gravity. Dune has, so far, been pretty much one note. And that note is intensity. And not intesity that rises and falls, waxes and wanes. It’s all the same level.  Itwouldbelikeifiwrotemyblogallinonesentenceandneverhitcapsorusedpunctuation. That makes it all just…exhausting. And that for 2.5 hours. It was enthralling for Dune the first. But after five+ hours, it’s just…I need some relief. I need some humor. I need a break.

But maybe most of all, I need some resolution.

So after 5 hours of Dune, lots has happened but it feels like not much has been resolved. Maybe it’s just because I was numb by the end of Dune pt 2, but maybe not. Because unlike Game of Thrones, where there were always plots and subplots and new characters and new intrigue, Dune just seems to plod through in a monotone way. There was no happy ending, just a promise of more of the same. I can’t remember one single moment of humor to break up the intensity. It was exhausting. By the end of the movie, I was happy to be leaving Arrakis. Resolution or no.

It sounds like I hated Dune. I didn’t. There was a lot to enjoy. Like counting how many Marvelites were in it. I counted 7 (eight if you count Brolin twice). Bronco-busting giant worms is cool. It could have used some more super-powers, the one that Chalamet’s character had was neat but barely used. The constant gravitas, while eventually tedious, was handled well. Visually it was outstanding, the special effects were grand but not overdone and, in some cases, quite subtle. It was a nice change from the flashy, over the top CGI we see pretty much everywhere.

So what does the Average Dude give Dune 1&2? I’m okay with giving it a 3.5 out of 5. I’ll go along for the ride…for awhile. I fear that, with each successive installment, my enthusiasm (and rating) might sink. If the viewership for Dune starts lagging as I suspect it might, maybe they’ll wise up and pump the brakes on the gravitas pedal. At least a bit. Maybe add some humor. Dan Millman, a modern-day philosophizer once said ‘Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond measure.’ That’s some quality philosophizing right there.

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Lady Ballers…a movie behnd it’s time. Kinda.

Let’s be honest, it’s not a good era for comedy movies, or comedy in general. In a country – nay, world – that has embraced a mentality of finding the outrage in everything in order to feel important, heard, alive, whatever, Lady Ballers seems like a slam dunk for both conservatives and liberals alike. We could easily turn this column into a political discussion but I’d rather not. And it would be completely fair to say that a movie produced by a leading conservative outlet that lampoons dudes pretending to be women in order to be ‘winners’ might possibly have some biases attached. Fair, but in the case of Lady Ballers, it is a needless fear. This movie doesn’t make political attacks but it does blatantly ridicule the fact that biological men competing against biological women in sports is completely ludicrous.  If you disagree with me on this, please save your comments. I can’t take anyone with opposing opinions on that fact as serious and I kindly, sincerely ask you to grow up emotionally. Facts, people. You can’t have truth without facts. And if you have become adept at ignoring facts for feels, I got nuthin’ for you. Sorry, truly I am.

Lady Ballers is the story of Rob Gibson, a once great but now washed up HS basketball coach dealing with the politics, restrictions and general modern schoolastic wokery (i.e. the inmates are running the asylum) of his school. To add to his midlife crisis misery, his ex-wife is cohabitating with a buddha zen master of woke (played expertly by the most non-woke member of the DW staff, Matt Walsh) and his grade school aged daughter is more knowledgeable on current gender ideology than he is. Desperate to feel like a ‘winner’ once again, he launches a plan to enter his pre-woke era men’s championship basketball team into a women only competition.

Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

Lady Ballers would have been right at home if made back in the 80’s or 90’s by Happy Madison Production. In fact, one might recall a movie called ‘White Chicks’ (2004) where the stars (Marlon and Shawn Weyans) not only gender-swapped but also put on ‘white face’…a woke faux pas twofer. The horror. Can anyone guess why this particular woke ideology transgression was given a pass? Anyone?

The gags in Lady Ballers are silly and immature and obvious. There are literally no surprises in this movie other than the cameos by every single star from the Daily Wire, which were fun only if you know who those folks are. And truthfully, a lot of the laughs come from the characters they are playing, which are diametrically opposed to their true personalities. That would make this movie much more fun for their target audience than for a new viewer. And since the movie is only released on the Daily Wire platform, I guess that’s okay. I doubt Lady Ballers movie would ever get widely released. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, all the networks…nobody would touch it with a ten foot pole, afraid of the backlash. From a financial point of view, I think that’s a mistake. Whether you agree with the subject matter or not, it would get watched. Without question, it would get watched. Comedy has gotten so watered down from fear of the outrage crowd that even mildly outrageous humor is verboten. And I’m sorry to say, the comedy in Lady Ballers is mildly outrageous at best.

To be fair to Lady Ballers and the Daily Wire, this movie would only be offensive to the radical Left, since they are literally militant in their promotion of trans-gender in sports. Moderate liberals realize the simple truth of the physical differences between men and women, even if most of them are reluctant to voice those beliefs. The story takes no jabs at trans-genderism as a lifestyle choice. Nor is it condoned, but worth noting that Lady Ballers walks a very thin tight-rope expertly.

Like a cinematic head-fake

So, is Lady Ballers worth the watch? Tough to say. I enjoyed Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison very much way back in the day. Since then, my tastes have matured somewhat. I guess that, if yours still gravitate towards the silly then knock yourself out. There are some good chuckles but the best of them were in the trailer. It’s not Happy Gilmore level silly-funny. More like Grown-Ups 2. I’m giving Lady Ballers a very ‘meh’ 3/5. Part of that is for the sheer guts it takes to make a movie that you know is going to cause a ruckus. That seemed to be part of the fun for me. I am finding it just as interesting to watch the MSM lose their collective shite over this movie. That’s why this movie stays on my mind…not because it was all that memorable on its own, but because the faux outrage keeps bringing it back front and center. So it seems like a win-win. Outragers have something to kvetch about and the Daily Wire keeps getting paid. And we can all agree that shite is funny.

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Napoleon: based on actual events. Loosely. Very Loosely.

The Talented Mr Ridley

Let Them Eat Cake

GOSH!

Will someone please do a fact check on this?

Historical deviations: a list…

Sorry, not sorry

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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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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