(Because of the nature of the 1986 pseudo-slasher film, April Fool’s Day, it’s impossible to really talk about the film without talking about the film’s ending. As a result, this review will have spoilers. The ending will be revealed. The entire plot will be spoiled. Do not read on if that’s going to be an issue for you.)
(Did you read the warning above?)
If not for the way that the film ends, April Fool’s Day would probably be a forgotten film. It’s a slasher film that doesn’t feature much blood, sex, or any particularly flamboyant kills (though there’s a good reason for that). Compared to most low-budget slasher films from the mid-80s, April Fool’s Day does have a surprisingly charismatic and likable cast but it’s rare that anyone watches a holiday-themed slasher film for the acting. Up until the final ten minutes or so, April Fool’s Day is professionally done but somewhat generic…
But then you hit that ending and it totally changes the whole film. It’s not a perfect ending. In many ways, it’s probably one the most imperfect endings that I’ve ever seen. It requires a massive suspension of disbelief. It makes no logical sense. But dammit, I love it. Almost despite itself, it’s a great ending and it confirms that April Fool’s Day is meant to be a satire and not a straight horror film.
For the first 80 minutes or so, April Fool’s Day plays out like the 100th variation on And Then There Were None. Heiress Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman, giving a wonderfully odd performance) invites a group of college friends to her island mansion. They arrives on April Fool’s Day and they spend the first night dealing with Muffy’s strange sense of humor. (Actually, Muffy and I both find the same things funny but I’ve been told that I have a strange sense of humor so, therefore, I assume that Muffy must have one too.) Harvey, who prefers to be called Hal (Jay Baker), smokes an exploding cigar and discovers his bedroom has been decorated with newspaper articles about a car accident that he was involved in. Jock Arch Cummings (Thomas F. Wilson) finds steroids hidden away in a medicine cabinet. Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) comes across handcuffs in a dresser. Nan (Leah Pinset), a serious-minded drama student, hears a baby crying in the distance and is reminded of her abortion, something that she believes that only Muffy knows about.
The next day, Muffy is now wandering around in a daze and her brother, Skip (Griffin O’Neal), has vanished. Kit (Amy Steel, playing a similar role to her character in Friday the 13th Part Two) and Rob (Ken Olandt) think that they see Skip’s decaying body floating under the boathouse. As the day progresses, Arch and Nan vanish and later turn up at the bottom of a well. Harvey is found hanging from a rope. Chaz (Clayton Rohner) is castrated and, while we’re not quite sure what exactly happens to Nikki, we do see that it involves a large puddle of blood. Kit and Rob discover Muffy’s head in the basement and realize that they are being stalked by Muffy’s crazy twin, Buffy.
(Deborah Foreman is great in both of the roles. As Muffy, she delivers all of her lines with just a hint of sarcasm and constantly seems to be silently laughing at a private joke that only she understands. And when she’s Buffy — well, she’s totally batshit crazy.)
Being pursued by a knife-wielding Buffy, Kit runs through the mansion and finds herself in the drawing room. And who is waiting for her but all of Buffy’s victims? No, they’re not dead! Instead, they’re alive and they’re all in a very good mood. And Buffy is not Buffy. She’s Muffy and she’s been Muffy all along.
That’s right, it’s all a huge elaborate joke! Muffy does spend a few minutes explaining how the whole weekend was a dry run for her plan to turn her estate into a resort, one that will offer a weekend of fake horror. But, ultimately, it all comes down to the entire movie being an elaborate joke. I know, just from perusing some of the comments at the imdb, that there are some horror fans who hate the ending of April’s Fool’s Day. But, really, that’s the only “honest” way that a film like April Fool’s Day could end. If the movie was called Thanksgiving, I could understand being upset. But this is an April Fool’s Day movie! It has to be a joke.
Of course, if you think about it too much, the ending makes no sense. Muffy specifically states the no one was in on the joke until the last minute. Whenever one of her friends would wander off on their own, Muffy would grab them, explain the joke, and get them to play along. When you consider the size of the island and where, at various points, the victims are in relation to the other characters, Muffy must be a very fast explainer, as well as being very persuasive. (As well, Harvey brings a gun with him to island. Muffy jokes about nearly getting shot by him but imagine if he had been successful?) Even if you accept that all of the friends — even Arch and Harvey, who are both kinda dumbasses — would be able to play along without screwing things up, you have to wonder why Muffy thought it would be a good idea to use dark secrets from everyone’s past.
If you search far enough online, you can find all sorts of rumors about the film that April Fool’s Day was originally meant to be. In the finished film, Skip is a bit of a cipher but, in the original script, he was a much more complex character. While Muffy was busy playing her elaborate prank, Skip was planning on killing Muffy and claiming their parent’s inheritance for himself. The crying baby, the drugs, the incriminating newspaper articles; all of them were originally meant to be the work of Skip. While Skip’s subplot was dropped, the dark secrets of the past were not. As a result, Muffy comes across as being a lot more cruel than was originally intended.
Originally, the film was also meant to end with Skip killing Muffy but the ending was apparently changed at the last-minute. (Reports differ on whether or not the original ending was ever filmed.) Instead, the film now ends with Muffy stumbling into her bedroom, playing with a jack-in-the-box, and then getting a knife drawn across her throat by Nan. It’s just another elaborate practical joke and, once Muffy realizes that she’s not dying, Nan gives her a quick kiss and smiles enigmatically.
(A lot of imdb commenters — mostly males — have read a lot into that kiss, obsessing on a subtext that really isn’t there. As opposed to being the homage to Blue Is The Warmest Colour that many commenters appear to believe it to be, it’s really just a friendly kiss, a way of saying, “I got you.” Sorry, guys, that’s all there is to it.)
It’s an ending that would never be done today. Today, all horror films have to end with the promise of a sequel. Muffy might still get away with pulling an elaborate prank but Nan would definitely have killed her at the end of the film. Her little smile would have said, “Wait for the sequel.” And the modern version of that ending definitely would not be as effective. In fact, it would be so expected that it would be damn near infuriating. Instead, the ending of April Fool’s Day is good-natured and likable, which is appropriate because April Fool’s Day is a surprisingly good-natured and likable film.
After Nan’s final joke, April Fool’s Day ends with a song. And here it is! Enjoy and I hope everyone had a great April Fool’s Day!
I had to get these four out before they completely faded from my memory. We do have more misleading Amazon Prime posters, which I know is what you really come for with these posts so I will try not to disappoint. Sadly, I do have the first film on this list to bring you. I think it will end up being the worst movie I see this year. It will really take something awful to beat it. Here we go!
Oliviero Rising (2007, dir. Riki Roseo) – I know you can’t hear it, but I am chuckling as I am writing this. First off, that’s a scene from the very end of the film. Second off:
Thirdly, they didn’t even get the right title in their fake poster. Here’s the realistic poster for the movie. Sort of.
Fourth, the plot summary on IMDb has nothing to do with the movie: “A young and charming employee (Gallo) finds himself victim of an ‘office intrigue’ engineered by his attractive female boss.” Finally, I’m pretty sure that the “Rising” in Oliviero Rising refers to Vincent Gallo’s penis. I’m not kidding. The story is about Gallo getting over his mentally induced erectial disfunction. Shall we talk about this a bit? It does have a scene I can’t avoid telling you about. Shivers just ran down my spine.
Usually when I write about these movies I just watch them on the big screen so I don’t have screenshots to share. Sometimes there’s that rare film that causes me to stop and switch to my iPad. This was one of them. As a result, I do have a few of them to share.
The movie begins and we meetOliviero who appears to drive a tuck for a living. We see him stop the truck and lift up air without showing the actual person in the scene. I’m pretty sure that Gallo wasn’t present for this scene or any of the truck driving parts. We see later that air is a baby porcupine. After a really weird and inappropriate scene with a psychiatrist, Gallo and his family are off to Italy. They are there for a family funeral. Nothing really happens there except bad directing. Here’s the “highlights”, if I dare to call them that.
Ernest Borgnine riding while singing in a pink cadillac with a suit of armor in the back seat.
A small jump cut as Ernest Borgnine rolls in the armor because either he wasn’t actually there or he knocked it over so they reshot it from the point where it fell over. There is a lot of lazy and awkward editing in this movie. Some of it very obviously done because not all the actors were there or sets couldn’t be used at the time they were needed.
Enest Borgnine not putting his penis into her vagina meaning he is screwin’ the cushion. I know Borgnine shows up in many different films in much the same way Whoopi Goldberg does, but this? Why? Why? Why?
This is the “Superior Seduction” the poster was referring to.
She tries to seduce him, which he has no interest in.
I must apologize, but I don’t have the scene with Vincent Schiavelli who you may recall as the angry subway ghost from Ghost (1990). He is trying to help Oliviero get over his ED. He actually stops, looks into the camera, and lectures women in the audience about their alleged worship of the penis. First off, I’m sure lesbians are rather indifferent towards the penis. They probably just feel men’s pain for all the weird things it does out their control. If a straight girl leaves you because you can’t get it up or keep your penis hard, then she is a horrible person. She is the guy who leaves a straight girl because her sex drive has taken a dip. Penises are weird. People with that equipment are not lying or exaggerating when they say it has a mind of its own. It takes a fair amount of work to try and get any modicum of control of it during sex. However, none of this translates to worship of the penis.
There is also the scene where Gallo’s wife has sex with his girlfriend because he can’t get it up for her. Seriously. Wife gets frustrated, goes right over to the girlfriend’s room, and they have sex while Gallo is in the hallway.
I think Ernest Borgnine summed up my feelings about this movie when he walks past the bones in the castle and tells them, “fuck you”.
A Scandalous Journey (2002, dir. Michele Placido) – If by scandalous you mean the story of a woman who writes poetry, meets a guy, then seems to stop writing, and instead supports her now mentally disturbed husband who also writes before he winds up in a mental institution. It’s not scandalous in the slightest. It has a beginning and an end. So I guess it technical it is a journey since they don’t stay in one spot the whole time. That’s really it. The rest is just how much you like good performances in a really boring story that grates on your nerves. I wish I could provide you with more details, but this was so incredibly forgettable that I can’t. I remember the next one more and it was forgettable, but at least it had an irredeemable asshole that the film is blind to seeing as such. That made it stick in my mind more. Even the more realistic poster is misleading.
You basically get a film made by an Italian director who probably wishes this was still the era of films like The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) or 1900 (1976). It isn’t. Moving on.
Little Lili (2003, dir. Claude Miller) – Wow! They’re “Young & Hungry For Fame.” I could understand if they were just young, but also hungry for fame? This is clearly going be story about Ludivine Sagnier who is so hungry for fame that she’ll sleep with Robinson Stevenin to get to the top. I mean what else are you going to read from that poster? Well, I read that this is a movie based on a play by Chekov about a young pretentious self-loving asshole who makes a shitty short film that his family defends as if he is some guardian of pure unadulterated cinema as characters wander around to make sure we spend way too much time with this twit before the movie decides it has no idea how to redeem the character so it suddenly leaps over many years where he is now going to reshoot the events of the film on an artificial looking set that belongs in a Douglas Sirk movie before the film finally ends. That’s what I see. I also see that dickwad we are told to cheer for not listed on the poster. That character is played by Bernard Giraudeau who of course went on to do next to nothing after this film rather then the two actors whose names are on the poster. Oh, and after it leaps over all that time, he’s still a jerk who looks down with contempt at people who dare to not make shitty foreign films like the one you will be seeing if you watch this movie. Also, it continues to remind you of better directors, films, and actors throughout. I think I even spotted a reference to Rohmer’s film Claire’s Knee (1970). Amazing! Stay as far as you can from this garbage. I want the film that poster promised me. It sounds stupid, but I doubt it’s as bad as this thing was.
Blindspot (2008, dir. Ad Bol) – The poster is certainly accurate about “You cannot see.” I could barely make out the opening scenes because they were so dark. That was followed by the remainder of the film that I couldn’t understand. The movie begins with a woman doing a weird dance before she wakes up. It was a nightmare. Then we see a guy take a woman hostage in a room. I thought things were going to progress there, but then it seemed to come apart when they were talking, but it was in a voiceover while they were in clearly different places. After that, it goes off to tell the story of some guy who gets involved with a woman who died and her sister who needs to confront her father about him abusing both of them as children. There are some affairs in here. How any of this ties together, especially with the opening scenes, I have no idea. It’s a confusing mess. I wanted to scream at the director that if he didn’t know how to this kind of non-linear plot, then to stop trying. It didn’t help that it would suddenly cut at odd times. There is also an audio lead-in that I think was the only one in the movie and it only adds to the viewer’s frustration. Hell, this could have been linear, but it was so disorienting that I couldn’t tell. Skip!
Sadly, I can’t recommend a single one of these this time. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.
Jeez! It seems like it was just yesterday when I remembered that a Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman movie was coming out this month. Now Ryan already has his review of it up. Here I am sitting on this, the sequel called Executioners (1993), and way more Batman and Superman movies than I care to list left to review. With that in mind, I’d better get on it if I want to even finish by the end of the next month, or the month after that.
I have done several Superman movies and a Batman movie already. That Batman movie technically had Wonder Woman right near the end, but I wasn’t comfortable with that alone. Aside from the 1974 TV Movie, this movie, and it’s sequel, were the only ones that popped up as having a Wonder Woman in them. Even IMDb lists the character of Tung as Wonder Woman. She doesn’t exactly look or act like you would expect Wonder Woman to act. In fact, my subtitles call her Super Heroine and the version on Netflix calls her Shadow Fox. But the movie has Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui playing superheroes in a reworking of The Terminator/Terminator 2/Lady Terminator. By The Terminator, I mean the 1984 version. I think we can be fairly certain that director Johnnie To was unaware this version of The Terminator existed.
The Terminator (1991, dir. Ben Hernandez)
It is also filled with references to everything from Silver Streak (1976) to Remo Williams (1985) to the Flying Guillotine movies. I can’t really bring myself to feel mislead that I was going to get a Chinese Wonder Woman. By the way, I apologize in advance for all the references I’m sure I have missed. But, I don’t apologize for not including screenshots of the two scenes that no one needs to see if they don’t watch the film themselves.
The movie begins and we hear on the radio that 18 babies have been kidnapped in the last three months as a car pulls up at to an old house. This is when we meet Wonder Woman (Anita Mui), her husband Lau (Damian Lau), and the real estate agent. He takes them inside this dump that only really looks good from the outside. As he tries to sell it, he is also honest. You know, full disclosure and all that. He has to tell them that it is “structurally sound. It had a minor fire, that’s all.”
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992, dir. Richard Donner)
He quickly thinks that there’s no way he’s going to make a sale here. He even kicks at one of the pillars in the house causing it to fall down and a bird’s nest to land on his head.
However, much to Chinese Leo Getz’s surprise, she wants the place anyways. But you know what’s even more of a surprise? The next scene that happens right after they say they will take the house. I’ll explain it, show it, then give you my theory as to why it exists.
Her husband spots a guy outside trying to hot wire their car. He grabs a vine from the roof of the house and dives out the window with it like he’s Tarzan. After landing, he proceeds to use it to lasso the thief and yank him out of the car. He then hands the guy hand cuffs telling him to cuff himself, which he does. It then cuts to Wonder Woman and the real estate agent. He says, “He’s so cool,” to which she responds, “Of course, my hubby is a cop.” Here’s what it looks like.
No, it’s never brought up again. It’s as if the film just wanted you to know that Hong Kong cops can do that. Believe it or not, I have seen an otherwise unexplainable scene such as this somewhere else before. If memory serves, the movie is actually a favorite of Lisa’s. I haven’t seen it myself, but I have seen The Cinema Snob review of it. It’s a movie called Pieces (1982). There’s a scene where a girl on a college campus is walking around at night when out of nowhere a Chinese guy tries attacking her with martial arts before passing out next to her. A guy comes up to say it’s his Kung Fu professor. The Chinese guy gets up, apologizes saying he had some bad chop suey, and then walks off.
Pieces (1982 dir. Juan Piquer Simón)
Pieces (1982 dir. Juan Piquer Simón)
Pieces (1982 dir. Juan Piquer Simón)
Pieces (1982 dir. Juan Piquer Simón)
The reason for it is that the producer of the movie Dick Randall also produced Bruceploitation movies. To give a little advertising for those films he had one of the Bruceploitation actors do that random scene. I figure there must be a similar explanation for why Damian Lau does this bit. It’s my best guess.
Next we cut to the police station where the Invisible Woman (Michelle Yeoh) is screwing with the cops.
We find out that all the babies that have been kidnapped are male babies. She leaves a threatening notice for the Commissioner that it will be his baby that is going to be kidnapped next. Now the movie cuts to a hospital.
This set is so 1993 that I thought the Super Mario Bros. might show up at any time.
Super Mario Bros. (1993, dir. Annabel Jankel & Rocky Morton)
After some talking, a lady asks why they can’t just call in Wonder Woman. That’s when the Invisible Woman tries to snatch two more babies. Well, not really. She picks them up and throws them out a window. These are special babies though because they take forever to fall to the ground. They take long enough for the guy in the window and a woman on the ground to have a conversation about which one to catch. Also, long enough for Wonder Woman to show up running across power lines to make her dramatic entrance.
She throws her equivalent of batarangs to pin the two babies to the wall, which are apparently still near the top of the building after all this has happened. Also, apparently the two batarangs come straight down on the babies, are then are shown in Wonder Woman’s hand, then come in horizontally to pin the babies to the wall. You know, something tells me this film isn’t very realistic and might have been rushed into production.
Wonder Woman spots some blood on the wall where the babies are and throws her batarangs at them thinking someone might be there. It obviously hits the Invisible Woman. Why it hits the wall yet still causes her to bleed is anyone’s guess. Maybe they just grazed her. Regardless, one of the babies flies off the wall while the other is taken away by the Invisible Woman. Wonder Woman then leaps into action and catches the baby with some rope who is still exerting its magic ability to defy the laws of gravity. She catches the baby with rope and yanks it towards her like her husband Tarzan Lau from the beginning. Maybe that scene was to tell us she learned that trick from her husband. I doubt it though cause the rest of the film will make it very clear to the viewer that he is just a regular cop while she is the superhero. Doesn’t matter. She tells her husband to have the blood on the wall looked into.
He doesn’t know it’s his wife because he has clearly contracted Lois Lane syndrome. She then calls her husband to tell him she will be late.
Now we cut to the Invisible Woman in a car with the baby she has kidnapped. Like all the movie’s I’ve been watching lately, we need to pull out the “of course” for this scene. Of course she heads for a random manhole and kicks it up with her foot. Of course after climbing down to the sewers they turn out to be the set for the bad guys. Of course she runs into this movie’s Arnold Terminator…
who proceeds to fight her, get his finger cutoff, and then eats it. Cause of course he does. Now we meet Robert Patrick Terminator crossed with Lady Terminator who is also on loan from the 70’s. I’ll just call him the Evil Kung Fu 1000.
He keeps saying that “China must have an emperor.” Funny that Maggie Cheung would go on to be in the film Hero (2002), which many consider to be Chinese government propaganda that said it was okay to slaughter a bunch of people if it meant unifying China. Those babies will not die in this movie. Maggie does kill a bunch of small children though who are down there rather than allowing them to become servants to this king of sorts. At the end of the movie, the babies will be found alive. Little side note, if you have only seen Hero, then watching The Emperor and The Assassin (1998) is essential. It’s a much better and realistic film about the same story.
Oh, and you see the children die. She throws dynamite into the group of them that are in chains. You can see the looks on their faces. You can see one of them fly in the air. You also see at least one of them piss themselves as they are dying. When it comes to this part, the movie doesn’t play any games like it does with the rest of the film. Remember, this film came out the same year as Farewell, My Concubine (1993) and The Blue Kite (1993), which certainly had the Chinese government’s panties in a twist. At this time Chinese studios were also entirely cutoff from government funding. I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnnie tried to cloak a message here with superheroes and such. Another little side note. If you watch this movie on Netflix, then that scene is edited out of the movie. The kids still die, but it’s implicit, offscreen, and you really don’t know it happened because you only saw the babies and they are rescued in the end. The only hint at this is a very quick flashback to the children before being blown up that they didn’t edit out. But it’s so quick no one who didn’t know there was something missing would notice.
Anyways, the movie now goes into a flashback. We see a guy standing next to a little girl in white who will turn out to be the child version of Wonder Woman. He is pointing at a girl in red who is the child version of the Invisible Woman telling her she has to climb up this rope hanging over a cliff all by herself.
She doesn’t make it up the cliff. How she survived the fall…I don’t know. I’m just going to assume that Michelle Yeoh is such a badass that she has the same powers as Michael Des Barres who survived this.
MacGyver
MacGyver
That was a nightmare the Invisible Woman was having. This is where it gets a little weird. She wakes up in a bed that is on the other side of some glass separating her from the rest of the room. On the other side is a professor who is working on the invisibility suit. Apparently, it doesn’t work under direct sunlight.
Not sure how this setup happened or exactly what she is doing for him in this situation. I do know that she is on that side of the glass because the other side isn’t safe health wise while he works on the suit. I also know that she is there because we will find out that she is meant to steal the suit permanently once it works perfectly.
Next Wonder Woman visits a fortune teller to try and figure out why all these babies are being kidnapped. The fortune teller tells her that they are destined to be emperors. That’s when a little girl falls out a window, they obviously didn’t count on people being able to pause the film with accuracy in 1993, I won’t post it, and Wonder Woman jumps out to save her.
She also saves a cat that fell out of the window shortly after the little girl fell. I love that she looks around at the children in the windows as if to say keep it under your hat, but apparently the fortune teller she was sitting next to didn’t notice anything. She was probably meant to be blind, but there’s nothing in the scene to indicate that except her wearing sunglasses. Oh, and of course the child and the cat have the magic ability to fall at just the correct speed to be caught.
Back at the Wonder Woman estate, she is chopping vegetables and her husband is cutting a log. Wonder Woman has a flashback to a little girl kissing her and referring to her as an older sister, but it doesn’t make any sense. Good scene.
Downtown at Aota Chemicals a hostage situation is taking place. So of course the cops call in Cobra.
Cobra (1986, dir. George P. Cosmatos)
I know Maggie Cheung’s character has an actual name in this movie, but I don’t care. I’m just going to refer to her as Cobra Cheung. She’s not a cop like Cobra, but does this kind of work freelance. However, she does just what Cobra would do in this situation. She straddles a barrel, lights the back of the sucker on fire, and flies into action.
She dispatches some of them and launches the others out in barrels for the cops to arrest. Before leaving, she offers her services to the commissioner to get his son back for him if he pays her. If memory serves, in the Netflix version she just offers to get his son back for him. In the original she wants more money if she brings him back alive, and a lesser sum if she brings him in dead.
Next, something happens back at the hospital where a madman is going to kill all the babies. It seems like it was just a last minute script addition in order to get Wonder Woman and the Invisible Woman in the same room for a bit before Cobra Cheung snatches a baby. Even having watched this movie twice, I’m still not sure why she takes this baby from the hospital. I understand that Wonder Woman and the Invisible Woman are in the same room in their regular clothes so that we can see that the Invisible Woman isn’t all bad as she lets her hand get cut up to rescue the babies from being killed.
Next we get a fight scene between all three of the ladies while the baby is there. This movie likes to follow projectiles in the air.
For those of you who grew up in the 90s…
you’re welcome.
Sadly, the baby falls during this fight and lands on a nail. Wonder Woman takes the baby back to the hospital, but it dies.
Now we get a flashback that seems to indicate that not only did red girl survive the fall earlier, but that she left leaving Wonder Woman to alone do whatever the harsh trainer guy wanted both of them to do in the first place. I’m not sure why they bothered with this origin story stuff. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, I probably haven’t followed it correctly, and it it doesn’t add anything to the film except to tell us they had connections prior to the events of the film.
Next we get a scene between the Invisible Woman and Cobra Cheung that had me confused. All you need to know is that Cobra wants the babies dead rather than to be turned into something evil, and this happens.
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985, dir. Guy Hamilton)
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985, dir. Guy Hamilton)
Now we see how the Invisible Woman came to work for the Evil Kung Fu 1000. No explanation of how she got there, but he tells her she is no longer called Ching Ching, but will be known as Third Chan. Then he hits her on the back of the head with a log.
Yep! That’s a thing that happens.
Next we get a couple of scenes for character development. Who cares when we need to get to the all important Arnold Terminator eating birds scene.
That’s another thing that happens.
Cobra Cheung goes down to check out what’s happening in the sewers. She throws a bunch of birds up to distract this guy so she can look around. All that really matters here is that Cobra Cheung now knows the babies are being held down there in bird cages, and Arnold Terminator is now sent to kill Wonder Woman.
Cobra Cheung now shows up at the police station to tell them she’s off the case of the kids by throwing gold onto the table the cops are sitting at which disappears when the camera cuts.
Another good scene. Moving on now. As Cobra Cheung is leaving on her motorcycle, Wonder Woman throws the baby from American Sniper at her, which she catches.
Now we need more action and references. That’s why Arnold Terminator has taken a train station hostage, destroyed the computer, and brought a flying guillotine with him.
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976, dir. Yu Wang)
Wonder Woman and Cobra Cheung get to the train station, but not in time to do much except this.
They drive the motorcycle into the wall, bounce off of it spinning, throw dynamite at Arnold, jump off, and the motorcycle is destroyed. That’s a thing that happens too. Then the train crashes into the station.
Silver Streak (1976, dir. Arthur Hiller)
That’s when Arnold tries to stop the train himself…
but he forgot he was a Terminator ripoff and not Superman…
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987, dir. Sidney J. Furie)
so he is disposed of as far as that scene is concerned.
Now the movie gets on the fast track to its conclusion. Wonder Woman visits her husband in the hospital. He now knows her secret identity. Things get more desperate between the Invisible Woman and the professor because his research is killing him now. Then all three of them meet up on the set of every Kung Fu movie from the 70s.
This scene only exists so they can fall over a cliff to recreate the flashback scene shown here.
They decide to work together. Then without showing them climb up, it cuts to this…
so that I can do this…
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, dir. Steven Spielberg)
You might be wondering how her motorcycle is intact for this scene. No idea. You just have to roll with it.
Now the Arnold Terminator pays a visit to the professor to get the invisibility suit. He bends Cobra Cheung’s shotgun while they try to stop him.
Then this reactor like thing that was in the professor’s lab gets punctured. The room turns red and everything. They cause him to fall in it. He has the professor’s notes on a tape when he goes in. He punches his hand out of thing holding the tape player. That’s the last we see of him. I’m guessing that’s a setup for the sequel.
Now they go to fight the Evil Kung Fu 1000. First though, we have to kill the kids.
Ninth Chan is Arnold Terminator. Moving on because you don’t want to see it. The battle ensues before leaving the sewers to the set of Highlander II: The Quickening (1991).
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991, dir. Russell Mulcahy)
Considering the plot of the sequel to this movie, I’m sure Highlander II and its ilk were in the director’s mind while making this film.
They fight for awhile till Cobra Cheung is able to put a stick of dynamite into the Evil Kung Fu 1000’s robe.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, dir. James Cameron)
After going up in flames, the movie does exactly what you think it does.
You can take your pick here.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, dir. James Cameron)
The Terminator (1984, dir. James Cameron)
Lady Terminator (1989, dir. H. Tjut Djalil)
The way the Evil Kung Fu 1000 looks like after emerging from the flames, I think the director probably had a combination of The Terminator and Lady Terminator in mind.
In short order, he latches onto the Invisible Woman to make her fight for him.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989, dir. Arthur Hiller)
Eventually they are able to break the Invisible Woman free, and the bad guy falls to his death to shatter on the concrete. Then they walk off into the distance.
Well, there is one more short scene. We cut to Wonder Woman and her husband watching TV. This is when we find out that the husband has coined their name as The Heroic Trio and that the cops rescued the babies.
That’s The Heroic Trio. It has plenty of martial arts. It has plenty of mistakes. It doesn’t soft pedal things. It’s somewhat confusing. It’s a little insane. Overall, I would say I enjoyed it. If nothing else, it was fun to see all three of these famous Chinese actresses together onscreen. Especially since Anita Mui is no longer with us and Maggie Cheung appears to have stopped acting. They’ve all done better work, but I still recommend this enjoyable mess of a movie. I’m looking forward to watching the sequel.
I saved ANGEL FACE for last in this week’s look at RKO/Robert Mitchum films because it’s been hailed as a near-classic by many film noir fans. It’s certainly different from HIS KIND OF WOMAN and MACAO; much darker in tone, and features an unsympathetic performance by Mitchum. It’s more in the noir tradition of bleak films like DETOUR and BORN TO KILL. But better than the other two? That depends on your point of view. Let’s take a look:
An ambulance screams its way to the Tremayne home in ritzy Beverly Hills. The wealthy Mrs. Catherine Tremayne has been subjected to a gas leak of unknown origin. One of the ambulance drivers, Frank Jessup, comes across beautiful Diane playing the piano. She bursts into hysterics, and Frank smacks her, receiving one in return. After she calms down, Frank and his partner Bill head home. Frank has a date with his girl Mary…
Even though 1951’s HIS KIND OF WOMAN lost money (mainly due to studio boss Howard Hughes’ meddling), Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell were reteamed the following year in MACAO. The film was actually sitting on the RKO shelf, having been completed in 1950. Once again, the autocratic Hughes wasn’t pleased with the original version, and fired credited director Josef von Sternberg, replacing him with Nicholas Ray. Mitchum himself even contributed to rewriting some scenes. The result is an entertaining noir that, while not quite as good as HIS KIND OF WOMAN, still manages to hold your interest.
On a boat from Hong Kong, drifter Nick Cochran (Mitchum) meets grifter Julie Benson (Russell), who lifts his wallet. The pair also meet Lawrence C. Trumble (William Bendix), a salesman specializing in “nylons, pearl buttons, coconut oil, and fertilizer”. The three are headed to Macao, “The Monte Carlo of the Orient” (actually the RKO backlot), for various reasons…
I know that everyone’s excited about Batman v. Superman being released this weekend but before you go off and spend your money to watch two comic book titans beat up on each other for six hours (or however long that damn movie is supposed to last), you should ask yourself, “Have I seen 10 Cloverfield Lane?”
If the answer to that question is no, you need to go out and see it now. Yes, even before you see Batman v. Superman. Batman v. Superman is going to be around for a while. 10 Cloverfield Lane has already been out for a couple of weeks and, though it’s done well enough, it still hasn’t quite become the blockbuster that it deserves to be.
Most of the talk about 10 Cloverfield Lane has centered around the twist ending. I’m not going to spoil the ending, even though you probably already know what it is. Oddly enough, as much as I liked the film, the ending didn’t really work for me. I liked the idea behind the ending more than I liked the actual execution. Add to that, it added an element of hope to a film that, up until that point, had been wonderfully and defiantly hopeless. The film’s ending also set things up for a sequel, one that will probably not be as interesting as the original.
Fortunately, the first 83 minutes of 10 Cloverfield Lane are so strong and well-executed that I can overlook any minor quibbles that I had with the final 20. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Michelle. Michelle lives in New Orleans and, when we first meet her, she’s breaking up with her fiancée. (Though we never actually see him, the fiancée is played by Bradley Cooper. What is Michelle thinking!?) Leaving the safety of her apartment, Michelle goes for a drive in the country. (Going off to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? It might not be a good decision but hey, we’ve all been there.) Suddenly, she starts to hear weird things on the radio. Cities across America are suffering from blackouts. She gets a call from her fiancée but before she can answer the phone, there’s a sudden a flash of light. Something crashed into her car from behind and Michelle blacks out.
When Michelle awakens, she’s in an underground bunker. Her host is Howard (John Goodman), a doomsday prepper who tells her that he saved her life. He explains that something has happened on the surface. The air is poisoned. The world is ending. The only safe place is in the bunker. Fortunately, Howard has an extensive collection of old VHS tapes, several teen magazines (“The quizzes have already been done,” Howard apologetically says), and a lot of food. He also has a change of clothes for Michelle to wear. Howard explains that the clothes once belonged to his daughter.
From the minute we meet him, it’s obvious that Howard is unstable. The only question is how unstable. The film makes brilliant use of John Goodman’s persona. When we see John Goodman, our automatic instinct is to like him. We’re used to seeing him playing good guys. What we forget, however, is that John Goodman has played his share of villains as well. He can be intimidating, as Michelle quickly realizes. Howard is unpredictable. One minute, he’s watching Pretty In Pink for the 100th time. The next minute, he’s threatening to dunk someone in acid.
It turns out that Howard and Michelle are not alone. The slightly dim but good-natured Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.) is also in the bunker. Unlike Michelle, Emmett believes Howard’s claims about something terrible happening on the surface. Emmett also believes that, no matter how correct he may be about the end of the world, Howard still might be totally crazy.
So, is Howard crazy? You bet he is. That’s obvious from the minute we meet him. The brilliant thing about 10 Cloverfield Lane is that, even as it convinces us that Howard’s insane and dangerous, it still makes us wonder if he might be right. Director Dan Trachtenberg expertly captures the claustrophobic tension of life in that underground bunker and the script has a nicely satirical subtext. (The film’s best moments are when Howard attempts to play the role of patriarch to those who he is forcing to be his new family.) The film is brilliantly acted, especially by Mary Elizabeth Winstead who perfectly portrays both Michelle’s fear and her inner strength. As for John Goodman — well, you’ll probably never quite look at him the same way again.
10 Cloverfield Lane is an intelligent and well-crafted thriller. Don’t wait for Netflix. Don’t go to the dollar theater. If you haven’t already, see it now!
The Bronze has been getting terrible reviews since it first premiered at Sundance last year. Telling the story of an Olympic bronze medalist who has grown up to be bitter and angry, The Bronze has been unfavorably compared to Bad Santa, Bad Words,Bad Teacher and … well, bad anything. (You know you’re in trouble when your film gets compared to Bad Teacher because most critics have an irrational hatred for that film. I actually enjoyed it.) The Bronze was originally scheduled to be released last July and then it was pushed back and then, for a little while, it vanished all together as it was traded between different distributors. Finally, last Friday, Sony Pictures Classics released The Bronze with all the fanfare of a community theater announcing their annual production of Forever Plaid.
Well, after hearing how terrible it was, there was no way that my BFF Evelyn and I could resist the temptation to experience it for ourselves. (We both enjoy watching and commenting during bad movies. That’s what led to us watching that Tyler Perry movie about the adulterous matckmaker .) We caught a 10:15 showing last night at the AMC Valley View and the theater was almost totally deserted. (Admittedly, not many people are brave enough to go to Valley View Mall past 9:00 but Evelyn and I fear nothing.) We were expecting to see a thoroughly mediocre film but you know what?
We were both kind of surprised to discover that The Bronze was not the terrible film that we had been led to expect.
Melissa Rauch (who co-wrote the script) plays Hope Ann Gregory, a former Olympic gymnast who won the Bronze medal at the Summer Olympics. She won the medal despite competing on an injured ankle. Unfortunately, her injury ended her competitive career but it also briefly made her a national celebrity. 12 years later, most of the country may have forgotten Hope but the people of hometown of Amherst, Ohio still love her.
When we first meet Hope, she’s masturbating while watching footage of herself competing at the Olympics. She then proceeds to steal money from her father’s mail route so she’ll have enough money to buy weed. Hope is rude to almost everyone and yet, no one in the town seems to notice. Or maybe they are so happy to be in the presence of a minor celebrity that they just don’t care how terribly she treats them. The movie is actually somewhat vague on this point but still, the contrast between Hope’s reality and the opinion that others have of her is one of the best things about the film. Intentionally or not, it perfectly satirizes that way that we idealize our celebrities.
When Hope’s former coach commits suicide, her final request is that Hope agree to train an up-and-coming gymnast, Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson). At first, the jealous Hope tries to sabotage Maggie but eventually, Hope starts to take her job as coach seriously. (When Maggie first shows up, she seems to be a one-note, excessively perky character but eventually, she reveals some needed, if not exactly surprising, complexity.) Hope also develops an unexpected relationship with Maggie’s assistant coach, Twitchy (Thomas Middleditch). (Twitchy is called Twitchy because he blinks a lot.)
The Bronze is not a great film. Instead, it’s an extremely uneven film, one that often seems to be trying too hard. It never manages to find the right balance between its raunchy comedy and the occasional and surprisingly subtle moments when it suddenly becomes a character study.
And yet, at the same time, it’s not as terrible as you’ve heard. There are moments that work surprisingly well. Some of them are moments like an enjoyably over-the-top sex scene between two gymnasts. But then there are moments like the scene where Hope talks about the first time she learned that, as a result of the injury she sustained while winning her Bronze, she would never be able to compete again. There are scenes like the one where Hope proves herself to be surprisingly loyal to the citizens of Amherst or where her long-suffering father (Gary Cole) confronts her about her behavior. Though these moments may be few and far between, they still work surprisingly well. It’s during these moments that The Bronze drops the protective mask of outrageousness and reveals some unexpected depth. It helps that, along with writing the script, Melissa Rauch totally commits herself to the role. At her best, she’s like a force of stoned nature.
Is The Bronze really worth seeing on the big screen? Probably not. It’s too uneven to really be successful. But when it shows up on Netflix, I predict that a lot of people are going to be surprised to discover that The Bronze isn’t as terrible as they’ve been told.
So, you want to be a rock and roll star? Then listen now to what I say: just get an electric guitar and take some time and learn how to play. And when your hair’s combed right and your pants fit tight, it’s gonna be all right.
If you need any more help, try watching these four films:
The Idolmaker (1980, directed by Taylor Hackford)
The Idolmaker is a movie that asks the question, “What does it take to be a star? Who is more interesting, the Svengalis or the Trilbys?” The year is 1959 and Vinny Vacari (Ray Sharkey, who won a Golden Globe for his performance but don’t let that dissuade you from seeing the movie) is a local kid from New Jersey who dreams of being a star. He has got the talent. He has got the ambition and he has got the media savvy. He also has a receding hairline and a face like a porcupine.
Realizing that someone who looks like him is never going to make hundreds of teenage girls all scream at once, Vinny instead becomes a starmaker. With the help of his girlfriend, teen mag editor Brenda (Tovah Feldshuh) and a little payola, he turns saxophone player Tomaso DeLorussa into teen idol Tommy Dee. When Tommy Dee becomes a star and leaves his mentor, Vinny takes a shy waiter named Guido (Peter Gallagher) and turns him into a Neil Diamond-style crooner named Cesare. Destined to always be abandoned by the stars that he creates, Vinny continually ends up back in the same Jersey dive, performing his own songs with piano accompaniment.
The Idolmaker is a nostalgic look at rock and roll in the years between Elvis’s induction into the Army and the British invasion. The Idolmaker has some slow spots but Ray Sharkey is great in the role of Vinny and the film’s look at what goes on behind the scenes of stardom is always interesting. In the movie’s best scene, Tommy performs in front of an audience of screaming teenagers while Vinny mimics his exact moments backstage.
Vinny was based on real-life rock promoter and manager, Bob Marcucci. Marcucci was responsible for launching the careers of both Frankie Avalon and Fabian Forte. Marcucci served as an executive producer on The Idolmaker, which probably explains why this is the rare rock film in which the manager is more sympathetic than the musicians.
Breaking Glass (1980, directed by Brian Gibson)
At the same time that TheIdolmaker was providing American audiences with a look at life behind-the-scenes of music stardom, Breaking Glass was doing the same thing for British audiences.
In Breaking Glass, the idolmaker is Danny (Phil Daniels, who also starred in Quadrophenia) and his star is an angry New Wave singer named Kate (Hazel O’Connor). Danny first spots Kate while she is putting up flyers promoting herself and her band and talks her into allowing him to mange her. At first, Kate refuses to compromise either her beliefs or her lyrics but that is before she starts to get famous. The bigger a star she becomes, the more distant she becomes from Danny and her old life and the less control she has over what her music says. While her new fans scare her by all trying to dress and look like her, Kate’s old fans accuse her of selling out.
As a performer, Hazel O’Connor can be an acquired taste and how you feel about Breaking Glass will depend on how much tolerance you have for her and her music. (She wrote and composed all of the songs here.) Breaking Glass does provide an interesting look at post-punk London and Jonathan Pryce gives a good performance as a sax player with a heroin addiction.
That’ll Be The Day (1973, directed by Claude Whatham)
Real-life teen idol David Essex plays Jim MacClaine, a teenager in 1958 who blows off his university exams and runs away to the Isle of Wright. He goes from renting deckchairs at a resort to being a barman to working as a carny. He lives in squalor, has lots of sex, and constantly listens to rock and roll. Eventually, when he has no other choice, he does return home and works in his mother’s shop. He gets married and has a son but still finds himself tempted to abandon his family (just as his father previously abandoned him) and pursue his dreams of stardom.
Based loosely on the early life of John Lennon, the tough and gritty That’ll Be The Day is more of a British kitchen sink character study than a traditional rock and roll film but rock fans will still find the film interesting because of its great soundtrack of late 50s rock and roll and a cast that is full of musical luminaries who actually lived through and survived the era. Billy Fury and the Who’s Keith Moon both appear in small roles. Mike, Jim’s mentor and best friend, is played by Ringo Starr who, of all the Beatles, was always the best actor.
That’ll Be The Day ends on a downbeat note but it does leave the story open for a sequel.
Stardust (1974, directed by Michael Apted)
Stardust continues the story of Jim MacClaine. Jim hires his old friend Mike (Adam Faith, replacing Ringo Starr) to manage a band that he is in, The Straycats (which includes Keith Moon, playing a far more prominent role here than in That’ll Be the Day). With the help of Mike’s business savvy, The Stray Cats find early success and are signed to a record deal by eccentric Texas millionaire, Porter Lee Austin (Larry Hagman, playing an early version of J.R. Ewing).
When he becomes the breakout star of the group, Jim starts to overindulge in drugs, groupies, and everything that goes with being a superstar. Having alienated both Mike and the rest of the group, Jim ends up as a recluse living in a Spanish castle. Even worse, he gives into his own ego and writes a rock opera, Dea Sancta, which is reminiscent of the absolute worst of progressive rock. Watching Jim perform Dea Sancta, you understand why, just a few years later, Johnny Rotten would be wearing a homemade “Pink Floyd Sucks” t-shirt.
Stardust works best as a sad-eyed look back at the lost promise of the 1960s and its music. Watch the movie and then ask yourself, “So, do you really want to be a rock and roll star?”
Forgive me, but I watched this last week. I may have some trouble remembering the complex storyline. Good thing I have the movie right here. Let me just turn it on.
“I smack ’em! I whack ’em! I scratch ’em! I bash ’em! I cream ’em! I ream ’em! And then I redeem them!”
Ah, it’s all coming back to me now!
First off, me being half Italian, I can assure you that title translates to Knockoff Burt Lancaster, Harpo, and Rick Wright Rob a Safe in the Orient. The alternate tile being Supermen Against the Orient. By the way, the opening song is awesome!
The movie opens up on a deal gone wrong between criminals after two guys pop out of boxes with guns.
There is more talent on display here in this opening scene than in all of Superdragon vs. Superman. Just the fact that they have two fights going on during this scene on two different boats in the same frame is incredible. They even have the courtesy to make sure the bad guys were in black and blue while the other guys were in white. It’s small, but it makes fights easier to follow. Being confused about who is who gets in the way of enjoying fight scenes.
Oh, and it’s clearly done by people who are fans of 60’s crime and western films. A lot of style on display here.
After torturing the two guys who popped out of the boxes, the bad guys find out about something in Bangkok. Cut to a boardroom meeting and who cares. All you need to know is that they need Captain Wallace. They describe him like they are going to bring in Peter Sellers or something.
Here is Captain Wallace played by Robert Malcolm. He’s pretty funny in this movie. He’s here to finally get married. It’s the third time he’s tried.
Boy, the guy singing over the opening credits wasn’t kidding when he said he reams ’em.
Anyways, people show up to drag him away to serve his country of America. Yeah, he’s actually supposed to be from America in this Italian film. He goes to Bangkok.
After calling for a taxi, this guy pops out to look at our hero.
Clearly, he wants to check out our hero’s awesome mustache!
He also follows him in his car. Then a car chase ensues that lasts the enormous time of…
a few seconds. After Superdragon vs. Superman I expected this to go on for 7 minutes at least.
He now checks in at the hotel where he bumps into this lady.
She will be our Supergirl later on. Yes, I know she looks blind in that screenshot, but she isn’t.
Now the movie goes on Thailand vacation.
It’s like these scenes are here not only to add some realism, but as if the filmmakers cut a deal with the tourism board. You can shoot here, but show off some of the sights please!
After going to the pool and a kickboxing match for reasons that don’t matter, the film has fulfilled it’s Thai quota for the movie so it’s off to Hong Kong. He needs to find the “kung fu expert”. Although Jackie Chan is supposed to be in this movie, he’s just an extra and not the man he is looking for.
Wallace goes to the American embassy, which is run by an Italian character actor sitting in front of a picture of Nixon.
He’s a cryptic prick who says he has some sort of secret weapon that is so secret that he can’t tell Wallace about it even though he is supposed to use it to protect Wallace. No joke. He says all that crap along with a bunch more. He’s quite annoying in this movie. So is what should have been a subplot behind Wallace (the safe) under the painting that is next to the cover of Radiohead’s Kid A album. Wallace actually does guess at what this super secret thing could be. He says he thinks it may be a Buck Rogers Ray Gun. He’s in the wrong decade for that kind of a guess. That’s Reagan era stuff. It’s long johns. In other words, it’s a full body suit that makes you invulnerable to projectiles. Oh, and character actor farts before saying that kung fu is like a laxative because everything comes from inside. If he had only waited four more years, then a film a man like him would go see could have taught him how to solve his little problem.
Not going to say till I review it. If you know, then don’t tell. It’s a surprise!
Now we are off to continue the search for Jackie Chan in this movie at a kung fu competition.
He’s probably in this crowd somewhere just like Phil Collins in A Hard Day’s Night (1964).
We also meet Harpo (Salvatore Borghese), and who I like to call Rick Wright (Antonio Cantafora) even if he isn’t nearly as short as Larry Manetti.
Super Stache is called out to fight the kung fu champion. After a good old ass kickery. This happens.
Then we are in the hospital.
There had to be an easier way to meet the champ. Don’t worry about him. A good acupuncture treatment and he’s back in business. By that I mean it’s time for training. Such as punching hot coals.
I’m sorry, but Cüneyt Arkin punches rocks to train.
Now their palms are as strong as steel! They can kill a horse with one hand.
That’s all well and good, but Chuin can finger punch a nail.
Next we get a scene to remind me how much I like traditional Asian dresses/tops, that same guy from earlier is still watching Super Stache, and…
Supergirl, whose pink top I would take off of her cold dead body, tells him to watch out for people who are keeping their eyes on him. Particularly the guy under his table. Then we go back to stick feet into fire followed by a joke about donkeys and ointment for the ass. Moving on.
After ridiculously going around pretending he is Chinese, which no one believes, Wallace runs into Supergirl.
Blah, blah, blah, their kung fu means that bullets don’t work, blah, blah, blah, watch out, blah, blah, blah.
Now Super Stache goes out on the street to get his ass kicked again.
Luckily, Supergirl comes to his rescue and deals with them.
Now Super Stache meets with his friends to ask for their help.
They say they’ll help, but only if he helps them rob the safe at the embassy. After he is initially offended at the prospect, he agrees. The movie is at the halfway point. It’s a heist movie now. Seriously! It now carries on primarily with robbing the safe for about 30 minutes. No joke. 30 minutes! We get a few things in here like this.
This too.
It goes so off track that there is a scene where Super Stache runs to a library to find out when Abraham Lincoln was born and died in order to figure out the safe combination. The movie eventually gets back on track for the last 15 minutes or so of the film.
Finally, here are the Supermen and Supergirl vs. the dudes in black. I really don’t know what the deal with with these guys is, but after they attacked random business owners in the street I knew they had to be stopped.
With masks they can completely withstand bullets.
Except that guy in the front. He has to use his arms. Oh, and this guy jumps in the air.
Somedays you just gotta do midair splits.
There are a few goodbyes and the embassy guy does more of his comedy shtick, but that’s it! It was way better than Superdragon vs. Superman, but why did it have to go into that whole rob the safe thing? It had a good setup. I liked the actors. Them being Supermen and having a Supergirl too is fun. It could have worked better if they had stuck with it, but the safe thing is really boring and takes over the movie.
I’d still recommend this if only for Super Stache. He really is funny. It’s a shame that according to IMDb he only made two other films the same year as this one called Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad as well as And They Smelled the Strange, Exciting, Dangerous Scent of Dollars. In the first, he played Simbad. In the second, he played Butch ‘Charity’ Jenkins. Maybe someday I’ll see them.
In the meantime, I’ll pull out my complete series box set of The Greatest American Hero when I need my fix of comedians in red suits.
I really hate to start my review with such a negative statement but seriously, after watching Allegiant today, I am now convinced that the Divergent movies are perhaps the least interesting film franchise since the Paranormal Activity sequels. Not only are the films so derivative of The Hunger Games that I’m always surprised that Donald Sutherland isn’t lurking around in the background but they’ve also managed to waste the talents of some of the best actors of my generation. When you’ve got performers like Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller at your disposal, there’s no excuse not to be interesting.
I watched Allegiant with my BFF Evelyn and I’ll admit right now that we talked throughout the entire movie. We laughed at the most serious of moments. When Jeff Daniels showed up, we had a very long discussion about how, when he’s good, Jeff Daniels is really good but when he’s bad, he manages to come across as being the most boring man on the planet. When Miles Teller betrayed his allies, Evelyn said, “Again!?” and then she had to remind me that Miles Teller always ends up betraying everyone in every Divergent film.
(It makes you wonder why the Tris (played by Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) always bring Miles Teller with them as opposed to just killing him. I suppose some of it might have to do with the fact that he’s Miles Teller and he’s a badass. In fact, he probably should be playing Four. He certainly has more chemistry with Shailene Woodley than Theo James does. In fact, Theo James always looks like he’d rather be doing anything other than appearing in another goddamn Divergent film.)
And yes, Evelyn and I did get a few dirty looks from some people in the audience but you know what? I fully understand that it’s rude to talk through a movie but oh my God, we had to do something. Allegiant is such a boring movie. The film moves slowly, as if the filmmakers don’t understand that everyone in the audience has seen enough YA adaptations to already know everything that’s going to happen. If you want to truly understand what film critics mean when they say that a film is “draggy,” try to watch an entire Divergent film without standing up to stretch your legs or get something to drink. Perhaps the biggest mistake you can make while watching Allegiant is to actually concentrate on what’s slowly playing out on screen.
The Divergent films aren’t terribly complicated and yet, I always find myself struggling to follow them. They’re so bland and forgettable that I can never remember what happened in the previous film. As Allegiant started, I was like, “Why is Naomi Watts in charge of Chicago now? Oh yeah, Kate Winslet did die at the end of the last movie!” And then I remembered that Evelyn was Four’s mother.
And then my BFF Evelyn (as opposed to the film’s Evelyn) said, “Four is a stupid name,” and I started laughing way too hard. In fact, we made many jokes about Four’s nickname and then eventually, I remembered that he was called Four because he only has four fears. But it took me a while to remember and, once I did remember, I couldn’t help but think about how stupid a backstory that was.
Anyway, the plot of the film is that the movie’s Evelyn is now in charge of Chicago but she’s turning out to be just as bad as the system that she’s replacing. So, Tris, Four, and friends escape from Chicago and explore the barren landscape that surrounds the city. Eventually, they are found by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. The Bureau is headed up by a boring guy named David (Jeff Daniels). At first, David seems to be a good guy but then it turns out that the Bureau was behind the whole Faction experiment. And now the Bureau wants to attack Chicago, wipe the slate clean, and start the experiment all over again.
Will Four and Tris go along with David’s plan or will they try to stop him?
At this point, who cares?
The thing that’s annoying about the Divergent films is that the storyline has potential. At the heart of it all, the battle between the Factions and the Factionless has the potential to be a powerful, if simplistic, metaphor. But the films are so plodding and take such an obvious approach that most of that potential is wasted. Add to that, Shailene Woodley is a great actress. In fact, I think it can be argued that she actually has more range than Jennifer Lawrence. (Just check out her performance in The Spectacular Now.) But the franchise has never known what to do with her uniquely off-center style. Instead, it simply gives her speeches that feel as if they’ve been lifted from every other dystopian YA franchise. The films insist on trying to make Shailene Woodley predictable and she deserves better on that.
As is typical of big franchise films nowadays, Allegiant is just part one of the Divergent finale and even the “to be continued” ending feels annoying because it’s so obviously lifted from every other franchise finale that’s ever been produced. As with all the Divergent films, Allegiant never escapes the shadow of The Hunger Games. The best that can be said about this franchise is that it will be over soon. Hopefully, Shailene Woodley will be able to move onto a film more worthy of her considerable talents.
