“How It Ends” A Netflix Film Reviewed By Case Wright – Some Spoilers

Posted on August 18, 2018 by casewright

How-it-ends

How It Ends is a horror/thriller from Netflix and if you don’t watch, Netflix will probably make you. The story begins with Will, an up and coming lawyer who is seeing the ultrasound of his soon to be son with beloved Samantha. Will is sweet, but the least manly man to ever unmanly. He’s wound tight, nervous, and hyper-insecure. Will needs to get Sam’s father Tom (Forest Whitaker) to give his blessing so Will and Sam can wed. Will flies from the greatest city on Earth- Seattle to a totally ok City of Chicago to see Tom.

We meet Tom and his wife. Tom is everything Sam is not. Tom was a career Marine, manly, confident, and determined. During the dinner, Tom does everything, but say to Will- You are a wimpy worthless un-man. Tom’s response is both whiny and defensive. It’s just all kinds of awful. Then, the power goes out nationwide with F-22s buzzing around Chicago AND all communications are down as well nationwide. Tom asks if Will rise to the occasion and road trip to Seattle to find/rescue Sam.

I know, I know… this sounds like Taken et al, but it’s not. It becomes a Father (in-Law) and Son survival story and we watch Will become a Man. They leave in Tom’s Cadillac and hit the road to Seattle. Immediately, they find that they cannot stay on the main roads to get there because rednecks try to steal their car at the first rest stop and then an escaped convict tries to murder them. This is within the first half hour of this very action packed show and we still don’t know what caused the catastrophe. We get hints, but it’s not Aliens …. I don’t think. Frankly, I’m still not totally sure of all of the details of the disaster even now.

They decide to stay off the main roads and team up with a teen who has mechanical skills. Along the way, people are trying to murder them for gas and supplies. The teen that goes with them becomes part of Will and Tom tribe for a short time and has to kill to protect her new tribe. Unfortunately, this is too much for the teenager to accept and she abandons Will and Tom to find her way forward alone. It’s a very accurate depiction of societal breakdown. During Katrina, towns setup armed checkpoints to prevent looting and mayhem. I had friends in Mississippi during Katrina and they did exactly that. They needed to shut ingress and egress from their communities to survive and they did so. The communities acted like a tribe would.

Will has to learn how to shoot, drive and shoot, do a chest-tube, read people, give up trust, and murder. We watch him change from a spineless nerd to a confident leader who will readily kill to protect his tribe. During Will’s transformation, the tribal bond between Will and Tom becomes as strong as steel. It’s a story that gets to the very foundation of what family does and what it means to be part of a tribe. The moment the lights go out, we will go from Facebook likes to being real tribal humans again.

When Will gets to Seattle, it’s heartbreaking. Seattle is totally destroyed….sniff. It just gets you. Even the Clink…The Home of my Beloved Seahawks is gone. THE PAIN, THE PAIN! It’s like 2015 all over again! Will’s beloved is gone, but she left a note for her coordinates. Therefore, Will has to go back on the road to find her and save her from whomever.

Will finds Sam with a neighbor Randy who is at his mountain lodge getaway. Randy is the epitome of our current society. He is a wealthy-techie-know-it-all-socially-awkward-creep who thinks that all of his thoughts are facts. He believes that in this new society he will continue to be on top and he tries to take Sam as his own. Not so fast, the world has changed- sorry the power was down forever so no more facebook updates for you. Life has reverted back to a tribe-based system and Randy is left behind literally into dust.

I would recommend this film because it has tremendous suspense and dares to show us what we’ve lost trading our friendships for likes and retweets. You never really know what caused the disaster because that is not the story. The story is about the immediate reemergence of tribal life and how it enables people to determine rapidly who is a friend and who is a foe. In essence, the film challenges us to see a possible positive to this new reality. People are closer and snakes like Randy are easily identified and remedied for the good of the tribe. We still survive, but we have to do it as human beings.

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Horror Film Review: Underworld: Blood Wars (dir by Anna Foerster)

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Underworld films are bad for my ADD.

Seriously, I’ve seen all five of the Underworld films and I’m still not quite sure what’s going on. That’s odd because, in every film, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) spends a good deal of time explaining what has happened and why it’s happened. And yet, every time I try to listen, I’m usually left even more confused than usual. I can’t help it. As soon as I hear someone say, “The war between lycans and vampires,” I zone out.

So, I’ll admit it. I’m the person who, after the movie, is always asking, “Is Selene still a vampire? Why are the lycans and the vampires at war? Oh, wait — that was Selene’s daughter? Why would they want to create a hybrid? So, are they in the real world or are they in an alternate world? Is this movie taking place in the past or the future? Why can’t they just call them werewolves? Wait — that character died? When did that happen?”

What’s funny is that, even though I can never understand what exactly is going on, I still tend to enjoy the Underworld films. It’s not that I think they’re great movies and, to be honest, I tend to forget about them within a day or two of watching them. But, that being said, the Underworld films typically have style to burn and Kate Beckinsale always kicks ass as Selene. Every time I watch an Underworld film, I find myself trying to do slow-motion spin kicks. The Underworld franchise has led to me spraining my ankle more than a few times.

Underworld: Blood Wars, the latest installment in the franchise, was released in January and it played for a few weeks before vanishing from theaters and most people’s minds. It says something about the way the Underworld films are perceived that the latest installments are almost always released in January, a month when most movie goers are more concerned with getting caught up with the Oscar nominees as opposed to seeing new releases. Obviously, the Underworld franchise has made enough money to justify five films. (A sixth installment is currently in pre-production.) But, at the same time, no one will ever mistake this franchise for the MCU. Indeed, in most franchises, the challenge is to make each film bigger and more extravagant than the last. The Underworld movies tend to take the opposite approach. Even by Underworld standards, Blood Wars looks cheap. The entire film takes place in darkness, in castles that look like they’ve been constructed for a community theater production of The Lion in Winter.

Blood Wars starts out with Selene narrating a lengthy recap of the story so far. I tried to pay attention to the recap but as soon as Selene said, “lycans and vampires,” my ADD kicked in and I started playing with my phone. As far as I can tell, in Blood Wars, a member of the Vampire Council named Semira (Laura Pulver) offers to give Selene clemency if Selene will come to her castle and train a new generation of Death Dealers. However, it’s all a trick because Semira actually just wants to drink Selene’s blood and gain all of her powers. Meanwhile, the lycans want to get Selene because they’re trying to track down Selene’s daughter because apparently, they can use her to create some sort of hybrid creature that will allow them to finally destroy the vampires. Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of Nordic vampires running around and they’re all blonde because they’re Nordic. (I do have to admit that part of the film made me laugh. It’s as if the filmmakers said, “What can we do to make sure everyone knows that these are Nordic vampires? Wait a minute! Scandinavia. Blonde hair. I’m getting something here!” If it had been an Irish coven, I assume they all would have had red hair. And if it had been a Texas coven, they all would have been wearing cowboy hats.) As usual, the whole thing leads to a big vampire/lycan battle. Blood spurts. Heads are ripped off of bodies. All in all, it’s a typical Underworld film.

The film is largely forgettable and the plot is borderline incoherent but Kate Beckinsale still gives a remarkably committed performance. As opposed to Daniel Craig in the latest Bond film, Kate Beckinsale still seems to be somewhat invested in her most famous role. In typical Underworld fashion, Blood Wars doesn’t offer anything new but, at the same time, it also doesn’t demand much from the audience.

“Sit back and relax,” the film says, “nothing really matters anyway.”

Film Review: War on Everyone (dir by John Michael McDonagh)

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

War on Everyone opens with a question.

“If you hit a mime,” Detective Bob Bolano (Michael Pena) asks, “does he make a sound?”

“Now, you know,” Detective Terry Malone (Alexander Skarsgard) replies, as he drives his car over a mime.

For the record, the Mime was a cocaine dealer so the detectives did have a reason for chasing him. Then again, the Mime was also on foot while the detectives were in a car. And the Mime was attempting to surrender when the detectives ran him over.

That scene pretty much sets the tone for the rest of War on Everyone, the latest film from Irish filmmaker John Michael McDonagh. McDonagh is best-known and rightfully acclaimed for his previous two films, The Guard and Calvary. Those two films were both darkly comedic and often violent meditations on life, death, morality, guilt, and redemption. While War on Everyone may not share either one of those films’ deeper concerns, it is definitely violent. And the comedy is definitely dark.

Bob and Terry are two of the most corrupt cops in the history of cinematic police corruption. Bob is a family man, who is full of useless trivia and usually seems to speaking a mile a minute. Terry is single and not quite as talkative. He views the world through permanently bloodshot eyes and always stands with an insolent slouch. Terry is the type who, when he drives down a city street, intentionally bumps into every parked car. When asked why he became a cop, Terry shrugs and replies that it was the only job available where he could shoot people without getting in trouble. When Bob and Terry confront an informant, they both get so caught up in snorting the informant’s cocaine that they forget what they wanted to ask about. Their lieutenant is constantly telling them to ease up on the corruption but, since he’s played by Paul Reiser, no one takes him seriously.

War on Everyone does have a plot but it’s debatable just how important it is. Bob and Terry learn about an up-coming heist. They decide to let the heist happen so that they can then bust the crooks and take the money for themselves. However, because there’s nothing that Bob and Terry can’t screw up, they not only fail to stop the heist but end up spending the rest of the movie trying to track down the money. Along the way, they bond with an orphan and Terry pursues a romance with a former stripper (Tessa Thompson, doing her best with an underwritten role).

The plot is really just an excuse for McDonagh to parody the conventions of the American cop film. Much like Seven Psychopaths (which was directed by John Michael McDonagh’s older brother, Martin), War on Everyone is a film about tangents. The point is to see how many weird directions the story can go in. This is the type of film where, at one point, Terry and Bob fly to Iceland just because.

(Don’t get me wrong. They have a reason for being in Iceland but still, you mostly come away with the feeling that McDonagh thought to himself, “What other New Mexico-set heist film features a trip to Iceland?”)

Particularly when compared to something like Calvary, War on Everyone doesn’t add up to much and yet that really is a part of the film’s charm. At a time when so many films are trying way too hard to be something more than what they actually are, War on Everyone is content to be a thoroughly over-the-top action comedy. It’s a bit like The Nice Guys, just with an even darker worldview.

What’s remarkable is how many critics have insisted in trying to find a deeper meaning where there clearly is none. I hardly ever do this but I have to point out that the A.V. Club review — headlined, undoubtedly by an intern hoping to impress the bosses with the power of snark, Sorry War On Everyone, but it’s not the best time for a comedy about giddily corrupt cops — is remarkable in just how thoroughly it misses the point of the film. If anything, it reads as if the reviewer couldn’t think of anything to say so he decided to engage in some preemptive political virtue signaling.

The review cited above makes the mistake of assuming that War on Everyone is supposed to be taking place in the real world. Everything — from the over-the-top violence to the mix of crude humor with philosophical asides to the mix of 70s music with modern technology — indicates that War on Everyone is meant to take place in a reality other than our own. It’s a dream-like world that was created by other cop movies and, ultimately, those other movies are the only thing that War on Everyone is attempting to critique. In much the style of early Tarantino, War On Everyone is a movie about movies.

(Unlike Tarantino’s last few films, War on Everyone only lasts 98 minutes, which would seem to indicate that McDonagh is superior to Tarantino in one important regard: he knows how and when to edit himself.)

War on Everyone is not for … well, everyone. It’s certainly not a masterpiece in the style of either The Guard or Calvary. It’s lesser McDonagh but, when taken on its own terms, it’s an enjoyable ramble of a movie that’s distinguished by the perfect casting of Skarsgard, Pena, and Reiser.

Just don’t take it too seriously.

Film Review: The Divergent Series: Allegiant (dir by Robert Schwentke)

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, who cares?

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.

Playing Catch-Up With 6 Film Reviews: Avengers Grimm, Bad Asses On The Bayou, Hayride 2, Insurgent, Poltergeist, Tomorrowland

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are 6 films that I saw during the first half of 2015. Some of them are on Netflix and some of them were major studio releases. Some of them are worth seeing. Some of them most definitely are not.

Avengers Grimm (dir by Jeremy M. Inman)

Obviously made to capitalize on the popularity of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers Grimm opens with a war in the world of fairy tales. Evil Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien) uses Snow White’s (Laura Parkinson) magic mirror to cross over into our world and he takes Snow White with him! It’s now up to Cinderella (Milynn Sharley), Sleeping Beauty (Marah Fairclough), and Rapunzel (Rileah Vanderbilt) to cross over into our world, save Snow White, and defeat Rumpelstiltskin. Also sneaking over is rebellious Red Riding Hood (Elizabeth Petersen) who is determined to kill Rumpelstiltskin’s henchman, The Wolf (Kimo Leopoldo).

Got all that?

Avengers Grimm is another enjoyably insane mockbuster from The Asylum. The budget’s low, the performances are intentionally melodramatic, and it’s all lot of fun. Casper Van Dien has a lot of fun playing evil, the women all get to kick ass, and Lou Ferrigno is well-cast as a labor leader named Iron John.

Avengers Grimm is currently available on Netflix.

Bad Asses On The Bayou (dir by Craig Moss)

Apparently, this is the third film in which Danny Trejo and Danny Glover have respectively played Frank Vega and Bernie Pope, two old guys who kick ass in between worrying about their prostates. I haven’t seen the previous two Bad Asses films but I imagine that it really doesn’t matter.

In this film, Trejo and Glover go to Louisiana to attend a friend’s wedding. When she’s kidnapped, they have to rescue her and impart some important life lessons to her younger brother. It’s all pretty predictable but then again, it’s also pretty good for a film called Bad Asses On The Bayou. This is a film that promises two things: Danny Trejo kicking ass and lots of bayou action. And it delivers on both counts.

In fact, I would say that Bad Asses On The Bayou is a better showcase for Danny Trejo’s unique style than the better known Machete films. Danny Trejo is a surprisingly adept comedic actor and he gives a performance here that shows his talent goes beyond mere physical presence.

Bad Asses On The Bayou is currently available on Netflix.

Hayride 2 (dir by Terron R. Parsons)

I should admit up front that I haven’t seen the first Hayride film. Luckily, Hayride 2 picks up directly from the end of the first film and is filled with so many flashbacks and so much conversation about what happened that it probably doesn’t matter.

Essentially, Pitchfork (Wayne Dean) is a murderous urban legend who turns out to be real. He killed a lot of people in the first film and he stalks those that escaped throughout the 2nd film. Like all good slasher villains, Pitchfork is a relentless killer. He’s also an unrepentant racist, which leads to a genuinely unpleasant scene where he attacks a black detective (Corlandos Scott). Say whatever else you will about the film, Hayride 2 deserves some credit for being on the side of the victims. No attempt is made to turn Pitchfork into an anti-hero and the movie is relentlessly grim.

Hayride 2 is an odd film. The film’s low-budget is obvious in every single scene. The pacing is abysmal and the performances are amateurish. And yet, when taken on its own meager terms, it has a dream-like intensity to it that I appreciated. Then again, I always have had a weakness for low-budget, regional horror films.

Hayride 2 is available on Netflix.

Insurgent (dir by Robert Schwentke)

Insurgent is both the sequel to Divergent and was also 2015’s first YA dystopia film. Shailene Woodley is as good as ever and I guess it’s good that she has a commercially successful franchise, which will hopefully inspire audiences to track down better Shailene Woodley films like The Spectacular Now.

All that said, Insurgent often felt even more pointless than Divergent. For a two-hour film featuring performers like Woodley, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Ansel Elgort, and Miles Teller, Insurgent has no excuse for being as forgettable and boring as it actually was. The next installment in The Hunger Games can not get here soon enough.

Poltergeist (dir by Gil Kenan)

When a family (led by Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt) move into a new house, they discover that everything is not what it seems. For one thing, they come across a bunch of creepy clown dolls. They also hear a lot of scary sounds. They discover that the house was built on an old cemetery. Their youngest daughter vanishes. And finally, someone says, “Isn’t this like that old movie that was on TCM last night?”

Okay, they don’t actually say that. However, as everyone knows, the 2015 Poltergeist is a remake of the 1982 Poltergeist. Since the 1982 Poltergeist still holds up fairly well, the 2015 Poltergeist feels incredibly unnecessary. It has a few good jump scenes and it’s always good to see Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt in lead roles but ultimately, who cares? It’s just all so pointless.

Watch the wall-dancing original. Ignore the remake.

Tomorrowland (dir by Brad Bird)

Welcome to the world of tomorrow! Wow, is it ever boring!

Actually, I feel a little bit bad about just how much I disliked Tomorrowland because this is a film that really did have the best intentions. Watching the film, you get the sinking feeling that the people involved actually did think that they were going to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, their idea of a better world is boring and almost oppressively optimistic. There is no room for cynicism in Tomorrowland. Bleh. What fun is that?

Anyway, the film basically steals its general idea from the Atlas Shrugged trilogy. Tomorrowland is a secret place that is inhabited by inventors, dreamers, and iconoclasts. Years ago, Frank (George Clooney) was banished from Tomorrowland because, after learning that the Earth was destined to end, he lost “hope” in mankind’s future. Fortunately, he meets Casey (Britt Robertson), who is full of hope and through her, he gets to return. They also get a chance to save the world and battle a cartoonish super villain played by Hugh Laurie. (Why is he a villain? Because he’s played by Hugh Laurie, of course!)

After all the hype and build-up, Tomorrowland turned out to be dull and predictable. What a shame. The Atlas Shrugged trilogy was at least fun because it annoyed the hipsters at the AV Club. Tomorrowland is just forgettable.