I paid to see that: Flipper

Working at a Blockbuster Video during my high school years was great. I got free movies, free popcorn, and I made a lot of new friends along the way.

But Blockbuster was still a job, and the store needed to be staffed, so it was almost impossible for all of us to get together at the same time. In fact, I think this only happened three or four times during my tenure there.

One of those times came in May of 1996 when the store owner decided she was remodeling the store from top to bottom. In order to do so, the owner told us she was closing the store for two days. But the cool thing was she paid us for those days, so nobody was losing any hours. The entire staff was shocked but thankful at her gesture. Me though, I was just happy I wouldn’t be getting home at 1:30 in the morning for a change.

Anyways, with so much time off, our manager thought it would be nice if we all hung out or went out somewhere. After talking with people, it was decided we should go see a movie and then grab lunch somewhere. To this day I don’t know who decided we should see “Flipper” instead of going to see “Twister,” “Executive Decision” or any of the other possible options at the time. But no, we ended up seeing a movie about a boy and his magical dolphin.

“Flipper” was inspired by the original 1963 movie and the later TV series from that decade. I don’t remember the original movie, but my mother made me watch re-runs of the show when I was a kid. The 1996 film starred Paul Hogan and Elijah Wood, and the plot revolves around a boy who has to spend the summer with his uncle, who lives on the Florida Gold Coast.

Uncle Porter (Paul Hogan) is a free spirit who runs a fishing boat; flirts with Kathy, a local shopkeeper and former marine biologist (Chelsea Field), and blow-torches Spaghetti for dinner. Elijah Wood plays Sandy, a Chicago teenager who sees his mom sending him to Florida as a punishment. From the moment he gets to his uncle Porter’s, he expects this would be another boring summer. But that changes when he encounters a dolphin whom he names Flipper and with whom he forms a friendship.

Aside from Flipper, Sandy also becomes friends with Kim (Jessica Wesson), a cute girl about his age who is always hanging around on the beach. There’s also Marvin (Jason Fuchs), Kathy’s big-eyed little nerd of a son who turns out to be a super whiz at creating stuff. And finally, there’s Sheriff Buck (Isaac Hayes–yes, THE Isaac Hayes), who isn’t very friendly or nice to Porter or Flipper. But he’s only trying to do his job I suppose.

To give you an idea of how uninterested I was in the movie they day we saw it, later during dinner, I made a comment about them being in the Caribbean. My manager Jen said it wasn’t the Caribbean, the movie took place in Florida. So I said something about Paul Hogan leaving his son to go fishing. That’s when Jen chimed in again to let me know Hogan was Sandy’s uncle. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember Elijah Wood ever calling him “uncle.”

The one thing I remembered clearly was the canisters of hazardous material the villain was dumping into the sea. I know it was hazardous material because it said so in large letter across each container. What I don’t remember is if the bad guy faced justice or not, or even if the damage could be undone. At the very least it would have been a long clean up, but as far as I can remember, everyone was happy at the end of the movie like nothing had happened below the surface.

The only good thing I can say about “Flipper” is that the dolphin scenes were done pretty well. I’m sure a tong of it was done with a real dolphin, but a few shots most have been with animatronics. But I couldn’t tell the difference, to swell done by whoever did the special effects on Flippy.

Oh yeah, as I started putting this post together I seemed to remember Jessica Alba being in this movie. Well, I was right and wrong. Alba did appear in “Flipper,” but not in the movie, but in a tv reboot that aired around the same time. She played a character named Maya Graham for two of the show’s four seasons. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Reboots are all the rage these days, both on tv and in film. But it’s nothing new in entertainment, it has been going on for a years. Long before the current trend of rebooting old properties to various degrees of success, Hollywood tried hard to make this idea work in the 1990s with movies like “The Addams Family,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and yes, good old “Flipper.”

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Trailer Park: Avengers 4

 

wow, just wow.

Flashback Review: A Christmas Carol (1951)

Growing up in Boston in the ’80s and early ’90s, one of my favorite things on television was “The Movie Loft” on WSBK Channel 38. The program was Dana Hersey who, with his deep knowledge of films, introduces that evening’s movie. He would also drop in and out of commercials with little bits of trivia or interesting information on that night’s feature presentation.

“The Movie Loft” was a terrific introduction to movies like “Trading Places,” “48 Hours,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The Man with Two Brains,” and countless others. Not only did I get a good movie each night, but I learned something along the way too. The Lost was also the place that where I first saw one of my favorite holiday movies, 1951’s “A Christmas Carol” starring Alastair Sim.

Released as “A Christmas Carol in the U.S., and as “Scrooge” in the United Kingdom, the movie is often considered the definitive film version of the Charles Dickens classic. I’d even say this is the one that other versions are compared to even to this day. Might be why nearly 70 years since its release, the 1951 film is still shown regularly around the holidays.

From the start, Alastair Sim is simply amazing as Ebenezer Scrooge. Even before Marley’s ghost shows up, Sim’s take on Scrooge is the perfect mix of cranky, mean, and scary. To his credit, Alistair Sim plays the part so well that I was a young kid, didn’t like him, and couldn’t see how this man could be turned to good by the film’s end.

But it works in part because the film focuses on how Scrooge arrived at his current disposition by spending more time with the Ghost of Christmas Past (Michael J. Dolan), and by adding a few scenes that were not from Charles Dickens’ story. Doing this helped me better understand this version of Scrooge, his fear of loneliness and loss, as well as his need for money.

This is a very complex version of Scrooge, but I liked seeing his younger days play out in more detail. I particularly enjoyed how much time the film spent on Mr. Fezziwig and his impact on Scrooge. This included Scrooge putting Fezziwig out of business, which shocked me as a kid. It was also strange seeing a very young Patrick Macnee in one of these scenes as a young Marley.

I will say that with so much time spent with the Ghost of Christmas Past that the other spirits get a little shortchanged. The Ghost of Christmas Present (Francis de Wolff) doesn’t get as much screen time as in other versions, but he still manages to make an impact. His scene with them to kids to cling to him still creeps me out today.

Meanwhile, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Czesław Konarski) feels like a fly by. He gets the shortest amount of screen time out of the three spirits, which sucks because he’s easily the scariest version of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I don’t know if the hands you see are Czesław Konarski’s or a make up job, but either way, they get the job done.

There’s also Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchit. He’s a little bit older and pudgier than some other Cratchit’s, but Johns gives the part so much joy that you can’t help but like him. You also feel for him when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge the aftermath of Tiny Tim’s death. Also worthy of praise is Kathleen Harrison as Mrs. Dilber. I can’t get enough of her reaction when she sees Scrooge trying to stand on his head, or her asking if he’s giving her a Christmas present to keep her mouth shut.

There are of course plenty of versions of “A Christmas Carol” out there for you to enjoy. Everyone’ got the favorite, and even I have other film versions I enjoy every year. But I don’t know that anything will ever top the 1951 version of the memories I have of watching it on “The Movie Loft.” There’s simply no beating watching Scrooge dance around his house out of sheer joy.

Trailer Park: Captain Marvel (trailer 2)

 

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!!!!

 

 

 

Better late than never review: Mile 22

Possible spoilers ahead!

In director Peter Berg’s “Mile 22,” Mark Wahlberg stars as James Silva, a high-functioning but antisocial individual who was recognized by the U.S. government as being a prodigy at an early age. After a car accident took his family, Silva was eventually recruited to work for the CIA’s most elite secret task force: Overwatch. The team is led by their boss codenamed “Mother” (John Malkovich),

During a stay in Indonesia, Silva and his fellow Overwatch members Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohan) and Sam Snow (Ronda Rousey), are approached by Li Noor (Iko Uwais), a native police officer who claims to have information regarding a missing chemical substance that could be used to create radioactive dirty bombs. In return for the information, Noor demands that he be flown out of the country to safety in the United States. To Make sure his demands are met, Noor stores the intel in a flash drive set to degrade within eight hours, and only he knows how to access the drive.

Soon enough, it becomes apparent that whatever information Noor has, it’s important enough that the local government is willing to have him killed. Silva and the rest of the Overwatch squad are tasked with transporting Noor to an extraction point located 22 miles from his current position at the Indonesian U.S. embassy. Whether they get there in one piece, is another story.

“Mile 22” had all the ingredients to be a hit movie. A simple premise that while not original, can be fun and exciting. The film also boasted a solid director in Peter Berg and a bankable lead in Mark Wahlberg. Who, when cast in the right role, can deliver the goods no matter how bad the material is. Sadly, “Mile 22” is so awful, even Mark Wahlberg comes out bruised.

Instead of focusing on the mission of getting Noor from the embassy to the airport, the movie spends too much time acting as an “origin story” for James Silva. But even that aspect is botched. Everything we need to know about Silva is told in a montage during the opening credits, after that he doesn’t get any more character development.

Silva is almost a mix of Wahlberg’s foul-mouthed sergeant from “The Departed” and a quasi-sociopathic genius in the vein of Dr. Gregory House (from House M.D.), but Silva lacks any of the sharp wit and glimpses of humanity beneath that those characters had. Even after watching the movie I’m not sure if Silva is gifted, or just plain insane.

The “Mile 22” script is uneven from start to finish. The film’s tone goes from funny, to tragic, to WTf, to where did that come from? The script has massive plot holes, and I wish I could say the action scenes in “Mile 22” were something to write home about, but they’re not. Almost every action piece in the film is a shootout. And during the drive to the airport, it goes shootout, find a new cat, shootout, find a new car.

There are also a number of supporting character and subplots here that feel like either their roles were dramatically reduced or they were added in the hopes “Mile 22” would launch a new action franchise. But dammit movie studios, if you hire someone like Ronda Rousey, give her something to do! After watching the movie I had to look up who she played because I couldn’t remember any of her teammates call her by a name.

There’s a moment in the third act of the film where the audience is supposed to believe Lauren Cohan’s character was friends with Rousey. But we didn’t see any of that in the previous hour of the movie. Cohan as Alice is barely fleshed out, but all we know about her involves a young daughter, as well as an a-hole ex-husband voiced by Berg himself. However, this plotline is never really resolved.

I would have loved to see the movie focus a little on how the two women on the team held their own against the insanity of Wahlber’s Silva. All we really see is Silva screaming Lauren Cohan at every opportunity. Though apparently, the two were more than colleagues, that too is glossed over and forgotten about.

The way “Mile 22” plays out, everyone except Silva ends being mostly irrelevant to the main plot of this movie. The same goes for the pointless narrative framing device involving Silva being debriefed by a mysterious superior officer. We never learn who he is talking to or exactly why. Silva is even asked about the event that happens on a plane Silva wasn’t even on, the whole thing was just odd.

In the end, “Mile 22” is a mess of a movie that feels like it could have been a solid action thriller. As I said earlier, all the ingredients were there, but the script let everyone in the cast down. Add in a rollercoaster of tones, and average action set pieces, and you got yourself a dud, and one of the most disappointing movies I’ve seen this year.

“Mile 22” score: D

Better late than never review: The Meg

Possible spoilers ahead!

Based on the 1997 book “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror” by Steve Alten, “The Meg” follows a group of scientists working at a state of the art underwater research facility – known as Mana One – that lies 200 miles off the coast of China and was funded by the eccentric billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson). The team is led by the oceanographer Minway Zhang (Winston Chao) and his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), a marine biologist.

The Mana One scientists hope to prove Dr. Zhang’s hypothesis that there are unexplored depths to the Mariana Trench. An exploration crew captained by Celeste (Jessica McNamee) is able to do just that when they enter a hidden region of the Trench separated from the rest of the Pacific Ocean by a “cold layer”. However, while the crew explores the is something enormous attacks their submersible and leaves the team stranded with slim chances for survival.

With the clock ticking, Mana One bosses reach out to Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham): a deep-sea rescue expert who has been out of the business for the last five years, ever since he claimed a massive shark-like creature was responsible for a submarine rescue mission gone wrong. Jonas is reluctant to head back into the ocean, but as Celeste’s ex-husband, he agrees to attempt to rescue her and her team, knowing that a similar underwater “monster” is down there.

Once he reaches the stranded sub, Jonas learns Celeste’s team was attacked by a Megalodon: a colossal species of shark that was believed to have gone extinct millions of years before. One that now has been unleashed into the Pacific ocean.

I have to say that I didn’t expect much from “The Meg.” That’s basically why I didn’t see it on the big screen. After all, you see one Jason Statham, you’ve seen them all. I’m not putting the guy down, I like some of his films. but he doesn’t have a ton of acting range if you know what I mean. But it turns out, I had nothing to worry about because “The Meg” was a ton of fun.

That’s not to say “The Meg” is perfect, because it’s not. The movie has little to no character development on Jason Statham and the rest of the main cast. All we know about Statham’s character is what we see in the film’s opening scene, but not much more. But “The Meg” is the time of movie that doesn’t rely upon too much of character development. It sets up the basic premise quickly and gets to the mindless fun from there.

The script does a good job of plowing through the necessary exposition needed to set up the movie’s monster and establish the different characters that will deal with the beast. Things are not overexploited in a script that embraces its own campiness as some the crazy events unfold. There are even a few touching moments between Suyin’s (Li Bingbing) daughter played by Shuya Sophia Cai, and Jason Statham.

To his credit, Jason Statham knows exactly what type of movie this is and what his fans expect to see from him and he delivers on both in every way possible. Whether he’s growling orders at someone or piloting a submarine-like it’s a fighter jet, or even when he’s going Mano to Shark with The Meg, it all worked for me.
I’d even go as far as saying this was one of Statham’s more entertaining roles.

I also thought Li Bingbing was quite good in the film. Not only in the action scenes where she matched Statham several times, but also in a couple of humorous scenes. The rest of the cast, however, doesn’t get too much to do.

Page Kennedy is there for comic relief, Ruby Rose is the “edgy” but brilliant loner, but they each had a couple of decent moments. The worst casting though had to be Rainn Wilson and this genius billionaire. I didn’t buy it for a minute, especially with some of the dumbass moves the character pulls in the film.

Is “The Meg” a ridiculous movie? You bet it is. But at the end of the day, the film is also pure popcorn fun. I enjoyed myself from start to finish because “The Meg” is an entertaining film that never takes it itself too seriously. All the film asks of the audience is for us to enjoy the rise, and I did.

“The Meg” score: B+

Better late than never review: Teen Titans GO! To the Movies

Possible spoilers ahead!

Based on the long-running Cartoon Network series, “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies” sees the team of Robin (Scott Menville), Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Starfire (Hynden Walch), Cyborg (Khary Payton), and Raven (Tara Strong), eager to prove they are legitimate heroes and just as good as the Justice League. Unfortunately, the Teen Titans aren’t very good at taking their crimefighting responsibilities seriously and are seen by the other heroes as jokes.

Robin makes it his mission to change the world’s perception of the Titans, and Robin believes the only way to this is to get a movie made about him and his team. But when high-powered Hollywood director Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell) turns the Titans down, Robin sees an opportunity. Robin believes if the Titans can make Slade Wilson ((Will Arnett)) their arch nemesis, Hollywood will have no choice but to make a Teen Titans movie. But due to his silver screen dreams, Robin risks losing everything that is important in his life.

My knowledge of “Teen Titans Go!” is rather limited. I’ve only seen one episode of the series, and I wasn’t able to make to the end. So why go out of my way to see “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies”? So that my so-called best friend Nick would stop nagging me to see the damn movie. If nothing else, I thought seeing the movie would stop him from telling me for the umpteenth time that “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies” was “the DC movie we all needed.”

Yeah, about that…

I thought “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies” was a mess of a movie. It takes a while for the main story to kick in and once it does, there isn’t much to the main plot. As a result, large portions of the film drag. Furthermore, the script is repetitive in places, going over character motivations multiple times for no apparent reason.

Some of the jokes also drag on, like a poop joke sequence that seems to go on for about five minutes. Problem is, it’s not different poop jokes, but the same damn joke over and over again. Events are also hampered down by unnecessary extended musical numbers and set pieces that serve as nothing more than filler.

All that being said, I’m also well aware that “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies” is not meant for someone my age. This movie is generally meant for young audiences, and I’m sure anyone under the age of ten would probably love this movie. That doesn’t explain why my soon to be ex-friend forced me to see “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies,” but I’m guessing whiskey or Scotch was involved.

So while I will never get these 85 minutes back in my life, I suppose if you like the cartoon series and/or are a kid, you will enjoy “Teen Titans GO! To the Movies.” Ah well, at least Nic Cage got to play Superman finally. Now if you will excuse me, I have to look for a new best friend.

“Teen Titans GO! To the Movies” score: D