Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

 Let's talk about the biggest liar in the Friday the 13th franchise, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. As anyone who has ever seen this movie has undoubtedly pointed out, Jason does not take Manhattan. He takes a boat for 90 minutes, and farts around in New York for the last fifteen minutes. I have seen this movie a couple of times. Each time, one of the things that sticks out to me is that I just don't find it all that fun. More than anything, I find it kind of boring. Kane Hodder does play Jason in this movie, and is one of the very few things about this movie I actually genuinely like. I should also say that a couple of the kills in this movie as well. These are just a couple of things that actually work for me in a movie full of stuff I just find stupid. For eaxmple, I hate all of the stuff with Jason as a kid. The final girl in this movie is actually one of the least interesting final girls in the entire franchise for me. Yes, she has a backstory. If this movie were better written, I probably would have cared more. Overall, Jason Takes Manhattan is one of the least popular, and least liked, films in the Friday the 13th franchise, and for good reason. 

3 / 10 

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning

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Yesterday was Friday the 13th. So, let's talk about what may be my least favorite of the Friday the 13th franchise, A New Beginning. In the fifth film, Tommy Jarvis has grown up into a twenty-something teenager. He's being sent to a half-way house because he has spent the better part of his childhood institutionalized after killing Jason Voorhees. Before too long, bodies start dropping. This movie has a pretty mixed bag when it comes to kills. It's clear that most of them were neutered, even if a couple of them are still fairly effective. It also doesn't entirely help that the nudity is increased. Yes, nudity is important to the Friday legacy, but the gore and the kills are the reason fans keep coming back. The worst thing about this movie is that it's just inconsequential. The movie's whole purpose to pass the torch of serial killer from Jason Voorhees to Tommy Jarvis. That isn't what ends up happening with the franchise, which just renders this film utterly pointless. I could point to mediocre acting, but that's already kind of pointless. The characters mostly uninteresting, as well. A lot of them are killed off almost as quickly as they are introduced, The killer reveal at the end is pretty awful too. There are plenty of red herrings that actually work better than the character they actually chose for Jason's interim replacement. It should also be noted that his motivations don't actually make sense in the context of the story. Just in case someone reading this hasn't seen Friday the 13th Part V, I won't give away the film's killer reveal. I just think it's important to note that very little about Part V works for me. In a marathon of this franchise, Part V really sticks out as the one you can easily skip and lose absolutely nothing. 

3 / 10 

Cats

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Cats is based off of the popular broadway play. Normally, this would be the point where I would try and describe the basic plot of the film I review. In the case of Cats, that’s kind of hard because I’m not entirely convinced this film actually had a plot. This is a film that seems to just go from scene to scene without much of an actual throughline. I guess it’s kind of there, but it feels incredibly weak, at best. The film tries to have some humorous moments. None of them actually land. There’s this uncanny valley when it comes to the effects. Sometimes, they looked okay. Sometimes, they just looked horrifying. The acting is hit and miss. Some actors were alright. There were a couple of performances that surprised me. Those were that of Taylor Swift, Ian McKellen, and Judi Dench. In Swift’s case, it’s because she really wasn’t that bad. It helps that the movie honestly limits the singer’s role to her actual strengths. Dench and McKellen kind of gave off the opposite effect, especially Ian McKellen. He just feels completely lost throughout this thing. It is the first time I think I have seen him in a movie and felt that he was truly awful. I also have mixed feelings about the music. The songs are actually pretty good, but they pretty much come from the original broadway musical, so I can’t really count that as a positive in this film’s favor. I also have to mention the fact the dance sequences don’t feel nearly as impressive. It would be one thing if I saw the dancing performed by trained actors as opposed to CGI creations. Overall, Cats proves to be one of the most misguided and baffling bad movies of the year. 

3 / 10 

Halloween II (2009)

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Here it is, the last film in the Halloween franchise I have to review (for now). I said in my review for Halloween: Resurrection that there was another film in this franchise I hated. This is it. It's almost difficult for me to say exactly why. The main thing is, I absolutely hate the direction that Rob Zombie takes the Loomis character, turning him into a caricature of an unlikable asshole. I also have similar problems with Laurie Strode as a character. She doesn't really feel sympathetic to me. In no way do I want to sleight the performances, as I actually think Malcolm McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton do the best they can with they are given. It's just the way these two characters are written. It's so interesting because I actually think the Bracketts are a lot more likable in comparison. Okay, they aren't perfect. But, with these two, the Rob Zombie-isms feel a lot more toned down in comparison. Once again, I have to give props to Tyler Mane as Michael Myers. Though, I have to ask: Did we really need to hear him talk? It feels like that just takes some of the scariness out of the character. Again, that's not on the actor who plays him. I think that's a lot more on Rob Zombie's writing. The dream sequence stuff is weird, and doesn't really feel right to me in this movie, and in the universe of Halloween that Zombie has set up. I think the big thing for me is just that this is a Halloween movie. If this were some random slasher movie that Rob Zombie decided to make, I probably wouldn't have such a negative reaction. It works better for me if I just look at this as a Rob Zombie movie because he has a distinct style whether you like it or not. I almost appreciate that he does his thing with this movie. That's why I think I hate Resurrection more. This movie has more ambition to it. There's a bit more creativity in what Rob Zombie sets out to do. That doesn't mean I enjoy this, but it's one where my thoughts have changed ever so slightly. 

3 / 10 

Girls with Balls

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So, not too long ago, I came across a movie on Netflix called Girls with Balls. The film is about a volleyball team that finds themselves being hunted for sport by a bunch of rednecks when their van breaks down. Based on that title and premise, I was legitimately intrigued. Let’s just say that the movie was something of an underwhelming experience for me. For a horror comedy, the horror didn’t work that well, and the comedy never really landed for me. I didn’t really find any of the characters all that interesting. It felt like the development was paper-thin. This is something of a catch-22 for me. There have been a lot of movies like this where I have been fairly lenient on characters not having much to them. I feel like part of my issue is that there really isn’t anyone here that I particularly like. This film is technically a foreign film. It’s dubbed into English. At first, this was something that really distracted me, mostly because I could just tell. Some of the character motivations feel like they just come out of nowhere, or that they could have been handled better. In the end, it feels like Girls with Balls was just a movie that didn’t seem like it really knew what it wanted to be. I would still say give it a chance, if only because your experience with a film like this may legitimately differ from my own. Even if I personally wasn’t a fan, I could actually see how someone else could be. 

3 / 10 

What Men Want

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What Men Want is sort of a gender swapped What Women Want (a film I admittedly didn’t watch all the way through. The film follows sports agent Ali (played by Taraji P. Henson) when she ends up with the ability to hear men’s thoughts. When I saw the trailer, I thought it looked kind of funny, and actually had some potential. The final result was pretty underwhelming. Granted, I didn’t necessarily expect this movie to be great. I want to start with the positives. First, I actually enjoyed the performances by Taraji P. Henson and Tracy Morgan. Henson is a pretty naturally charismatic actress (and she’s clearly trying even though the material is obviously beneath her). Tracy Morgan is one of the few actors who could genuinely make me laugh in this movie. At times, there are jokes that kind of work. There should be a lot more comedic potential than what this movie gave us. The story isn’t really anything new either. I don’t have a problem with this. I just have some more issues with the fact that the filmmakers don’t really do anything with the opportunities they have. The movie is also a little too long. It comes in just shy of two hours. It goes without saying that this movie needed to be trimmed down quite a bit. I can’t really speak to how much that would improve the film, especially because I find that bad comedies are some of the toughest bad movies to sit through—because if a comedy can’t make you laugh, why are you watching it. The movie also has a talented cast that feels criminally underused. Nowhere is this more clear than with Aldis Hodge as Will. The man feels like is just there to be Alli’s love interest and nothing else. I think What Men Want had the potential to be a solid remake. You can tell because, every now and then, a joke will actually work. The biggest problem is this movie doesn't do anything to justify being a necessary remake. It took the first step, but nothing else. 

3 / 10 

A Wrinkle in Time

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Meg Murry (played by Storm Reid) is a shy, troubled middle-school student whose father, a renowned scientist (played by Chris Pine) disappeared when she was very young. Meg, her friend Calvin (played by Levi Miller), and her adopted brother Charles Wallace (played by Deric McCabe) are transported to a fantasy world in an effort to search for the man. Some of the performances are good. Storm Reid and Chris Pine are easily the standouts for me. On the flip-side, young Deric McCabe is awful in this film. It's clear that the boy needs some more acting lessons. Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which feels like she just doesn't want to be in the movie. She doesn't put any emotion into her role at all. Mindy Kaling is utterly miscast as Mrs. Who. The character doesn't do a whole lot outside of say famous quotes. Think about the roles that work for Mindy Kaling. She's better when she gets to play dry and sarcastic. I will admit that the visuals are nice to look at, even if it is clear that they look fake. I can just easily say that they don't really stand out that much. I could just as easily see this kind of fantasy world looking right at home in Oz: The Great and Powerful. I appreciate the attempts at character development, even if some it is given to characters that don't really have much affect on the story. The scene where this development starts coming into play is easily the best scene in the movie, especially when it comes to fleshing out the Calvin character a little bit more. We're given a quick hint about his relationship with his father early on, but the moment we're actually shown that his father is controlling and verbally and emotionally abusive is actually impactful. We're given some background to the movie's token bully character. The problem I have with this is that she's not in the movie enough for me to care. I do like the performance by Zach Galifianakis in this scene, even if it is just a glorified cameo. Ava DuVerney is a talented director. The issue is she doesn't really offer any flare of her own into this movie. This could just as easily have been directed by Brad Bird, J.J. Abrams, or even Steven Spielberg. Sometimes, the biggest issue with the direction of a movie is when you can easily say that anybody could make this movie. The tone is all over the place. It feels like the movie can go from whimsical to legitimately creepy in a millisecond. You could argue that it's done in an attempt to emulate children's movies of the 1980s. The thing is, that sort of thing works because it needs to be a legitimately off-setting moment, and I never really feel that in this movie. But, this movie's biggest flaw is its writing. Pine's character vanishes near the beginning of the film. We're not actually shown this moment until about the halfway mark. When we first learn about his disappearance, we're told through clunky exposition, and it's repeated multiple times. Of course, there's a lot of stuff that never really feels explained.There are things that happen in the movie, but we're never given reasons as to how or why they are happening. The interjections of humor never work. They all fall flat. A Wrinkle in Time really had the potential to be a good movie. In the end, the parts don't really add up to the overall whole. This is a movie I would easily recommend skipping.

3 / 10 

Monster Family

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Alright, let's get positives out of the way because most of this review is going to be pretty negative. Some of the voice cast is pretty solid. Jason Isaacs is easily the best part of the movie as an animated Dracula. I'm always happy to see Nick Frost get work. The animation is pretty good too. If I had to sum up Monster Family in one word: it's annoying. Most of the characters are irritating (Baba Yaga stands out as the most obnoxious). A lot of the jokes are juvenile at best. Yeah, the jokes in this movie are almost all fart jokes, and they are never funny. Occasionally, a joke works. For example, Dracula's butler is named Renfield. This actually pretty clever, especially if you know the Dracula story. The story involves a family wearing monster costumes that are turned into their costumes by a witch. The reason for this is because Dracula has fallen in love with the mother, Emma (voiced by Emily Watson) despite having never actually met her, and does so after only talking to her on the phone one time. Honestly, if you cut Dracula out of the movie all together, then this actually might have the potential to be something enjoyable. As much as I honestly enjoy Isaacs as Dracula, I hate his whole I'm lonely at want someone to love me plot. It was honestly much better done in Hotel Transylvania 3. The main family has their moments where they can annoy me. However a lot of the supporting characters are just assholes, and they aren't even all that entertaining. There's no real sense of tension. There's a scene where the family worries about whether or not Emma will burn in the sun. 30 seconds (and a lame fart joke) later, we learn that she won't. If we know that famed vampire weaknesses don't really have any effect on her, and Dracula's in love with her (and the movie's main antagonist), then there's no real reason to fear for this character's safety. The other real reason this doesn't work is that, for intents and purposes, Emma is the movie's main protagonist. It doesn't work to build tension in a given moment, only to constantly undercut it at every turn. It doesn't take before the movie really starts to show its teeth. After a while, you just sort of sit there, wondering how long before it's over. Emily Watson's performance in the film is kind of all over the place. Sometimes, she seems like she's invested. Sometimes, she seems like she just wants a paycheck. Dracula has these three bats, and they're not entertaining at all. They just kind of feel like the minions' sloppy seconds. The biggest flaw that this movie easily suffers from is that the family all wants to be human again. That's fine enough. The problem is: Emma's the only one ever seems to take action most of the time. The plot also feels unbelievably basic, and a lot of this movie is just stitched together by random scenes. Overall, Monster Family has a lot working against it, and has very little working for it.

3 / 10 

Woody Woodpecker

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So, this exists. I had no idea that this movie was a thing until I found it on Netflix. Naturally, I did a little research before watching it. I found out that it went to theaters in Brazil in 2017, but got a direct to video release in the United States last month. It was pretty much what I expected it to be. The writing, directing, and acting were all pretty poor. The story is completely hackneyed. A selfish, overworked, jerk father goes with his son and his equally selfish fiancé into the woods so he can build a house in the area. The titular woodpecker (who is obviously an effect, and not a very good effect at that) finds out about this and starts trying to sabotage the build. You meet a pretty wildlife expert pretty early on, and by the end, you know the father’s going to reconnect with his son, find common with Woody, and end up with the wildlife expert. I don’t necessarily want it to look like I’m spoiling the movie, but I guessed all of this by the 15 minute mark. It really wasn’t that hard. The fiancé is annoying as hell. It felt like the actress playing her was just there because Sofia Vergara said no to the script. I don’t if that’s actually the case, but it feels like it.  For the most part, the jokes were pretty lame. A couple of them made me chuckle, but that’s about it. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend watching this. I didn’t make me angry, but it didn’t offer anything that the likes of The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Furry Vengeance, Yogi Bear, and The Flinstones didn’t already try to do.

3 / 10

The Assignment

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The Assignment stars Michelle Rodriguez as a hitman named Frank. The sister of one of Frank’s targets (played by Sigourney Weaver) is a plastic surgeon who coaxes Frank into a job. The men following Frank on the mission betray him and take him to the doctor. The doctor turns Frank into a woman as revenge. Angered by this, Frank sets out on a warpath to exact revenge. The movie has a trashy premise that actually could have been enjoyable, but it takes itself a touch too seriously. For example, the best they do to make Michelle Rodriguez look like a man is slap an unconvincing fake beard on her and say “good enough.” Michelle Rodriguez is probably the best thing in the movie. I can say that, at the very least, it really seemed like she was trying. Sigourney Weaver playing the main villain pretty obviously doesn’t want to be there, not that I blame her. The action sequences feel pretty standard and don’t inspire much. In Die Hard, you remember Bruce Willis jumping off the building with an explosion behind him. In The Matrix, you remember Keanu Reeves flipping back to dodge bullets. There isn’t anything in the action scenes from this movie that really stand out. Most of the movie is told in flashback, so you kind of have an idea how it’s going to end. It isn’t like The Usual Suspects where the twist ending makes you rethink the entire movie. It isn’t like Wonder Woman where the journey was at least pretty fun to watch. This movie does have twists and turns, but they all feel incredibly predictable. There’s a character in the move, and from the second you meet them, you kind of have an idea where their story is going to go. Overall, The Assignment could’ve (and should’ve) worked as something of a trashy guilty pleasure. But, when one performance is all you can really point to as something you liked, you know there’s a serious problem.

3 / 10