Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

Summer of '69
- Streaming on Hulu -

I don't know why I watched this.  It popped up on my Hulu feed and I just let it finish. Maybe I kept it going for no other reason than to see whether Chloe Fineman (an SNL cast member who doesn't completely suck) has any potential other than sketch comedy. For whatever reason, I let it go.

The story is kind of ridiculous. A chubby, frizzy-haired teenaged girl fantasizes about getting with a good-looking kid at school. In real life?  Less than a zero percent chance.  But this is the movies - movies that seem hellbent on pairing people who'd never have a modicum of interest in each other, all in the name of diversity.

Frizz head hears from her high school mascot that the object of her desire is a big fan of "doing the 69."  In an effort to gain knowledge before she (I guess?) throws herself prostrate at his feet, Frizz head engages the services of a local stripper (Fineman) to learn about all about sexual confidence and doing the 69 deed.

Early on, I thought there were some similarities to Risky Business - a concept the script acknowledged by leaning heavily into the comparison later on.  It sneaks in nods to several other of the 80s films that made up the genre.

There are a lot of common "coming of age" topics that are addressed in the film, but it takes things too far. It's too crude, too vulgar, too much.  On top of that?  It just isn't funny. It's not funny enough to be a comedy, it's not deep enough to move you. It just doesn't work. Part of that is the lead girl. Frizz-head just isn't really likeable. She fails to project any of the attributes we really need her to have, and there's nothing - absolutely nothing - in her character that would make the guy she pursues remotely interested in her.

Fineman isn't bad, actually. She just needs to find a better vehicle to showcase her talents. Her way-too-long scene where she's stripping and holding onto her heels is pretty sexily hot, frankly, but it's out-of-place in what's supposed to be a movie aimed at teens. It just takes things a step too far.

I think Fineman has potential. She shows flashes of talent. Frizz-head has none. Zero. The movie is predictable.  It didn't make me want to vomit, but I can't really recommend watching it. 

[Kaos]

I'm still here, shouting into the void if only to hear my own echo...

Trap
Netflix

I don't know what I expected. M. Night Shaboobaladingdong, so there's probably a late twist. But there isn't. There were opportunities to twist it up, ones that he should/could have taken to elevate the narrative. But he didn't.

Basic storyline:  Cops use a concert by a world-wide superstar as bait to trap a serial killer. Get everybody in there, lock it down, and torture them with the "music" as they vet every single male attendee.  This set up is bungled because the concert is supposed to be a surprise one-off established specifically to entrap the killer, BUT... they knew he was going to be there because he dropped a piece of the ticket at a kill.  Well?  Which is it?  If you created the concert to trap the guy, you wouldn't have known he was going to be there and if you knew he was going to be there, the concert wasn't created as a trap.  Film is now officially in the stupid and lazy category.

As I'm watching the film, I kept wondering WHY do they continue to show so many clips of this "concert" by a no-talent, caterwauling, fake music 'superstar' who CANNOT sing, who has zero stage presence, who cannot dance, whose stage-patter is cringingly bad, and whose songs are drippy treacle at best. Maybe that's the twist?  Maybe that talent-bereft waif is the killer?  No. Sadly no.

Turns out the drippy songstress is Shalamadongdinger's freaking daughter.  There is no real movie here. It's just an excuse for him to showcase his gratingly awful child's effort to boost her 'musical' career. Everything else is just lazy framework cobbled around her shockingly awful 'concert.' 

She's Sofia Coppola in Godfather III bad. She might actually be worse. If I never see or hear of her again, that will be too soon.

M.Night is still living off a 40-year old, one-film reputation and his work has grown increasingly dull and moronic. This might be rock bottom for him.  The name no longer carries any cachet for me.

This movie is nothing but clap-trap and should be avoided.

[Kaos]

Fear Street: Prom Queen

The Fear Street trilogy wasn't great, but wasn't bad. This tacked-on addition to the series is atrocious. It's unbelievably bad.

Yet another movie about teens written and directed by people who apparently never experienced a single moment as an actual teen, and who obsessed in their basements about what the cool kids said, thought, and focused on. 

Other than some pretty great music interspersed at various points, there is absolutley nothing and I mean NOTHING about this film that's worth watching. The lead actress looks sort of like what Meryl Streep might have looked like at 14. There's an obligatory quasi-gay character who is annoying beyond any ability to tolerate. Every person in the film is a cariacture of a caricature of a teenaged caricature. The script is abysmal. Everything about this tepid film is ridiculously stupid.

I'd rather go to an actual prom in my underwear than suffer through this again.

[Kaos]

Kraven the Hunter
Netflix I think

You think Morbius was bad? Wait until you get a whiff of this pantload.

Aaron-Taylor Johnson delivers a performance made of solid wood. Russell Crowe's faux-Russian accent is hilariously bad. And... you know what?  Let's shorten this review a little bit.

Here's a movie-goer responding to the film in real time.



I concur.

[Kaos]

Lilo and Stitch: Live Action
In Theaters

I went in fully armed and expecting to hate, loathe, and despise this movie. I didn't want to see it, but the animated version is my kid's favorite Disney film and she asked nicely.  So we went.

Not only did I not hate it, I kinda liked it.  Yes, some changes were made but those didn't diminish the story. No, Disney didn't try to jam any woke, stupid messaging in there. The CGI was occasionally sketchy but was for the most part effective enough that you forgot Stitch wasn't an actual animatronic creature.

The kid playing Lilo was really good. The girl playing Lani was pretty fantastic (and very attractive in an odd way).

It was far better than I expected. Take the wife and kids.

[Kaos]

The Accountant 2
Amazon Prime

I liked the first Accountant movie.  After slogging through 32 minutes and 48 seconds of the sequel, I can no longer remember why. 

I turned if off. If I'd gone to the theater to see it, I'd be REALLY upset with myself. 

Maybe it got better.  Don't think I'll ever know. It just didn't work for me at all. I'm done.

[Kaos]

Fountain of Youth
AppleTV

How could this go wrong? John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Domhnall Gleeson, Eiza (she's cute) Gonzalez, Stanley Tucci, MM (from The Boys), Guy Ritchie at the helm, exotic locations, adventure, treasure!  All the elements are there.

Except, they are just elements. There is no chemistry whatsoever.

Remember when Jim Halpert played Goldenface in Threat Level Midnight?  The performance here by Big Bird was about on par with that. This was a film that literally screamed for someone else to take that part, because it was a horrible fit for Jim. Literally anyone would likely have been better. Anyone. Dwight would have done this role more justice than Jim. So, too would Stanley, Oscar, Kevin, Daryl, Creed, Plop, Ryan, David Wallace, Mr. Brown, Charles Miner, Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration), Hank the Security Guard, Toby Flenderson, Roy, Michael, and the turban IT guy. This was just a terrible role for Halpert.

Natalie Portman proved she learned everything Hayden Christensen had to teach with her ineffective, flat, toneless, lazy performance. So much droning exposition and inability to act. It was KISS Meets Phantom "here are your lines, read it back one time from a cue card. CUT, PRINT!" level of awfulness. And if you havent seen KMP - go watch it. It's more awfully enjoyable than this adventure turd.

Basic storyline is they're searching for something that completes a puzzle so they essentially steal wardrobe, entire scenes, backdrops, and settings from Indiana Jones and The Mummy movies and then layer bad dialogue and fence-post quality acting on top.

I saw it somewhere listed as "second screen entertainment" which means the kind of thing you turn on while you're looking at your phone and working on your computer - and forget that it's on. It's not even good enough for that.

Krasinski is better than this. He just never found any footing as this character and flubbed it so badly he probably needs to distance himself from it.  It needed more of a Chris Pratt or a Chris Pine... one of the Chrisses. Even Chris Farley. But it got Goldenface.

Could have been a moderately entertaining movie but awful casting and half-hearted direction ruined it.