As you can see in the trailer above, we see Venom’s symbiote in a glass jar at one point, but we never see it on Tom Hardy, so the first Venom trailer is Venom free. Tom is also doing some strange take on an American accent. I don’t know if he is trying to be more New York or something, but it is not working. I hope he gets a mask to mumble in to quick to straighten that out. Anyway, it is not a great first impression, but they have until October to win me over.
Shmee Observes The Cloverfield Paradox
Netflix pulled off quite the trick when it announced and launched The Cloverfield Paradox during the Super Bowl. Which is now the third entry in the Cloverfield franchise. Much like 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Cloverfield Paradox started life as a stand alone movie and then was edited to be part of the Cloverfield universe. Sadly, it was not as successful as 10 Cloverfield Lane, but it does add some interesting things to the universe.
In the near future the human race is almost without power, so a team of scientists have headed to space to try and find a way to generate limitless power with a particle accelerator aboard the Cloverfield space station. Since this is a Cloverfield movie, you can guess things go poorly.
Even though the trailers give away some of what happens, I will do my best not to spoil anything because this movie is at its best when it surprises you. Which unfortunately is not that often. It is the standard haunted house in space setup with some Cloverfield stuff edited in, and the Cloverfield stuff hurts the pacing of an already iffy movie, but it did add some curious pieces to the Cloverfield puzzle. Even if those pieces don’t entirely fit, but the premis for the movie almost means that they don’t have to, which I enjoy thinking about.
While the cast is fine (it has Chris O’Dowd from The IT Crowd!), there is no John Goodman here to carry the weaker parts of this film, so whenever the action stops the entire movie almost grinds to a halt. No one is elevating the material, and it could have used a little elevation.
While I have been pretty hard on The Cloverfield Paradox, I will say I find the implications this movie has on the rest of the Cloverfield franchise intriguing, and I have been thinking about where they go from here, so I don’t regret the hour and fortyish minutes I spent with it. It didn’t squash my excitement for the franchise, which I guess they just bought and are re-editing another one now, so for Sci-Fi fans it is probably worth watching just to be up to speed for the next one.
Shmee Enters A Den Of Thieves!
Den of Thieves is the type of movie I expect to see dumped in January (I know it is February now, but I saw it in January!). It stars a lot of recognizable people doing pretty good work in a forgettable effort. That is not to say Den of Thieves is bad, as a matter of fact the couple of gun fights in the movie are pretty good, but it is a shame they didn’t get a script doctor to look this one over before it went in to production. Because the more you think about what happens in the Den of Thieves, the worse it gets.
Den of Thieves follows two groups: Gerard Butler group of ‘gangster’ cops, and 50 Cent’s crew of ‘honorable’ bank thieves. Sort of. Because as terrible as Gerard Butler’s cops act, they are never crooked or on the take. Meanwhile the thieves do some pretty irredeemable things, especially at the end of the movie, that destroys any honor they may have had. Which is a shame because it really muddles this movie’s message.
I am not saying all movies need a strong message, or even a message I agree with for that matter, but when a movie just kind of shrugs at you it makes the whole thing seem pretty pointless. Not to mention the more you think about the job these thieves attempt, the less it makes sense. I am not going to spoil it, but they think the job is far more clever than it is, and there is a reason no one has ever attempted it.
This movie’s saving grace is that when there is action, it is solid. The guys seem to know what they are doing and it is very intense. Unfortunately, the middle act of Den of Thieves is all setup, so it feels very long. It should have been edited down quite a bit or found the budget for another action sequence to cut in to the down time.
Den of Thieves is a movie where actors you know get paid to do capable work on screen. It is not bad, but once you see it, you will not be itching to see it again any time soon. I would hold off on watching it until it is on Amazon or Netflix, or unless you are a MoviePass subscriber like me.
Shmee Rides With 12 Strong!
Post 9-11 Afghanistan war movies generally fall in to two categories, critiques on America’s wars in the Middle East, or super patriotic action flicks. 12 Strong is definitely the latter, but it tells a compelling story about the first boots on the ground after The World Trade Center attacks, and their stunning victory. I am not sure how much of Jerry Bruckheimer’s war tale is true, but it shines a light on some of America’s recent forgotten history.
12 Strong starts on September 11th with Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) settling in to his new home. The towers fall and he is in to his military base getting ready to head out. The job he and his eleven squad-mates are tasked with is aiding the Afghanistan Northern Alliance by calling in air strikes on the Taliban. They are riding horseback against heavy odds in extreme conditions, but they get the job done.
12 Strong never lets you doubt these men are going to succeed, which ruins some of the tension, but it is amazing to catch a glimpse of what they had to go through to destabilize the Taliban so soon after the attacks. It is a shame that so much of what these guys did was classified for so long, but I guess aiding a rebel group against former allies probably needed to be handled with some discretion.
They got a great group of actors for this movie: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, and Michael Peña just to name a few. They were all believable in their roles, even if Hemsworth did seem too pretty to have spent three weeks in the dessert, but this is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, so everyone has to look great all the time.
My biggest critique of 12 Strong is that it is about thirty minutes too long. Some of the movie felt a little redundant, so they could have done some editing to make this a much tighter and better movie. Still, as it is, it is pretty enjoyable.
For a movie that was dumped in to the January wasteland of feature films. 12 Strong is a decent war movie. It is not overly stirring, and it will not make you think about the complex politics about what is going on while these guys are riding their horses against overwhelming odds, but not all films need to. Some movies, 12 Strong included, just need to show our military out there doing their job, or at least a Jerry Bruckheimer-ed super-explode-y approximation of it.
Poor Justice League Returns Are Not Slowing Down The DCEU!
After yet another critical failure with the Justice League, the heads of the DCEU rolled once again, and now Walter Hamada is in charge with apparent complete control, but that doesn’t seem to be slowing down the DCEU. Casting is almost complete (it may be now) for the new Shazam film, and it is coming out April 19th 2019, but the biggest news is that The Flash movie now has its third and forth directors.
The guys that wrote the very funny Spider-Man: Homecoming, John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, are now writing and directing Flashpoint. It is interesting that they will be adding so much comedic talent to a movie that will have no-doubt far reaching implications for the DECU, but it is still the best sign that even though Warner Brothers is not slowing down their superhero output, that they are indeed changing the tone of their films.
I love the cast of the DCEU movies, they just need to start making GOOD movies with them. Hopefully they get things turned around with Aquaman, Wonder Woman 2, Shazam! and Flashpoint because I need to have a good Justice League movie. I NEED IT!!!!! … Anyway, we will see if these movies are what the doctor ordered, or if that is the end of the DCEU as we know it.