Coyote...

 

Coyote...

"Uprising" is Greengrass at his most creative laziness

 

The exciting, innovative director, Paul Greengrass, returns in the historical rebellion drama, The Uprising. Whereas he's done wonders with historical fiction (United 93) and espionage thrillers (The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum), he's a bit out of his element here. The Uprising isn't so much a historical drama, as it is a slogfest - one that moves way too fast, for its own good.

After the young King Richard II increases taxes on his British populace, some of the British don't much care for it. The young ploughman (Andrew Garfield), a bitter man who's lost his family to the black plague, rebels. His defiance leads to further revolts across the land, and soon the commoners are meeting with the king, attempting to petition him.

The movie delivers the rebellion way too early in the going, without developing the main players as people who are complex and human. It's as if Greengrass had three hours of usable footage, and had to sacrifice a good deal of it when the studio heads told him to trim the movie to two hours. It also features plenty of shots of gray skies, desolate landscapes, and overall bleakness abundant in mud and dirt. Nevertheless, the movie fails to work as a drama, as an action movie, as much of anything worth remembering. Unfortunately.

☆☆

The tonally uneven "Idiots" is all over the comedic/dramatic/absurdist spectrum

 

Tonally uneven movies can be fun, when done right (Parasite, From Dusk 'Till Dawn). When done wrong, we get Idiots, Macon Blair's latest action/comedy/dark caper flick. Recently unemployed Mark and Davis (Dave Franco and O'Shea Jackson Jr) get a paid gig with a rehab transport service. They're assigned to drive a rich, conniving snob, Sheridan (Mason Thames) to a clinic. Problem is, Sheridan is twisted and deviously dangerous, pulling them into one shenanigan after another, each more dangerous than the last.

Idiots has a decent idea (on the surface) - and a terrific poster - but the screenplay is ultimately not rich, nor clever enough, to reward the characters with more memorable arcs and compelling situations. By the end, the shifting mood and amped up violence (and especially a scene involving a punk criminal who believes that he's a werewolf) feel awkward, rather than thrilling.  Although I did laugh a few times, such gags were few and too far between. 

☆☆

"Super Troopers 3" isn't great - but manages several laughs, nonetheless

 

In the latest chapter of Broken Lizard's (somewhat) famous troupe, Jay Chandrasekhar and Co. return in a second sequel to their 2002 hit, Super Troopers. The result? Exhausting at times, funny at others, amounting to a mediocre good time - but only for the franchise aficionados. It would be a stretch to say that everyone will enjoy this equally. Just a bit.

After Farva (Kevin Heffernan) becomes engaged to Sarita (Hannah Simone), who is Thorny's (Chandrasekhar) sister, the wedding is planned, and jokes and pranks are galore. Also, add to the mix a new drug, called Canadian Crystal. Vermont's finest troopers are soon on the case, battling dealers and smugglers, while also juggling Thorny and Sarita's parents, both of whom have questionable morals themselves.

Super Troopers 3 is only for the die hard fans. Since I've got a soft spot for the original, I laughed just enough where I thought it to be a worthy 100 plus minutes. It's unlikely something I'll ever watch again, but one can honestly say that about 99% of the movies nowadays.

☆☆

A poor man's Bridesmaids, "Spa" struggles with a flat, uninspired screenplay

 

In Spa Weekend, four women get to enjoy a long getaway weekend at a - you guessed it - a fancy spa. Each is burdened with her own problems. Jane (Leslie Mann) is a single mother lawyer who doesn't even have time to date; Coco (Michelle Buteau) is divorced, and has anger issues; Sophie (Anna Faris) is a slave for her overbearing boss, who can't do anything without her; and finally, Mel (Isla Fisher) is an obnoxious, rude, vulgar and a straight up psychopath. Add to the mix a bland script, empty of inspiration and originality, and you've got a movie that, even at 90 plus minutes, feels way too long.

Spa Weekend wants to be the new Bridesmaids, but by failing to give its characters a meaningful, original arc, it only stagnates and regurgitates old plotlines, exploited by other, better films. Fisher's character is so over-the-top that a scene in which she steals a golf cart and, ultimately, crashes it, is deeply disturbing, because the movie swats it away as quite inconsequential. If only someone involved in this production had believed the same about this movie, we all would've been spared this unfunny embarrassment.

☆

Roth continues downward spiral with inept "Ice Cream Man"

 

It's such a shame that Eli Roth's career peaked with 2003's Cabin Fever and literally never got back on track. His output - of late - has been trash more often than not, unfortunately. With his latest, Ice Cream Man, Roth stoops to such low levels of gore that it's hard to imagine he still has a career at all.

After a mysterious ice cream truck delivers treats to the neighborhood children, the sweets seem to turn everyone who's tasted them into demonic psychopaths. Soon the children are murdering their parents, their friends, even their teachers. And not just murdering, but slaughtering. Each torture porn scenario is more disgusting than the last: heads are sawed off, brains scooped out of a split open skull, faces bludgeoned into mincemeat. By the time it becomes apparent that Roth knows nothing about horror and, sadly, too much about gratuitous violence, you will already have wasted thirty minutes of your life.

Movies like Ice Cream Man (like the abhorrent Terrifier franchise) are detrimental to society. They offer nothing good, wise or useful; instead, they take twisted pleasure in presenting the worst of human suffering as entertainment. That is detrimental in and of itself.

ZERO STARS

"Teenage" slasher clashes with Lynchian mindfuckery - to weak effect

 

If you're going into Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma expecting a slasher movie, you're in for a surprise. If you're expecting it to be a movie about people wanting to revamp a fading horror franchise (as the synopsis suggest), you'll be greatly disappointed. In fact, I'm pretty sure at this point that this movie is not at all what you'd - or anyone else - would actually expect. And no, that's not a good thing, in this case. Not by a long shot.

Young filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) meets with an aging actress, Billy (Gillian Anderson), about casting her in her new reboot. They meet at a remote cabin in a snow covered wilderness, and other than the initial few exchanges between them, things get very abstract. Conversations turn into fantasies, dreams morph into a waking reverie where horror either takes place, or appears so. The narrative structure vanishes, giving life to a mindfuck section that can only be described as Lynch having fucked Bergman. Not even Einbinder's exposed breasts could undue the extra dosage of boredom that writer/director Jane Schoenbrun inflicts on us.

TSADACM is another overrated turkey, a movie so shamelessly praised on RT that it made me question if I had really seen the same version, or had I perhaps dreamed the most awful cut of it. Jury's still out.

☆