Movie Review Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) 

Directed by Ang Lee

Written by Jean-Christophe Castelli

Starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, Chris Tucker

Release Date November 11th, 2016 

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk stars Joe Alwyn as Billy Lynn, an Army Specialist who earned instant fame when his attempt to save a wounded soldier was captured on camera and went viral. Soon after Billy is back in Texas and he and his fellow soldiers on tour like rock stars complete with a Hummer limousine ride to their next gig, appearing at halftime of a Football game alongside Destiny’s Child (the film is set in 2003, before Beyonce left her friends behind).

The surreal nature of this rock star treatment is not lost on the men of Bravo Company. It is both intoxicating and repellent. They are joined by an agent, Chris Tucker, constantly on his phone attempting to sell the rights to their story and get the soldiers well compensated. Yet, they are also weary of the agent and the fame that threatens to rob them of the reality of what they experienced in war and all that they lost.

Surreal is a term that best fits Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Director Ang Lee shot the film at the highest film rate ever used for a mainstream feature film. That said, most of the country will see the movie in standard definition that unquestionably robs the film of the effect Lee is searching for. Lee wants moviegoers to feel how awkward and strange this experience is for the soldiers of Bravo Company by tearing down the cinematic walls to make us feel like we are in these awkward spaces with the soldiers.

You might think, as I first thought, that the high frame rate was intended to make the war scenes more spectacular and realistic but that isn’t the case. The high frame rate actually is combined with the awkward and downright off-putting way that actors address each other by staring directly at the camera to strip away the artifice of film and further put us into the mindset of Billy as he is having these bizarre experiences, going from hand to hand combat in which he killed a man at close quarters to standing behind Beyonce on national television and on to having strangers tell him how his story can be bought and sold.

Forcing us to see Billy so clearly and look directly into the eyes of the people talking to him, as ungodly awkward as that is from the perspective of how movies are traditionally made, unmistakably alters the way in which we experience Billy himself and how we identify with him. From that perspective the casting of newcomer Joe Alwyn also plays a unique role. Alwyn is a blank slate for us to project our own Billy Lynn onto.

Alwyn’s co-stars underline that odd perspective. Steve Martin, Vin Diesel, Kristen Stewart and Chris Tucker are actors that we in the audience already have opinions of and expectations for. We see these performers in specific ways and having them look directly at the camera while they address Billy furthers the surreal nature of the story being told. Yes, it takes us out of the scene but the effect is very much the same thing that Billy himself is feeling, a feeling being displaced from reality,  a place where 

Vin Diesel isn’t the muscle-headed action star but your inspiring Sgt. Where Kristen Stewart is your sister and not the equally beloved and reviled star of Y/A Vampire blockbusters. And finally, it’s a strange place where Chris Tucker and Steve Martin aren’t trying to make you laugh but instead using their oily charm to try and make a movie of you.

I could be over thinking the room on this movie but my genuine belief is that the very things I found incredibly awkward and off-putting were actually the things intended to be awkward and off-putting because they were awkward and off-putting as much to Billy as to us. Yes, in real life, people are supposed to look you in the eye when they speak to you and you to them but not at the movies. When actors look directly at the camera in a movie it is usually intended as a gag. Here, it’s intended to break us away from our passive observance of what is happening on screen, to what is happening to Billy. It’s forceful and pushy and showy but I cannot deny the effect it had on me.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is weird and surreal and wildly effective in how it connects us to the weird and surreal adventure that the main character is on. Billy Lynn is trapped on a bizarre rollercoaster of emotions from fear to anguish to unwanted celebrity, displacement from his family and deepened connection to his adopted Army family. It’s a never-ending whirlwind of extreme emotions that Billy is forced by duty and training to endure without comment, without overt displays of emotion. That Ang Lee captures that feeling and brings it to us in such a forceful way makes this movie rather brilliant, in an off-putting and uncomfortable sort of way. 

Movie Review Fast X

Fast X (2023) 

Directed by Louis Letterier 

Written by Dan Mazeau, Justin Lin 

Starring Vin Diesel, Jason Mamoa, Tyrese, Charlize Theron, Paget Brewster, John Cena, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Jason Statham, Helen Mirren

Release Date May 19th, 2023 

Published May 19th, 2023 

What is there to say about Fast X? If you aren't fully onboard with the utter nonsense that is the Fast and Furious franchise at this point, why are you bothering? I happen to be fully on board for this nonsense. I fell in love with the silly, testosterone fueled nonsense in 2001 and have remained in love with this nonsense as it morphed from being about street racers pulling small scale criminal heists -they literally stole DVD players and VCRs out of semis in the original- to today when everyone is basically an immortal superhero. 

You have to accept a lot of B.S when you accept the Fast franchise. Take, for instance, where we begin in Fast X. Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) begin the film back in L.A, back in what may be their old neighborhood. These are people who still live with a deep, paranoid fear that people are trying to kill them and they are living exactly where anyone trying to find them will find them, very easily, with little to no effort. 

The movie openly admits this as the plot kicks off with the person who has hunted them for the past two films, Cypher (Charlize Theron), finds their house and knocks on the door. Cypher is battered and bruised. She's bleeding from some sort of wound to her abdomen. She tells Dom and Letty that she sought them out because the person who did this is even more evil than herself. He's so evil that she wants to join their side to fight him. 

That man is Dante Reyes (Jason Mamoa) whose father, Herman Reyes (Joachim De Almeida) was killed during Fast crew's heist of a vault full of cash in Rio De Janeiro, as seen in flashback here and in full in Fast Five. Dante doesn't want to kill Dom, he wants to make him suffer. That means targeting Dom's family and trying to kill anyone who has ever help the Toretto family. Why he doesn't just roll into the L.A suburbs and do his business, I have no idea. 

Instead, Dante, being all kinds of extra, decides to blow up the Vatican and frame Dom's crew for the crime. It's as brazen and silly as that sounds. A portion of Vatican City is destroyed but exposition newscaster, one of the unsung heroes of this franchise, tells us that no one was killed. A giant bomb took out a portion of a massive tourist destination and no one was killed. Everyone in the Fast universe is a superhero. I don't know if this 'no one was killed' nonsense extends to the cops chasing Dom and his crew through the streets of Rome but if they didn't die, there is no death in this universe. 

This sequence is utterly bonkers and I loved it. I did. I loved it. It's total, non-stop, nonsense but it's so much fun. The bomb is a giant ball that rolls out of the back of a semi-truck and will not stop rolling as if Rome were nothing but a tilted table. At one point, the bomb rolls over a gas pump and the pumps explode. Dom uses his car to shield people on the street from the explosion. The bomb continues to roll but is now on fire as Dom chases it in his super-car. It's gloriously stupid and I love it. 

If Fast X lacks, it's due to director Louis Letterier who leans too far into the dour, sourpuss, self-seriousness of Dominic Toretto. Where Justin Lin and F. Gary Gray got how silly this series is and embraced the giddy stupidity, Letterier takes things in the direction that Diesel wants to go, treating the nonsense seriously and threatening to upend the strength of this franchise, how it is embraces its own nuttiness and leans into the criticism of it being the loudest, brainless franchise in Hollywood. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 

Directed by James Gunn 

Written by James Gunn

Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, Will Poulter, Vin Diesel, Chukwudi Iwuji 

Release Date May 5th, 2023 

Published May 3rd, 2023 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 arrives at a strange time for a Marvel movie. The Marvel film universe appears, in many ways, to be in decline in relevance and popularity. The biggest stars such as Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Evans, have left the MCU and the fan base is growing impatient with how the latest phase of this universe is unfolding. Add to that, Guardians writer-director James Gunn who has already abandoned Marvel to take over the leadership of the D.C Film Universe even as his final MCU movie is only now arriving in theaters. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 is feeling like a bit of an afterthought. Intended as a coda to James Gunn's little corner of the Marvel Universe, the film has the feel of an afterthought as well. The villain pales in comparison to Kurt Russell's towering Ego in Volume 2, the lack of the Peter Quill-Gamora dynamic feels like a pivot that no one in the Guardians universe wanted to make but were forced into, and what has replaced that dynamic here feels quite slapped together and unwelcome. 

The story of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 picks up on an outpost called Knowhere. The Guardians and their allies are regrouping for their next gig, saving the universe when someone brings the fight to them. Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), glimpsed in a post-credits sequence in Volume 2, comes to Knowhere with the intent of kidnapping Rocket (Bradley Cooper). He's here on the orders of the Grand High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), the man who created Rocket many years earlier. 

The Guardians turn back Warlock but not before he nearly kills Rocket. The rest of the plot will center on the gang having to enact a heist to steal the plans they need to save Rocket's life. This will involve a reunion with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), now a member of The Ravagers, who has no memory of her other life as a member of the Guardians. She's a completely different person than the Gamora the Guardians knew and she angrily asserts just how much she doesn't know the family she'd had in another life. She's willing to help out of sympathy for her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), but she'd rather killer Peter than listen to any of his memory of who she might have been before. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Babylon A.D

Babylon A.D (2008) 

Directed by Matthieu Kassovitz 

Written by Mathieu Kassovitz, Eric Bresnard 

Starring Vin Diesel, Melanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh

Release Date August 29th, 2008 

Published August 28th, 2008

Babylon A.D comes off far worse than it really is. That is likely because director Matthieu Kassovitz has trashed the movie in the media leaving the perception of one exceptionally bad movie. Babylon A.D is not a good movie, but with some terrific direction in the first two acts and a perfectly cast Vin Diesel, the film is not nearly as bad as it should be. In fact, if not for a third act that flies completely off the rails we could be talking about one terrific sci fi action epic.

In Babylon A.D Vin Diesel is cast as a mercenary known as Turog. Forced to live in the wilds of Russia because the American government considers him a terrorist, Turog longs to find a way home to New York. The opportunity to go home arises when a wealthy terrorist offers Turog $500,000 dollars and a way to get into the country undetected if Turog will take a package to New York City.

The package happens to be a 19 year old girl named Aurora (Melanie Thierry) whose strange abilities, including psychic visions, lead Turog to wonder if he has been set up. Aurora is accompanied by Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), her protector and surrogate mother, having raised her on a convent in a Russian hillside. Is Aurora a real psychic or is she exhibiting the characteristics of a girl gone mad from disease, a carrier of a virus meant to be spread in the United States should Turog succeed in getting her there? 

That last question is inferred by me and only vaguely addressed by director Matthieu Kassovitz. It's possible that a fuller explanation of the threat posed to or by Aurora was left on the cutting room floor. According to the director, the studio, Fox, took him out of the editing of the film and cut deeply to get Babylon A.D an PG-13 rating and a more box office friendly runtime of just over 90 minutes.

Watching the film seems to back up Kassovitz's claims. The final third of Babylon A.D is so thoroughly botched and so deeply cut that little of what is shown makes a lick of sense. As the movie attempts to untangle a thicket of a plot involving Aurora's parents and a new major religion on the rise, we are rushed to a forced, nonsensical conclusion that takes an hours worth of good work and reduces it to a whimpering, simpering, confounding end.

Babylon A.D is two thirds of a compelling, action packed, sci fi thrill ride and one third incomprehensible mess. It is clear that director Matthieu Kassovitz has a vision for this story, a grand idea to tie it all together but it never really arrives. What is left is some top notch action and effects scenes and a plot that spins out of comprehension in the last half hour before ending with a complete thud.

Vin Diesel is perfectly cast in Babylon A.D as a mercenary of the future. With that growling voice and impressive physicality, Diesel is exactly the man you want protecting you on a journey through the wastelands of outer Russia and the mean streets of New York City. If you buy the dangerous future world that Matthieu Kassovitz creates for Babylon A.D you will have no trouble accepting Diesel as that world's possible savior.

Babylon A.D had a chance to be something better than it is. It could have been more than a mere action shoot'em up with a future setting. There was, at some point, a real idea behind it. That idea was snuffed by the marketing concerns of a meddling studio, and what is left is a mess of incomprehensible plot tangles and an ending more unsatisfying than we've seen in a while. It's strange to have liked a movie as much as I liked Babylon A.D and not recommend it. But, with the final third of the film a complete disaster there is simply no way for me to justify recommending Babylon A.D.

Movie Review The Chronicles of Riddick

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) 

Directed by David Twohey

Written by David Twohey

Starring Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Dame Judi Dench, Keith David, Thandie Newton, Colm Feore 

Release Date June 11th, 2004 

Published June 16th, 2004 

2000's Pitch Black was a surprise hit thanks to the combination of hardcore sci-fi fans and a low budget. The biggest thing to come from Pitch Black was not its grosses but it's star, the bald-headed muscleman Vin Diesel. Four years later, up the budget and the star power and the sequel The Chronicles Of Riddick has the look and feel of a blockbuster. In other words, the antithesis of it's origins. More proof that a bigger budget doesn't make a better movie.

Vin Diesel returns as the anti-hero Riddick. With his glowing eyes and muscled physique, Riddick is supposedly the most dangerous man in the universe. Since escaping from the last uninhabitable planet, Riddick has been leaping from one planet to the next, narrowly avoiding the Mercs, a group whose gig is like bounty hunters but with a different title.

A group of bounty hunters, err Mercs, led by Toombs (Nick Chinlund) have been hard on Riddick's trail for a while but with little success. After finally getting their hands on him, Riddick finds a way to escape and take over their ship. Crash landing on another planet, Riddick comes face to face with a rare man from his past who doesn't want to kill or capture him, Imam (Keith David). He’s a man whom Riddick saved four years ago, one of three holdovers from Pitch Black.

As luck would have it, Riddick has crashed right in the middle of an invasion by a “convert or die” warlord clan called Necromongers, led by a man called Lord Marshall (Colm Feore). Imam asks Riddick if he will help fight the Necromongers, who kill anyone who refuse to join them. Riddick isn't interested in fighting for a cause other than himself. It's only when the Necromongers threaten him that he fights back.

Honestly, most of the plot is rather lost on me. Somehow, Riddick is the only man who can fight the Necromongers, something about his nearly destroyed race called the Furions. Anyway before Riddick can get down to pounding Necromongers he is recaptured by the Mercs and taken to yet another ridiculously, uninhabitable planet. It's a prison camp where he finds Kyra, or Jack or both. She was Jack in Pitch Black but played by a younger actress, now she's Kyra and played by Alexa Davalos. (See the original to make more sense of that)

Where to begin with this film’s problems? How about Dame Judi Dench who while radiant and always credible as an actress, can't make the film’s idiotic, nonsensical dialogue sound plausible. Poor Thandie Newton has an even harder time with her sub-Lady Macbeth role as Lady Vaako, the wife of the Necromongers’ second in command Lord Vaako played far more credibly by Karl Urban.

Worst of all though is Colm Feore who is so badly miscast. Colm Feore is a believable actor playing a conniving lawyer or maybe an Enron executive but as a bad guy tough enough to beat up Vin Diesel, I wasn't buying it. If this guy could take Riddick then why are we watching this movie? Give me an actor of some bulk or at least a Rutger Hauer type who could bellow Riddick to death. That I could believe.

Look, Riddick is entirely, stupidly contrived sci-fi, low on the sci, high on the fi. This is a big dumb loud action movie that claims the title sci-fi only for its space setting. Regardless of that, the big dumb loud action is well staged, well shot and a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Vin Diesel does what Vin Diesel does, kicks ass with an occasional bit of dark humor. The fight scenes are badass and the effects are pretty good, especially the burning hot sun on the prison planet that melts people, very cool gory effect.

Did I like Chronicles Of Riddick? Kind of. Take it for what is and don't expect much else and you can be viscerally entertained. I prefer my sci-fi with a little more intellect but occasionally a big dumb loud action adventure, if it's technically proficient, can work on me. Some of Chronicles of Riddick work. What doesn't, really doesn't.

Movie Review Knockaround Guys

Knockaround Guys (2002) 

Directed by Brian Koppelman

Written by David Levien 

Starring Barry Pepper, Dennis Hopper, Vin Diesel, John Malkovich, Seth Green

Release Date October 11th, 2002 

Published October 10th, 2002 

Knockaround Guys has a unique history. The film began as a chance to capitalize on some of Hollywood’s hot young talent with a post Soprano’s/Goodfella’s Gangster movie. However after being delayed for over a year and a half and the momentum of the Soprano’s fueled gangster chick having dissipated, Knockaround Guys is now the bastard movie of a studio looking to clear its shelves and cut its losses. It’s a shame because it’s not that bad a film, not bad enough to deserve the hand it’s been dealt.

Barry Pepper stars as Matty Demaret, son of a gangster named Benny Chains (Dennis Hopper). Matty’s last name is very well known making it difficult for him to find legitimate work. Matty lost his chance to join the family business when he was 12 years old and he couldn’t finish a hit on a stool pigeon that his Uncle Teddy (John Malkovich) wants him to kill to prove he is ready. After his most recent failure at getting a real job, Matty decides to enter the family business. With the help of his crew he calls the Knockaround Guys, Taylor (Vin Diesel), Marbles (Seth Green) and Scarpa (Andrew Davoli).

Matty takes a job retrieving a bag of cash from friends in Washington state. Not wanting his name to cause problems, Matty sends Marbles, who flies his own plane, to get the bag. Of course there are complications, Marbles stops to refuel in a small Montana town and loses the bag of cash. With his and his fathers lives on the line, Matty gathers his crew and goes to Montana to get the money. In Montana, a corrupt local sheriff has the money and is intent on keeping it.

What I liked about Knockaround Guys is that it’s not what you're expecting. You go in expecting big action and fight scenes and what you get are well fleshed out characters and performances.

Quote me on this, Barry Pepper will someday win an Oscar, not for this film but somewhere down the road. Pepper has a fantastic presence that commands attention, strong eyes and a confident delivery even when forced into goomba dialogue that doesn’t ring true. Vin Diesel shows once again that he is a star. In this film Diesel does the acting that he left out of XXX and shows that, if allowed to act rather than react, he can pull it off. Seth Green however is woefully miscast. His light comedic instincts disrupt a story that would like to be taken seriously.

Green’s performance is a microcosm of what is wrong with Knockaround Guys. The film is unable to balance the at-times broad comedy with its more serious gangster story. The humor should come from the character's personalities but instead it comes from the script and comes off as unnatural.

Director’s Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who also penned the script, have the opportunity to make a new generation gangster movie. Unfortunately, they blow it with unnecessary comedy that blows the tone of the film and renders the film’s more serious moments difficult to take seriously. Still, the performances of Pepper and Diesel are strong enough for me to partially recommend Knockaround Guys.

Movie Review: XXX

XXX (2002) 

Directed by Rob Cohen

Written by Rich Wilkes 

Starring Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Martin Csokas, Samuel L. Jackson, 

Release Date August 9th, 2002 

Published August 8th, 2002

The team that brought us the Fast & the Furious is back with yet another big dumb action flick called XXX. Unfortunately, where Furious reveled in it's ridiculousness, XXX would like to be taken as seriously as possible as an action movie and a potential franchise. But after seeing XXX, I would rather see Fast & the Furious 2.

XXX is the nickname of Xander Cage (Diesel), an internet entrepreneur whose underground video's of himself performing amazingly dumb and illegal stunts sell well enough to support XXX's lifestyle of gorgeous bimbo's and extreme sports. Unfortunately for Xander his most recent stunt attracted the attention of the National Security Agency. Samuel L Jackson is agent Gibbons who sees XXX as expendable talent and enlists XXX to go to Prague and infiltrate a group of terrorists who call themselves Anarchy 99.

The terrorist leader is Yorgi (Martin Csokas). Yorgi, in typical terrorist fashion, is bluffed by XXX and and takes him into his evil lair. It's not long however before XXX's cover is blown and now he must rely on a Russian agent already in Yorgi's inner circle, a beautiful woman named Yolena (Asia Argento).  The surprising thing about XXX is that it wasn't made by MTV films. With it's glossy market tested style and soundtrack that is far more prominent than the film's dialogue, it would fit in perfectly in the MTV canon.

Indeed XXX is the kind of film that was pitched to the studio marketing department before being pitched to producers and directors. It plays like a two hour version of those late 90's Mountain Dew commercials.

The whole film is cornball and cliched, with flat uncomfortable dialogue that tries desperately to sound young and hip. Coming from a cast of 30-somethings it sounds lame and uncomfortable. A scene early on at a party at XXX's pad we hear dialogue from actors who are clearly not comfortable with the modern slang and come off like that high school teacher who desperately tries to sound hip, but comes off as simply embarrassing.

You can see the corners that were cut in order to secure the more audience friendly PG 13 rating. There is no nudity but the lack of totally naked flesh is made up for in two hours worth misogyny and objectification. As for Vin Diesel, he is a credible action star, although he needs to work on his one liners if he ever wants to replace Arnie and Sly.

The poser dialogue and cheesy effects especially the snowboarding scenes, all serve to create a slick soulless version of the Bond series. The Bond series however earned the right to be cliched and sexist by being successful more than once. XXX has been annointed the next great franchise even before the original script was finished. 

Typical modern Hollywood.