Movie Review Lego Ninjago

Lego Ninjago (2017) 

Directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan 

Written by Bob Logan, Paul Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern, John Whittington

Starring Dave Franco, Michael Pena, Kumail Nanjiani, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Fred Armisen, Jackie Chan

Release Date September 22nd, 2017

Published September 22nd, 2017

Lego Ninjago has not one single laugh. It has amusing moments but not a single instance of induced laughter. And I am not just speaking for myself here. The audience I watched Lego Ninjago with was really ready to laugh and you could hear some forced attempts at trying to laugh but as the movie went on even those that kept smiling and trying to find what was happening in Lego Ninjago funny weren’t laughing. It was strange; there was no outward disdain for Lego Ninjago but there weren’t any laughs.

Lloyd (Dave Franco) is a teenager who is constantly picked on because his father happens to be an evil ninja who keeps trying to take over his home town of Ninjago. What the people making fun of Lloyd don’t know is that he’s the legendary Green Ninja who, along with his fellow ninjas, have kept Garmadon (Justin Leroux) from actually destroying Ninjago. Naturally, regularly fighting his dad while flying around on a mechanized ninja dragon has led to more than a few daddy issues for Lloyd.

Thankfully, Lloyd has his uncle, Master Wu (Jackie Chan), who has taught him and his friends everything about being Ninjas and making giant mechanized animals that they use to battle Garmadon’s evil Crab army. Well, he has people dressed as crabs and dressed as sharks and dolphins and they make up his evil army; though at one point he does shoot sharks at people from a giant mechanical arm but that part isn’t very clear. I could follow the action well enough but some of the chaos got a little confusing.

All of that description sounds funny, right? Especially when you consider the recent history of the Lego franchise, The Lego Movie and Lego Batman. Those movies were laugh a minute spectacle that created an anticipation for future Lego movies. Like Lego Ninjago, those casts were overflowing with some of the funniest voices on the planet and Ninjago has a fair share of very funny people like Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Kumail Nanjiani, all of whom are remarkably funny.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review Kingsman The Golden Circle

Kingsman The Golden Circle (2017)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn 

Written by Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn 

Starring Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 21st, 2017 

Kingsman: The Secret Service was a not particularly inventive rehash of Mark Millar’s previously adapted work, Kick-Ass. The derivative spy take on the same tropes of the super-hero send-up bored me endlessly with its nihilistic approach to James Bond minus the strange wit of Kick-Ass, which shared not just creator Millar but also director Matthew Vaughn, who couldn’t help but seem to rip off his own work in a lazy rehash.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle, thankfully, is not Kick-Ass 2. That sequel was a massive letdown that quickly destroyed the goodwill carried over from the inventive original film. Here, with The Golden Circle we have the opposite effect. Considering that they had nowhere to go but up following The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle has the wit, charm, and fun that the original was lacking, minus the nihilistic violence that was so out of place in the first film. Don’t get me wrong, there are still gruesome elements but nothing that approaches the overrated church shootout of Kingsman 1.

Eggsy (Taron Edgerton) is still living with the loss of his mentor, Harry (Colin Firth), as we join the story of Kingsman: The Golden Circle. His time to mourn, however, is quickly cut short as the film dives into a spectacular car chase to open The Golden Circle. Though it is showy and rather pointless to the plot, the chase is undeniably spectacular with Edgerton battling it out inside of a cab with a former Kingsman recruit who is now working for the bad guys and is part robot.

The bad guy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle is actually a bad lady played by Julianne Moore. Poppy, Moore’s character, is a drug dealer who hopes to use her illicit products to hold the world hostage. Meanwhile, she’s also found a way to take the Kingsmen out of the game by blowing up all of their headquarters around the globe and killing several of Eggsy’s close friends, while he happens to be out of the country.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy (2024) 

Directed by David Leitch 

Written by Drew Pearce 

Starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Winston Duke, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Hannah Waddingham 

Release Date May 3rd, 2024 

Published May 3rd, 2024 

The Fall Guy is so much fun. Ryan Gosling stars as stunt man Colt Seavers, the double for famed movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnson). Colt has everything going for him, a great job that he loves doing, a great reputation, and he's just fallen in love with a camera operator on the new movie he's working on. Jody (Emily Blunt) and Colt are making plans and fliting and generally getting along smashingly when a stunt goes wrong. Performing a fall from a few stories up, Colt's rigging fails, and he smashes to the ground. 

Having suffered a devastating back injury, costing him his job and reputation as a stunt man, Colt retreats into a self-imposed isolation. This includes leaving Jody behind as he doesn't want her to see him as less than the man he was. 18 months go by, and Colt is just getting by parking cars when he receives an emergency call. Gail (Hannah Waddingham), Tom Ryder's protector and producer needs Colt to fly to Australia immediately to help out on Tom's new movie, Metal Storm. Tom has gone missing, and Gail needs Colt to stand in for him on the movie and also help find the missing star. 

Tom has apparently fallen in with some dangerous types down under and while Colt feels no obligation to help Tom, he decides to help because if he doesn't the movie will fall apart. Why does this matter? Because the director is Jody. It's her first time directing a major motion picture and if Tom disappears, she could get fired and lose everything. Wanting to reconnect with the woman he loves, Colt sets about trying to find Tom while performing his stunts on the movie, all while Jody finds new ways to punish him for ghosting her after his accident. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review Threesome

Threesome (1994) 

Directed by Andrew Fleming 

Written by Andrew Fleming 

Starring Josh Charles, Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin 

Release Date April 8th, 1994 

Published April 30th, 2024 

I'm pretty sure that Threesome is a horror film. I can't prove that definitively, there is nothing that documents that Threesome is a horror film. But! And this is important, it is a movie where Stephen Baldwin is one of three people involved sex act involving two other partner. If that doesn't send a horrified chill down your spine as much as Freddy Krueger's nails on metal does, then you likely don't know who Stephen Baldwin is. Take my word for it, you should shudder at the thought. I am relatively certain that 90s Stephen Baldwin is my sleep paralysis demon. He just sits on my chest and farts and laughs so hard he nearly falls off. 

Threesome stars Josh Charles as Eddy, a closeted and deeply confused young man. While his male friends are pursuing women, Eddy has no interest. Even moving into a dorm with a party animal and sex pest named Stuart (Stephen Baldwin) can't get Eddy interested in pursuing recreational sex. Eddy's development will be rushed along when Eddy and Stuart pick up a third roommate for the private ensuite in their dorm room. Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a crazed narcissist who was accidentally assigned to a male dorm room because everyone assumed the name Alex indicates dude. 

Alex is standoffish at first but eventually begins throwing herself at Eddy who maintains confusion regarding Alex's motives well past what is believable. No joke, she's moments away from fully putting her hand on his penis and instead of saying he's not into her, he forces her to let him leave and then wonders to Stuart if Alex wants to be with him. Yeah, that's back to back scenes in this idiot sandwich of a movie. Meanwhile, Stuart desperately wants to bang Alex and she shows no interest in him. Eventually, it will come out that Eddy prefers men but that doesn't stop Alex who vows to change his mind by any sexual means necessary. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review Turtles All the Way Down

Turtles All the Way Down (2024) 

Directed by Hannah Marks 

Written by Elizabeth Berger, Isaac Aptaker 

Starring Isabela Merced, Cree Cicchino, Felix Mallard, Judy Reyes 

Release Date May 2nd, 2024

Published 

Turtles All the Way Down is a film adaptation of Hank Green novel. The film stars Isabela Merced as a teenager struggling with OCD and other related mental issues, some of which are related to the death of her father. Merced's Aza gets roped into a true crime story by her best friend, Daisy (Cree Cicchino from Nickelodeon's Game Shakers), after a friend's father goes missing. The friend is a smoking hottie named Davis Pickett (Felix Mallard). Davis and Aza met at a camp for kids who have lost parents. Now, Davis has seemingly lost another parent under very suspicious circumstances and Daisy thinks they can find him and collect a reward. 

It's a more than a little convoluted but, I must say, I completely adore Cree Cicchino as Daisy. She feels exactly like the kind of friend who enjoy getting into trouble with. Granted, trying to solve a missing person case is not your average kind of trouble to find, but nevertheless that's the plot and damned if Cicchino's infectious excitement doesn't make you want to follow her down this rabbit hole. Naturally, this is a Hank Green adaptation so it will be a journey of self-exploration, there is grief, mental illness and teen romance. Aza and Davis are on a collision course and how he takes to finding out that she's trying to get a reward for finding her dad is the pivot point for what drama there is in Turtles All the Way Down. 

At least, that's what you might think. Director Hannah Marks and co-screenwriters Elzabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker upend expectations in a very unpredictable way. I won't spoil it, but how you take to this unusual way of shifting expectations is a strong indicator of whether you enjoy Turtles All the Way Down. How did I feel about it? I didn't mind seeing what I expected completely subverted. That said, it's quite the ask for audiences to believe something like this is possible. It's an outlandish reach for the movie to pull this off and I can't say I am certain it works. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review Happy Hunting

Happy Hunting (2017) 

Directed by Joe Dietsch, Louie Gibson

Written by Joe Dietsch, Louie Gibson 

Starring Martin Dingle-Wall, Ken Lally, Kenny Wormald 

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 20, 2017 

Happy Hunting is one of the better horror movies of 2017. This Most Dangerous Game knock off takes the premise of hunting humans and puts a redneck, Mexican border setting to it and lets loose with a serious amount of blood and guts. The film reminded me a little of 2016’s brilliant horror-thriller Green Room which used a backwoods milieu to similar effect. That film is far better than Happy Hunting but that this film brings that one to mind says something about how good Happy Hunting really is.

Happy Hunting stars Martin Dingle Wall as Warren, a drunk drifter who gets invited to Mexico to pick up what may or may not be his child. The mother of the child has died and claims the child belongs to Warren but the only way for him to know for sure is to drive to Mexico. Broke and drunk, Warren needs cash so he concocts the worst batch of meth he could cook and tries to sell it to some meth-heads nearby. Needless to say, this doesn’t go well.

After narrowly escaping the meth-heads, leaving bodies in his wake, Warren finds himself in a small Texas border town that looks on the brink of death. Holing up in a motel with the meth-heads money, Warren, naturally stays drunk while he waits to be told where in Mexico he needs to go. Unfortunately, the town hunt is just getting underway and the hunters do not take kindly to visitors. While Warren briefly seeks solace at an AA meeting he meets Steve (Ken Lally) who wants to be his sponsor.

Steve, like everyone else in town, has a secret, he’s a hunter and seeing Warren new in town, he’s chosen him as the prize for he and his wife Cheryl (Sherry Leigh) to hunt down. After drugging Warren they drag him to the town square where he and four other men are set to go running off into the desert to run for their lives from an assortment of small town badasses who’ve become quite proficient at hunting human beings over the years.

Read my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Shot

Shot (2017) 

Directed by Jeremy Kagan 

Written by Anneke Campbell, William Lamborn 

Starring Noah Wyle, Sharon Leal, Jorge Lendeborg Jr. 

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 15th, 2017 

The new-in-theaters drama Shot starring Noah Wyle and Sharon Leal may look like a very special episode of a TV drama but it’s a very effective very special episode of a TV drama. This anti-gun message movie, which does also play like an 87-minute public service announcement at times, nevertheless does have a valuable message. The shooting style may not blow you away but the performances are solid and the message is potent.

Things are not going great for Mark Newman (Wyle) on this Friday afternoon. He’s just been told that he has 36 hours to finish five days’ worth of work he’s doing as a sound editor on a movie followed by a lunch date with his soon to be ex-wife Phoebe (Sharon Leal). This portion of his rotten day, however, is about to get worse as not far from where he and Phoebe are finishing another argument a teenager named Miguel (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) has just been handed a gun which he immediately fumbles and fires, sending a bullet into Mark’s chest.

Here’s when the film supposedly gets clever as it turns into a real-time drama from the moment Mark is shot, about 7 minutes into the movie, and the next hour or so as Mark lies on the sidewalk, is rushed to the hospital and undergoes an examination by an E.R. doctor played by the wonderful character actor Xander Berkley. These scenes have an exceptional authenticity to them, especially if you’ve ever been in an emergency medical situation.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.