ULTRAMAN: RISING (2024) ****

Ken Sato is a beloved baseball player gearing up for opening day with a new team.  Little does anyone know his alter ego Ultraman protects the city from giant monsters.  Ken finds a monster egg that hatches and the cute baby monster imprints on him.  Ken soon finds it difficult to play baseball, fight monsters, and raise an infant lizard creature.  Trouble brews when the KDF, the agency created to destroy monsters, comes looking for the baby.  It’s then up to Ken to protect his new family unit. 

I didn’t care for any of the Godzilla animated movies from Netflix, so I was wary about this newfangled CGI cartoon reboot of the iconic Ultraman TV show.  It took about a minute for the chip to fall off my shoulder as it immediately endears itself to the audience with tons of humor and unexpected heart.  The big reason is that the monster baby is just damned adorable that only the hardest of hearts could deny it. 

Besides, how many movies do you know of contain a montage of its hero going back and forth from playing baseball to battling as a superhero to parenting a monster baby while The Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant” plays on the soundtrack?  I mean we have baseball, kaiju, and punk rock all together in one place.  How can you not love it?

Another factor that makes the film much more than a kids cartoon is that the villain is multifaceted and three-dimensional.  He has his own reasons for wanting to wipe monsters off the face of the Earth.  Because of that, you can totally empathize with him, even if you don’t agree with his methods. 

Okay, I know I’ve used words like “unexpected heart” and “multifaceted and three-dimensional” to describe this so far.  I know what you’re thinking.  How are the monster battles?  While I do miss the rubber suit monster mashing of the show, the CGI monster fights still kick a lot of ass.  The finale where the Ultramen and monsters team up to battle a giant lightsaber wielding Transformer is a real winner. 

All in all, Ultraman:  Rising is one of the best animated films I’ve seen in a long time.  Not only that, but it’s also one of the best incarnations of the character.  It also happens to be one of the best movies of the year. 

WRONG TURN (2021) * ½

A group of hipster hikers get lost in the wilds of Appalachia.  They run afoul of some hunters in the woods wearing animal pelts and skull masks who trap them and take them back to their secret community where they’ve been hiding out for hundreds of years.  Matthew Modine is the concerned father of one of the hikers who goes looking for them. 

Okay, I know what you’re thinking after you just read that:  What the fuck does this have to do with Wrong Turn?  Who the fuck are these culturally appropriating bozos in animal skins?  Where are all the inbred redneck cannibals?  I mean, this was even written by Alan B. McElroy, the same screenwriter who wrote the original Wrong Turn.  Did he forget what movie he was remaking? 

I guess the filmmakers were more concerned with “unmaking” Wrong Turn instead of remaking it.  However, if you take everything (aside from the wilderness setting) that made Wrong Turn Wrong Turn, you aren’t left with a whole lot.  In fact, the hikers don’t even make a wrong turn!  They just veer off the designated path (of course, everyone in town told them not to) thinking their shit don’t stink. 

The thing that most likely happened was that McElroy found an old script lying around and tried to sell it.  When nobody bought the thing, he slapped Wrong Turn on it, called it a remake, and Hollywood purchased the sucker sight unseen.  Either way, it’s easily the worst thing with the Wrong Turn name attached to it.  (There is a brief mention of “inbred cannibals” near the end, but it’s more of an “F U” to fans of the series.)

The cast is mostly weak.  The only bright spot is Modine who lends a sense of gravitas to the scenes where he’s searching for his daughter.  Too bad just about all the young cast members are grating. 

The gore is rather skimpy as most of the kills come courtesy of people’s brains being bashed in.  We also get a broken pinkie, impalement, a knife to the face, and some bloody booby traps.  The only part that has any sort of memorable kick to it is the scene where the heroine offers herself up as breeding stock to the community to save her own skin.  To add insult to injury, it clocks in at an unmerciful one-hundred-and-ten minutes.  Even at ninety minutes, it would’ve been rough going, but at one hundred and ten, it’s absolutely brutal.  (The fake-out ending is especially egregious.)

In short, there’s very little right about this Wrong Turn. 

AKA:  The Foundation.  AKA:  Wrong Turn:  The Foundation.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM (2024) **

I’m a casual Lord of the Rings fan.  I read the books in middle school.  I dug the Peter Jackson movies.  I like the Hobbit trilogy more than most.  I haven’t seen a lick of the new TV show though.  One thing I could never stand was the old animated flick.  My dad sometimes would rent it for me back in the day (I think to prevent me from renting anything other than Tron), but I never really took to it.  Now, here we are with a Jackson produced animated Rings spin-off that takes place generations before The Hobbit.  I’m not sure why this exists or who asked for it (it was a huge flop), although I suspect that only the most die-hard Rings fans will enjoy it. 

Freca (the voice of Shaun Dooley) seeks an audience with King Helm (Brian Cox) because he wants his son Wulf (Luca Pasqualino) to marry the King’s headstrong daughter Hera (Gaia Wise).  The King will not hear of it, and so Freca challenges him to a fight.  When the King accidentally kills Freca during the brawl, Wulf vows revenge and spends months assembling an army.  His daring attack overcomes Helm’s soldiers, forcing his people to retreat to a stronghold.  After Helm’s demise, it then falls to Hera to end the war once and for all. 

I’m not much of an anime guy, but I have to admit the animation is very good.  Many of the backgrounds look photorealistic, while the humans all look like your traditional anime wizards and warriors deal.  That said, the animation alone isn’t enough to overcome the weak plotting.  The narrative is slight and the “girls can be warriors too, ya know” theme is obvious and thin.  The battle scenes are ho-hum too.  I did like the scene where an elephant was eaten by a swamp octopus though. 

It’s easy to see why this was not a hit.  While there are a couple of breadcrumbs that will eventually lead into Jackson’s movies (and at least one surprise cameo), for the most part, it’s a standalone adventure.  The problem is that none of the new characters are remotely as memorable or as endearing as the ones found in the live-action films.  The Lord of the Rings:  The War of the Rohirrim probably would’ve been a fine DTV deal like those animated DC movies.  It played okay enough at home I guess, but it might’ve been hard to justify paying $15 to see it on the big screen. 

THE POPE’S EXORCIST (2023) ***

Russell Crowe stars as an espresso-sipping, scooter-riding exorcist who answers only to the Pope (Franco fucking Nero!) himself.  An American widow (Alex Essoe) moves to Spain with her children to renovate an old church.  Before long, her son becomes possessed and it’s up to Crowe to save his soul.  However, during the exorcism, he uncovers a centuries long cover-up by the Vatican, which explains why the demon isn’t so easy to banish. 

Directed by Julius (Samaritan) Avery, The Pope’s Exorcist is a surprisingly fun and entertaining ride filled with lots of laughs and some rather wild moments.  It kicks off with a solid exorcism sequence where Crowe transfers the soul of a demon into a pig, and it doesn’t look back.  It hits all the hallmarks of the exorcism subgenre and gives you everything you’d want to see from this sort of thing, including a couple of new twists.  The possession scenes feature all the old standbys such as neck twisting, writing appearing as cuts on the possessed boy’s body, and spider-walking.  New additions include the kid puking up a bird and a great moment when the kid flips out on his mom for not breastfeeding him!  Also, in this one the demon voice sounds less like Mercedes McCambridge and more like the Master Control Program from Tron. 

Honestly, The Pope’s Exorcist probably could’ve gone either way, but Russell Crowe keeps the film on track with his amusing performance.  While he stops short of hamming it up, he certainly looks as if he’s relishing the opportunity of taking the reins of a down and dirty B-flick.  He adds dollops of humorous touches to character, which endear him to the audience.  However, when it comes time to confront the demon, he’s all business. 

It maybe runs a tad too long and the conspiratorial aspects of the plot kind of drag things down.  Fortunately, none of that gets in the way of the Friedkin-inspired hokum.  Let’s face it, any movie that has Russell Crowe as a priest on a scooter and Franco Nero as the Pope is more or less must-see entertainment in my book. 

TOMB RAIDER (2018) ** ½

Alicia Vikander stars as Lara Croft in this mildly entertaining reboot of the video game franchise.  Her dead father (Dominic West) leaves behind a puzzle box, which sends her on a wild goose chase to find a hidden island in the Pacific.  There, she finds an ancient tomb that’s hiding a secret that could bring about the end of the world. 

You know, the first action scene where Lara participates in a “fox hunt” bicycle chase didn’t exactly inspire confidence.  Fortunately, once she arrives on the island, the action improves greatly.  Director Roar Uthaug (now that’s a name for ya!) delivers a memorable sequence where Lara narrowly escapes going over a waterfall by hoisting herself aboard the rusty wreckage of a plane that immediately begins to crumble.  While much of the film is pedestrian, this exciting scene is worthy of an Indiana Jones movie.  The finale in the tomb feels like something out of an Indiana Jones flick as well, albeit in a more derivative manner.  (The scenes with Lara and her dad are reminiscent of The Last Crusade too.) 

Not only does the film get better once the action ramps up, it also gets a much needed shot in the arm when Walton Goggins finally appears as the villain.  He’s sort of the Belloq to Croft’s Indiana Jones.  His slimy character is far from his best work, but at least he gives Vikander a menacing figure to play off of. 

Speaking of which, Vikander is OK as Croft.  Since this is an origin story, she spends about half the movie being demure and homely.  Eventually, she becomes the globe-hopping adventurer we all recognize.  It just takes a while before the transformation is complete.  (She doesn’t even get her trademark guns until the final scene.) 

That said, she still can’t hold a candle to Angelina Jolie.  I mean Jolie’s Tomb Raider movies sucked, but at least she was smoking hot.  At any rate, say what you will about this Tomb Raider, at least it’s better than the Jolie films.  That’s a low bar to be sure, but hey, it’s something. 

HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN (2024) **

After digging the 2019 version of Hellboy, I figured I’d check out this new one, if only to be a completist.  The Crooked Man is a noticeably low budget affair and has no name stars (Jack Kesy replaces David Harbour as Hellboy this time around).  It was directed by Brian Taylor of Neveldine/Taylor fame though.  (The guys that made Crank.)

Hellboy roams around the backwoods of Appalachia looking for a giant spider when he runs afoul of some white trash witches.  He learns from one of the locals about a sinister figure known as “The Crooked Man” who haunts the woods that just may be the devil himself.  Before long, the titular figure sets out to drag everyone’s souls to Hell. 

Hellboy is starting to give The Fantastic Four a run for its money for the title of most unnecessarily rebooted comic book property.  This one takes place in the ‘50s, so it looks and feels removed from the previous versions’ timelines, which was a good idea.  However, because of its measly budget, it just can’t compete with the other iterations of the franchise. 

Hellboy comic creator Mike Mignola was apparently less than pleased with the other versions of his character, so he wrote the story, served as executive producer, and had more creative control over this adaptation.  Despite that, I fail to see what made this vision of the character preferable for him.  Maybe it’s hard to judge something that looks like a SyFy Channel Original when the others were all big budget studio movies.  

Overall, it’s kind of blah.  I mean I was sort of with it for a while.  Once it became another zombie flick late in the game, I started to mentally check out. 

Kesy makes for an OK Hellboy.  He captures the character’s world-weariness well enough.  Much of the problem has to do with the narrative itself, which makes him more of a bystander than a leading man.  Because of that, Kesy isn’t given much to work with. 

As ho-hum as much of Hellboy:  The Crooked Man is, I can’t deny the scene where a dead witch is revived when a baby raccoon crawls inside of her discarded skin.  I can honestly say I’ve never seen that in a movie before.  Nor can I say I’ve seen a snake come out of a woman’s coochie, slither around her, and then enter her mouth.  It’s just a shame these admittedly effective, albeit brief moments, didn’t inhabit a better film. 

NOVOCAINE (2025) ****

Well, folks.  Jack Quaid just dropped another instant classic on us.  Earlier in the year, he starred in the incredible sexbot comedy-thriller, Companion.  Now he’s back two months later with Novocaine, an action-comedy that plays like a Nicecore version of Crank.  It has bigger laughs than most straight-up comedies and has better gore than your average horror flick. 

Like I said, instant classic. 

Quaid stars as a meek bank teller who has a rare medical condition that prevents him from feeling pain.  When his coworker (Amber Midthunder from Prey) asks him out on a date, he instantly falls head over heels for her.  The next day (Christmas Eve, no less), a trio of thieves rob the bank and take her hostage.  It’s then up to Jack to save her as he uses his inability to feel pain to gain the upper hand on the hardened violent criminals. 

The charm of the movie lies with just how refreshingly innocent and sheltered its hero is.  He’s just a likeable schmo who doesn’t eat solid food for fear of biting off his own tongue.  All that goes out the window when the gal of his dreams is kidnapped.  Much of the humor is courtesy of Quaid’s nice guy character being pummeled to a bloody pulp and yet, he keeps returning for seconds and thirds.  In fact, since he can’t feel pain, he often doesn’t even change expression and continues with his conversation as he’s being wailed on.  Some of his injuries are downright ghastly too, but often the worse the injury, the bigger the laugh. 

Among the highlights is the kitchen fight where Quaid unwittingly deep fries his hand.  There’s another great bit where he’s being tortured by one of the robbers and has to feign being hurt, even when his nails are being ripped out.  The scene that really endears him to the audience is when he fights a giant tattoo artist.  After he’s thrown through a glass case, he furiously punches the shards to make his knuckles into deadly weapons.  I mean when Van Damme fought with glass knuckles in Bloodspor,t he had to use gauze and glue.  Quaid just smooshes the glass right into his skin. 

Novocaine is a blast of adrenaline from start to finish.  It’s fresh and funny and has plenty of crowd-pleasing moments of action hilarity and gnarly body horror carnage.  If Companion didn’t make Quaid a star, I truly hope this does. 

AKA:  Mr. No Pain.