ISLE OF DOGS (2018) *** ½

Wes Anderson’s latest contains more imagination and sheer fun crammed into any single given frame than most movies have in their entire running time.  The fact that it’s a stop-motion film makes it even more impressive.  When I saw Ready Player One, I said it would become one of the most paused movies on home video because the frame is filled with so much eye candy.  The same can be said for Isle of Dogs. 

Twenty years into the future, Japan puts a ban on all dogs and exiles them to Trash Island.  A pack of dogs (voiced by the likes of Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Bob Balaban) roam the island getting into scrapes with other dogs.  When a little boy lands on the island looking for his long-lost pet, the dogs decide to help him on his quest.

Isle of Dogs is visually impressive first and foremost.  It is a feast for the eyes.  Many sequences have tons of moving parts, but the low-tech ways Anderson and his animators achieve the simplest effects are often the most endearing.  I especially loved it when the cotton balls appear over the dogs each time they fight.  The Japanese motif of the film is beautiful too and it would make a great double feature with Kubo and the Two Strings. 

The animation on the dogs is adorable.  The excellent vocal cast expertly add life to their characters.  Cranston does especially well in his first foray into Anderson’s cinematic universe and gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I’ve seen cats with more balls than you dogs!”

The film is enchanting enough for you to forgive the fact that it runs on about fifteen minutes too long.  There’s probably at least one too many unnecessary side jaunts and/or flashbacks.  Even when the movie spins its wheels late in the second act, you can keep yourself amused by the jaw-dropping beauty of the lush backgrounds.  It’s definitely one of the best family movies of the year.

ACTS OF VIOLENCE (2018) ***

Roman (Ashton Holmes) is about to be married to his childhood sweetheart Mia (Melissa Bolona).  When she is kidnapped by white slavers during her bachelorette party, Roman enlists the help of his Army Ranger brothers (Cole Hauser and Shawn Ashmore) to get her back.  Meanwhile, a detective on the case (Bruce Willis) tries to bring the slavers down using good old-fashioned law and order, although he knows the system is pretty much broken.

On the surface, Acts of Violence looks like it’s going to be another one of Willis’ interchangeable DTV actioners.  In most of these things, Willis has a leading role, but only appears briefly throughout the film.  The surprising thing about this one is that the script finds an organic way to work him into the story.  His role may be smallish, but at least he’s given a character worthy of his talents.  Apparently, he was only on the set for a day, although you’d never know because he’s so well utilized.

It also helps that the central story involving the three brothers is well-acted and absorbing.  I liked seeing them using their military training and transplanting their skills into an urban environment.  The performances by Hauser (who is suffering from PTSD) and Ashmore (the levelheaded family man) are solid and Bolona does a good job as the kidnapped sister.  It was also great seeing the usually funny Mike Epps (who also appeared in Death Wish with Willis) in a sinister turn as the head of the white slavery operation.

I’m a sucker for these Death Wish/Taken variations.  This one has enough twists on the formula while delivering on the exploitation goods you’d want from a revenge thriller.  It also helps that the action sequences are competently staged and crisply filmed, with none of that shaky-cam shit to get in the way.  Acts of Violence won’t win any awards, but it’s an entertaining way for an action fan to kill 86 minutes.

MUTANT HUNT (1987) * ½

The head of a robotics company, Z (Bill Peterson) pumps a bunch of “Euphoron” drugs into his cyborgs and turns them into mutant killers.  The scientist who created the robots is captured by Z’s men, but his sister (Mary Fahey) escapes.  She then gets bounty hunter Matt Riker (Rick Gianasi) to help her save her brother and dispose of the robots.

Mutant Hunt was written and directed by Tim (Breeders) Kincaid.  Like most of his films, it suffers from a cheap budget.  If Kincaid has a talent, it’s making the abandoned storefronts, scuzzy basement apartments, and junkyards of ‘80s New York look like a “futuristic wasteland”.  (In fact, I think some of the boiler rooms and basement sets were reused from Kincaid’s Robot Holocaust.)  

The robot effects are pretty cheesy, but they’re good for a laugh or two.  I liked the scene where one of the mutants was handcuffed and then turned his arm into Stretch Armstrong to escape.  The messy, gooey aftermaths of the dispatched robots (especially the half-melted robot) are the best things about the movie.

The action is pathetic though.  The funniest bit comes when Riker gets chased his apartment in his underwear by some robots.  The various fight scenes and shootouts are weak too.  Kincaid even drops the ball when it comes to the kickboxing stripper.

The flubbed lines, static camera shots, and long, boring dialogue scenes filled with inane gobbledygook make much of this a chore to sit through.  The pacing is sluggish, and the seventy-five-minute running time feels much longer.  Overall, it’s not nearly as bad as Kincaid’s Robot Holocaust, but it doesn’t come close to matching the sleazy thrills of Breeders.  The music (which sounds like a rip-off of the Miami Vice theme) is pretty good though.

AKA:  Matt Riker.  AKA:  Robot Killer.

SHOTGUN (1989) ** ½

There’s a psycho going around the city wearing a leather S & M mask and beating up hookers.  Two concerned cops, Jones (Stuart Chapin) and Billings (Riff Hutton) warn the ladies of the night to beware.  When Jones’ sister becomes the killer’s latest victim, he goes out for revenge.  He flies off the handle and winds up getting thrown off the force.  Jones ekes out a living as a bounty hunter and quickly gains the nickname “Shotgun” for his propensity for shooting people in the ass with a shotgun.

Shotgun is a chintzy, low-rent, but watchable cop thriller.  The sometimes-blurry cinematography gives it the look of a slightly higher budgeted homemade movie.  The amateurish performances (especially by Chapin) help add to the fact (and the fun).

The early scenes of the masked killer whipping hookers have a kick to them and gives you a good look at Hollywood Boulevard in the late ‘80s.  However, the tone is inconsistent.  It goes from comedy (like when Chapin and Hutton bust up a robbery in a bar) to prostitute beating a little crudely, which sometimes hampers it from truly taking off.

Shotgun suffers from a low budget, but the filmmakers wisely saved all their money for the final reel.  In the end, Chapin gets an old buddy to turn his truck into a tank equipped with a flamethrower.  They then head down to Mexico to take out the killer who's hiding in a fortress surrounded by armed goons.  This sequence has enough explosions, pyrotechnics, and shots of people being blown away and/or set on fire to qualify it as a minor classic. 

Chapin gets the best line of the movie when he tells an Internal Affairs officer:  “My partner and I were in a situation that probably would’ve given you Hershey Squirts!”

GOON: LAST OF THE ENFORCERS (2017) ** ½

Loveable lunkhead hockey goon Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) gets beaten to a pulp on the ice by bloodthirsty up-and-comer Anders Cain (Wyatt Russell).  The injuries he sustains in the fight forces Doug to retire, so he sets out to try to live a menial 9 to 5 life to support his pregnant wife (Alison Pill).  When Anders is traded to Doug’s team, he sets out to make a comeback to win his old job back.  

Helping Doug get back into fighting shape is his old nemesis, Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber).  (Which kind of makes this the Rocky 3 of hockey movies.)  The scenes between Scott and Schreiber are some of the best in the entire film.  I liked the fact that Rhea is so old that he's now in a league where the players don't play hockey and only fight.  In fact, that idea alone is a lot better than the predictable and formulaic plotline that is the main thrust of the story.

Scott’s scenes with his pregnant wife feel like a first draft.  Their dialogue is cliched and lacks the quirky charm of the original.  Scott does what he can with the material, but it’s lacking the heart that made the first Goon such a treat.  The film is also brimming with too many side characters (including T.J. Miller as an unfunny Sports Center-type host) that get in the way of the hockey.

Still, it’s not bad.  Scott’s rivalry with Russell (who used to be a pro hockey player) provides a few sparks.  Russell makes for a formidable adversary.  The two fights they have together that bookend the film are appropriately over the top and bloody.  It’s a shame that the movie (much like the main character) never finds its footing whenever it goes off the ice (which is for much of the second act).

A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE (2018) *** ½

If you saw Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, you probably already know the story of the rise and fall of National Lampoon.  A Futile and Stupid Gesture is the biopic version that focuses on the relationship of Lampoon founders Doug Kenney (Will Forte) and Henry Beard (Domhnall Gleeson).  They work together on the Harvard Lampoon and after graduation, they decide to make a legitimate magazine out of it.  They hire the most talented people they can find, and the magazine becomes a cultural touchstone.  Together, Kenney and Beard change the face of modern comedy, but when their relationship splinters, Kenney goes on a self-destructive path of sex, drugs, and rock n’… err.. comedy.

Since A Futile and Stupid Gesture is about the Lampoon, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Most biopics get dragged down by Hollywoodizing certain facts.  Here, the film points out discrepancies from the movie and what happened in real life, while making fun of the very nature of attempting a biopic of the Lampoon.  I especially liked the scene that shows the crumbling of Kenney’s marriage as if it were part of a Lampoon pictorial.

Director David (Wet Hot American Summer) Wain covers all the highlights regarding the rise of the magazine, but if you want a factual history, see the documentary.  This is more of a chance for Forte to show his acting chops while simultaneously being very funny.  He and Gleeson make for a terrific team and their chemistry holds the film together, even when it starts to ramble in the late stages.

The casting of the supporting players is inspired.  Thomas Lennon does a mean Michael O’Donaghue.  He gets to reenact some of his best material and does it so well that you wish he’d star in his own O’Donaghue biopic somewhere down the line.  It’s also a blast seeing Joel McHale playing Chevy Chase, especially given their relationship on Community.  He keenly captures Chase’s vocal cadence does a dead-on version of his patented pratfalls.  I for one wouldn’t mind seeing McHale in Fletch 3 sometime in the near future.

In fact, the performances are so good that when the film reaches its poignant conclusion, we feel a tinge of sadness for what could’ve been.  The scene where (two versions of) Kenney visits his own funeral packs an unexpected wallop.  Thankfully, the film ends on an appropriate note that Kenney surely would approve of.

6 SOULS (2013) **

Julianne Moore stars as a widowed shrink whose father (Jeffrey DeMunn from Christmas Evil) gets his kicks by finding medical oddities for her to examine.  His latest discovery (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a split personality who has a seemingly endless supply of new personalities.  As Moore analyzes Meyers, people close to her wind up dead and he begins to take on their personalities. 

6 Souls starts off well enough.  At times, it resembles a Primal Fear variation mixed with a Lifetime Movie.  Once we learn Meyers’ big secret, the wheels begin coming off in short order.  It also doesn’t help that the ending is pretty crummy, and the big twist in the finale is predictable too.  Directors Marlind and Stein (who directed the much better Underworld:  Awakening) bring very little style to the table and stage the various jump scares and big reveals in a pedestrian manner.

Moore gives a solid performance, all things considered.  Even though the movie gets increasingly schlocky as it goes along, she refuses to phone it in.  Meyers also does an admirable job going from personality to personality, although his histrionics aren’t enough to save the flick. 

The most interesting thing for me was that it was written by Michael Cooney, the man who wrote Identity and directed the greatest killer snowman movie of all time, Jack Frost.  As a fan of Cooney’s work, I had fun spotting how and where he ripped off his own material.  Like Jack Frost, it starts off with a serial killer about to be executed at midnight, and like Identity the plot hinges heavily on a split personality gimmick.  6 Souls also features a character whose head winds up bending backwards, which figures into the plots of both Jack Frost and Identity.  This is by far, the least of the three, but at least the solid lead performances make it bearable. 

AKA:  Shelter.