65 (2023) ** ½

Adam Driver stars as a spaceman whose ship crash lands on an uncharted planet.  We soon learn that the mysterious planet is none other than our own and that the time is 65 million B.C.  That means in order to survive, Adam has to fight off dinosaurs using space guns and shit. 

An eight-year-old probably could’ve written 65.  In fact, I’m sure that several thousand eight-year-olds have drawn pictures of spacemen fighting dinosaurs on the back of IHOP placemats in the midst of a sugar rush fueled by chocolate chip pancakes and Mountain Dew over the years.  These drawings probably could’ve been used as storyboards for the movie.  Sure, large portions of the film are pretty dumb, but that’s part of the charm.  It speaks to the eight-year-old in all of us. 

65 starts off like gangbusters, but it loses a little something when Driver finds a young girl (Ariana Greenblatt) he must protect from the prehistoric beasts.  It’s here where it starts putting out After Earth kinds of vibes.  That’s not a harsh criticism or anything because I don’t exactly hate that dorky movie.  It’s just that the film worked better when Driver was… ahem… solo. 

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the team who wrote A Quiet Place, 65 never quite lives up to the potential that lies within its premise.  (It needed one or two more dino battles for my tastes.)  I will say it’s a big improvement over their previous directorial effort, the lame Haunt.  It was also produced by none other than Sam Raimi.  In fact, you almost wish he had helmed the film as Beck and Woods’ direction is competent but lacking pizzazz.  To their credit, they keep the action moving and the breezy ninety-two-minute running time flies by.  Driver is also to be commended for taking the potentially ridiculous premise as seriously as one could expect as he admirably sells his character’s predicament. 

TWISTERS (2024) **

Twister was one of those movies that played like gangbusters opening night in the theater with a packed house that didn’t hold up to close scrutiny at home on the small screen.  Maybe that’s why it took Hollywood… (pulls out my abacus) … 28 years to come up with a sequel.  Now, I didn’t get a chance to see Twisters in theaters this summer.  Since it plays just about as well at home as the original did (which is to say it’s merely okay), I can only surmise it must’ve been a real corker on the big screen. 

Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) invents a doodad that causes tornadoes to evaporate.  However, when she tests it out, something goes wrong and her whole team winds up dead.  Suffering from PTSD (Post Twister Stress Disorder), she quits storm chasing for a desk job at a meteorological center.  Five years later, her former colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos from Transformers:  Rise of the Beasts) lures her back into the tornado chasing game.  Kate soon realizes they are working for a bunch of greedy corporate fat cats and then decides to throw in with Glen (Top Gun:  Maverick) Powell, a hotshot rival tornado “wrangler” and YouTuber to stop an impending storm. 

The lamest part about this sequel is the fact that Edgar-Jones has a sixth sense sort of deal where she can feel tornadoes forming better than any weather map.  That’s basically a lazy screenwriting way of having your main character always be right.  Edgar-Jones is fine in the role, but she isn’t exactly memorable either.  The same can be said for Ramos as her second in command whose main character trait is to cheer her on.  (Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot every time he tells her, “You got this”.)  At least Powell injects the proceedings with a little bit of swagger. 

The fatal flaw of the film (like the original) is that bad weather doesn’t exactly make for a good villain.  I know the old man vs. nature trope is as old as time, but there are only so many scenes of people running from tornadoes you can take.  (For a movie about so-called “storm chasers” they sure do spend a lot of the time running the other way.)  As in the original, it mostly fails because the characters are wafer thin and the drama is nominal.  I did like the part where people took shelter in an old theater playing the original Frankenstein though.

THE DEAD DON’T DIE (2019) *** ½

When Jim Jarmusch makes a zombie movie you know you’re in for something special.  Well, “special” might not be quite the right word for it, but it’s definitely unique.  Well… unique, as in it’s just like every other Jim Jarmusch movie, except… you know… with zombies. 

The Earth shifts on its axis, causing the dead to rise from their graves.   Small town sheriff Bill Murray and his deputy Adam Driver are more perplexed by the chain of events more than anything.  Eventually, they have to contend with the ever-increasing zombie outbreak. 

Jarmusch didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, but his deadpan handling of the material and idiosyncratic dialogue is enough to breathe new life into a rather (un)dead subgenre.  Unlike his other foray into horror, the uneven vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive, he seems to be embracing the conventions of the genre instead of resisting them, and the result is a damn good time. 

It also helps that he assembled an amazing cast.  I didn’t know I needed to see Iggy Pop as a coffee-drinking zombie.  Or Tilda Swinton as a samurai mortician.  Or RZA as a wisdom-spouting UPS driver.  Or Steve Buscemi as a redneck MAGAt.  There’s also Tom Waits as a grizzled mountain man, Chloe Sevigny as a deputy, Danny Glover as a world-weary local, indie horror mainstay Larry Fessenden as a motel owner, Rosie Perez as a newscaster, and Selena Gomez and Austin Butler as victims. 

It’s Murray and Driver who really make it work.  Their nonplussed reactions and nonchalant acceptance of the situation provides the film with some of its biggest laughs.  (I also like how they casually let the audience know that they know they’re stuck in a movie.)

Sure, not all of it clicks.  The stuff with the juvenile delinquents in a detention facility kind of falls flat and never really intersects with the main plot.  The CGI is a little wonky in spots too.  (Dust spews out of the zombies when they are killed rather than blood.)  Fortunately, whenever Murray and Driver are front and center, The Dead Don’t Die really comes to life. 

PLAY DEAD (2009) **

Chris (Street Fighter:  The Legend of Chun-Li) Klein stars as Ronnie Reno, the washed-up star of a Power Rangers-style TV show who bombs an audition and then heads out into the desert to clear his head.  When his car breaks down, a creepy dude named Ledge (Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst) gives him a ride.  Almost immediately, he becomes mixed up with Ledge’s drug lord brother in-law (Paul Francis).  He orders Ledge to kill Ronnie, but he convinces the slowwitted Ledge that his old show is real, and he can call in the other stars to help stop the bad guys. 

This is the kind of movie where you want to criticize it because of what it doesn’t do.  Had Klein brought in his friends, and they were dressed as their pseudo-Power Rangers to fight crime, it might have been fun.  Think a low-rent version of Three Amigos. 

Sadly, that’s not what happens.  Instead, what happens is that when Klein’s two actor friends show up, they basically just pose as DEA agents (badly), which causes the plan to go south in a hurry.  The potential was there for this to be something more than your average low budget crime flick, but that’s unfortunately all it winds up being.  It’s not bad or anything as it remains watchable throughout.  It just doesn’t really find its footing or know when to get things in gear. 

Klein fares well in the lead.  You can easily buy him as an actor who just isn’t quite good enough to pull off his charade.  It’s odd seeing Durst in this.  With his salt and pepper beard, scraggly hair, and buck teeth he seems to be doing a direct-to-video version of Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan.  While he doesn’t quite make the character believable, he is definitely the most memorable thing about the movie, so I certainly give him points for trying.  We also have Jake Busey on hand, but he’s really nothing more than the bad guy’s right-hand man and he isn’t ever given anything worthwhile to do.  Likewise, Michael Beach is left high and dry as Klein’s co-star who has now become a soap opera actor and is ill-equipped to tangle with drug dealers.

THE MOUSE TRAP (2024) * ½

The idea of turning beloved characters who have recently entered the public domain into generic slashers in horror movies is a new trend.  And a rather dumb one too.  It’s so dumb, in fact, that I feel compelled to watch them.  Last year, it was Winnie the Pooh.  Now, it’s Mickey Mouse’s turn to become a horror icon.  While this isn’t as out and out bad as Winnie the Pooh:  Blood and Honey, it is one of the most inexplicably dumb slashers I’ve seen in some time. 

The Mouse Trap starts with a Star Wars-inspired crawl to assure the audience (and the Disney lawyers) that this in no way has anything to do with any of their trademarked characters.  That’s a roundabout way of saying even though Mickey Mouse is in the public domain, we still don’t want you to sue us.  They even use clips from Steamboat Willie in the opening credits because… well… they can.  What better reason, right?  This opening is about as clever as the movie gets, I’m afraid. 

A girl working at an arcade parties with her friends after hours.  Before long, they are menaced by a killer in a Mickey Mouse mask.  After a few kids are bumped off, the surviving friends form a tight group to put a stop to the killer.  To make matters worse, he also has the power to teleport (!?!), which makes trapping him extremely tricky. 

The big problem is it takes forever to get going.  Once it finally does, the stalking and slashing scenes are decidedly ho-hum, and the kills are mostly bloodless and bland.  Mickey Mouse as a killer isn’t the worst idea in the world.  (I did like the way they used the whistling music from Steamboat Willie as a horror theme, although they kind of forget about it pretty quickly.)  It’s just a shame that the filmmakers forgot to make an actual movie to go along with the idea.  The notion that he can teleport from place to place is never expanded upon or properly explained.  He can just do it, and the characters all accept it, logic be damned. 

The structure is janky too.  The unnecessary framing device of two detectives questioning a goth girl in a prison cell is pretty useless as it interrupts whatever flow the movie had managed to build up.  My guess is that it was probably only there to pad out the running time.  Even the detectives seem a little suspicious of how she knows things she couldn’t possibly been there to witness.  (“It all sounds like a bad ‘90s movie!”)  These scenes just reinforce the choppy nature of the film and become more grating as things wear on. 

Maybe The Mouse Trap should be seen as an example to future filmmakers.  Just because you CAN use a public domain figure for your horror movie doesn’t mean you SHOULD.  Or at least make something worthy of the name (even if the name is free to all).   Who knows?  One thing’s for sure.  If the filmmakers made a better mouse trap, it might’ve been worth seeing. 

Let’s hope the OTHER Mickey Mouse slasher, the upcoming Screamboat, will be better. 

AKA:  Mickey’s Mouse Trap.

THE FALL GUY (2024) *** ½

Colt Seaver (Ryan Gosling) is a stuntman who survived a terrible accident on a movie set.  Months later, he is lured back to work on a blockbuster under false pretenses.  The producer (Hannah Waddington) is worried because the leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has vanished, and she wants Colt to find him.  Since the director is his ex-girlfriend Jody (Emily Blunt), Colt agrees because he doesn’t want the studio to shut the production down.  Before long, Colt is accused of a murder he didn’t commit and must use his stunt background to overcome the bad guys. 

Directed by David (Deadpool 2) Leitch, The Fall Guy is first and foremost a love letter to the stunt community.  Leitch was a long-time stuntman, and he brings his years of experience, as well as a sense of humor to the proceedings.  Because of that, the behind-the-scenes moments of Blunt and company shooting the various stunt scenes have an authentic and lived-in feel. 

As expected, he also delivers on the action.  In addition to many terrific stunts, he also gives us a wild drug-fueled fight scene where someone slips Colt a Mickey, and he takes out several bodyguards while drug-induced hallucinations swirl around the action. 

If you go in expecting a 1:1 adaptation of the old TV show, you might be disappointed.  I mean you would never see Lee Majors sitting in his truck listening to Taylor Swift and crying over a break-up.  That wounded hangdog look is perfectly suited to Gosling though, who is immensely likable and funny throughout.  He also brings the physical comedy chops that made The Nice Guys such a classic, and makes Colt a unique, funny, and lovable loser.  Gosling and Blunt have tremendous chemistry, and the way they trade romantic barbs is one of the movie’s many joys. 

I also liked the way they incorporated KISS’s “I was Made for Loving You” into the score.  The subtle nods to the other great Lee Majors show, The Six Million Dollar Man were also welcome.  All in all, I’d say anyone who enjoys old fashioned Hollywood escapism will fall in love with The Fall Guy. 

THE RETURN OF SUPERMAN (1979) ***

I have seen some cheap shit in my time, but the opening of this Turkish rip-off of Superman has to take the goddamned cake.  The narration tells us that in the farthest reaches of space, there is the planet Krypton.  When we finally see it, Krypton is... I shit you not… a Christmas ornament hanging from the ceiling!  It’s enough to make the hubcap UFOs in Plan 9 from Outer Space look like the work of ILM in comparison. 

It gets worse.  Then, the John Williams theme kicks in and we see the Superman crest, which looks like it was drawn by a third grader.  I live for shit like this, folks. 

When the movie finally begins, it’s so cheap looking that it looks like a '70s porn parody.  Minus the porn.  Or the parody. 

The nerdy Tayfun learns from his parents that they found him in a rocket ship when he was a baby.  They give him a stone that was in the ship, and it guides him to a cave where he learns from the ghost of his father that he is Superman.  Working as a mild-mannered reporter, Tayfun learns of a plot by a villain to turn “Krypton stone” (it’s never called Kryptonite) into gold.  He kidnaps a professor, who happens to be the father of the Lois Lane substitute, Alev.  It’s then up to Tayfun/Superman to save Alev’s dad and stop the bad guy. 

The scenes where Superman fights crime lean closer to the George Reeves TV show than the Christopher Reeve movie, but they are still quite entertaining.  Thugs break chairs over our hero’s head, stab, and shoot him with no effect.  It also steals some bits from the old Captain Marvel serial too.  (The scene where his father gives him his powers, the guillotine cliffhanger, etc.), but that only adds to the fun.  

The flying scenes are hysterical too.  In some shots, it looks like a Superman doll being held up in front of someone’s vacation home videos.  Oh, and in addition to stealing cues from John Williams’ Superman score, it also swipes bits from the soundtrack of the James Bond movies. 

As cheap as most of this is, I will say the scene where Superman prevents two trains from colliding is well done.  Well… in comparison to everything else in the movie.  The scene where he saves Alev from a runaway truck is OK too. 

One power this Superman has that his American counterpart doesn’t is the ability to type up his stories telepathically.  Let’s see Clark Kent try that!  He also uses his X-Ray vision to see a woman in her underwear, but it appears this happened accidentally, so we will give him a Mulligan on that one. 

As far as Turkish rip-offs go, this is one of the more entertaining ones.  It has a nice mix of touches from its American inspiration as well as its own brand of WTF silliness.  If you’re a fan of bad superhero movies and wacky world cinema, by all means, check it out.