Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Hellboy

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“Hellboy” was two hours of my life I will never get back!  If you relish poor acting, largely terrible writing and an incomprehensible, silly plot, by all means go take a look.  Marvel has set a pretty high standard for super hero movies and “Hellboy” falls way short with this effort -off the cliff short.  Here is the plot in a nutshell, if you could call it a plot. Long, long time ago, in a ridiculously and unnecessarily convoluted and invented mythic lore, the Blood Queen Nimue (Milla Jovovich) is ready to take over the world with her demon army.  King Arthur and Merlin, placed in the 6th Century for some reason, foil her scheme, using Excalibur.  The king has her body cut up into seven pieces, to be carried to seven far points of the kingdom and hidden “forever.”  He buries the still animated head himself.  Jump forward to now. Hellboy (David Harbour)  is sent by his “dad” ( Ian McShane) to battle three giants who are destroying the English countryside. Once he accomplishes this, in what is really a clumsy and overblown and gory manner, he jumps into the problem created by Nimue’s chief minion who is suddenly running about finding all her body bits so that he can help resurrect her.  How does this creature know where they are?  Magic?  Where did he come from? What activated him? Who knows?  Once she is resurrected though, she apparently wants to marry Hellboy and use him to help her bring about the end of the world. You see, Hellboy has some royal blood (don’t ask) which means that he is the only person who can wield Excaliber. When she marries him, they, with the sword, will rule the world?  Confused yet?  It only gets worse.  It’s so intricate,, it beggars summarization.  He finds this all out when he encounters Merlin, who has been imprisoned in an underground crypt for all this time.  He reveals Arthur’s great sword to Hellboy, who won’t take it, and Merlin crumbles away.  Back to Hellboy uniting with “Dad” and some bad creature specialist and animorphing cheetah (Daniel Dae Kim, who should have stayed “Lost.”) and Alice (Sasha Lane) of Wonderland inspiration, but an inspriration that is mighty tenuous.  This Alice is a psychic who vomits dead apparitions.  Now add a diaper wearing pig, Nazis, and of course, Baba Yaga to the mix.  Sounds confusing? Yes, try following it.  It’s a jumble, jumps all over, and doesn’t flow well.  The plot holes are many. The dialogue is mediocre – a few laughs, but mostly trite, unimaginative drivel, and lame humor that falls like a dead cinder in a grate.  If you really need to see humans torn apart in every conceivable, gory way though, you will have found the movie for you.  According to the end scene in the middle of the credits (DC Universe aping the MCU, no originality there), there is a sequel planned.  Why?

GAME OF THRONES

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Winter is coming and many of us are super-excited for this final season.  There is no review here.  I am going to throw out a few theories about what is going to happen.  I would love to hear from  you as far as what you think.  Leave a message in the comments and let me know what you think.

  1.  One of the things that I think will happen this season is that we will see Jon Snow ride a dragon.  Those dragons definitely accepted him and I am sure he is going to ride, and guide one of them.
  2.   I think Arya Stark is going to use Littlefinger’s face to get close to Cersei and kill her.
  3.   I have a feeling that Gendry (The last Baratheon) might end up with Sansa and the two of them may rule together.
  4.  Bran is really the Night King.  i can’t explain how that would work or how it is possible, just a feeling.
  5.   Sam is going to become the hand of the King (or queen)
  6.  Jaimie might kill the Night King because he is the “king slayer.”
  7.  Tyrion might be a Targaryen – one clue is the fact that the dragons do not seem to hate him.
  8.   Ser Davos Seaworth  and Jorah Mormont will survive or else!!

VALOR MORGHULIS

 

Pet Sematary

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I am a fan of Stephen King but I have never read this book ,nor did I see the original movie.  However, when I heard this version featured John Lithgow, I knew I would have to see it.  Tha main story follows the The Creed family, who have just moved from Boston to a quieter life in a small Maine town.  No more ER night shifts for Dr. Louis Creed, who looks forward to being able to spend more time with his children, Gage and Ellie.  Things get off to a creepy start when Ellie stumbles upon a pet cemetery or “sematary” as spelled by the town’s children, while exploring. They have been burying their pets in the forest for generations.  Louis (played by Jason Clark) didn’t realize this cemetery was on his property as it is huge and he hasn’t really checked it out. The cemetery is bordered on several sides by a high log wall. The cemetery is scary enough, but Ellie, and her Mom witness  a burial procession composed of kids in very creepy masks.  Ellie is a bright and curious child, and decides to go back to investigate the high log pile.  She begins to climb up the wall.  She is stung by a bee and falls, but luckily old man Jud (John Lithgow) helps her and takes out the stinger -the beginning of a fast friendship. SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT:  Unfortunately their beloved cat, Churchill, is hit by a truck and dies.  Jud knows Ellie is heartbroken, and is insistant that he help Dr. Creed bury the cat in the cemetery.  Things get real weird when he suggests they bury the cat in a secret area on the other side of the barrier.  Apparently, there are mystical powers that can resurrect the dead, but your loved ones may not come back “right.”  And indeed, after the mysterious reappearance of “dead” Churchill, things begin to literally go to the dark side.  At Ellie’s birthday party, things take a dreadful turn.  You can guess… The movie does a good job with creating atmosphere and I give a lot of kudos to Jete Laurence, who plays daughter Ellie.  She is the right amount of niave and creepy!   I read somewhere that Stephen King doesn’t like this story much and that he feels it is his darkest tale.  I have to agree with him.  This story doesn’t offer a hopeful ending.  But then, you don’t go into a King story expecting a “they lived happily ever after.”

Hotel Mombai

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This is a very hard movie for me to review.  It is definitely well-made and tries to stick to the facts as much as possible.  However, by the time the movie was over, I felt depressed and hopeless.  A movie that tells us a tragic story about horrible events usually tries to  lift us up in some way and give us hope for the future.  I did not walk away from this movie with that kind of feeling at all.  “Hotel Mombai” tells the story of a series of terrorist attackes that rocked the city of Mombai in 2008 and left over 178 people killed and many more injured.  Several public buildings and areas were targeted, but the movie concentrates on the seige of the Taj Mahal Hotel.  Dev Patel  plays one of the luxurious hotel’s waiters who misses out on a lucritive (but eventually deadly) plum job because on his way to work he accidentally dropped a shoe  and was not properly attired (this hotel is very much the upper class hotel usually seen in British period pieces).  I usually love Dev Patel, but he really didn’t have a lot to do other than run and hide while trying to guide the guests.  Other actors you might recognize are Armie Hammer as the husband of a wealthy socialite and Jason isaacs as a retired Russion Special Forces agent.  Their characters didn’t have much to do than get killed, and there was no opportunity to develop them in a way that you are involved in them. The movie is at its best showing the devestation, terror and bloodshed the terrorists inflict on their innocent victims, and their motivation-religious fanaticism inspired by a shadowy Pakistani leader known as “Brother Bull.”  As usual, men like him avoid any actual involvement on their own.  They send the desparate young men, fired by misplaced passionate anger and religious fanaticsim  directed at the ones they think are responsible for their lot in life.  It’s really not anything new for these events.  This movie definitely earns its R rating as the violence looks very real and it seems overenthusiastic, if that is the word, in showing the dying, and the heartless, religion driven hatred and spite of the perpetrators.  I had to avert my eyes many times.  The movie did include some of the heroics, especially by the hotel staff, many of whom risked their lives to help the guests and fullfill their mantra, “Guest is god.” It clearly depicts a government, local or national, clearly unprepared and utterly inefficient in responding to the crisis.  I really wanted to see more of the positive stories  and less of the blood and body parts.  In fact, I wouldn’t recommend this movie to you if you are not a fan of realistic violence.  In the wolrd today, with these kinds of attacks frequently in the news, this movie was a little too real for me.

Us

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Ask M. Knight Shyamalan how hard it is to make a second movie when your first effort is a great movie like “The Sixth Sense.”  His next outing was not well-recieved and further movies never quite measured up.  Well, there’s no sophomore jinx for Jordan Peele ! “Us” is a compelling and worthy successor to “Get Out.”  “Us” is the story of a typical American family, headed by Adelaide (a dazzling Lupita Nyong’o) and Gabe (Winston Duke), who are on vacation with their two kids near the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  Adelaide had a scare in a house of mirrors at that very same beach when she was a kid, which has left her very traumitized. So she is more than a little paranoid about her family’s safety and well being when they stay in a vacation rental close by the beach.  And sure enough, after her son runs into a very strange character and approaches the mirror house, the next night they are stalked by a family of shadowy doppelgangers who want to harm, and perhaps take over, the lifes of those they resemble.  Most of the rest of the movie is bloody, scary, suspenseful and provocative.  There is a lot to think about in this movie, including the title.  Us can also be inturrpeted as U.S.  In fact, the doppelgangers call themselves Americans at one point.  Is it as good as “Get Out”?  I would say no. partly because it is a little disjointed and contains a few plot holes (but so do  a lot of pretty great movies) and partly because there was so much hype.  But it doesn’t matter because this is a top-notch horror film, and even if I did guess the “twist,” it was still well-worth the ride to get there.  Does the ending open up the possiblity of a sequel?  Definitely.  If another “Us” is indeed in the works; I will definitely be there!