Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Violent Night

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Well, I am not sure I would want to put this one on my Christmas Movie rotation, but I did have a good time watching Violent Night.  David Harbour plays a Santa Clause who is a little disillusioned by the greed of modern kids and their parents.  Because of this, he drinks  too much, yells at his reindeer, and throws presents around.  He visits a house where a rich matriarch (Beverly D’Angelo) has gathered her money grubbing children and grandchildren for an overly catered Christmas event.  It turns out the house has been targeted by an evil bad guy who calls himself Scrooge (John Leguizamo).  Unfortunately for Scrooge, one of the grandkids is on Santa’s nice list and he decides to come to her rescue when the family is kidnapped by Scrooge and his evil mercenaries..  Lots of very bloody mayhem ensues.  David Harbour is great as Santa.  He has a history, he’s not always on the nice list. He is tough but takes alot of punishment.  Once he finds all of Scrooge’s minions on the naughty list….he wields everything from a hammer to ice skates to Christmas lights as he dispatches one bad guy after another.  I love the little homage to the movie ‘Home Alone,’ where we see the real consequences of booby-trapping a house.  But beneath all the horrific action, this is a true holiday movie with a happy ending.  Don’t take it too seriously as this is all tongue in cheek and definitely over the top. It’s almost camp.  My biggest criticism is that there was a little too much vomit and bodily liquids for my taste.  So I recommend this one to those of you who want a new take on the holdidays, and would like to know what to do with all those left over candy canes.

Black Widow

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It has been almost two years since Marvel has released a new super hero movie to the theatres. In the meantime they have offered some stellar televison entries such as “WandaVision” and “Loki,” just to name a few. “Black Widow” is the first of the delayed big budget movies to be released (The latest James Bond movie has been “coming” for two years) and it was mostly worth the wait. Scarlet Johansson has played the Black Widow in several Marvel movies and even died in one of them, so this is a prequel. The action takes place right after “Captain America: Civil War” where Black Widow is a fugitive seperated from the rest of The Avengers. This really isn’t explained in the movie and I only knew this because I read it on line. To start with, the movie gives us Black Widow’s origin story. Young Natasha lives with her family in Ohio: Mom and Dad – played by David Harbour and Rachel Weisz – are actually Russian spies. She and her sister Yelena – played surprisingly well by the scene stealing Florence Pugh – are totally surprised when things start to fall apart. It turns out this is a fake family and none of them are actaually related; though nevertheless there are familial feelings that will be helpful later in the movie. Yelena and Natasha are trained in a place called the Red Room; where they are taught to kill, fight and all the good action picture skills for super agents. Fast forward about 15 years. Black Widow is now a famous fugitive after the Civil War, and has lost contact with her “sister.” Circumstances lead to a reunion, and once the whole gang is reunited in an effort to destroy the Red Room controlled by the evil Dreykov (Ray Winstone) and his hench-women, the film really takes off. Up to that point, there was lots of action but no heart, no famous Marvel humor. Florence Pugh is a breath of fresh air as the younger sister who feels overshadowed by her older sibling but is a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Florence is extremely entertaining and actually upstages the other, more experienced actors. I smell a movie or television series for her!! This movie has everything you want to see in a Marvel movie: action, humor, impossible situations, and interesting villians. However, this is one confusing movie. Several events from other back histories were alluded to and it was taken for granted that the audience remembered them. I, and I’m sure other viewers not steeped in the esoterica of the MCU, had no idea why Black Widow was a fugitive, what the Red Room was, and how she even became an Avenger. A little exposition might have helped. Because of the confusing plot, I can’t quite give Black Widow a Golden Apple, but it was a good movie and best watched on a large theatre screen.

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?