REVIEW: The Meg

Honestly, what did you even expect? Am I supposed to talk about The Meg like it's a real movie, and not just an absurd pile of schlock made to milk millions and millions of dollars out of the ever-growing Chinese movie market? We've all watched the trailer, we all know what this movie is about. There's a giant prehistoric shark and Jason Statham is gonna go deck it in the schnoz. I knew what I was getting into when I bought my ticket, and I got exactly what I expected. It's a curious kind of situation, since this is a blatant cash-grab without an ounce of creative intent behind it; one could very easily make the case that movies like this are causing the death of cinema the world over. But then again, I didn't exactly have a bad time with The Meg, so that raises the question of whether or not there's a place for big-budget trash, so long as it at least manages to be enjoyably entertaining.

The plot is, as one might expect, basically just an excuse to get Jason Statham to duke it out with a giant shark. I actually wasn't expecting it to take so long to really get going; this is a movie that, surprisingly enough, sticks by the genre convention of not showing the monster until after the first act is finished. An exploratory expedition is sent to the bottom of the Marianas Trench on the off-chance that the bottom of the ocean isn't actually the bottom; it turns out that the researcher's hypothesis was correct, and that the "bottom" of the trench was really just a cloud of super-cold hydrogen-sulfide or whatever. It's B-movie science, so I don't really feel the need to pick it apart that much, the important thing is that there's megalodons in them hills, and wouldn't you know it the submarine they've sent down to investigate just so happens to be piloted by Jason Statham's ex-wife (Jessica MaNamee). After rescuing the submarine, the megalodon follows the team up through the resulting gap in the thermocline, entering into an all-you-can-eat buffet of whales, boats, and tasty tasty humans. The Meg's got a hankering for some Chinese food, and it's up to Jason Statham to make it extinct all over again.

Let's talk about Jason Statham for a bit, because he's honestly the lynchpin that makes this movie work at all. I'm not sure if he legitimately thought this was a good script or if he's just a true professional, but while literally everyone else is yukking it up and not even trying (except for Li Bingbing, who I'm sure isn't as terrible when she doesn't have to speak English), Jason Statham is taking his role as a submarine-driving shark fighter 110% seriously. See, my problem with movies like Sharknado and the like is how they're so obviously made to be comedies. You can't intentionally make a movie that's so bad it's good. That's just not how it works. A person slipping on a banana peel is funny. A person throwing themselves to the ground intentionally with the intended goal of making people laugh is just embarrassing.

With Statham putting in a totally stone-faced performance, he ends up acting as the straight-man to literally everything else in the movie, and the end result provided more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. Sure, it's not exactly low-concept humor, but I defy anyone to watch Jason Statham throw on a wetsuit and dive into the ocean to go confront a shark the size of a Greyhound bus and not at least crack a smile at how absurd a visual it is. Tonally, it very much reminded me of something like Deep Blue Sea or TriStar's 1998 Godzilla reboot. I grew up loving these schlocky monster movies, as mediocre as they may be, and I could very much see someone getting the same kind of enjoyment out of seeing Jason Statham take on the Meg in the same way I got a kick out of watching Saffron Burrows and LL Cool J take on a gang of super-smart makos. The only problem is that, for as big and bombastic as The Meg tries to make itself appear, the action we get comes off as totally toothless, especially for a B-movie about a giant shark.

It's safe to say that, after serving as the villains in so many monster movies, sharks have gotten something of a bad rap. As I'm sure we've heard time and time again from various Snapple facts, you're actually about 23 times more likely to die from being struck my lightening than you are to die from a shark attack. Ever since Jaws came out, they've been portrayed mostly as mindless eating machines, despite even species as fearsome as the great white coming close to becoming endangered. Shark finning is a serious problem (as The Meg takes the time to tell us about in an odd, tonally-dissonant moment) and it's important to remember that sharks aren't monsters; they're simply animals doing what animals do. With all that said, The Meg is a monster movie about a giant dino-shark terrorizing the Pacific. As far as sharks go, it's not a stretch to say that they're just swimming mouths; biting, gnashing, and eating are about the only means of attack they have. So, to quote the film's lead, "Where’s the f---ing blood? It’s like, 'There’s a shark.'"

Half the fun of these kinds of monster movies is watching a cast of paper-thin characters eat it when the titular terror decides to eat them. While we do get a few good deaths here and there, they're all completely bloodless; the film avoids showing any humans getting chomped or ripped apart, opting instead for everyone to just be cartoonishly swallowed whole. It really puts a damper on an otherwise perfectly enjoyable B-movie, since well-done gore can add a ton to the enjoyment factor of an otherwise unremarkable movie. The only problem with turning a movie like The Meg into a blood-soaked gore-fest is that such violence would inevitably result in an R rating, greatly cutting into the film's potential profit margins. Seeing as how The Meg has already managed to out-perform the latest Star Wars movie, I suppose this gambit paid off. I can honestly say I'd have had more fun with it if I also got to see some blood and gore (and let's be honest, some tongue-in-cheek nudity never hurt anyone either), but those box office numbers don't lie. I saw a 9:45 showing with some friends at our local cinema, and just one row in front of us was a pair of parents with two kids who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7. They even brought blankets and stuffed animals, presumably for if the kids got bored (or fell asleep, considering we left the theater just after midnight); truly, The Meg is a movie with universal appeal. The only problem is that the movie's attempt to please every single paying demographic leaves it without a real sense of identity, and its hesitation to commit to a singular tone or audience leaves the whole thing feeling somewhat middling overall.

All in all, The Meg is a fun enough time, I suppose. It's surprisingly competently made (there's a fake-out just after one of the larger action sequences that actually got me) and the effects look pretty solid for something that was mostly shot in massive water tanks surrounded by green screens. At the end of the day, I paid for my ticket to see Jason Statham fight a giant shark and got to watch Jason Statham fight a giant shark. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening; I know "I don't regret spending my money" isn't exactly the highest praise a film can receive, not every movie I've paid to see this summer can make the same boast. There are definitely better B-movies out there (and certainly better shark movies), but The Meg is an altogether inoffensive excuse to get together with some friends and share some laughs. Just don't expect anything even remotely memorable, original, or intelligent.

REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Let's talk about the current state of Hollywood, shall we? Not in the "surprise, everyone is a sex monster" kind of way, more in the "your profits are eventually going to reflect your lack of effort" kind of way. It's a situation, ironically enough, not dissimilar from the one presented in Jurassic Park; a big corporation bankrolls something stupid and indulgent, "spares no expense", tries to cash in on an entity they don't even begin to understand, and eventually has to suffer the consequences when the whole thing comes tumbling down. Ever since The Avengers proved that audiences were capable of following a shared-universe, multi-film narrative, every big studio under the sun has been trying to replicate that success without stopping for one moment to actually consider what made that success possible in the first place, forgetting that it took ten whole years and nearly 20 movies for the MCU to become what it is today. Modern studios seem to think that building a successful franchise is as simple as slapping a recognizable brand on literally whatever and calling it a day, when it's really far more complex than that. I'll tell you the problem with the cinematic power that they're using here; it didn't require any discipline to attain it. They saw what others had done, and they took the next step. They didn't earn the knowledge for themselves, so they don't take any responsibility for it. They stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they could, and before they even knew what they had, they patented it and packaged it and shipped it off to theaters, and now they're selling it. They wanna sell it. 

Well... Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Set 3 years after Jurassic World, the film follows the increasingly convoluted adventures of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). After the dormant volcano that Jurassic Park was apparently built on top of begins to erupt, Claire is approached by a mysterious businessman (Rafe Spall), who represents John Hammond's old friend and business partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell, as a character we've never heard of up until just now). He proposes that Claire and Owen join a slightly less-than-legal expedition back to Isla Nublar in order to save what dinosaurs they can before the entire thing goes up in smoke (literally this time). Although reluctant to go at first, Owen decides to tag along in order to rescue Blue the velociraptor from certain doom; their reunion is short-lived, however, as it's revealed that the supposed rescue mission was actually a front for far seedier activities. With the island destroyed, it's up to Owen, Claire, and a group of side-characters (who are somehow more bland than our already impressively-bland protagonists) to save the dinosaurs from Rafe Spall's immoral business dealings, all while avoiding the jaws of Henry Wu's (B.D. Wong) latest genetically-altered murdersaur, the Indoraptor.

The first and most strikingly bad thing about this movie, I think, is the script. Jurassic World was nothing revolutionary, but it did its job; it was cool finally seeing the park open and we got one of the most blissfully absurd climaxes I'd ever seen in a big-budget action movie. I left the theater more or less happy, if not exactly impressed. This, however, is just painfully bad. You get the impression that everything's been dumbed down even moreso, as though this movie has no pretense that it's just something meant to sell toys to children. The characters are one-note, the leaps in logic are downright olympian, and the story truly spares no expense in outright disregarding the recurrent themes and lessons presented in literally every previous Jurassic film. I'm not going to pretend that any of these movies were exactly head-scratchers, but they at least posed an interesting question about the potential ramifications of tampering with genetic power. One of the best scenes in the original film involves everyone simply eating dinner while debating whether or not a dinosaur theme park is an ethical idea in the first place. It's a multifaceted issue; for all of Ian Malcolm's moralizing, even he is stricken with a sense of childlike awe and excitement upon seeing a live dinosaur for the first time. And despite John Hammond's fatal shortsightedness, he's never portrayed as a "bad" guy; we completely understand why he would want to open Jurassic Park, even while understanding why it's a bad idea to do so. In Fallen Kingdom, the entire point of the movie basically boils down to "yeah yeah tampering in God's domain is immoral and junk, but wouldn't it be sad if da dinosauws died? :,(".

This is essentially Bryce Dallas Howard's entire arc in this movie; I guess the controversy her character stirred up last time around scared the studio execs bad enough that they'd rather she do basically nothing at all from this point on. In Jurassic World, her character progressed from a cold, profit-oriented businesswoman to someone who was prepared to take responsibility for the abomination she was complicit in creating. In Fallen Kingdom, she's essentially just an affluent white lady who wants to save the animals because it's sad when animals die; well-done, moral guardians, another victory for the rights of fictional women. We also have Chris Pratt at possibly his most boring. Owen, as a character (though I hesitate to even call it that), doesn't really have much of a personality, something Chris Pratt possesses a "deplorable excess" of. I know this is basically a carry-over from a few years ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy made more money than anyone could have possibly predicted and Chris Pratt was forcibly inserted into everything and anything, but taking a man who's been described as the human equivalent of a golden retriever and casting him as a straight-laced, rough and tumble, military manly man just doesn't work (and I can't imagine why anyone might think it would). His performance comes off like an audition tape for a store-brand version of Indiana Jones and it's honestly impressive how this movie manages to capture exactly none of Chris Pratt's natural charm or charisma. The only actor who's properly utilized throughout the whole thing is Jeff Goldblum, returning for a few minutes as Dr. Ian Malcolm to explain why the entire plot to the movie is a generally bad idea. Out of all the characters we're shown, his is the only one that makes a lick of sense. He's the true hero of this movie (which makes sense, seeing as how this is essentially a soft-reboot of The Lost World), even though he shows up, reads his lines, and leaves in less time than it takes for me to eat a Wawa sandwich.

Aside from the miserable script (which includes such gems as "It needs a mother!" and "What a nasty woman...") and the flat, incompetent characters, the film's pacing is also all over the place. It definitely falls into your traditional three-act structure, but still finds a way to divide its story directly down the middle. It's essentially two hour-long movies mashed together, making the entire thing feel even more like a pilot for a children's cartoon series. The situation isn't helped by the over-complicated mess of a plot; I excused some of the sillier bits in Jurassic World because I was just happy to see this franchise return from extinction, but the levels of outright stupidity Fallen Kingdom achieves feel like attempts to take advantage of my good nature. Jurassic Park is a premise that, like most metaphor-driven narratives, works best when there's as little fat to trim as possible. There's a theme park full of dinosaurs; the power gets shut off due to industrial espionage, nature runs amok, don't play God, life finds a way. Simple and clean. Then you have Fallen Kingdom, in which an evil businessman needs a team of mercenaries to save a velociraptor from an exploding island so that it can teach his weaponized super-dinosaur how to feel empathy, only for said super-dinosaur to run amok inside a Scooby-Doo mystery mansion, and also conservation is important or whatever. I get the impression that the people behind these movies have no idea why Jurassic Park is as good as it is beyond "WOAH COOL DINOSAURS".

To be perfectly fair, however, none of this is the fault of the director, J.A. Bayona. In fact, I'd say that the direction is one of the few things in this movie that I unironically liked; hell, I loved it. Bayona is, first and foremost, a horror director (having directed films like The Orphanage), so he's able to bring his own, unique style to the table (rather than just attempting to ape Spielberg like so many before him). The opening sequence in particular is unironically excellent, one of the best scenes in any Jurassic movie (if you can ignore them moving the mosasaur lagoon from the center of the island to the shoreline for plot reasons). There's a great amount of emphasis placed on the use of color and lighting, helping this corporate-designed product feel a little bit more like an actual film, rather than something meant to sell baby raptor toys to all the kids in the audience. For as schlocky as it is, the climax (in which the film essentially becomes a gothic monster movie) is actually a pretty fun time, thanks entirely to Bayona's fresh perspective. The action, while not exactly deep or emotionally engaging, is well-shot and exciting, which definitely kept me from outright hating this movie. I'm all but convinced by this point that Colin Trevorrow is responsible for everything wrong with Jurassic World, as he's relegated to script duty for this one and, as I've covered, that's where all of the film's problems occur. If there's one thing the executives at Universal should take away from this experience, it's the benefit that having a fresh face in the director's chair can bring to a project. With how well Fallen Kingdom is doing financially, a sequel is inevitable, and I truly hope that Bayona gets another shot at bat (hopefully to make something less inane than what we have here).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an easy lock for the stupidest thing I'm going to see in theaters in 2018. Normally, I'll be the first to champion the use of suspension of disbelief (especially in a summer blockbuster about genetically-altered dinosaurs), but even I have my limits. Much like with Disney's handling of Star Wars, the pendulum has swung way too far and now things are getting out of hand; the studios were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. When it comes to these modern mega-blockbusters, the goal is no longer to make an enjoyable, accessible film, so much as it is to replicate the financial success of the first Jurassic World and break $1 billion at the box office.  In order to make a sustainable franchise, it's important that the product itself is more or less something of quality; this is why, after an entire decade of Marvel movies, everyone who saw Infinity War is excited and eager for what comes next. Meanwhile, you have Star Wars, which has had exclusively mediocre to outright bad movies since The Force Awakens and, surprise, now has to be completely reevaluated only three short years after they got the ball rolling. It'll happen to Jurassic World as well; they'll make their money now, but they're only postponing the inevitably embarrassing crash-and-burn that awaits all franchises tackled in this manner. Jurassic World made a ton of money, and Fallen Kingdom appears to be on the same track. But at the end of the day (and after adjusting for inflation), the original Jurassic Park is still the top dog of the franchise, both critically and financially. That kind of success is well within Universal's reach, they simply need expend the effort needed to seize it. And as we've learned time and time again, sloppy work in the name of maximizing profit only leads to catastrophic failure.

If you don't mind spoilers, be sure to check out my full plot-rundown on YouTube!

REVIEW: Strawinsky and the Mysterious House

As I've said before, I like to avoid punching-down on this blog, especially when it comes to children's entertainment. It's not exactly fair to critique something made on a shoestring budget and marketed to toddlers the way I would look at something like Logan or The Lobster; there definitely has to be some sort of sliding grade scale, otherwise this whole operation of mine looks totally pathetic (even moreso than it already does). I'm not here to make fun of a film because it lacks a blockbuster budget, the same way I won't go out of my way to poopoo the efforts of criminally mistreated animators. No, what I hone in on for these end-of-month Reviews is the ill-intent of the filmmaker. I'm a firm believer that, despite abundant amounts of evidence to the contrary, film is still very much an art form. In turn, laziness and greed are two motivators I simply cannot abide. Though I must say, in all my years of seeking out awful, low-budget heaps of trash to watch and the end of each month, I have never once come across something so outwardly malicious and underhanded as today's subject. Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your consideration; Strawinsky and the Mysterious House.

There's a good chance you're already aware of this trainwreck, thanks to the power of the internet meme machine. But to fully grasp what makes this 30-minute children's special such an abhorrent piece of work, I need to provide the necessary context. Fret not, The Globglogabgalab will get his in due time. Strawinsky is directed, produced, animated, edited, recorded, and distributed by a man named David Hutter; much like Tommy Wiseau (who infamously wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The Room), Hutter displays an impressive degree of confidence for someone who has absolutely no idea what the hell he's doing. He describes his brainchild as "a magical adventure inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, Walt Disney animated musicals and the parables by Jesus Christ". At first I was totally baffled. Clearly this would end up being some sort of dime-store religious thing, but I was altogether unprepared for what Mr. Hutter had in store for me. I pondered what in God's good name the movie that gave us The Globglogabgalab could have to do with the word of the Bible, but I soon learned that my questions would be answered in increasingly uncomfortable ways as the film progressed.

We start out to find our bunch of animal friends awkwardly t-posing through the woods before stumbling upon a mysterious house, at which point the leader, Strawinsky, suggests breaking inside and having a look around. They find themselves in a basement full of books, who all implore the little critters to take a load off and read them; so far, it all seems innocuous enough, right? Anthropomorphic British animals in a magic house full of magic books, clearly they're building to some stock moral about how "reading is the most magical adventure of them all" or whatever, yeah? Well... stay with me here, because things are gonna go downhill very fast. 

It's at this point that the friends run into the house's caretaker(?), a troll who looks and sounds like a stereotypical caricature of a Scotsman. The troll mentions how the Scarlet Queen (more on her later) had commanded him to multiply a bag of gold she'd given him; his failure to increase the number of zeroes at the end of the Scarlet Queen's account balance has left him a little on-edge, as he fears what horrible retribution she would have in store for him, should he continue to fail in his quest to produce yet more money for someone who is apparently already royalty. So right off the bat, you'd assume we have our villain in the form of the Scarlet Queen, correct? A vengeful monarch obsessed with gold and negligent to the needs and concerns of her underlings; again, I ask you to just stick with me here. There's a turn coming, and it'd be a damn shame if you were to miss it.

As the troll meanders off to contemplate what hellish torment surely awaits him at the hands of the Scarlet Queen, Strawinsky decides to leave his friends to their books and explore the remainder of the house. He comes across an anthropomorphic cello who explains how she used to belong to the Scarlet Queen; the cello feels understandably forgotten (dare I say, foresaken?) at having been left to rot in a dusty old house by its previous owner. Strawinsky, ever the empathetic paragon of virtue, decides to leave the cello to its wallowing and return to the basement. It's here that he meets the true star of the show, The Globglogabgalab. Essentially, he's a massive, obese, shape-shifting slug man who feeds on the knowledge of books for sustenance. As he explains in his transcendentally bad pan-flute rap song, he is "the yeast of thoughts and minds".

This is arguably the most important moment in the entire movie, since this is where David Hutter lays all his cards on the table and reveals what this film is really about. It's like sitting in a time-share presentation; you know the sale is coming, but you're not sure when until it's too late. Up to this point, it had just been another incompetently made kids' movie with your standard sweatshop CGI, but it's after Strawinsky meets The Globglogabgalab (I refuse to type that out anymore, so hence forth he shall be referred to as G-Man) that things take a hard, sinister turn into Orwellian propaganda. After his disquieting rap number, Strawinsky floats the idea over to G-Man that maybe, just maybe, he should be careful about the books he consumes; maybe it's not a good idea to read books at all, because they can fill your head with dangerous ideas.

As if this message railing against the perils of free-thought wasn't clear enough, we then find out that all of Strawinsky's friends have turned into zombies because they read too many books. Distraught that his loyal sheep friends have grown self-aware and disappeared from the flock, Strawinsky begins desperately praying to Jesus Christ The Scarlet Queen. She arrives in a great pillar of light, leaving the troll and G-Man looking like they were just caught with their hands on the golden calf. After stroking Strawinsky's comatose buddies back to peak woke-ness (yes, the narrator uses the word "stroking"), the Scarlet Queen explains the origin of G-Man; once a beautiful forest elf, G-Man soon found himself seduced by those nasty, wicked books. He just fell in love with the written word, to the point that he grew fat and ugly. This was apparently a punishment bestowed on G-Man by God the great Elohim, an unseen deity who exerts his almighty whim on the poor pathetic pawns who populate the Earth.

It's also here that we learn about Satan the Ratking, who shows up for exactly one scene to tempt our heroes(?) through song. Faced with Strawinsky's incessant evangelizing, G-Man relents and decides to give up his precious, stupid books in favor of devoting himself to the teachings of Christianity whatever religion followers of Elohim keep up with. Despite G-Man making the correct(?) choice and bending the knee to her Scarlet-ness, the narrator makes it painfully clear that, although he has earned his seat at the table in the afterlife, he will never regain his old, beautiful body. G-Man will remain fat and misshapen for all eternity, as punishment for his heinous transgression of reading. As we all know, if there's one thing Jesus is super big on, it's petty retribution. Traits like forgiveness and "turning the other cheek" are for the other, weaker messiahs. The troll, meanwhile, decides not to follow the way of the Scarlet Queen, only because he is so terrified of the prospect of her retribution. As the Scarlet Queen ascends into the great hereafter with her cello, we're left to assume that the fires of Hell await the troll whenever he kicks the bucket (likely whenever the Scarlet Queen finds out he didn't make all that gold for her). Everyone goes home, Strawinsky vows to dedicate his life to the great Elohim, and I'm left feeling horrendously filthy for what I've just witnessed.

Is there even anything left to say at this point? I want to make myself clear, there is nothing wrong with being religious. So long as you're not harming anyone, feel free to believe in whatever you please. But I draw the line at outright propaganda, especially when it's propaganda that's shamelessly targeted at children. Taking a child to Church on Sunday is one thing, but sitting them down in front of a cartoon that outright says that God won't ever truly forgive you if you decide to read books is something entirely different. Never before have I seen such a self-destructive endorsement of organized religion; it practically comes off like satire made by a militant atheist. The positive side of religion is literally portrayed as blissful ignorance and blind allegiance while any attempt to gain knowledge is shown to be the work of the Devil. Normally, I can brush off media that's simply incompetent, but that's hardly what we're dealing with here. And yes, I recognize the irony of saying "don't watch this media that presents dangerous ideas, it pushes a narrative that we should avoid media with dangerous ideas". I'm not saying not to watch this; just don't subject your kids to this dreck. Consider Strawinsky and the Mysterious House a "must-see" in my book, just make sure you've got some manner of mind-altering substance on hand before you hit play.

REVIEW: Would You Rather

I'd like to make one thing abundantly clear about this blog; I don't like punching down. Yes, I go out of my way to find a bad movie (or at least something that looks bad) at the end of each month. Yes, this often includes cheap, weird kids' movies that were made with exactly zero artistic intent whatsoever. And yes, it's not exactly fair of me to discuss Ivan the Incredible or Freddy Frogface in the same context as something like The Big Lebowski or Susperia. I don't go out of my way to find something trashy to tear apart each month out of a desire to really stick it to smaller, less talented filmmakers. I take no perverse joy in taking direct-to-video children's films down a peg or two. Really, I just feel it mixes things up; like Peter O'Toole's Anton Ego says in Ratatouille, "we thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read". We watch movies to feel something, whether it be genuine elation or passionate, cathartic frustration. Which is why, when a film toes the line between legitimate and ironic quality, we're left with a middling kind of malaise; such is the case with this week's subject, Would You Rather.

The plot is simplistic and, at its core, could easily be written off as a ripoff of the Saw franchise; admittedly, it's a decently interesting idea that had me more engaged than I would have initially expected (no thanks to the paper-thin characters, but more on that later). Iris (Brittany Snow) is a young woman struggling to make ends meet while caring for her sickly brother, Raleigh (Logan Miller). With seemingly no other option to pay for Raleigh's increasingly-costly medical treatments (or the bone marrow transplant he needs to survive), Iris accepts an invitation to a dinner party hosted by the mysterious philanthropist, Shepard Lambrick (Jeffery Combs). Iris finds herself among a number of other struggling individuals, each tasked with competing in a parlor game; the prize being Shepard's assistance (be it through his own social influence or his vaguely-considerable wealth) in whatever issue they're currently struggling against. Little do the contestants know that the parlor game in question is in fact a morbid, twisted version of Would You Rather (hence the name), forcing them to choose between a series of increasingly unpleasant punishments to inflict upon themselves and/or each other. It's your standard "wealthy eccentric fruitcakes take horrifying advantage of seedy, lower-class people" exploitation flick, where any amount of subtext or social commentary is scarce at best and the real value lies in seeing comical acts of horrific violence committed against more or less innocent people.

As I said, it's honestly not a half-bad premise; although, "premise" might be slightly too proper for this film. A more accurate word would be "excuse", specifically an excuse to see a lot of low-rent violence and torture. The plot is 100% carried by, well, the plot, rather than the characters. We get a dull-as-dirt intro where we meet Iris and her pale, sickly brother (you can tell he has cancer because he's wearing a beanie indoors) and that's literally the height of the characterization at play here. Once we get to the party, it almost makes you think it's going to play out like Clue, where each colorful individual has a unique personality and gimmick; instead we get a single sentence to describe each contestant, not unlike the opening of Suicide Squad, before bodies start hitting the floor. We have the gambling addict, the Iraq vet, the crippled lady; I was honestly surprised we weren't introduced to Slipknot, the man who can climb anything.

In horror, it's extremely important for us to relate to (or at the very least, care about) the characters. I know I keep using Alien as the example of how characterization in horror should be done, but that's because Alien nails that aspect of its story so perfectly. We get ample opportunity during the first act to know and relate to our cast, so that way when they're being pursued by some snakelike monstrosity in the third act, we actually feel for them. It's all about immersion; things are scarier when you can plant yourself in the characters' shoes. And to the film's credit, I was thinking the entire time of what I'd be doing if I found myself in such a situation. But again, that's entirely thanks to the premise (sorry, excuse) rather than the characters. The situations are grim and gruesome and at times, cringe-inducing, yes. But the emotions on display here are tantamount to watching a series of cardboard cutouts get fed through a woodchipper.

Part of this is because of the lack of characterization, but also in part to the host of tremendously stale performances on display. Some members of the cast do a serviceable job (such as Johnny Coyne as Bevins, the butler, and Gotham's Robin Lord Taylor as Shepard's sadistic son), but the vast majority characters we're meant to care about (Iris in particular) are just completely bland in the worst kind of way. The only members of the cast who really seem to pull it off are, of course, Jeffery Combs (a veteran of cult movies) and Rob Wells (of Trailer Park Boys fame). Even with that said, Wells can't really help but give a comedic performance; his character, Peter, is meant to be a slick, high-rolling gambler from Las Vegas. Instead, he really just comes off like a marginally more well-spoken take on Ricky, his character from TPB (pay close attention to the hefty Canadian "oots" and "aboots" that slip out, despite his character supposedly hailing from the Southwest). 

Combs commands 100% of the charisma, coming off as a legitimately detached, detestable lunatic. He never really drops his air of gentlemanly pleasantness, even when presenting his house guests with horrid punishments and ultimatums; you can tell he's having a lot of fun, and that kind of attitude adds a lot to the endearing schlock-factor. If I had one criticism of this character, it would be that, spoiler alert, he gets absolutely no comeuppance of any kind by the end. I at least expected Iris to take some sort of revenge once the game was finished, maybe trick him into participating himself; a nice bit of table-turning irony to give our villain a fitting end, but no. The ending of this film is so abrupt, unsatisfying, and toothless that it ends up coming off like an insultingly hilarious middle finger to the audience.

Then of course we have famous adult film star, Sasha Grey as Amy; she's the crazy girl, you can tell because she wears a lot of black and immediately turns against everyone. There always seems to be that one character in these types of scenarios, the one who acclimates just a little too well to a Battle Royale style death-game. The kind of person who would spend a good amount of time decorating a mask to wear on the night of the Purge, if you catch my drift. These kinds of characters can be fun, but you typically have to give them some sort of nuance to work; maybe have them debate their ideas with the protagonist, or slowly fall to the wayside after starting off normal. Even Sam Raimi's first (and come to think of it, second) Spider-Man films understood this. Amy, meanwhile, immediately electrocutes an old, crippled woman and approaches the task of stabbing someone with an icepick with a sort of childlike glee. There's just nothing to her; they attempt to characterize her literally seconds before she's killed off, meaning that she's the second-most defined character in the movie, right behind our protagonist.

Really, my biggest issue with Would You Rather wasn't that it was poorly shot, poorly acted, or poorly written (and it most definitely is all of those things). It's an exploitation movie, I wasn't expecting The Exorcist (hell, I wasn't even expecting Sleepaway Camp). My problem with Would You Rather is that I couldn't figure out what it wanted to be, and I'm guessing the filmmakers couldn't either. The tone fluctuates so wildly from an attempt at a legitimately dark, serious horror film (the sequence where the PTSD-stricken Iraq vet is beaten with an African whipping stick) to tongue-in-cheek pseudo-comedic schlock (a scene where Rob Wells' character is challenged to let an M-80 go off in his hand) that it ends up averaging out dead in the middle. It's not infuriatingly bad, but it's also not charmingly quaint either. It just sort of is, and that's one of the worst things a movie (especially one like this) can be. That said, to once again quote Ratatouille, "the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." Would You Rather is no cult masterpiece, nor is it a paragon of all that horror should strive to be, but I suppose had my share of laughs. You could definitely do better, but you could also most assuredly do worse. If you're in the mood for something trashy, grab some friends and crack open a few beers; you might not be scared, invested, or surprised, but you'll get your money's worth.

REVIEW: Death Note (2017)

Death Note might just be the best comedy of 2017. It might sound like I'm joking or just being smarmy, but I simply refuse to believe that the impeccable sense of comedic timing in director Adam Wingard's direct-to-Netflix adaptation of the classic anime/manga series was nothing more than a happy accident. If you want to laugh, and I mean really laugh, then I can't recommend this movie enough. Stop reading, get a nice buzz going, and go watch it right now. If you're looking for a more true-to-the-source adaptation, however, well... I haven't seen or read the original Death Note, but something tells me it's less laugh-out-loud hilarious than what I just watched.

The plot follows the insufferably-named Light Turner (Nat Wolff), a bumbling moron who comes into the possession of a mysterious book known as the Death Note. As the book's keeper, the mysterious death god known as Ryuk (portrayed by Jason Lyles and voiced by the magnificent Willem Dafoe), explains, whosoever has their name written within the Note will die in whatever manner the writer chooses. Things start simply enough, with Light testing the book's capabilities on a school bully (and later the man who killed his mother), but soon escalate, as Light (along with his girlfriend, Mia, played by Margaret Qualley) begin enacting large-scale vigilante justice on terrorists, drug traffickers, and child molesters. Drunk off of their own power, the two hide behind the pseudonym "Kira", painting their school-shooter-esque antics as the work of a mysterious demigod. This attracts the attention of an enigmatic detective known only as L (Lakeith Stanfield), and thus begins a convoluted game of cat and mouse run by some of the most boldly idiotic characters ever written.

The most immediately striking thing about this film is probably the cast, for obvious reasons. In the original Death Note series, Light "Turner" was originally Light Yagami and his father "James" was originally named Soichiro. Really, the only thing that carried over from the original story was Ryuk, and surprise, he's by far the best thing here (though that's moreso due to how wonderful Willem Dafoe is than the obvious ties to the property's Eastern roots). There's been a lot of controversy and criticism surrounding this film, as it's been accused of "whitewashing" a foreign property. This film has a lot of problems, but changing the backdrop from Japan to Seattle is the least of them. It's essentially a non-issue here, especially since Japan does this sort of thing to Western properties literally all the time and no one seems to care. Death Note isn't hilariously bad because Light is played by a white guy or because L is portrayed by a black guy; no, Death Note is bad because the characters are cartoonishly incompetent, the tone is all over the place, and the plot (while a legitimately intriguing concept) thinks it's way smarter and more nuanced than it really is.

Let's start with the cast; Nat Wolff is simultaneously the best and worst thing about this movie. Light is an awful character, a hopeless idiot with a God complex who is way too eager to toy around with the Death Note, a plot device that may as well be made of red flags (seriously, the only way this object could be more of a bad omen is if it appeared to the tune of a Rod Serling monologue). At the same time, he's a major part of why the comedy (both intentional and unintentional) works as well as it does here. Wolff has a knack for over-exaggeration; everything he does, he does to the rafters. When he's meant to be scared, he shrieks like a little girl. When he's feeling edgy, he glares like Anthony Perkins at the end of Psycho. This is a movie that is meant to explore ideas like the frailty of human life and the moral quandry of using death to make the world a better place, yet Wolff treats the whole thing like a mid-90's Jim Carrey vehicle. Subtlety escapes him and the film is better off for it.

Then we have L, played by Lakeith Stanfield. He tries very hard to fill the role of "snarky oddball who is by far the smartest man in the room", yet just comes off like the only non-white kid at a high school anime club meeting. He provides an entirely different comedic angle than Light, rattling off pseudo-intellectual zingers like a preteen who just discovered internet memes and nihilism. He wears a hoodie and face mask that marketing execs might describe as "urban hacker chic" and, for reasons that escape me, perches on every chair he comes across like he's about to frog-splash the Fabulous Moolah at Summerslam. Every aspect of this character, from his appearance to his mannerisms, is meant to make us think "what a mysterious nonconformist", yet he just comes off like the kind of kid that would wear a trilby and cape to class. The kind of kid who claims to be "part of Anonymous" and buys all of his clothes at Hot Topic and Spencer's Gifts. You know exactly the kind of kid I'm talking about. L is that kid.

There's also Mia, a character who, as far as I can tell, is so different from her manga counterpart that she may as well be an original creation altogether. Margaret Qualley actually does a fairly decent job with what she's given, nicely selling that gradual shift from edgy high school girl to total psychopath. This character's issues all lie less within the performance and much moreso within the story; it's made very clear from early on that she's totally unhinged and should never be let anywhere near something as potentially dangerous as the Death Note, yet Light just keeps on trusting her again and again and again. Adolescent lust aside, to any young men reading this, take note; if a girl suggests you use a magical tome to murder your own father, she's probably bad news. You should dump her and cut off all communication, and you should definitely not let her continue using said evil book (that is, need I remind you all, capable of killing literally anyone the user desires).

The only legitimately good part of the cast is, you guessed it, Willem Dafoe as Ryuk. Aside from the base concept, this is the only part of this movie that works as intended; Dafoe is both menacing and mysterious and the film suffers for not giving him a bigger focus. He's not only the best actor performance-wise, he's the most interesting character. You could cut out Mia and L and have the majority of the character interactions be Light dealing with an invisible death god breathing down his neck, tempting him with great and terrible power, and I honestly believe the movie would be stronger for it. The special effects are also quite good for a low-spectacle Netflix release; Ryuk looks perfectly accurate to the source material and the gore is (as far as I can tell) more or less entirely practical. That's one genuine point I can give this movie, it uses its resources well. Ryuk is a great creature design, but he's also kept in shadow and/or out of focus, helping to sell the special effect while creating a sense of atmosphere. The movie stays within its means and understands what it has, so no part of it looks in any way cheap or unprofessional. The Dawson's Creek level cast and cinematography put a damper on things, sure, but for the most part this is a fine-looking mess of a movie.

At the end of the day, would I recommend Death Note? It's stupid, it's silly, and it's altogether an unnecessary cash-grab that really didn't need to be made. It's full of lofty ambitions and bloated subtext, all conveyed through some truly awful performances working off of a truly awful script. Would I recommend Death Note? Yes, absolutely. I know this movie is bad, I know I just tore it apart, and I know the phrase "so bad it's good" gets tossed around a lot these days; so many SyFy Originals aspire to that title, confusing ironic quality with a total lack of effort, but Death Note is one of those few bad movies that truly gets it. A movie doesn't get to be "so bad it's good" simply by being terrible. The viewer needs to feel a genuine sense of effort, that an attempt was made to make something good. The idea that a group of people legitimately tried their best, and this was the result. You have bad movies like Dragonball Evolution, that are bad because not a single person involved cared in any way, shape, or form. They're not "so bad they're good", they're so bad they're bad and the whole thing ends up being a painful experience for everyone involved. But when you get a movie like Death Note, a movie that is a complete and utter (and above all, genuine) mess, you can't help but laugh along at the magnificent failure taking place before you. Death Note is one of the funniest movies I've seen in recent memory and I foresee it becoming an enthusiastic go-to on many a bad movie night to come. By all means, go check it out.

REVIEW: The Worst Witch

I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to spend this Halloween. It's easily my favorite holiday, so there's really no telling what manner of merriment I could find myself wrapped up in like so many toilet paper mummies. I can, however, tell you the one way I didn't expect to be spending my Halloween, and that's sitting at home watching the 1986 made-for-TV movie, The Worst Witch. I really don't know what to classify this as, exactly. Don't get me wrong, it's awful, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to break this out every Halloween from now on. It's so terrible it may have just become a tradition.

The plot follows Mildred Hubble (Fairuza Balk, in what I like to pretend is a prequel to The Craft), a student at the prestigious Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. A thoroughly mediocre student to begin with (some might even call her the WORST witch), her life is anything but charmed (no pun intended). To make matters worse, she's constantly antagonized by a particularly nasty teacher, as well as a snobbish blonde rival. Students at this school for witchcraft and wizardry partake in potions class, as well as flying lessons taught by an instructor who wears goggles while riding her enchanted broom. The only people who seem to give Mildred a break are her dim, goofy best friend and the eccentric old headmistress of the school, and it was right around this point that I started to wonder if J.K. Rowling is actually a humongous thief who pilfered all of her ideas from a comically bad children's special that aired on HBO in the mid-80's.

While there's bound to be some overlap when it comes to the concept of "magic boarding school", it's honestly uncanny how many similarities there are between The Worst Witch and the Harry Potter series. The scenes that take place during the flying lessons are especially flagrant, since they look like they take place in practically the same castle courtyard we saw in Sorcerer's Stone. Now I'm not saying that one series stole ideas from the other (if anything, I'm vaguely implying it at best), but it's amazing when one considers the similarities, not just in terms of aesthetic, but in terms of story structure.

Both series feature a scene where a character goes surfing on a broomstick. Both series have scenes where the mean blonde kid is turned into an animal as a form of comeuppance. Both series have a magical villain (with a crazy, over-the-top underling) who is defeated by a seemingly innocuous spell. Both Mildred Hubble and Harry Potter are given honors by the headmaster in the Great Hall. I can't get enough of it. One would think that it would be easiest to draw parallels between Harry Potter and all of the Potter contemporaries; your Spiderwick Cronicles or Twilight or Series of Unfortunate Events. But no, the thing that it all bears an uncanny resemblance to is an 80's kids' movie where Tim Curry plays a tambourine in a technicolor wingsuit.

Yes, Tim "Frank-N-Furter" Curry is in this, playing the unfortunately named "Grand Wizard". He claims he has a lot of gigs to get to on Halloween and we can only hope none of them involve cross burnings in the deep south. We also have Dianna Rigg (The Avengers' Emma Peel/Game of Thrones' Olenna Tyrell, depending on your generation) as the slightly-less-unfortunately-named Miss Hardbroom; as one might surmise from her name, she's the Dean Wormer to Fairuza Balk's Delta House. She's normally so darn endearing everywhere she goes, it's genuinely fascinating to watch her play the part of a frigid old ice queen. You end up hating her, naturally, even though a part of you just doesn't want to. We also have Charlotte Rae of Diff'rent Strokes/Facts of Life fame, pulling double duty as Miss Cackle and her evil twin sister, Agatha. One is a perpetually flustered old woman with little to do, the other is a neon nightmare that sounds halfway between Wynonna Judd and Bruce Springsteen. I can't say everyone was good, nor can I say everyone was bad. I honestly don't know what kind of performances these actors gave. All I know is I was transfixed from start to finish.

The Worst Witch is an amazing piece of innocent schlock. The production value is laughable, the story is practically nonexistent, and the songs are the equivalent of a clown getting launched into a vat of acid; you don't really want to laugh, but you just can't think of any other way to process what you're feeling. I feel confident in saying that this is to Halloween as The Star Wars Holiday Special is to Christmas. The only core difference is The Worst Witch is about a half hour shorter, making it intrinsically better by default. Remember, anything can happen on Halloween. Even a couple of particularly stiff cocktails and a viewing of The Worst Witch. It's by no means ideal, but there's definitely worse ways to celebrate.

REVIEW: Alien Abduction

Why aren't there more movies about alien abductions? It's such a classic part of North American folklore, you'd expect that bug-eyed monsters would get at least as much play in the realm of horror cinema as demonic possessions or ghost children. I feel as though it's an untapped well of potential; aside from the obvious "based on a true story" mystique, there's also the inherent fear associated with the unknown encroaching upon familiar territory. The concept of flying saucers snatching up farm animals may seem quaint by today's standards, but it shouldn't be difficult at all to make an effective horror movie involving ordinary, relatable people getting snatched from their beds by strange creatures for god knows what purpose. In hindsight, there are a decent number of movies that fit that description, so perhaps I should rephrase my original question; why aren't there more good movies about alien abductions? It seems that, if you want to watch a movie about UFOs making people disappear, you'll have to settle for mediocre trash like the aptly-titled Alien Abduction.

Taking the form of found footage (oh joy), the film follows the Morris family on their camping trip in Brown Mountain, North Carolina. The youngest member of the Morris clan, Riley (Riley Polanski), is keeping a video journal of the vacation as a means of coping with his autism (in case you're wondering, this is the most well-thought-out part of the movie). The film wastes no time getting right to the point, spoiling the ending in the first few minutes (surprise, the Morris family is abducted by aliens), building absolutely no suspense as to what's behind the mysterious happenings that plague Brown Mountain. Riley gets clear and objective footage of several alien spacecraft in the beginning of the film and his parents (who may or may not have seen the recording, it's not made clear) decide to head right into the mysterious woods without first getting gas, completely blasé in regards to the ominous humming lights that harassed their campsite the night prior. This is a family that is just begging for an anal probe.

The film admittedly comes close to understanding suspense and tension a few times; to be perfectly honest, the Morrises are stuck in a genuinely horrifying situation. The gangly visitors are essentially everywhere, they have no cell phone service, and being in a vehicle doesn't offer much help once the lights start flashing. The one decent use of the found footage format (when it's not being flung around wildly in a false attempt at conveying tension) comes in the form of the screen flickering and glitching out whenever the invaders are nearby. Normally their arrival is heralded by bright floodlights and obnoxious humming, but there are a few select scenes where the image quality will drop slightly, implying danger is just around the bend. These are the parts of the film that work. The other 94% of the film simply doesn't.

Tension only works when characters are both likable and competent. Unfortunately, the characters here are neither. Everyone is utterly one-note, making idiotic decisions at the drop of a hat. It feels as though every adult male character knows they're in a horror movie and wishes to go out like a hero. In this film, the concept of "heroic sacrifice" basically equates to "throw yourself at the alien invaders for no reason when you would be a much bigger help tagging along for later". It's not exactly hard to come up with reasons for people to be killed off by saucermen, so I'd think "suicide by alien" would be pretty far down the list. The movie tells us everything right off the bat, not even attempting to create a mystery as to what the primary threat could be (as if the title wasn't damming enough), but it decides to play coy in terms of the visuals (likely due to restrictions in both the budget and imagination departments). This creates a dissatisfying feeling for the entire movie; the film tells us basically everything, but shows us practically nothing. If it had gone for the 100% subtle approach, the atmosphere would have been that much stronger and the scares would be that much more effective. Instead we have a horror movie where the only dramatic tension comes care of anticipating the next lazy jump-scare (which usually just turns out to be the camera stuttering around or something popping into frame).

Alien Abduction is a concept that could be so easily re-tooled into something genuinely scary. Fear of the unknown is about as primal a fear as there is, and the unknown is essentially the alien genre's bread and butter. It would be so easy to exploit the audience's lack of knowledge about the primary threat to come up with something unique and surprising. Instead, it comes off as generic, lazy, and often laugh-out-loud funny. At one point during the climax, it literally turns into a game of Slender, with our protagonist wandering through the dark woods, his camera going fuzzy whenever a skinny-limbed monster was near. The concept of alien abduction, while often parodied, is objectively terrifying at its core. It works from every angle; there's the immediate fear of being captured or killed, but there's also the greater discomfort conjured by the sheer implications raised by little green men dissecting human beings. You could go literally anywhere with it, and Alien Abduction chooses to go nowhere. Aside from the mediocre script, dull performances, and cheap production values, that is truly the film's greatest sin.

REVIEW: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Out of the Shadows

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a film that, against all odds, I was looking forward to. It's no secret that I wasn't a fan of the first entry in this new generation of Turtles films, and I've absolutely no qualms in saying that, while 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is undoubtedly the best film adaptation of the property, the notably sillier Secret of the Ooze will forever be my favorite. Out of the Shadows appeared to be taking a turn for the absurd, which is exactly the direction I wanted to see it go in. The first film was a soulless, unfocused mess; when a film takes itself seriously, it opens itself up to deeper critique. You can't exactly brush away plot holes and lazy writing with "well it's not trying to be serious" when a film is very clearly attempting (and failing) to do just that. TMNT is one of those rare franchises that can flourish both in the realm of serious quality (the original 90's film, the 2003 cartoon series, the original Mirage comics, etc.) and hilarious cheese (the 80's cartoon, Secret of the Ooze, etc.); considering the creative team behind the 2014 film clearly lacked the skill to convincingly pull off the former, it was a smart move to put all their proverbial chips on the latter. As a wise man once said, "if I can't be the best, I sure as hell can be the worst."

After escaping from prison, The Shredder (Brian Tee) means to collect a series of extraterrestrial maguffins that will open a portal to the otherworldly realm of Dimension X, heralding the arrival of the evil alien warlord, Krang (Brad Garrett) and his massive doomsday machine, the Technodrome. Naturally, it's up to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, and Jeremy Howard) to stop him. The plot is standard fare and should be familiar to anyone with even the slightest prior knowledge of the Turtles' cartoon exploits. Once again, the evil Shredder attacks, these turtle boys cut him no slack, roll credits. There's also a totally unnecessary subplot involving the Turtles debating whether or not to use a canister of purple mutagen ooze to become human. The payoff is exactly what one would expect (spoiler alert, the next film won't be called Teenage Mutant Ninja People) and it's swept under the rug just in time for the bombastic climax to take center stage. It's loud, colorful, and stupid, but then that's not necessarily a bad thing.

At the end of the day, different films must be held to different standards; a movie should be judged on how well it succeeded in accomplishing what it set out to do. It's why I can call a film like Robocop or Krampus a near perfect movie without a hint of irony. The 2014 Turtles movie tried to be an action blockbuster worthy of going toe-to-toe with the MCU; considering it was a lazy, stupid cash-grab, it obviously failed. Out of the Shadows has embraced its place in the cinematic circle of life and sets out to be nothing more than a stupid, cheesy, live-action cartoon and mostly succeeds. It's only when it tries to break free from this cornball mold that its myriad flaws become apparent and irritating (instead of endearing and hilarious). Like Secret of the Ooze, this is pretty objectively a bad movie. But also like Secret of the Ooze, I found myself having a lot of fun with it regardless.

Additions like the long-awaited live-action premier of characters like Krang, Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams), and Rocksteady (Sheamus) lend the movie an air of authenticity compared to the film that preceded it; it actually feels like it was made by people who knew and appreciated what they were working with this time around, and that small bit of effort goes a long way in terms of making an enjoyable piece of entertainment. The Turtles are very much the main characters, Shredder is a simple samurai in body armor, and the Technodrome has a big, robotic eyeball on top of it. Sadly, despite all the fun, there's still a number of Platinum Dunes trappings that occasionally pull you out of the Saturday-morning stupor the film creates; Stephen Amell gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen as Casey Jones (now a beat cop for the NYPD instead of a sporting goods themed vigilante, for whatever reason). It's a real shame, since he seemed genuinely excited to be in the film. Whether his performance is due to poor direction or just a lackluster take on his part, I'm not entirely sure, but his inclusion feels somewhat superfluous considering everything else the film has to offer. In a movie with massive mutants and alien brains and Technodromes, there's really not much for New York hockey man to do.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is this modern series' timid first steps into the realm of eye-rolling cheese, a place where this franchise has been perfectly comfortable and prosperous in the past. The Turtles themselves are endearing and fun, the action is madcap and inventive, and the villains are big, bumbling, and corny. It's the 80's cartoon brought to life, and once the series decides to drop the half-hearted attempts at legitimate drama (I'm looking at you, pointless mutagen subplot) and embraces its cheeseball roots, I'm sure it'll be a spectacularly fun time rather than a merely-decent diversion. Out of the Shadows almost had it right, but abandoning all dignity is a daunting thing for a big-name action blockbuster to commit to; the dial is left and a modest 7, when it should have been cranked as far past 10 as it would allow. It's that lack of commitment that makes this movie an inoffensive piece of schlock instead of a memorable piece of schlock.