Tag Archives: sequel

Someone Please Arrest the ‘Paul Blart’ Sequel

In a world of pointless movie sequels, this one may take the cake.

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” is the follow-up no one asked to from the 2009 film, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”. Written by and starring Kevin James, the film follows Paul Blart (whom, if you haven’t guessed by now, is a mall cop) to Las Vegas where he attends a security guard convention. While there, he discovers a plan for thieves to steal precious art, and must step up to save the day. Neal McDonough plays the villain as Andy Fickman directs.

I enjoyed the first “Paul Blart” for what it was. It wasn’t too serious and featured enough solid laughs to be worth a one-time watch. But near everything that worked about the first film, and by everything, I mean all the funny and charming actors including Bobby Cannavale and Stephen Rannazzi, are gone. Jayma Mays, who played Blart’s love interest, even chose not to return for this sequel and this is the same woman who said yes to “Smurfs” 1 and 2, so you know she’s willing to make trashy franchises. All this leaves “Paul Blart 2” with little to play with, and the result is a film that has little entertainment.

First things first, the film tries too hard to be funny, and there is nothing more desperate and unappealing than trying too hard (just ask any woman). Right from the opening scene, Blart’s mother (played by two-time Oscar nominee Shirley Knight) is run over by a milk truck—for laughs. Sure, you may smirk at the shock value of it, but the film treats what should be a horrific moment in Blart’s life as a punchline, and then keeps on doing so for the rest of the film. I also lost track at the amount of fat jokes in here.

Deep down, somewhere in this movie, there are a few jokes that work, like when cliché bad guy Neal McDonough (who is by far the film’s biggest asset) and Blart are having a yelling match about who is crazier, and McDonough goes, “I have two different colored eyeballs, because that’s how I live my life!” (I don’t know, I chuckled). But for every well thought out one-liner, there are a dozen, or baker’s dozen, because fat jokes, that fall flat. For example, when Blart beats one bad guy and says, “Always bet on Blart”, I cringed. All this leads up to a final act that is so ludicrous, and so full of terrible CGI, that it made me almost angry.

This is produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production team, so it should come as little shock that it is an unfunny comedy, featuring stale jokes, shameless product placement, and exotic locations so that the actors can vacation while they happen to film a movie.

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” is far from the worst movie of 2015 (4+ months in and “50 Shades of Grey” still holds that distinction), and I chuckled a few times, but it really is a struggle to get through. Numerous times throughout the film, fellow security guards tell Blart that no one cares about him and what he did six years ago; audiences don’t care, either. This isn’t stupid fun like the first film; it’s just plain stupid.

“Avengers,” you cannot come soon enough…

Critics Rating: 4/10

Variety

Reaction to Spider-Man/Marvel Announcement

‘SpongeBob’ Sequel Does Source Material Justice

My childhood remains intact!

“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” is the second big-screen adaption of everyone’s favorite ocean sponge, following the 2004’s “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” [realizes it has been 10 years since the last film and slowly stares up into the sky as “Dust in the Wind” begins to play]. Instead of rescuing King Neptune’s crown, SpongeBob (again voiced perfectly by Tom Kenny), Patrick and company must this time retrieve the Krabby Patty secret formula from a pirate (Antonio Banderas). Paul Tibbitt directs.

When they first announced they were making a second SpongeBob movie, I got excited. SpongeBob and Harry Potter are the two staples of my childhood, and the first SpongeBob film remains one of the funniest kid’s films ever made (my humble opinion). However when I began to learn more and more about this sequel, I became worried. The trailer painted it to be almost completely CGI, and I was really concerned the film would be more of the recent kid-pandering, dumbed-down Sponge humor.

However after seeing “Out of Water”, I was happily surprised that about 80% of the film is the classic animation, and the film itself finds the rhythm, tone and references that made the original film and early seasons, hits.

Let’s get one thing straight: this is nothing but one big episode of SpongeBob SquarePants stretched to fit a motion picture runtime. There are so many nods to the classic episodes (like Patrick yelling “Finland!” after getting concussed) that it serves as an homage for long-time fans like myself, but it also has many other references people not familiar to the character will love (I lost track at the amount of Stanley Kubrick jokes in here).

The sign of a truly great child’s film is that it has jokes for all ages, not just kids, and “Out of Water” has just that. Sure, there are the butt jokes or simple things like a character yelling, “your brain is made of cotton candy!” that will have grade-school kids chuckling, but there are quite a few Family Guy-esque jokes in this movie too, including one back-and-forth with SpongeBob and Plankton that had me laughing out loud.

As funny as the film can be, it is just one stretched episode of SpongeBob, and at times it shows. Some scenes run a little long, and while the overarching message is about teamwork, other than that the movie really isn’t *about* anything. It is just SpongeBob and his friends involved in several (kind of trippy) montages while singing songs. At this point, though, what else could you really expect?

The series’ creator Stephen Hillenburg, who left the show at the completion of the first film, returns here to write the story and executively produce, and his presence is felt. The film has the sense of fun and wit about it that have been missing in recent years. Is this as good as the 2004 film? Not by a long shot, no, but it isn’t the train wreck I at one point feared.

If you don’t like SpongeBob then “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” probably won’t convert you, however if you are a fan, old or young, then this is colorful, hyper fun (if you couldn’t tell, I fall into the latter category). If you’re a parent who takes their child to see this, you’ll enjoy yourself. If you’re a 20-something like me who grew up on SpongeBob, then this is a fantastic trip down nostalgia lane. And if you’re a kid who currently watches SpongeBob…well first off, I doubt you’re reading this, and second, go watch the first three seasons; they’re much better than what they air for you guys now.

Critics Rating: 6/10

Variety

Horrible Accurate Description of ‘Bosses 2’

The moment they announced “Horrible Bosses 2” was a thing I scratched my head. I loved the first film, it remains one of my favorite comedies of all-time, but it just didn’t have substance to warrant a sequel. Then director Seth Gordon said he wouldn’t be returning and he was replaced with Sean Anders. All these were red flags but I held up hope that the returning cast would make this sequel work.

They couldn’t.

“Horrible Bosses 2” follows Nick, Kurt and Dale (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day) after they have quit their jobs and started their own business with their invention, The Shower Buddy. When they are scammed by an investor and his son (Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine), they decide their only course of action is to kidnap the son and hold him for ransom (because, duh).

I don’t really know where to start with this film, because it really is disappointing. Comedy sequels are rarely as good as the original (“22 Jump Street” excluded), but I expected “Horrible Bosses 2” to at least have the same tone as the first film. The writers of the original film, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, wrote a draft for this film but when Anders took over as director he and his writing partner John Morris reworked the script (the duo helped on the scripts of the scattershot but very funny “We’re the Millers” and “Hot Tub Time Machine”). Some of the first film’s bite and self-awareness still remain, but most of the jokes now are nothing more than poop and sex gags, which are Anders’ trademark.

The movie is paced in a way that just doesn’t work. It takes a full hour before the trio even discusses the kidnapping scheme, or at least it felt like that. This clearly was not an idea that could carry an entire film, so it was stretched by having an entire subplot involving Jennifer Aniston’s sex-crazed dentist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Jennifer Aniston, but when she starts to fantasize about 14-year-old boys at wrestling camp, you lost me.

Bateman, Day and Sudeikis (whom I love and believe is very underrated) all still have fun chemistry and give and take among each other, and Electro himself Jamie Foxx is back as Dean MF Jones, but they can’t save this sinking ship.

Christoph Waltz is criminally underused as the film’s antagonist (pun intended?), but there’s still something about seeing Hans Landa play a ruthless business man that put a smirk on my face. Pine seems to be having a blast as the spoiled son, who partners up with the trio in the hostage plan to get back at his dad. Kevin Spacey also returns for a few minutes as Dave Harken, but in the end that only made me miss the first film even more.

In retrospect, expectations for “Horrible Bosses 2” shouldn’t have been high, as they put “horrible” right in the title, alongside the number two, which is all this film is: poop.

There is a saving grace towards the end of the film with a few twists and an interestingly executed hostage plan, but that saving grace comes in the form of a bullet to the head, saving my soul from this unjustified, heart-crushing sequel.

Critics Rating: 4/10

‘Annabelle’ Boring, Lazy and Unscary

There’s a trend I’ve noticed with Hollywood in 2014: if a title of a film is simply a female name, then the end product is trash. First we had “Tammy”, then “Lucy” and now “Annabelle”.

A prequel/spin-off/rip-off of “The Conjuring”, “Annabelle” tells the tale of how the creepy little doll became possessed in the first place, and how it torments the lives of a married couple and their newborn baby. The couple is played by Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis (crazy first name, right?!) and the film is directed by John R. Leonetti.

I wasn’t the biggest “Conjuring” fan. I appreciated its production value and acting but I just didn’t find the film very scary. And like I said in my review, a horror film that isn’t scary is like a comedy without any laughs; it failed at its objective. That being said, if “Annabelle” was intended to be a horror film, then it botched even harder than “Conjuring” ever could have hoped to.

Nothing in this film works. Let’s start with the acting. It’s as wooden as the rocking chair that the Annabelle doll sits in the entire film. The actor’s deliveries are off and their emotions are non-existent. As my one friend brilliantly said to me, “you know you’re in trouble when the doll is the best actor in the movie.”

The script is just as awful as the acting. The plot makes no sense and puts no effort into explaining how Annabelle actually comes possessed, and it takes until the final scene to tell us why the demon is after the family. The dialogue is equally as dreadful. Like I’m perplexed as to how some of these scenes made it into the finished product. At one point the husband says “ha ha it’s true; everyone HATES her grandmother”. Like, in the most awkward tone possible. And nearly completely out of context to the conversation. That would mean the director had to have looked at that take and said, “Perfect! Cut. Print.”

Speaking of direction, Leonetti does nothing special here at all. All my issues with “Conjuring” aside, director James Wan (who produced “Annabelle”) knew how to build tension in a scene using practical effects (his mistake was never having much of the tension boil over and lead anywhere). Leonetti lingers on actors faces for too long and stares at a still Annabelle for extended durations. There were a couple interesting camera tricks he employs, such as showing a little girl running past an open door only to have her turn into a full-grown woman upon entering, but I think if you had simply put a camera on a tripod it would have done a more engaging job.

All of this could be forgiven if the film was scary, or even interesting, but “Annabelle” is neither. It is boring and uneventful, and by using all no-name actors to ensure the budget was as low as possible it’s not even like we have a big-name star to hold our hand (I would pay good money to see Nicolas Cage scream and throw the Annabelle doll).

I can go on and on bashing “Annabelle”, but then I would be just hurting my brain more than this film did by itself. It is a lazily constructed and awfully executed horror film that should be condemned alongside the demons that control its title character. The silver lining about nearing the end of this review is I will never have to revisit this film ever again. Well, except when I write my Year’s Worst Films list in December. Or until they milk yet another sequel out of this already dried up franchise and I have to relive it all over again…

Critics Rating: 3/10

‘The Equalizer’ Big on Blood, Bores

If you thought Liam Neeson was the only middle aged action star in Hollywood capable of being typecast, think again.

Denzel Washington stars in “The Equalizer”, a film that reunites Washington with his “Training Day” director, Antoine Fuqua. Washington plays a retired intelligence officer who now works at a home improvement store. One day he gets mixed up with the Russian mob while protecting a young call girl, and these Russians must have never seen a Denzel movie before because he sets on a violent path of vengeance. Chloë Grace Moretz and Marton Csokas also star.

Nearing 60 years old and two Oscars in hand, Denzel Washington is at the point in his career that he can pretty much chose whatever role he wants. And as of late, those roles are all men with mysterious pasts and a particular set of skills, such as his parts in “Safe House” and “2 Guns”. “The Equalizer” continues the trend of Denzel killing it in the starring role, but the film itself failing to match his energy.

“The Equalizer” is an over-the-top action film, which acts as more of a highlight reel of cool kills with forced dialogue and backstories used as filler space than a genuine film. Every character not played by Denzel Washington in this film has no true development. Even the girl that the film supposedly revolves around, played by Chloë Grace Moretz, isn’t a true character; she’s just a plot device.

When you’re making an action film, obviously the script isn’t immensely important, but you still can’t be lazy. The script for “Equalizer” involves a man coming out of secret service retirement to get revenge (you know, like “Taken”) in order to face off against the Russian mob (“Training Day”) and features a big finale with elaborate traps inside a house of horrors (“Home Alone”).

The action in the film is competently shot by Fuqua, including a few slowed down “observation shots”, ala “Sherlock Holmes” but the scenes often draw on for too long. I’m all for extended shootouts or seeing Denzel Washington kill a man with a corkscrew, but don’t make it overstay its welcome.

Oh, that’s another thing about this movie, the runtime. It is 131 minutes long (emphasis on “long”). That’s over two hours, and I wager that only 20 of those minutes involve Denzel killing someone, which is what you pay to see. That means about 16% of the film is what we want to see, the rest of the time is spent learning about Washington’s past (which is never fully explained) and meeting characters who are not crucial to the plot, or worse yet, are only there to satisfy a plot point way down the road.

I cannot say “The Equalizer” is a horrible film, because it is not. There are a handful of things it gets right, especially the tension and unease at the start of the film when you know Washington is more than this mild-mannered store employee that he is leading on to be. But there is just so much more I wanted out of this film, and even Denzel Washington’s charming smile and dedicated performance couldn’t win me over. In the end, “The Equalizer” is twice as long and half as fun as it should have been.

Critics Rating: 5/10

‘November Man’ a Fun, By-the-Numbers Spy Thriller

It’s hard to watch Pierce Brosnan run around in “The November Man” without imagining him from his glory 007 days, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Brosnan steps into his spy shoes once again, only this time instead of being a Brit he is an ex-CIA agent who is called out of retirement for one last job (if it sounds cliché, that’s because it is). After the rescue mission goes wrong, Brosnan is on a path for revenge; a path that will pit him against his old protégé (Luke Bracey) and right in the middle of a government conspiracy (if that sounds cliché, it’s because it is. See the pattern yet?). Roger Donaldson directs.

“The November Man” really is an interesting film. It uses every spy thriller cliché in the book, from student vs teacher to an agent being told “don’t start a family” and then promptly starting a family. However, despite all these clichés, the film still manages to implement some interesting twists, and a lot of fun, engaging action, to make it worth your time.

First things first, despite being 61 years old, Pierce Brosnan shows that he still has some fight left in him, and he can still kick some serious butt. Even though his attempt at an American accent is awkward, and completely abandoned when he yells (which is more often than you may think), he never hams up his performance, like you may see an aging action star do in “The Expendables”.

The movie’s action is top of the notch, if not at times a bit ridiculous. There are plenty of CAR CHASES! EXPLOSIONS! SHOVELS TO THE HEAD! but there are also numerous well-staged shootouts in the film. Most every one of these shootouts is built up by several minutes of cat-and-mouse tension. You don’t know when the spark is going to hit the powder keg, but when it does it results in well-shot, exciting and downright easily enjoyable fun.

What keeps “November Man” from being a better-than-average spy thriller, aside from the genre clichés, is the plot. There a few fun twists, however by the end of the film, it felt like they were trying to fit in as many “gotcha!” moments as they could. Some of the twists are more plausible than others, while one will make you groan because of how unnecessary it is.

There is also a 20 minute segment where not a bullet is fired, because the film tries to make you care about the characters (or something like that). It gets almost so dry that you just want to grab Brosnan and shout “would you shoot someone already?!”

What you expect out of “The November Man” will determine how much fun you have with it. If you want a new, fresh spy thriller with a hot young gun stealing the show, you’ll be disappointed. If you want to see well-shot action and some fun spy dialogue, like I did, then you’ve come to the right place. And if you wanted an over-the-top action film with a stupid plot and even worse script, go watch “Die Hard 5”.

Critics Rating: 6/10

‘Lucy’ All Dumb, No Fun

Oh, boy.

Well, here goes nothing. In “Lucy”, Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character who begins to access more and more of her brain after accidently being injected with an experimental drug. Morgan Freeman costars as Luc Besson writes and directs.

The trailer for this film made it look like the film was going to be very, very bad; awkward dialogue paired with that awful Besson “humor” where random violence is supposed to be funny (because it’s a riot and totally hashtag relatable when someone shoots a cab driver for not speaking English in Taiwan, right?). Well rest easy because “Lucy” isn’t as bad as the commercials made it out to be; it’s worse.

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie try to be so smart, and then end up being so dumb. For the whole film, “Lucy” tries to ask questions while giving the impression that it has all the answers. It then pulls the rug out from under the audience in a messy (and moronic) climax. Seriously, by the time the film was wrapping up its painfully long 88 minute run time, I didn’t know what was going on. And you know you you’ve lost a filmgoer’s interest when I was questioning why a character still had a flip phone in the year 2014 instead of pondering what had just happened during the climax.

The film’s main interest point (at least in its own pretentious mind) is “oh boy, what’s going to happen when Lucy reaches 100% access of her brain?!” Only thing is, you don’t care. The more intelligent Lucy gets, the more dumb the movie gets. By the time Lucy has accessed 30% of her brain (instead of the normal person’s 10%) she can already throw other human beings with her mind. So do I really care to wait and find out what is going to happen when she reaches 70%? Spoiler: No, I don’t.

If this was a sitcom, it would be called “I Hate Lucy” (OK that was a lob down the middle). I just didn’t like much of anything in this movie. Besson does know how to shoot an action sequence, as demonstrated by the final 15 minutes being the only enjoyable part of “The Family”, and once again his climatic action scene is the highlight of the film. It’s fun enough when the guns are going off, but the fight isn’t enough to distract you from a plot that has become unintentionally hilarious.

“Lucy” is too moronic to be a smart sci-fi and too boring to constitute as dumb fun. The film doesn’t know what it wants to be, nor what message it wants to send. Really all I got out of it is “drugs are bad, m’kay?”. Johansson is an emotionless robot for most of the film, and nothing in the film is engaging. The film maintains that human beings use 10% of their brain; this film would be lucky if the people who made it exhumed anything over two.

Critics Rating: 3/10

‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Vastly Better than First

‘Spider-Man’ Sequel as Mediocre as First

Every now and again a film comes along that has a lot of potential but just can’t quite reach the levels it is striving for. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is such a film. A follow-up to the unnecessary 2012 reboot, this sequel follows Spidey (Andrew Garfield), as he struggles to deal with his emotions towards Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) while at the same time battling a new supervillain known as Electro (Jamie Foxx). Marc Webb directs.

The first “Amazing Spider-Man” was simply alright. There were a lot of creative ideas and potential, however it was weighed down by numerous similarities to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, as well as a very underwhelming villain. This sequel manages to fix some mistakes that bogged down the original film, however many issues still linger.

First things first, Andrew Garfield is a very good Peter Parker. He nails Spider-Man’s sarcastic attitude, even in the middle of conflict, and has solid chemistry with Stone, as well as Sally Field, who plays Aunt May.

Speaking of character chemistry, that is by and far the strong point of “Amazing Spider-Man 2”. Marc Webb, who directed the rom-com “500 Days of Summer”, is very good at directing emotional scenes, making them feel genuine and human. The film has plenty of funny pieces of dialogue, and there are a few lump-in-the-throat inducing moments as well.

Unfortunately, the film did not learn from the first go around in the villain department. The Lizard was underdeveloped and lacked any real motive in the first film, not to mention his design wasn’t too impressive either. Here the film goes 0 for 3, missing with Electro, Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan). All three have no true motives for their actions, are underwritten and not one of them affects the plot; I’m not even kidding, except for the end battle, the movie would be completely unchanged if none of the villains were in the film.

A superhero film should be driven BY the villain, not simply FEATURING one. Look at “Spider-Man 2”: Peter has his own issues and is fighting the choices he has to make, but Doc Ock is featured as a fleshed-out character and is ultimately the reason Peter decides that he has to be Spider-Man. None of that is present here. Rhino is essentially a cameo, Electro is cliché (think of Jim Carrey’s Riddler story arc from “Batman Forever”) and the Goblin is shoehorned in to fill a plot point and set up a spin-off film. I also wasn’t a fan of the design of Goblin and Rhino, but that is purely personal opinion.

The battles are well-shot (although most every action scene is shown in the trailer) and the interactions between Gwen and Peter are entertaining, but “Amazing Spider-Man 2” cannot overcome the cluttered plot and indecisive narrative. I almost feel bad for kids who have this as their staple Spider-Man. When the Raimi films came out, I remember how much everyone in my school loved them, and I distinctly remember seeing “Spider-Man 2” and being blown away (it’ll be the 10 year anniversary next month). Unfortunately there’s just nothing awe-inspiring or memorable about this new series.

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is at its best when Spider-Man isn’t on screen, and in a film with the word “Spider-Man” in the title, I’m not sure how much of a positive that is. The film is entertaining, for sure, and I was never bored, but at more than on occasion I was sitting in my seat thinking “why does this movie exist?”. There’s a point in the film when Electro says, “I will show everyone what it’s like to live in a world without Spider-Man”. If only he could actually make that happen…

Critics Rating: 6/10

The Reel Deal

Movie reviews from David Palmer

Tag Archives: sequel

Someone Please Arrest the ‘Paul Blart’ Sequel

Reaction to Spider-Man/Marvel Announcement

‘SpongeBob’ Sequel Does Source Material Justice

Horrible Accurate Description of ‘Bosses 2’

‘Annabelle’ Boring, Lazy and Unscary

‘The Equalizer’ Big on Blood, Bores

‘November Man’ a Fun, By-the-Numbers Spy Thriller

‘Lucy’ All Dumb, No Fun

‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Vastly Better than First

‘Spider-Man’ Sequel as Mediocre as First