Nobody (2021, Ilya Naishuller)

Wouldn’t it be funny if Bob Odenkirk were an action movie hero? Like a kick-ass one who doesn’t just use machine guns, but also does a lot of hand-to-hand fighting?

If you’re unfamiliar with Odenkirk, let’s just say it’s a “cast against type” situation to the extremis. Only it doesn’t matter because action movie special effects have gotten to the point they can turn anyone—quite easily—into an action movie hero.

Odenkirk is a Nobody, which is both a gimmick line and part of the eventual reveal. It takes an hour—into Nobody’s still very long ninety-seven minutes—to find out just how and why boring suburban dad Odenkirk is an old man action hero. The reveal’s not worth it, but if it had been worth it—especially after the plodding first act (Nobody’s relentlessly tedious)—it would’ve been a miracle given Derek Kolstad’s simultaneously lazy and bad script and director Naishuller’s startling mediocrity. There are some (many?) bad moments in Nobody’s direction, but there’s not a single good one. Never does Naishuller show any ingenuity, imagination, or… well, I’d love to find another i-word but it’s not surprise the film doesn’t have any insight… what would it have insight in? Certainly not any of the characters. Everyone’s either disposable, a stunt cast, or a disposable stunt cast.

Though it’s not not nice to see Christopher Lloyd able to kick it up a bit at eighty-three. And Michael Ironside is better than almost everyone else in the film with just two short scenes (he’s Odenkirk’s boss and father-in-law). But RZA’s not the stunt cast the film pretends, ditto Colin Salmon, though Salmon at least gets a real-ish scene. RZA’s just there for the pyrotechnics and smash cuts.

Evan Schiff and William Yeh’s cutting is incredibly even less imaginative than Naishuller’s direction; their lack of rhythm—along with Kolstad’s lousy writing—is what makes Nobody drag. Everyone’s trying to inflict personality on the picture only no one’s got any.

It’s most unfortunate for Odenkirk, who’s a game protagonist, but since the film’s so bad at turning him into an action hero, it’s never anything but the gimmick. Once it’s clear he can do the gimmick—and it’s clear really early on, sometime during the interminable first act—there’s nothing else to him.

Nobody gets a little energy out of big bad Aleksey Serebryakov—a karaoke-loving Russian mobster—at least until it’s clear Serebryakov isn’t any good. Is it his fault? Or is it Kolstad’s? Or Naishuller’s? Or maybe it’s just Nobody’s fault nobody is any good in Nobody.

The movie’s a middling “Saturday Night Live” sketch stretched out to almost 100 minutes.

It does have a good soundtrack—I mean, it opens with Nina Simone (and also a cute kitty cat), but then it turns out the Nina Simone (and the cute kitty cat) are just a ruse and they’ve got nothing to do with the content. But the soundtrack selections are a solid playlist. Editors Schiff and Yeh don’t cut things well to the songs, because of course they don’t, but at least during those sequences the music’s good. Otherwise, David Buckley’s score is the pits.

Nobody’s a badly written, badly directed, bland, bloody bore.

Wrath of Man (2021, Guy Ritchie)

When did Guy Ritchie get so enthusiastic about his actors’ performances? Wrath of Man is a lot of things—and a little much—but it’s a middling cross between revenge and heist picture where the cast gets a great showcase. Sometimes too much of one, with the script way too talky in the first act. Man’s based on a French movie (though I’ve never seen opening titles speed through acknowledging it’s a remake like Man, the card is up for maybe eight seconds), with director Ritchie sharing co-screenplay credit with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies. None of them deserve many pats on the back, as there’s constantly terrible dialogue because someone wants to make it feel gritty with distinct dialogue. You know, kind of like Heat.

Obviously, it’s impossible to do an armored truck robbery in L.A. story without acknowledging Heat a little and Ritchie gets it out of the way early. He goes on to whiff the big heist sequence (with the bad guys masked in body armor and invincible against any guns but their own). After promising it’s going to be great for the entire movie, with over-the-title top-billed but really it’s an ensemble by the end Jason Statham showing up at an armored car service, looking for work. L.A.’s had a rash of armored truck robberies lately—I mean, it’s so widespread even Post Malone would do it—and this company in particular had a bad robbery where some people got killed. Is Statham sure he wants the job? Of course, because he’s there to figure out who’s behind the armored truck robbery. Why?

Watch the movie. Enjoy watching Statham kicking ass while working with lovable old timer Holt McCallany, job weasel Josh Hartnett, and interested lady coworker Niamh Algar. Man’s too intentionally shitty in its pursuit of gritty to be entertaining; it’s all homophobic and misogynistic jokes amongst the staff—even though everyone’s a terrible person in one way or another so we don’t mind when they’re put in danger or die. It’s Statham’s movie, he’s the only invulnerable one. Him and the guy he’s after.

At the armored car depot, the acting’s all solid. McCallany, Hartnett, Algar, Eddie Marsan doing what seems to be a spoof of an accent as the boss; they’re all good. They’re ready and able for when Man need elevate them.

But it never elevates them because it’s got a fractured narrative (courtesy the original French movie), with time jumping forward, back, back more, forward, forward more. Ritchie kind of plays with it but once you find out it’s not original it’s just a little too ostentatious. It’d have been nice for Ritchie to do something more than assemble a decent cast and film them all right… but he really doesn’t. He coasts along on technical competence and performance and then he really screws up the third act. It’s a complete disaster. While still fine. It’s just a bad fine. If it weren’t for the actors, it’d be a fail.

The film doesn’t just reveal Statham’s involvement in the prologue armored car robbery, it eventually moves to the perspective of the armored car robbers, looking at two different gangs of them who might plug into one of the other time lines for a narrative “surprise.” When the gimmick is the point of the gimmick, there’s no real accomplishment, just not failing.

And again it doesn’t fail because of the actors. There’s good small work from Jeffrey Donovan, Laz Alonso (Mother's Milk from “The Boys”!), Darrell D’Silva, and Babs Olusanmokun. There are some mediocre performances, then some bad ones. There’s a charmless, desperate stunt cameo (well, there are two but only one matters) and then Scott Eastwood. Eastwood ends up playing a big part in the movie after being ancillary for much of it and sadly Ritchie does not get Eastwood to stop squinting like anyone’s going to think he’s his dad. He’s got a few all right moments, but he’s mostly dull. There are much worse performances, but Eastwood’s an opening titles billed star whereas no one else is as important. It’s too bad.

Especially given the third act’s not very good. And is predictable. Wrath of Man ends of being all too predictable because of its indifference and cynicism. It’s just a combination revenge and heist picture with competent muddy cinematography from Alan Stewart and a not-incompetent, intentionally wholly unpleasant, not ineffective score from Chris Benstead.

It’s fine. It was silly to expect more, even though almost everyone’s obviously capable of doing more.

Maybe not the screenwriters. Almost everyone else. Even Eastwood.

Well, maybe just maybe Eastwood.

Tango & Cash (1989, Andrey Konchalovskiy)

The scary thing about Tango & Cash is its ability to improve. Not sure who wrote or directed the end of the second act, when Kurt Russell gets to act opposite people besides Sylvester Stallone and you remember it’s actually an achievement to make him so unlikable for so long, but it’s a lot better. During the sequence where Teri Hatcher gets to be profoundly objectified, the editors even manage to string together a subtle—for Tango & Cash—suspense sequence. It’s not great, but it’s about the only time in the movie you think anyone involved with it should be trusted with a video project more complicated than… not a wedding, but maybe a graduation?

And the editors are not unprofessional, incompetent editors. Tango & Cash is just so incredibly bad there’s no way to make it right.

The film’s got a single credited screenwriter—Randy Feldman—but he didn’t actually write much of what’s onscreen. The strange part is there isn’t a full list of script doctors; there must’ve been some kind of blood pact. There’s a couple moments I’m convinced are Jeffrey Boam but he swore none of his material made it. There’s also the single credited director, Konchalovskiy, but we know Albert Magnoli came in and did a bunch.

So there are failures at every level but the big problem is Stallone’s atrocious. He can’t land any of the jokes. Even if seventy-five percent of his jokes weren’t homophobic one-liners he murmurs to himself at the end of every scene, he wouldn’t be able to land any of the jokes. The direction’s bad, regardless of who did it, but there are giant terrible action sequences and those would require some kind of competency to execute. So, again, it’s not incompetent. The writing is incompetent. The directing is just uninspired and insipid.

But no one could get a good performance from Stallone in this part, which seems to be him demanding another shot at Beverly Hills Cop, complete with a Harold Faltermeyer score. Faltermeyer adds some Fletch to the Axel F and, voila, Stallone as a rich, Armani-clad Beverly Hills cop who only does the job for the action. Russell’s the rough and tumble one here, not owning a shirt without a torn neck.

They’re going to terribly bicker banter at each other for ninety or so minutes of the runtime (there are like five minute end credits, thank goodness) and you forget either Russell or Stallone has ever been in a good movie, much less given a good performance. Hence why it’s so noticeable when Russell all of a sudden gets a lot more engaging—because without the charisma black hole of Stallone’s performance, Russell can still shine.

Relatively speaking. It’s still all terrible.

And then it does get worse again. The third act’s awful.

No good performances; an uncredited Geoffrey Lewis and a Clint Howard cameo are the best and it’s not Hatcher or Michael J. Pollard’s fault. Jack Palance does more than the part or movie deserves as the Mr Big. He’s not good but he’s not boring. Lots of bad and boring in Tango & Cash.

Though with Brion James’s performance… it’s hard to be bored as one watches a performance as bad as James’s. Finding out Stallone thought it was a good performance and gave James more scenes—same thing happened with Robert Z’Dar, who is also laughably bad—explains some of Tango & Cash’s badness. The disaster starts to make sense at least.

The movie’s got an interesting place in Hollywood history—it’s the last Guber-Peters Company movie after they found a new peak early in the same year with Batman then they screwed over Warner Bros. (between Batman in the summer and Tango & Cash at Christmas)—but you certainly don’t have to watch the movie for that kind of trivia.

There’s no reason to watch Tango & Cash and there never has been. Unless you’re measuring its accelerating rot rate over time. But even then why bother.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021, Adam Wingard)

Kong vs. Godzilla is a rather bad film. Director Wingard is bad at every single thing the film tasks him with. Kong expert Rebecca Hall and adopted daughter Kaylee Hottle going to the Hollow Earth with pseudo-scientist burn-out Alexander Skarsgård? Terrible. Teens Millie Bobby Brown and Julian Dennison teaming up with kaiju conspiracy podcaster Brian Tyree Henry? Somehow worse. Giant CGI ape fighting giant CGI lizard? Even worse.

Wingard directs the giant monster fight worse than if he were doing a pro-wrestling homage. Wingard does have some homage in vs., just never good. Like when Kong jumps Die Hard-style or knocks his shoulder back in like Lethal Weapon. Or when there’s a Twister reference. The movie’s a smorgasbord of unoriginality, tied together with bad acting—Skarsgård is godawful, but the rest of the main cast is tolerable (Hottle is probably even good under the circumstances and it’s clear Dennison needs to fire his agent and get a better one). The main supporting cast—actually, just the supporting cast, there are only like ten people in the movie, the rest are collateral damage. But gazillionare inventor Demián Bichir? He’s real bad. Eiza González as his merciless daughter? She’s worse.

If Wingard had a sense of humor and tried to do vs. campy, it might work. Even with the terrible acting. But he doesn’t have a sense of humor. However, he’s not overly serious because serious suggests some kind of thoughtful and there’s no thought in the direction. As bad as some of the acting gets and it gets painfully, absurdly bad, Wingard’s clearly responsible for at least twenty-five percent of it. The script’s really bad too, so maybe twenty percent to the script, which means the cast is only like half responsible for their lousy performances.

And some get it worse than others. Like Brown and Henry. The movie’s giving them some very bad material. There’s not really anyway to make gold out of it.

The CGI is good. Nothing Wingard does with the good CGI is good, but the CGI is good. Outside being an eighties action hero, Kong has some personality (he’s pals with Hottle). Godzilla gets none. It’s hilarious they’ve got Godzilla first in the title this time because Godzilla is a very special guest star.

Luckily, Godzilla vs. Kong doesn’t start strong and have a stumble. It starts low and sort of flops around in the mud without ever getting on firm land. In fact, considering the affordable-to-license sixties songs they accompany Kong with because apparently composer Tom Holkenborg can’t handle a full score, it kind of improves. The songs are terrible. Holkenborg at least tries. There are a few moments when Holkenborg manages to find wisps of potential in whatever Wingard’s going. The wisps wisp away, but still. There are a couple almost good narrative beats thanks to Holkenborg.

No one else involved achieves anywhere near as much.

There’s a lot of bad ideas in Godzilla vs. Kong, a lot of silly ideas and a lot of bad ones (not to mention ones they ripped off from Toho’s post-2000s Godzilla movies—and Kong doesn’t get a creator credit, which isn’t cool). But with all obvious ability in the CGI—minus the shots where they have to match with whatever cinematographer Ben Seresin’s shooting with a lot of glare to hide the composite—it should’ve had some spectacle.

It’s not so bad the giant monkey fighting the giant lizard isn’t the most visually engaging material in the movie. But if the acting and writing and directing of the “plot” weren’t so paltry, the kaiju fight would definitely take backseat. Wingard’s fight scenes for the monsters are so bad, only him being worse at the rest makes them better in comparison.

Godzilla vs. Kong is the pits.

Broken Arrow (1996, John Woo)

At one point or another, everyone in Broken Arrow tries very hard and gives it their all. Sometimes it works out, like when Samantha Mathis has her violence free stunt sequences or Delroy Lindo gets to deliver a lousy line well, sometimes it doesn’t work out, like Howie Long as one of the goons or… well, lots of John Travolta and Christian Slater. More Travolta, obviously, but also because he tries all the time. Slater doesn’t try as hard so doesn’t fail as hard.

Oh, and Frank Whaley. Broken Arrow is impressive in its earnest attempts at obvious moments; it’s unclear why they’re in the movie, like if director Woo wanted to do bland American jokes or if writer Graham Yost fought for them… one-liners to exit scenes with. Really bad banter stuff. And it’s all Whaley is there for and he doesn’t do any of it well. He doesn’t do the one-liners well, he doesn’t do the nerdy analyst stuff well, he’s a charisma vacuum.

But he does try and the movie tries too with him and they both just fail. So while Whaley’s a charisma vacuum, you do feel empathy for him in his plight… being trapped in this very silly movie.

Long, on the other hand, is an unsympathetic charisma vacuum. Once the movie pairs Travolta off mainly with Long, it’s like Travolta’s bad performance gets less annoying because not only isn’t it Long, you get to watch Long watch Travolta’s performance and be entirely incapable of reacting.

Most of the other performances are fine. And Travolta’s even got some moments. He and Slater both do this “I did Tarantino” thing with their banter and it does bring some energy, but it’s only with one another and it’s never consistent. Or good, really. I mean, it’s… amusing from a certain point of view. They’re trying.

And Broken Arrow’s trying often has some ingenuity. There’s a lengthy suspense action sequence in a mine because you can do a fairly impressive mine set on the cheap. The train sequence is limited but good. Woo certainly shows off his range when it comes to action settings. There are some gunfights (but not many), fistfights, and lots of running and jumping from explosion stunts. Broken Arrow’s glorious in its pyrotechnics.

The story—involving a traitorous Air Force pilot stealing a nuclear warhead to blackmail the Pentagon—feels more like a B+ movie plot than an A one, but it’s only 108 minutes and there are a lot of pyrotechnics credits to get through. You only have to amuse for so long.

Oh, and the Hans Zimmer score. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s for a video game. Besides Howie Long, Frank Whaley (sorry, sir), and a perplexingly miscast Jack Thompson, all of Broken Arrow’s defects are kind of charming. And it’s quite competently made, it’s just… you know… silly.

And Travolta’s kind of silly. Like, really, really silly. But tolerably silly.

And Mathis is really likable. Enough I wish they’d made Broken Arrow 2: Flight Control with Mathis and Slater teaming up again. They’re not exactly good together or even charming together, but they work together. Actually, that sentence also sums up Broken Arrow.

Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder), the Snyder cut

The absolute saddest part of Justice League: The Encore Edition is the new stuff’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. You almost want to see the movie, which is basically Ben Affleck Batman teaming up the not even A-list for 2021 of DC Comics movies stars and roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But then there’s even more new stuff with Affleck and it’s the best Affleck’s been in the whole four hours. He has a thirty second or so conversation without screenwriter Chris Terrio’s indescribably horrific dialogue and it’s fine. It’s kind of charming even and there’s no other time in all of Justice League: The Uncensored Version Affleck’s ever near charming. He’s obviously miserable in the rest of it, having realized after his last Snyder outing whatever he thought he was doing on set, it wasn’t ending up printed on film. Though Affleck doesn’t even get an arc, which is kind of funny. Like, Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams—all the people who’d already had their solo movies—they don’t get arcs.

And it makes sense, because Justice League: The Commemorative Edition takes its time introducing its new superheroes. There’s Aquaman (before Aquaman) Jason Momoa, Cyborgman Ray Fisher (who got screwed the most in the theatrical version), and Flashman Ezra Miller, who’s done so well since Justice League: The Theatrical Version Warner had to beg him onto the TV shows the movie people all dissed. All three do pretty well with some lousy material. All three get extended introductions, with Momoa doing a cologne commercial set to Nick Cave—if you’re going to sell out, sell out big (and it’s actually the second Nick Cave in fifteen minutes because Adams’s D plot gets a Cave song too, so double up, sir)—Miller doing a lovely slow motion meet cute with Kiersey Clemons, albeit set to very annoying music—while Fisher gets a football success flashback. Snyder really can’t direct sports scenes. Whatever Zack Snyder thinks slow motion accomplishes, it does not. If you ran Justice League: The Special Edition at regular speed, you’d probably lose an hour.

The action in the first half is all very elaborate. None of it involves the superheroes. Snyder really can’t be bothered with the superhero action. He takes his time with the Amazons—led by an atrocious Connie Nielsen, but her level of atrocious doesn’t even get her in the top five—he takes his time with some of the Momoa stuff (Momoa’s stuff figures into the A plot, whereas Miller’s doesn’t at all and Fisher’s sort of figures in but only coincidentally). But there’s Atlantis stuff and there’s a lengthy flashback to ancient battles against a terrible CGI bad guy. Justice League: Untitled does a great job proving Marvel had the right idea all along (minus hiring Joss Whedon); build up the characters in solo projects, hire an actor to motion capture your inter dimensional blue bad guy. Justice League: The Bootleg Cut spends a lot of time on very pointless setup; at least the Fisher stuff gets closed off, but it turns out it’s because he’s the only one who’s not getting to come back after Justice League: Integral Version. The film leverages Joe Morton to get it done.

Joe Morton can get it done. No one in the movie makes the crap dialogue seem as reasonable as Joe Morton.

Even if he and Fisher never really get any good scenes together. Of the new three, Fisher’s the best (and actually good). Momoa survives unscathed. Miller survives… scathed.

So if Affleck’s bad, Gadot’s kind of fine but has no character arc and her characterization is very thin. Actually, more abrupt. Terrio’s scared to write people talking to one another so everyone just spouts declarative statements. Though Gadot does get a lengthy narration scene—when Thamos is fighting against Bronze Age super magic people—and she is terrible. It’s terribly written, but she’s really bad at it too. Like, maybe throw in some John Lennon to make a human connection. Wonder Woman does vaporize a guy in front of school children in her action scene though; Snyder wimps out on CGI’ing blood all over them.

Cavill’s fine. He’s in Justice League: Redux seemingly less than in the other one when he had the silly CGI jaw (they should’ve used all that footage but made it Bizarro). Adams is fine too. She gets the second biggest shit part in the movie though. Her part actually gets worse the more we learn about her, which happens because of the biggest shit part—poor Diane Lane. First they give her a shit part, then they change it Carrie Fisher in Star Wars 9 style and make it even worse. Plus all the Cavill, Adams, and Lane stuff is clearly not meant for the pan and scan. It’s a sad end to their trilogy and it’s kind of obvious Snyder cut more of their stuff than anyone else’s. Except maybe Gadot’s; even though she gets the terrible narration thing, her solo action scene gets trashed through editing. Also the music.

Thomas Holkenborg’s music is occasionally fine. Mostly for the Aquaman stuff, but in general it’s not too terrible. Except for Gadot’s stuff and Cavill’s stuff. With the latter, it’s like Holkenborg’s giving the old Hans Zimmer material the finger. With Gadot’s stuff, Holkenborg’s just got terrible ideas. He also completely avoids giving Affleck any music, which is too bad because it’d be great if there was some sad Affleck music whenever you can just see the dejection on his face. He’s painfully miserable. He can’t even keep pace with Jeremy Irons, who’s doing everything to try to keep their scenes afloat. Irons can save Gadot, but Affleck’s a sunk rock.

He’s terrible to the point he’s annoying to watch.

Oh, and J.K. Simmons. So bad.

Amber Heard’s fine. Willem Dafoe’s terrible but not in an embarrassing way like Simmons or Lane or, you know, Affleck. Meanwhile Billy Crudup seems to be doing an impression of John Wesley Shipp, who plays the same part (The Flash’s wrongly convicted father) on the “Flash” TV show.

Who else… Oh. So the voices for the CGI bad guys, who all look terrible because the visual concepts for Justice League: The Final Cut are all bad. But Ciarán Hinds. Not good work. Ray Porter, terrible. Peter Guinness, terrible.

Another misunderstanding I had about the theatrical version and Justice League: Extended Collector's Edition… I thought the lousy CGI backdrops, like when people are out on the street—I thought all those scenes were post-Snyder. Nope, there’s a bunch of shot in front of green screen instead of on exciting nondescript city street. It looks terrible. Worse, when they do the Kansas corn fields with the CGI backgrounds? It’s like a museum diorama where just a little further away it’s the wall with the painted horizon. Ruins the scenes.

Again, Justice League: The Reconstruction does no favors for the Man of Steel gang.

Fabian Wagner’s exterior photography is all exquisite. It’s just the composites. They’re all crappy. Every single one. If Snyder leaned into it more, the artificial, exaggerated distance between foreground and back, he might have something. But he never has something with Justice League: The R-Rated Director’s Cut because there’s just nothing to see here.

The Monuments Men (2014, George Clooney)

The Monuments Men is cute. It probably shouldn’t be cute, or if it should be cute, it should somehow be more cute. But it’s fairly fubar. The film’s got very little dramatic momentum since it can never find a tone and also because its scenes try to skip over the drama or do whatever it can to avoid it. It’s competent. It’s occasionally well-acted. Some aspects of the writing are okay though maybe not. It’s not an incompetent script when it comes to the scenes, the film’s just edited in such a way any scene with attempts at character development completely flop because no one has a character.

The film is about the Allied efforts to recover fine art after the Germans stole it during World War II. George Clooney—in addition to directing, co-producing, and co-adapting—is the ostensible lead. He’s the one who presents the idea at the beginning, then he ceases to have any dramatic relevance. But basically he puts a team together and they try to save Art History 101 from Hitler.

The team is a reasonably eclectic bunch of recognizable actors, including Matt Damon to ensure some box office, Bill Murray because Clooney (very wrongly) thinks Murray can make something out of a nothing role, John Goodman, Bob Babalan, Jean Dujardin as the French guy, and Hugh Bonneville as the British guy.

Performance wise… Bonneville’s the easy winner, then probably Cate Blanchett as Damon’s contact in Belgium, then Damon, then Dujardin, then… Goodman? Murray and Babalan are supposed to be beginning an unlikely but beautiful friendship and have zero chemistry together. Like, there are some okay sight gags with Babalan but… they’re sight gags. They’re way too easy and Babalan is clearly not trying. Murray seems actively bored (it’s kind of hard to blame him) but Babalan’s a close second for disinterest.

Everyone else tries. Though Clooney’s phoning it in, which is a big problem since he’s occasionally narrating and gets some monologues you’d think he’d want to do at least another take on, both as an actor and the director.

Dimitri Leonidas plays their translator. He’s good.

The film pairs off most of the cast—Damon and Blanchett, Goodman and Dujardin, Murray and Babalan—for a bunch of adventures, sometimes involving recovering the art, sometimes bad, lengthy jokes, sometimes danger.

But it’s all kind of trite, something Alexandre Desplat’s score annoyingly reminds every few seconds. With some exception, the entire cast is interchangeable. Their specific art history jobs don’t even matter.

And while it’s obviously based on true events… only one of the characters hasn’t had his name changed so it’s not based on true events enough anyone would want to be accountable for historical accuracy so Clooney and co-writer, co-producer, and cameo co-star Grant Heslov really should’ve found some drama in the film.

Though Clooney’s missing a lot. Like any sense of scale. In addition to being incapable of directing the ensemble cast.

Monuments Men seems like a project where everyone decided it was “good enough” at some point without ever finding “good.” The plotting—you can’t even say the script because it’s hard to believe cause and effect escaped Clooney and Heslov so something must’ve gone wrong later—but the plotting is meandering, pedestrian, and amateurish.

A good score could’ve probably held it together, but Desplat’s score is not good at all and it works against the film.

If it weren’t for Clooney being such a multi-hyphenate on the project, you’d think he was forced to do it under contract.

And that end cameo is a big fail. It’s “cute” but pointless and ineffective. Just like the movie.

The Hunt for Red October (1990, John McTiernan)

Sean Connery, who’s so important to the workings of Hunt for Red October he could easily be “and special guest star” credit instead of top-billed, has his last scene on the bridge of his ship, giving a very Captain Kirk read of a quote. It’s something about sailing and it’s got to break the cultural barrier and touch the audience too, which says something about the target audience.

The film has an Oppenheimer quote earlier so I thought maybe they’d do something with him again but no. Connery goes out on a Christopher Columbus quote, which dates the thing more than all the Soviet and U.S. Cold War stuff. Though there’s a funny part where Connery mopes to first officer and confident Sam Neill about how the decades-long submarine cold war hasn’t had any battles or memorials, just casualties. So I guess if there were battles and memorials… it’d be… good?

It’s unclear. We don’t get a lot into Connery’s character—that scene ends up being more of a showcase for Neill than anything else—but apparently the core of the character is he wants to fights with sticks and stones, not nukes. Or something. Maybe he’s sad about his wife dying. Everyone acts like he’s super sad about it, but Connery’s barely in the movie and there’s no character development for him.

Meanwhile, Alec Baldwin gets all sorts of pseudo-character development though he’s only around to bring the plot threads together. There are three main ones, with a couple splinters; first, there’s Connery, who’s either defecting from the USSR and giving the United States a fancy new Russian submarine because reasons or he’s lost it and is going to nuke the Eastern Seaboard. Then there’s CIA analyst, desk jockey Baldwin who flies from London to Washington on a hunch for something tangentially related but not enough; luckily the script’s perfectly comfortable being entirely contrived, so pretty soon Baldwin’s on an adventure. Then there’s Scott Glenn and Courtney B. Vance. They’re on an American submarine and they’re tracking Connery’s sub before Baldwin even gets to the plot.

I’d hope someone realized if they were taking it seriously, one of those four actors would have to be the protagonist but Red October does what it can do minimize its need for a protagonist. Sure, it’s Baldwin. But not really at all. And not just because Baldwin’s performance is goofy. And the range of Red October’s performances seem to be who can best combine macho and stoic, with silver fox Connery (it’s a stunning hairpiece) the obvious top dog. McTiernan’s direction of the actors is middling, with no one ever paying off as much as they should. Baldwin excepted because he’s so absurdly miscast. The part’s crap, sure, but McTiernan especially should’ve realized when the male action hero talks to himself during tense situations it needs to create at least an empathetic response.

Instead, Baldwin’s whiney and exasperating and artificial. He does get into his action sequence at the end, however. Shows more energy than anything else he does in the entire film. Rolling with enthusiasm. Literally.

Connery’s got no meat to the part but he’s pretty good. Likable for sure. Red October works with him being omnipresent but not overbearing. Neill’s almost good but the part’s too shallow. The only thing worse than no personality in Red October is some personality dump in exposition. Tim Curry actually makes out best as far as personality just because he’s only got to play annoying and screenwriters Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart can do annoying.

Scott Glenn’s the best of the leads. Even he’s not particularly good, he’s just good for the circumstances. The movie doesn’t need good actors, it just needs competent ones. It’s about a Russian submarine nuking New York—maybe—the stakes are inherent.

James Earl Jones is fine as Baldwin’s boss. Ditto Richard Jordan as a government guy. Fred Thompson’s good, of course, as one of the places Baldwin goes on his quest to find Connery and the grail. Whoops, wrong movie.

Vance is really good, which isn’t easy because the movie makes fun of him for being a Black man who knows classical music and is good at his job. Anthony Peck’s great as Glenn’s first officer.

It’s a big cast and it takes a lot for anyone to be actually bad. Not when Baldwin’s running around making it seem like a car commercial on steroids. Though Joss Ackland’s pretty blah as the Russian ambassador. He’s only got two scenes so who cares.

Technically, Red October starts better than it finishes. McTiernan holds back on the big underwater submarine special effects sequences, making it seem like they’re going to be great. Only then it turns out they don’t have the torpedo composites down so all the best special effects are the submarine suspense ones. Even the peculiar “race through the underwater canyons” sequence has solid effects… it’s just a complete waste of time.

The movie hinges on something it hides from the audience to get from the second act to third so it’s not like Red October’s aiming particularly high anyway.

Basil Poledouris’s music is low mediocre. A big disappointment. Ditto Jan de Bont’s photography; it’s never particularly impressive but there’s some terrible lighting in important scenes—neither McTiernan and de Bont seem to have a handle on the submarine parts of the movie, which seems like it’d be important but whatever.

The Hunt for Red October is a long two hours and fifteen minutes. A compelling lead—any compelling lead—would probably help things quite a bit. It does pick up in the second half, which is quite nice. It’s not like the pace improving makes it obvious the first hour is boring… the first hour is very boring as it unfolds, so the speed-up is welcome and unexpected.

If Baldwin weren’t such a flat lead, who knows. But there’d still be lots of other problems. Like Terence Marsh’s occasionally anachronistic, occasionally silly production design.

Finally, doesn’t matter, but the sound editing and design is excellent.

Red Scorpion (1988, Joseph Zito)

I wasn’t aware of Red Scorpion’s production history, which has original distributor Warner Bros. pulling out because it filmed in Namibia, under apartheid South African control at the time, as well as the investors and producers being pro-apartheid… you’d think Warner would’ve checked. You’d hoped Warner would’ve checked.

And, now, if we can “but anyway” away from that grossness, I’ll get back to saying Red Scorpion isn’t bad, actually. For a movie with a questionable script—it’s a white savior movie about Soviets special forces titan Dolph Lundgren going to Africa to kill a revolutionary only to discover the Soviets are the bad guys and he really should be helping the native people. There’s also a thing where the Cubans are the real bad guys and the Russians are still basically okay. A little.

Lots to unpack with Red Scorpion, even before you find out the production history.

Also there’s M. Emmet Walsh, whose entire schtick is screaming about how everyone needs to kill Russians, go America. He’s a reporter covering the native Africans fight against the Cubans and Soviets. His entire bit is swearing and being that most fictive of creatures… the non-racist Reagan Republican. Walsh isn’t good by any stretch, but he’s also not bad in any particularly egregious ways. He’s got chemistry with costar Al White, who’s the revolutionary Lundgren needs to buddy up with in order to get to the leader.

Ruben Nthodi is the leader. He’s bad. Not like, not good but not too bad like Walsh or White, he’s just bad. It’s unfortunate, because the script’s surprisingly sincere in his characterization and if they’d spent the M. Emmet Walsh money on the Nthodi role… probably would’ve worked out better.

Will Lundgren discover the native Africans aren’t actually enemies of the people? Will he go on the requisite white savior vision quest with magical African bushman Regopstaan? Will Regopstaan and Lundgren, despite neither of them having much in the way of acting skills, be sort of adorable together?

It helps everyone sort of knew what to do with Lundgren… what to expect of him. He can run around, he can punch things, he can kick things, he can play injured, he can play like he doesn’t understand the language, he can do pretty much everything but talk. He’s totally fine just playing a silent, gigantic, slow on the pickup hulk. The movie misses the chance to call him “Blondie” in the lost in the desert sequence but of course it does… Red Scorpion gets by on a strangely sincere flex in its exploitation, some surprisingly solid action editing from Daniel Loewenthal.

Well, not in the third act, which isn’t a complete misfire but is far from a success after the surprisingly solid second act. Red Scorpion gets a whole lot of mileage out of the Lundgren and Regopstaan material in that second act.

Plus the third act has Lundgren attacking the bad guys wearing Jack Tripper shorts? Like, I guess it makes sense in the second act when he loses all his clothes and his body seems to be excreting oil to protect against the sun, and leads to one of those adorable Regopstaan subplots… but for leading the assault? Pants, man, pants.

Or it’s like the one time cargo shorts would be okay.

There are some special effects gaffs (and also some rather good effects) and Zito doesn’t really shoot the interior action sequences well, but Red Scorpion’s… not bad given the litany of caveats.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020, Patty Jenkins)

Outside allowing Chris Pine to charmingly mug for the camera while doing an eighties men’s fashion parade, there’s not much reason for its 1984 setting. Unless they thought it would be absurd if Wonder Woman Gal Gadot pined after dead WWI love Pine for more than sixty-five years or so. No reason for the setting until the third act, anyway, when it turns out director Jenkins and co-writers Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham just need the time period so they can do the USSR vs. USA nuclear war bit. It’s one of the only eighties movie accurate tropes.

Though there could theoretically be others and Jenkins and company just made them eight times longer than they needed to be so they ceased being homage and just caused micro-naps. 1984 isn’t very good at homage. Based on the mid-end credits scene, it’s not even good at self-homage, but Jenkins really screws up a Superman: The Movie homage. Just stunningly messes it up and you wonder why they’re doing the homage if Jenkins and cinematographer Matthew Jensen are going to shoot it so poorly. But it’s an effects heavy shot and Jenkins is terrible with those throughout the entire film.

But nothing like the last act, which has Gadot’s showdown with pseudo-nemesis Kristen Wiig. The sky is muddy, but somehow still has more detail than the CGI eighties James Bond movie playset they’re rendering the CG in? On? Where does one render CG objects in CG sets. Regardless, it’s a terrible action sequence. And for it to be terrible is something because 1984 already has this graded on a curve action sequence thing because none of them have any weight.

1984 is full of action set pieces with absolutely no dramatic impact starting with the prologue flashback, which takes place on Paradise Island so they can put Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen in the movie for way too long and so young Gadot (Lilly Aspell) can learn a valuable lesson to reference in the finale and for it to have no emotional weight because it’s a terribly written and directed scene. But there are no stakes in the fight scenes. Not until somewhere near the end of the second act and then it’s the one fight scene with some drama. But still not very much.

The first act, minus the prologue, is pretty good. It’s silly in a surprisingly good way and almost charming. It’s hard for it to be charming because the writing’s so bad—like when Wiig and Gadot become gal pals. For a lot of the movie, Wiig’s actually pretty good. She can’t survive it but there’s no way to survive her arc. And the stuff with her and Gadot has potential. But not because of the writing. The writing is terrible. But there’s an inkling of possibility, at least until Pine shows up and Gadot doesn’t need any new friends.

The stuff with Pine and Gadot is a lot of fun . It’s not really heavy lifting—Pine mooning on about flying just makes you want Star Trek IV 2, but there’s some gravitas to the resolution of their whirlwind weekend romance. It’s just a cute couples adventure. There might even be some deleted scenes from it—unless, you know, someone forgot where they parked. They could’ve left off the end of the movie and just had outtakes. Because Gadot doesn’t have an arc. She’s got a contrived ground situation and the absurd indignity of having to be a “secret” superhero for continuity’s sake, which is a bummer because Jenkins at least has fun with the Gadot rescuing people and whatnot sequences. When it’s stopping Middle Eastern military caravans, it’s all crap unless Pine’s around to grin and be selfless and give the whole thing some heart.

Oh, yeah. The Middle East stuff. 1984 likes all its standard 1984 movie villains, including the Egyptian president (Amr Waked). The movie tries to compensate by having the Reagan analogue be a warmongering putz (Stuart Milligan) but no.

Pedro Pascal is the actual villain. He’s a failed telemarketer who becomes magic and grants wishes until the world goes to shit. There are all sorts of details and rules (nothing fun, like don’t feed him after midnight). Pascal’s okay. It’s a big shallow part and, what’s the best you could hope for in a performance? Frank T.J. Mackey? Like… really bad villain choice.

But the movie’s full of bad choices.

Gadot escapes mostly unscathed. Nothing bad is ever her fault. Though she is a producer, so never mind. Also if she like refused to do effects work, it might explain why her CG model for a bunch of the action sequences don’t even look like her.

Though the CG’s terrible. Like. Really, really terrible.

Richard Pearson’s editing might be good? Hans Zimmer’s music isn’t.

1984 is kind of a bummer but also kind of inevitable. The script’s shockingly insipid for such a “big concept” blockbuster. Even with the bad action scenes, Jenkins’s direction has its pluses, and the cast keeps it afloat. Wiig, Pine, Pascal, Gadot.

No doubt it could be better, but it’s very obvious it could be a lot worse. Which is some kind of a win.