Tag: Jada Pinkett Smith

The Equalizer (2021) s02e10 – Legacy

Based on the Legacy title, I thought we might be getting Chris Noth’s character dying offscreen. Sadly no. They also mention him a few times, which is kind of weird. It implies the viewer’s supposed to remember the character, though—presumably—Noth won’t be back.

The episode opens with a flashback to the Tulsa massacre in 1921 when white Oklahomans murdered probably a couple hundred Black people and burned their houses to the ground after stealing all the valuables they could. The flashback shows a couple such white Oklahomans stealing a portrait. It’ll turn out they stole a lot more (basically stealing a profitable Black shipping business), but the portrait’s the Legacy.

Quincy Tyler Bernstine is the great-granddaughter of the portrait subject, and her grandmother’s on her death bed. Can Queen Latifah get the portrait back before Grandma dies? Bernstine knows who’s got the portrait—shipping magnate Ward Horton, who got it from his family, just like he got the shipping business, which they stole from Bernstine’s family back in Tulsa.

Bernstine tried getting the cops to reclaim the stolen property, but they said they couldn’t find it, though no one—including NYPD detective Tory Kittles—thinks they’d have been honest with the Black people when they can suck up to a rich white guy. But it turns out the cops didn’t lie, and Horton really did move the painting before they searched his place. He put it in “The Vault,” where wealthy New Yorkers hide all their valuables from customs. So Latifah’s got to break in and get it, only she can’t do it on her own, so she calls old acquaintance, occasional partner, and very special guest star, Jada Pinkett Smith, to help her.

Pinkett Smith is an infamous thief who can break into anywhere, steal anything. And she annoys the hell out of Latifah.

Meanwhile, at home, one of Laya DeLeon Hayes’s white friends (Cristina Angelica) shows up wanting her help claiming she’s a minority student so she can get a scholarship. Hayes tells her what for, which puts the friendship in turnaround. Lorraine Toussaint eventually offers some sage advice, and Hayes gets to a resolution point. Unfortunately, it’s a resolution with a lot less impact than the subplot initially implies.

The same thing happens in the A-plot. After the startling Tulsa opening, it soon becomes all about Pinkett Smith’s guest spot, with Bernstine mostly disappearing. Though not as much as Kittles, who’s barely in this one, unfortunately.

Horton’s a fairly great villain (especially for “Equalizer”) and makes up for Pinkett Smith being one-note, writing-wise.

I haven’t seen Set It Off, so I’m not sure if there are any direct references to that film—where Latifah and Pinkett Smith also do heists—but they definitely have more chemistry playing off one another than when Pinkett Smith’s hanging around Liza Lapira and Adam Goldberg.

Also, the plotting on the heist execution’s weak (script credit to Talicia Raggs). It’s way too amateurish and haphazard for Latifah, even if Pinkett Smith’s messing her up.

It should’ve been better, not just as a very special guest star episode, but given the first act’s promises.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021, Lana Wachowski)

The Matrix Resurrections opens with a "cover" of the opening of the original Matrix movie. It takes a while before it makes sense in the narrative, but basically, new cast members Jessica Henwick and Toby Onwumere are watching the scene where Carrie-Anne Moss escapes from Hugo Weaving. Only it's not Carrie-Anne Moss or Hugo Weaving; it's some kind of modeling software. Someone's trying to train a program, and that program, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, is becoming aware of it, leading to him and Henwick teaming up even though she's a human living outside the Matrix, and he's a program living inside it.

It gets really confusing for a while—especially when they end up in Keanu Reeves's apartment from the first movie—before the film's done with it and just cuts to Reeves in the modern-day. He's a world-famous video game developer—didn't you play his award-winning series, The Matrix Trilogy—and he's kind of a sad old man. His business partner, Jonathan Groff, knows how to motivate Reeves to good result, but they're not really friends. The only friend Reeves has got is a young incel-y sycophant, Andrew Lewis Caldwell, and most of Reeves's personal time is spent mooning over the cute lady in his coffee shop. She just happens to remind him of Carrie-Anne Moss from The Matrix (because it's Carrie-Anne Moss). Oh, and going to his therapy sessions with shrink Neil Patrick Harris. See, once upon a time, Reeves had a nervous breakdown, thinking he was living in a simulation and had to break free of it. Good thing he channeled that energy into making the game series.

Resurrections has a very long first act, leading to a very long second act. Once the action gets underway towards the end, it's a race to see if the good guys can succeed and whether or not director and co-writer Wachowski can make the sequel work. Whenever the film has a chance to comment on the previous movies or lean into sentimentality, it's going to do it. Resurrections isn't quite an apology tour for Matrix 2 and 3, but it learns from all the mistakes and seems to promise it's not going to make them again. Wachowski even goes back to fix some of the misses in the first film, drawing attention to what they'd overlooked and how she can fix it. Resurrections is a supremely confident sequel; it's hard to believe no one had it in mind at the time.

Though I guess the only way to really guess at one of the callbacks would be to racially profile, so probably better there aren't more breadcrumbs.

The film's got three inciting incidents, starting with Henwick and Abdul-Mateen becoming pals, then Caldwell embarrassing Reeves in front of Moss. Finally, Groff announcing their shitty parent company, Warner Bros., is making a Matrix 4 game whether Reeves wants to make one or not. The last one's a bit of a MacGuffin, just something to allow for some jokes, exposition, and hints at character development for Reeves. Resurrections will eventually put on its blockbuster hat, and Wachowski will embrace the sequel-ness; that sequence with Reeves muddling through his mundane, disappointing reality is probably Wachowski's best work in the film. She finds this sadness in Reeves's impotence. Therapist-prescribed impotence in the form of a blue pill.

He'll eventually get his mojo back and find himself in a very unexpected world, one with a much different story than anyone expected. He'll make new friends and find old friends—sometimes literally making new friends out of old friends—and try to figure out what he can do in the world with his eyes open.

And whether or not he wants to do it by himself or try—against all odds—to convince Moss there's something more to them than coffee shop missed connection chemistry.

Reeves is pretty good in the lead. He doesn't ever get any heavy lifting, with Wachowski relying on imagery from the previous movies for some salient character development moments. The movie footage is apparently footage from his video games in Resurrections, making the film's least believable detail a world where a live-action cutscene video game was mega-popular and aged well. To the point soccer mom Moss can sit around and casually play them, seeing herself in films and having the dudes around her laugh at her for thinking she was ever so badass. In the first half, before the sci-fi action kicks off, there's a particularly great scene where Reeves and Moss hash out the lives dealt them. Again, the non-sci-fi action parts of the film are Wachowski's best. She can't keep it going forever, but it sometimes seems like she can, and Resurrections will really just be sad Reeves working at a software company.

But it's not. It's going to get into the mythology of the originals, bringing back Jada Pinkett Smith (who's much better in a combination of old-age makeup and CGI than she ever was in the original trilogy) to bridge Henwick and Reeves's worlds. Henwick's great. She doesn't get much to do in the third act because the focus's changed, but she's great.

Also back in a sort of cameo is Lambert Wilson, who'd make the movie if it weren't so good, as he manages to deconstruct the problems with the original trilogy as well as modern media. He mumbles a lot, and it's interspersed with French because he's still a poseur; I don't think he says anything about movies shouldn't be watched on smartphones, but you know he thinks it. There are a handful of purely joyous moments in Matrix Resurrections and Wilson's one of them. The movie's not sure how serious it wants to be—it acknowledges it raises many questions, but they're usually deftly introduced, and there's this tacit agreement—too many answered questions just lead to the last Matrix sequels, and no one wants those happening again.

Groff's fantastic, an agent of exuberant chaos. He's one of the Matrix 2 and 3 mea culpas.

Moss is good. She's got to do a lot in a limited amount of screen time. She manages, though losing her time to Harris (who really, really likes getting into Reeves's business) in the second half… unfortunately mirroring the original film and how it is lost track of her. It's different this time, which is what Wachowski's saying over and over. She's figured out how to make a Matrix sequel and make it well. Just took two bad sequels and almost twenty years.

Though the maturity helps Reeves.

Harris is fine. In a film of exuberance, he's muted.

Oh, and Abdul-Mateen's a combination red herring and gimmick. He's got presence, he's got purpose, but he's got no story. Not like literally everyone else. Including Thelma Hopkins in what might be the most fabulous cameo of all time.

Technically, it's good. Wachowski's direction is mostly excellent; again, the first half is better than the second, partially because the second seems to be done at a higher frame rate (for IMAX?), making the action rote. Along with Daniele Massaccesi and John Toll's kind of rote photography. Resurrections never wows, which is another joke—the idea a Matrix movie needs to be Matrix 2: Bullet-Timeyer. Whenever there are effects sequences, which look great, it's always from the characters' perspectives. It's about the people, not the bang-bang.

Good editing from Joseph Jett Sally. Wanting music from Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer. I kept waiting for the music to go off, and it never does. Outstanding production design by Hugh Bateup and Peter Walpole. And then Lindsay Pugh's costume design is fantastic. Another place where the film learned from its less artistically successful predecessors.

Matrix Resurrections is an intentionally, earnestly rousing success. Who knew you should wait until you want to see a Matrix sequel to make a Matrix sequel. What a concept. And very lucky it was such a good Matrix movie Wachowski wanted to see.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003, The Wachowskis)

I understand there are reasons for The Matrix Revolutions. If that one rumor is true, it’s basically Keanu Reeves didn’t want to do sequels forever, and the Wachowskis wanted to do a long-running franchise. Old Internet gossip (oddly more reliably than some later Internet gossip, but still… Internet gossip). And then the costume changes… the Columbine shooting didn’t help with trench coats as a fashion statement. Oh, and then instead of the movies being all about freeing people trapped in their Matrix lives—so if you’re a cop, you’re working for the machine, and the good guys will have to take you out—that action kills a real person. Who, if they were a good person who took the red pill, wouldn’t be a cop. But it’s a person. It’s after 9/11. Cheering killing mindless human-faced zombies… not so easy.

So you make them all programs like TRON. Only they’re sometimes super horny and sweaty.

I get it.

Also, Gloria Foster dying and having to be replaced between the last movie and this movie, even though Revolutions takes place immediately following the last one, Reloaded. I grok it.

It’s also still godawful movie-making.

What happens to Larry Fishburne in the franchise where he was a very big deal in the first movie? He’s barely in it. Demoted to hanging out with the cast introduced in the last movie and having nothing to do with the main plotline he’s around. Though it’s not much better for “lead” Reeves and romantic interest but also action sidekick Carrie-Anne Moss. They’re nowhere near the film’s biggest action set piece. Fishburne doesn’t get to participate in the action (because he’s not a CGI flying, techno-Lovecraftian flying thing, or a machine-gunning version of the Aliens power loader) in the big set-piece. Still, he’s at least ostensibly vital to it.

He’s not because the script instead wants to be about how Harry Lennix is a joyless hard-ass who doesn’t think Reeves will turn out to be Matrix Jesus and save the day. Fishburne’s most significant scene in the movie is his debriefing. The human survivor council has some questions. This time there’s a Black lady (Francine Bell) who gets not just a close-up but also to talk. There are also the pointless old white people—bad seventies sci-fi guy Anthony Zerbe and “why didn’t you stunt cast this part” Robyn Nevin—plus Black man Cornel West doing a cameo. The movie’s just Fishburne getting less and less to do.

Well, except maybe Moss. Moss, who started the franchise with less screen time than the boys but still just as important (and then more important for some other reasons), basically gets put into a freezer. She’s the damsel in distress. Even though she’s the one who hijacks the initial plot.

The movie opens with Reeves still in a coma since Reloaded ended three minutes before and a new captain (David Leonard) leading the B plot. Leonard should have been in Reloaded and may have been in Reloaded, but I’m not checking. I don’t remember him from it, so he mustn’t have had more than two lines because, at three lines, you realize how bad his performance will be. And it just gets worse and worse.

Ditto Ian Bliss, who appeared last time as a counter-revolutionary and potential traitor to the humans. He’s got the film’s most important scene… maybe second important, but it depends. Most important or second most important. And he sucks. He’s comically bad. He’s supposed to be mimicking one of the other actors in the movie, and it’s painfully obvious he’s doing it, but none of the characters notice, so they’re all taken by surprise later on. It makes all the good guys seem like they’re not actually attentive enough to pull off saving the world.

Anyway.

Reeves is in his coma, but not really; he’s in the Matrix, where he learns the programs can love, which changes everything. If they can love, they’re people too. It’s an interesting idea—the value of life extending to artificial life—and probably the only one in the entire movie? Matrix Revolutions doesn’t even try with the philosophical nonsense of the last one. Instead, there’s a bang bang, boom boom solution to things in this one.

Moss and Fishburne have to go save Reeves, returning to visit last movie’s bad guy, Lambert Wilson. The previous film started with the machines due at humanity’s last refuge in thirty-six hours to wipe them out. This movie begins with those same machines due in twelve hours. So when Wilson says, “Didn’t think I’d be a returning villain so soon?” to our heroes… it’s been like three hours since they’ve seen each other. And Wilson’s got an entirely new gang of sidekicks, who are going to do a big fight scene, and then Moss and Fishburne will have to work for him and on and on and on. Until Moss cuts the bullshit and the cliffhanger resolve is all over.

Then it’s just setting up Moss and Reeves to go to the never-before mentioned Machine City, where all the programs live, presumably, under the watchful eye of the MCP—because he’s going to convince them he’s their savior too. Fishburne, Pinkett Smith, Leonard, and still charmlessly in the movie Harold Perrineau are going to the human city to try to stop the first wave of the invasion. They’ve got the only weapon left on the planet to do it. We didn’t see the destruction of the others; Revolutions covers it in a poorly acted exposition dump. Because it’s a bad movie.

The big set-piece is the humans trying to fend off the invading metal octopus monsters while Pinkett Smith tries to make the Kessel Run less than twelve parsecs. There’s a really shitty subtext about it because Lennix, Pinkett Smith’s boyfriend, doesn’t just not think she can do it, he didn’t listen to her when she undoubtedly told him about the times she did it. I get the Fishburne, Lennix, and Pinkett Smith love triangle thing doesn’t really work out because Lennix is risibly bad, and Fishburne and Pinkett Smith repulse each other like magnets in the chemistry department… but why not fix it? Maybe there was a deadline. It’s always good to kill your darlings with a rushed finale; everyone says so.

Again, anyway.

The big battle scene is terrible. This time out, Bill Pope’s photography is slightly better than the second movie, but it’s still unbelievable he’s had other jobs, including doing the excellently photographed original. It’s a mawkish scene, all about macho battlefield stuff while playing with bad eighties toys done in not terrible CGI. Not good CGI, not well-lighted CGI, but not terrible CGI. Not well-directed future war action either. But. The CGI exhibits competence at some base levels. It’s long, it’s boring, and there’s this weird subplot with Nona Gaye and her female sidekick, who very much don’t have macho war movie bonding going on. The movie intentionally gives it to The Not-Feral Kid (Clayton Watson) to do a lousy job with it while Gaye gets action but squat as far as character. Gaye’s bad, but Watson’s much, much worse. It’s just another crappy part of the movie.

Speaking of Not-Feral Kids… there’s a genuinely awful cameo from Bruce Spence. It seems like a Road Warrior reference, making it the only time the Wachowskis fully extend the homage, but Spence is so terrible they really shouldn’t have done it. Revolutions is even worse than the last one. It’s an achievement in missing the target time after time.

And, so, finally, let’s talk Hugo Weaving. The first movie’s break-out performance. The first sequel’s pointless addition amid pointless additions. He’s now the anti-Reeves, wanting to take over the Matrix for himself by turning everyone in the Matrix—presumably humans (we never see it because dead civilians after all) and programs alike. Reeves will have to do a flying kung fu battle with him to save the world.

The flying kung fu battle’s better than you’d expect, given the rest of the movie, but Weaving’s performance isn’t just easily the worst in the film; it’s cartoonish in a way it’s unbelievable Weaving wasn’t trying to make it bad. Like he was out to sabotage the movie. It’s unspeakably bad. And utterly pointless.

The nicest thing to say about the Matrix Revolutions is Reeves, Moss, and Fishburne never embarrass themselves. Reeves and Moss get some saccharine sludge for material, and Fishburne’s got to act opposite Lennix and Leonard, but they make it through professionally. Ditto Mary Alice (replacing Foster), Lambert, Bernard White as a very special program, Gina Torres, and Collin Chou (maybe). Everyone else is bad and worse. And there’s no end to the worse.

Rupert Reid’s particularly annoying as Lennix’s sidekick, not just because he should’ve been there last time, but also because he manages to be even less charismatic than Lennix. You don’t want a performance less charismatic than Lennix’s. It’s a dangerous place.

Bad music from Don Davis.

Not bad editing from Zach Staenberg; he’s doing the best he can with insipid material.

In addition to being an insipid mishmash of action and sci-fi movie nods, kiddie pool depth philosophy, and bad acting, Revolutions is also a really boring version of that movie. Revolutions is bad, disappointing, and bored with itself.

The only bigger “Why?” than “Why watch Matrix Revolutions” is, “Why make Matrix Revolutions.”

At least be honest and call it The Matrix Contractual Obligations.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowskis)

I’m trying to think of something nice to say about The Matrix Reloaded. None of the returning good guys give bad performances? None of the leading returning good guys? Like, Gloria Foster’s back and, while she doesn’t give a bad performance, it’s an utterly charmless one heavily leveraging her charm in the last movie. But she’s gone from Black grandmother saving the future to… something else. The something else is a third act reveal without Foster’s participation, but the one scene she does get definitely changes the trajectory the first movie promised.

Reloaded takes place approximately six months after the first Matrix. In that amount of time, Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne have changed their outfits—Fishburne’s got a different leather jacket while Reeves goes with a cloth cassock. Carrie-Anne Moss still does the whole shiny leather thing. It might make for a great scene if they had any personality or character relationships. But there’s not a lot of character in Reloaded for the trio.

Other than Reeves and Moss being lovey-dovey and trying to find make-out time when they’re not busy saving the world. Or when people in the real world are begging Reeves to save their relatives from the Matrix. Or when they’re bringing alms to Reeves. Plus, Reeves is having dreams about Moss dying, which is how the movie starts—a lengthy action sequence with Moss falling to her death before Reeves wakes up scared and sad. He has other ominous dreams, which seem to be really happening, but he never acknowledges his prescience. Even when he and Foster talk around it.

All Fishburne gets in the character development arena is… ex-girlfriend Jada Pinkett Smith’s new boyfriend, Harry Lennox, is willing to destroy the future of humanity because he doesn’t like how Pinkett Smith used to like Fishburne. Pinkett Smith’s terrible, but Lennox is a whole other level of bad. He’d be comically bad if he weren’t actually ruining the scenes. Pinkett Smith doesn’t get enough to do to ruin them. Lennox does get enough and does ruin them.

Though the Wachowskis’ bewildering, seemingly ready for pan-and-scan composition doesn’t help. Maybe they were just bored with the political goings-on too. Lennox is the human resistance army commander and doesn’t think Reeves is the Matrix messiah, though it’s never clear why except to make Lennox more of a dick. The human settlement stuff is weird in a bad way. The only time the Wachowskis show any interest in it is when there’s a sex scene for Reeves and Moss (who apparently can’t do it on their ship because Fishburne and new crew member Harold Perrineau are around) intercut with a very sweaty dance party. Hundreds of scantily clad humans bumping and grinding. Only not the politicians who run the future settlement. Thankfully. Not sure I wanted to see Anthony Zerbe getting down with his shirt off, dripping in sweat from the subterranean heat.

Zerbe’s the council member who isn’t sure Reeves is magic but will risk it. There are some weird optics in having old white guy Zerbe bossing around all the Black people who do the work in the future city. The optics worsen when old white lady Robyn Nevin shows up and does the same thing. Because even though the council itself is diverse, it’s only those two people talking. Well, them and Cornel West, who’s a Black man, but he just parrots Niven and Zerbe. The entire subplot with the survivor city is terrible, even though it’s the de facto A plot since they’ve got thirty-six hours before the machines kill them all. Lennox wants all the ships protecting the city, but Fishburne and Reeves want to go up and into the Matrix. Specifically to see Foster, who drops some big truth bombs on Reeves, which he apparently never tells Fishburne about.

Do Reeves and Fishburne actually have any scenes together? Do they have any conversations before the epilogue? They’re around each other, they have an action scene or two in each other’s company, but they don’t have a character relationship. No time for that sort of thing in Reloaded.

The film’s a series of pseudo-intellectual monologues, seemingly divorced from the first film’s mythology—Matrix Reloaded owes more to TRON in that department than it does to its predecessor—and tedious, pointless action sequences.

Hugo Weaver comes back as a rogue agent—meaning the Matrix is after him too—who can self-replicate, so Reeves has to fight dozens of Weavers at a time for absolutely no narrative reason. The scenes just slow down the plot and create bad set pieces (Reloaded feels like three different sequel ideas glued together).

But those Weaver sequences manage to be more consequential than the eventual main plot for Reeves, which has him confronting one peculiar computer program after another. Including Lambert Wilson, who decided to affect a horny Frenchman for his Matrix avatar, much to wife Monica Bellucci’s displeasure. But Bellucci’s also got her issues.

Wilson’s got a gang of cyberpunk thugs who will fight Reeves and company. They’re not worth talking about, even though the Wachowskis try to make them more interesting by implying they started out as vampires and werewolves or some nonsense. It’s just terrible. Most of them are gone after the first too-long fight, with only Neil and Adrian Rayment sticking around for two set-pieces. I don’t want to get into the Rayments, who are terrible actors in terrible roles, but one could spend a lot of time on all the things bad about them. Maybe not even starting with them being white men with dreadlocks, but definitely getting to it.

So much lousy acting, whether Lennox, Pinkett Smith, Zerbe, Ian Bliss, the Rayments, Perrineau (who’s profoundly lacking in charisma just like his predecessor, Marcus Chong, in the last movie), Nona Gaye as Perrineau’s pointlessly overbearing wife, Collin Chou as Foster’s bodyguard (a computer program who needs to fight a man to see if they can be pals or some nonsense). Helmut Bakaitis has a singularly important part and is godawful.

It’s a terrible sequel, a terrible movie.

Even the returning crew from last time—cinematographer Bill Pope, composer Don Davis—who did excellent work there do bad work here. Pope can’t light for all the green-screened composite shots, and Davis’s score is bad.

Last thing—the CGI models for Reeves. He’s got some Superman-esque flying going on, and whenever he does it, there’s some terrible CGI head on the model.

Nothing the Wachowskis do in Reloaded works, but none of it seems like they care if it works either. It’s the pits.

Magic Mike XXL (2015, Gregory Jacobs)

Every once and a while, Magic Mike XXL throws in some vague nod towards having character development. It doesn’t. And the movie knows it doesn’t need any, but it still pretends it does. All of the characters have the same arc, with the exception of “lead” Channing Tatum. He’s only the lead because he’s Magic Mike and because he’s got the biggest romance subplot; he keeps running into Amber Heard and they awkwardly flirt. Awkwardly but with chemistry. There’s no narrative purpose to them flirting and the script doesn’t pretend there’s enough material, but XXL’s scenes run… well, extra long and so instead of witty banter, there’s charismatic silences and pauses. It’s cute. Magic Mike XXL, when it’s not being raunchy (in an adorable way), is adorable in not raunchy ways.

Anyway. Tatum. He’s the wise man of a group of male entertainers–Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Matt Bomer, and Adam Rodriguez. He’s the only one who’s gotten out of the male entertaining (stripper) life, while the rest of them are all immediately going to be getting out of it. They’ve got one more big stripping convention to attend and then they’re done. It’s never exactly clear why it’s their last weekend (though Bomer at least seems like he’s sticking with it). Manganiello is going into landscape architecture, but wants to come up with trendy products. Nash wants to be a painter. Rodriguez is going to run the frozen yogurt half of a frozen yogurt slash mobile block party van (Gabriel Iglesias is his partner and the group’s emcee). Bomer wants to be an actor. All of them are terrified of their futures, but Tatum is there to assure them they need to believe in themselves.

All that backstory is just to give them banter while the movie road trips. While Magic Mike XXL is, technically, a road movie, it’s more about where they stop. Where they stop and strip. Whether it’s a convenience store–when the guys are all tripping on ecstasy and Tatum is trying to convince them to strip to what they love, not what’s commercially viable–or Andie MacDowell’s living room, once the movie gets going, the road tripping is just to get them to one dancing engagement or another. Except when it’s Jada Pinkett Smith’s party house; there it’s usually other guys stripping (for a while) while Tatum and Pinkett Smith flirt.

There are narrative reasons for most of these things. Usually to enable the next move for the guys. They have some trouble on the road trip and need help. Along the way, they resolve their leftover issues with one another from the last movie and fret about their non-male entertaining futures.

It’s cute. And fun. And often really funny.

Tatum’s an appealing lead. He doesn’t have to do much, except dance. He can definitely dance. Only Nash and Rodriguez lack in the dancing department. Otherwise all the dancing is good; the choreography, depending on the guy dancing, can be excellent. But it’s not like Tatum’s got a character arc. He’s entirely altruistic and entirely divested. He’s not even really pursuing Heard, just trying to convince her to enjoy guys stripping in her proximity. The movie never wants to be taken too seriously; it often demands not to be, in fact.

Makes it even more likable.

Manganiello’s good. Heard’s fine. Bomer’s annoying. Nash is all right. Rodriguez makes little impression. Pinkett Smith goes–gloriously–all in, like she’s auditioning her character for a spin-off. MacDowell and Elizabeth Banks–both in extended and obvious cameos–are all right. XXL could do better with the cameos. It doesn’t have enough fun with them. Donald Glover seems rather lost, even if his singing contributions are solid.

Jacobs’s direction is okay. He’s got a Panavision frame but mostly just uses the center of the screen to showcase the dancing. He mixes it up a bit with the dialogue, which is a lot better. Executive producer, cinematographer, and editor Steven Soderbergh does entirely competent work in all his roles… but none of it’s particularly exciting. XXL doesn’t want to get ahead of itself and profess ambition. Other than being fun.

And it works out. Magic Mike XXL’s usually fun.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Gregory Jacobs; written by Reid Carolin; director of photography, Steven Soderbergh; edited by Soderbergh; production designer, Howard Cummings; produced by Carolin, Jacobs, Channing Tatum, and Nick Wechsler; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Channing Tatum (Mike), Joe Manganiello (Big Dick Richie), Matt Bomer (Ken), Kevin Nash (Tarzan), Adam Rodriguez (Tito), Amber Heard (Zoe), Jada Pinkett Smith (Rome), Gabriel Iglesias (Tobias), Donald Glover (Andre), Elizabeth Banks (Paris), and Andie MacDowell (Nancy Davidson).

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The Matrix Revolutions (2003, The Wachowskis)

I think The Matrix! Part Trois has to be better than the second one, if only because it’s not as terribly boring in its action sequences. The second one had that highway battle and it was bad and the Keanu Reeves versus a million Hugo Weavings and it was bad. Here, Keanu Reeves fights one Hugo Weaving (in an atrocious performance, it’s a shame how the sequels degraded the fine work he did in the first film) in front of a bunch of non-participating Hugo Weavings. It’s better. And it’s a huge, CG-aided flying fight scene–it’s the Superman versus Zod scene no one ever got to see.

Reeves is okay. It’s amazing how little his eyes effect his emoting when he acts. Jada Pinkett Smith is awful and as much as I appreciate the Wachowskis’ minorities inheriting the earth thing (none of the surviving principles are white), I’m pretty sure the character they have her play is just the equivalent of Will Smith’s heroic, but definitely not revolutionary or intimidating, black guy for white audiences.

Harry Lennix is bad in this one. Maybe he was bad in the second one too. I can’t remember. He’s usually good. But he’s an idiot in this one, even though he’s supposed to be smart.

I think the script probably read well. As a movie, it’s a bit of a disaster; I’ll bet the script read well.

Except for the Wizard of Oz cameo at the end, it wasn’t completely awful.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowskis)

The Wachowskis get to do whatever they want with The Matrix Reloaded so they do this bombastic, pseudo-intellectual sequel and they’re totally bored with it. It’s very obviously not what they want to be doing with their time.

They got about as much mileage out of the Matrix as they could in the first one and putting a dream sequence into the second one doesn’t do them any favors.

This film has Harold Perrineau giving a bad performance. I didn’t even know it was possible for him to give a bad performance. He’s just terrible–he’s this useless, throwaway character.

Speaking of bad performances–Jada Pinkett Smith. I’ve seen her in something else and I was waiting for she to give one of the worst performances in film history and she certainly delivers.

The fight scenes are the boring and cartoonish. They’re not exciting. They look like a video game.

The film almost turns around at the end when it mocks the audience–the entire movie is invalidated in the last act, in a self-congratulatory way–not a fun way, but a wink wink. If the viewer is paying attention, he or she just realized the movie was a waste of time and money. But the cliffhanger ruins it. It’s cheap instead of cruel. Cruel is interesting. Cheap is predictable.

At least George Lucas is making a fortune off the toys. He cares about something. The Wachowskis don’t have a motive, artistic or commercial, for making this mess.

Collateral (2004, Michael Mann)

I actually had to go do some IMDb research (that bastion of scholarly data) before I started this post, because I had to know if Michael Mann intentionally made a movie starring Tom Cruise, with a reasonable Hollywood budget, and intentionally shot it to look like an episode of “Cops.” And he did. He wanted to make DV look like crap instead of like film. It’s interesting, all the things DV doesn’t work with–acting, for example. It’s particularly noticeable with Jamie Foxx, who doesn’t exactly give a crack performance, but he’s not terrible and there are these things he does with his expression the DV picks up, things film wouldn’t have picked up. Acting tells. Cruise probably has them too, but the DV makes his makeup look like he’s about to turn from Larry Talbot into the Wolf Man (a nickel to whoever gets that particular Pynchon reference). I kept expecting his eyebrows to fall off.

Mann’s handling of DV was far superior in Miami Vice–maybe it was technological, maybe it was understanding what kinds of scenes work in DV. A lot of Collateral is well-written. Probably the first hour and ten minutes, before Jamie Foxx starts to turn into an action hero. There’s some great dialogue at the beginning and a nice romantic scene, which Mann is always good with. But after a while, it ceases to be interesting. The story wraps up in a predictable manner and it’s rather limp.

It’s probably the wrong project for Mann… the characters are enigmatic, which he doesn’t do. His characters may be insane or something, but they’re always the protagonists. The closest thing Collateral has as a protagonist is the viewer–Cruise is the villain, Foxx is the pawn. Mark Ruffalo’s got some good scenes as a cop, but his pursuit of Cruise is ludicrous and hard to take serious (and who thought Ruffalo looked good with slicked back hair and a pierced ear?).

I could list the other ways Collateral fails–the music, specifically the soundtrack choices–but it’s all in the execution. It’s a sixty-five million dollar Hollywood movie… if it weren’t in DV and it had a less experimental director, it might have been a fun, empty suspense picture. But Mann’s use of that crappy DV and the presence of Cruise (in his most ineffectual performance in a while–he’s not bad, he just doesn’t have a character to play) suggests it’s supposed to be something more and it isn’t.

Thank goodness for the Panavision Genesis camera, which is gaining popularity. I never thought I’d see Michael Mann pretending he was making the Blair Witch Project. Worse… at least Blair Witch matched its story and its presentation. Collateral is kind of like… I can’t even think of a belittling simile. It’s embarrassing (not my figurative failure, but Mann’s actual one–especially given how strong the first hour is, when the DV was just a severe irritation).

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Michael Mann; written by Stuart Beattie; directors of photography, Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron; edited by Jim Miller and Paul Rubell; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, David Wasco; produced by Mann and Julie Richardson; released by DreamWorks Pictures.

Starring Tom Cruise (Vincent), Jamie Foxx (Max), Jada Pinkett Smith (Annie), Mark Ruffalo (Fanning), Peter Berg (Richard Weidner) and Bruce McGill (Pedrosa).

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