American Ultra (2015)

Often we are given films that try to blur the lines of traditional genres, which, to be fair, is not an easy thing to do. Very few films have ever truly had success with this, that weren't just spoofs of the genres, or specific films. "American Ultra" is the latest movie to attempt this. Writer Max Landis ("Chronicle") strives to mix stoner comedy with hyper-violent action flick, and director Nima Nourizadeh ("Project X") never fully achieves this balance.

The first twenty minutes, before the gun fights and explosions, never quite elicits laughs. Instead, we are treated to weighty exposition about the relationship of our two protagonists: Mike (played by Jesse Eisenberg), a burnout stoner who works at a convenience store in West Virginia, and Phoebe, his inexplicably dedicated girlfriend of five years (Kristen Stewart). Mike is unable to leave his sleepy little town, because he gets panic attacks every time he tries, and the film opens with him ruining a trip to Hawaii, in which he was going to propose. This leads to a lot of apologizing, and a metaphor about a car crashing into a tree that makes Mike ponder if his roots are holding his love back.

We then learn he is a CIA experiment gone wrong, and is now going to be disposed of by a middle-manager, for some silly reason involving his promotion, played by Topher Grace. His only hope for survival is to be "activated" by his personal Dr. Frankenstein (Connie Britton), which sets him off into a violent spiral of self-preservation in the face of trained super-soldiers like himself. The action sequences that spawn from this are often clumsily edited, and shy away from serious gore or bone-crunching hits that robs it of being the Tarantino-esque action film hiding in the script.

Despite its failings at finding a genre, and its awkward tonal shifts, there are a lot of things that work in this film. Eisenberg and Stewart are vibrant and likable, and boast an impressive amount of chemistry with each other. Their shared screen time keeps you somewhat invested in the story, and makes you root for them to succeed, both in survival and love. Topher Grace is excellent as the sniveling one-note CIA villain, who is given a great couple of one-liners, and Walton Goggins, as Grace's lapdog assassin, is wonderfully madcap. Much of the stylized cinematography, from "Zombieland" DP, Michael Bonvillain, is very pleasing to look at.

I feel that in the hands of a more capable director, this could have been something special. As it stands, it is just a little more than okay.

Grade: C+
Easter Egg: No
3D: N/A

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Writer: Max Landis
RT: 95 min
Rating: Rated R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexual content

Two Sentences:

Big Game: Not as off the wall as I was hoping, but it was still a lot of madcap fun. The plot is mostly sparse, and the characters aren't very deep, but the silliness of the action keeps it driving to the end.

Grade: B-

Cop Car: Jon Watts has made one of the most dark and entertaining films of the year. Kevin Bacon is on top of his game, while his foils (two young boys played by Hays Wellford and James Freedson-Jackson) are a complete joy to watch.

Grade: A

Episode 00 - Crying UNCLE

http://manofconstanthatred.podbean.com/e/00-crying-uncle/

Have you ever wondered what I think about Pete's Dragon, The Land Before Time sequels, and the Masters of the Universe cartoon? Tune in to my new podcast! Also, my thoughts on "The Man From UNCLE".

Fantastic Four (2015)

Flame Off

I feel like this movie is going to take entirely more flack than it deserves. Yes. It is a mess. Yes. It does feel like two different movies that were thrown together at the last minute. Yes. The writing is bad, and the story amounts to big heap of nothing. That being said, there are far worse films that have been released in this genre (cough. cough. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2") that have set it back far worse than this movie will. If anything, Fox's reboot of "Fantastic Four" just (sort of) exists. "Fantastic Four" is roughly half of a movie. It is too short, and ends before any actual plot, or character development, has a chance to unfurl. It is a film stuck in neutral, trying to eek out an existence from what producers assume people want from comic book movies.

The excellent cast is wasted with characters who are all too singular in purpose, and lack any real depth, or emotion. It is hard to say that any of them gave a decent performance, because their characters look bored and mopey throughout the entirety of the run time. The action sequences were bland to the point of nearly putting the audience too sleep, and the film is so murky looking that you can't even find joy in the visual quality. There were a few giggles in the first thirty minutes or so, but you hit a transportation device building montage, and the whole project begins to sink.

About an hour into the movie they reach "Planet Zero", an alternate dimension... or planet... or something, and it goes from a somewhat intriguing idea to capture the adventurous nature of Jules Verne to... 80's style David Cronenberg? Except, like "The Fly", or "Videodrome", it lacks any substance, or social commentary. Then it just devolves into another convoluted plot about an evil Military Industrial Complex trying to use the team to fight foreign enemies. What we really have here is the downside of movies being made by committee. Everybody wants a slice of what Marvel has, and fanboys are clamoring for it, but nobody else has cracked the code quite yet. I guess we'll see what DC has to offer soon enough.

It was hard to watch this movie. It is hard to see one of the greatest group dynamics in comics get mistreated time and again on screen. This makes four bad movies based on one comic book property. This one, however, lacks the fun of the 2005 film, and the ambition of the 1994 original. That's right. This film had less ambition than the never-released catastrophe made the king-of-schlock, Roger Corman. We're talking about the man who made a film in less than two days. ON A DARE. Congrats Fox, that is the guy you had to do better than, and you failed. Miserably.

AND WHY WAS KATE MARA'S RESHOOT WIG SO INEXPLICABLY AWFUL?!

Grade: D
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: I left before the credits ended.

Starring: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan
Director: Josh Trank (Sort of)
Writer(s): Simon Kinberg & Jeremy Slater and Josh Trank
RT: 100 min
Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, and language