Keyser Corleone's Movie Memoirs

Wings
(1927) - Directed by William A. Wellman
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Drama / Romance / War / Action
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"No wonder their world was upside down!"

I have time for one more movie today, and I'm still looking to get through a bunch of silent works, largely to get some progress in the MoFo challenges and finally get a top 50 for the 1910's and a top 100 for the 1920's. Since I already had my share of the 10's today, I decided to get one of the earlier movies from the challenges off. After consideration towards what would currently affect most of the lists I'm working on, I went with Wings, the first ever film to win the Academy Award for best picture. I probably should've seen this years ago, though, considering 1927 is currently my favorite year of the silent era. Honestly, I feel really happy that I'm getting to this today, and that it's on YouTube for easy access since it went public domain this year.

Right at the start, I fell head-over-heels for its sitcom behavior and sentiment. These actors felt like they came right out of a classic 50's or 60's family show, and they all felt the more relatable and real because of it. Just seeing Jack and Mary having a talk with each other about building a car at the beginning rang of the school-kid antics you'd see in classic family shows. This is personality that many movies can only dream of achieving even today. I mean, no wonder Charles Rogers ended up being labelled as "America's boyfriend." The guy showed expertise in charisma in this movie.

This movie is as much story-development as it is visuals. Visuals seemed to be a major fixation in 1927 as they often paired with the stories in quality to bring out some of the most defining and inspirational movies of the time. These people were filming real planes in action, choreographed and even shot down. I felt like I was up in the clouds with these people, because the filming took place in the clouds with some serious cinematic touches. This is a REAL action sequence from that time period.

This movie doesn't just impress on the visual level of editing sequences with a heavy fixation on the art, layering one image over another with a complete sense of the epic approach to war and romance, but there are even visual effects tweaking around with the title cards in Wizard of Oz style ways. And sometimes it throws in cute little touches for humorous effect. Exhibit A: bubbles.

Thanks to the cheerful and even innocent manner of the orchestrations, the music stays consistent while mingling with ever kind of emotional response needed to get the full extent of this movie. So no matter what was happening, we could feel alive with the characters themselves in ways the whole family can enjoy. This even includes some of the finest war scenes in the decade, as there's an abundance of realism present as everything largely feels like it belongs out there, as if it was the beginning of Saving private Ryan but without the blood.

However, I found that the war scenes, which altogether lasted 20 minutes, detracted from the personal aspect of the film, and so there was much less character to be focused on until after the intermission. And while there are quite a few personal scenes involved, I find that the war scenes do have a tendency to overshadow the more personal storytelling moments in its runtime. What was blossoming beautifully in the first twenty minutes kind of stayed there for the most part. This is a big NERP NERP for me, as characters should drive an action movie as much as the action does, a la Terminator 2.

Well, now that Wings is off my chest, I really do feel like I should've seen this earlier. This is a war movie I would actually show my kids if I had any. While the movie does a great job of recounting the chaos of the battlefield, it also keeps things clean while the music never loses touch of its high-spirited personality, allowing even the more dramatic compositions to match with these scenarios perfectly and never be overpowering. While the weaker storytelling keeps this movie from being the best of the year, these war scenes beat Napoleon in terms of visualization. For the most part, this is what Pearl Harbor should've been, but couldn't hold a wet candle to.

= 93

William A. Wellman needs 1 more movie to gain a directorial score.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman
(2005) - Directed by Tyler Perry
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Melodrama / Dramedy
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"When somebody hurts you, they take power over you. You don't forgive them, they keeps the power."

Wonka
(2023) - Directed by Paul King
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Low Fantasy / Musical / Comedy / Family
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You probably didn't know this, but I am a HUGE Wonka fan. The book is one of the most influential in my life. I still have that second-edition copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that my school librarian gave me when I was twelve. When I was thirteen I did a book report for it and even designed a Wonka-edition Monopoly board to go with it. I was almost obsessed, and the obsession hardly left. it's still quite possibly my favorite book, largely because its genre is practically impossible to be imitated. You do magic candy at all, and it comes off as a Wonka knockoff, likely because no one knows how to do it right, yet. This is something I did on Deviantart a few years ago:

When this prequel was announced, I waited patiently for opening day until it finally came. I had a large collective of criterion to judge this by, so here we go.

Timothee Chalamet takes the helm as a younger Wonka, making his way to the Galeries Gourmet to become a master chocolatier and to see his quite-literally magic candies to the world. Unfortunately, the three biggest chocolatiers in the town: Ficklegruber, Prodnose and especially Slugworth, are threatened by the newcomer and even use their mafia-style influence on the police to make his life miserable. But by meeting others who've befallen similar miseries, he's able to convince them to help him flourish as a chocolatier, and get ready for the payback that the "Chocolate Cartel" deserve.

Now this might have a lot of the Wonka spirit, but it's also a different kind of Wonka story. I never really thought that the Wonka story would make heavy usage of the crime genre to tell a prequel, but they found a Dahlian way to do it. I can see Dahl writing a book like this. At least, it's a hell of a lot better than Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, which I didn't even like as a kid and I don't like now. But I think the real question is, does it stand up to the Tim Burton movie?

Now I know that Paul King is the director of the Paddington movies, but I've only seen clips of those. So while I've never seen a Paul King movie, I'm easily familiar with his blatantly and gleefully cartoonish approach. So lemme say that it's a great thing for him to tackle a musical, because some fantastic music scenes and proof of Paul King's directorial excellence shine here. These dance scenes are high-spirited and thrive on molding colorful visuals with deep feeling and personality. This makes up for the fact that the songs aren't always that great. They're fun and catchy, and I kinda found myself enjoying the different words they used to "Seussify" or "Dahlify" words like "pocket" into "Pock-a-let" so they could use a kiddy approach to rhyming whatever they wanted with chocolate.

On top of this, we have yet another reason to enjoy the songs despite their decent-to-good quality. Though they don't stand out to the greats of the 1971 classic, our cast is swell. Chalamet is playing a younger Wonka who hasn't yet become snarky or bitter, but retains the child-loving side we know from the books. In other words, it'll be a while before he says, "My dear old fish, go and boil your head." I've been waiting for Wonka to say that, and I still haven't gotten it. Like, it's the ultimate line for his snarkiness, but there was none of the snark here. But hey, Tommy DePaola didn't get the actual Snow White ending when he saw the Disney one in theaters.

Everyone else is getting into their roles pretty easily as well. We get some gleefully cartoonish but perfect acting from our three villains, who finally bring the characters of Prodnose and Ficklegruber to the screen while making something new out of Slugworth, something less Nazi and more straight-up Wonka villain that the fake Slugworth from the original film. And Hugh Grant's just doing his thing and rocking it as an oompa-loompa, Lofty, who's onscreen presence is limited but effective as something one can hardly wait for. But there's also a problem with the casting.

Rowan Atkinson plays a corrupt chocoholic priest (who apparently has connections with the chocolate cartel), and he's only got a couple of scenes. Basically, they underused Rowan Atkinson of all people. It was almost as much of a slap in the face as Jeff Goldblum's single line (a cough) in Asteroid City. Of course, most of the characters have only one real side to them, which wasn't much of a problem with the original story as each villainous child was all a collective representing bratty kid behavior, but we had no real "collectives" with variations to justify the lacking characterization.

And finally, let's go over more visuals. Even outsdie of the musical numbers, we get this old-timey and occasionally steampunk look at the origins of the facotry. Much of the candy present is pretty much only chocolate, which is a shame for Wonka fans, but they effect of their abilities and the way they are made are absolutely magical. We get offbeat magic incredients such as liquid sunlight and stuff, and the way Willy talks about getting these ingredients has this wacko sense of realism from having travelled the world for rare ingredients. Now we have a better idea of what makes Wonka who he is. Also, I want his chocolate-making machine so badly. It looks like a beautiful piece of steampunk gadgetry and the chocolates designed for the movie are absolutely beautiful, like jewelry.

Well, I'm pretty much pleased with this movie. The third film in this franchise delivered a unique and quite surprising origin story with genre-building influences that are perfectly Dahlian but also taking influence from genres I never thought would really go with it. The most notable efforts go to the visualization and the acting, but even if this movie has its shortcomings it's a definite success for Paul King, and a surprisingly grand performance from Chalamet that deserves an Academy nomination. I'm definitely getting the DVD to keep with the other two. So since this origin story is much better than Burton's, I'm gonna say this is slightly better than the 2005 film, but definitely not a five-star like the 1971 film.

= 92

Paul King needs 2 more films for a directorial score.

Blackkklansman
(2018) - A Spike Lee Joint
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Cop / Biopic
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I don't like dealing with racists, even ones in movies. I guess this is why I kind of avoided watching Blackkklansman for a while, despite having seen my fair share of Spike Lee on my exploration of his early catalogue a few months back. I also know that there are movies out there that act like they aren't "anti-white," but end up being so, so I've avoided these whenever I can. Such is not the case with Lee's movies. He addresses race from every angle. In fact, he seems to address everything with every angle, which was kind of confirmed to me with Malcolm X's dissection of both X's good and bad traits, as well as the general good and bad behavior of all of the characters in Do the Right Thing. So I'm more comfortable with Spike Lee movies because they seem very neutral and balanced, which is what I am. But still, I had difficulty with American History X and Higher Learning. So I was really hoping there wasn't a lot of racial violence here.

This movie, while changing quite a few historical details, recounts the true story of Ron Stallworth, a young and hopeful 70's cop who's eager to make his mark as a detective. Being the first black cop in his division, he's gotten a little teasing here and there. He's given the opportunity when he's reassigned to the intelligence division, and begins an investigation into the local division of the KKK. Strangely enough, he phoned them, and did such a convincing white voice that he's gotten his partner to infiltrate them using his name.

As an investigative cop movie, or a "police procedural" movie if you're the type, I gotta say I enjoyed the progression of this. I spent a few of my teen years watching cop shows like NCIS, CSI and such when staying with my dad on the weekends. And this carries the same depth and plot progression. Of course, there are various changes made to these events, which I feel could've been avoided, such as changing the actual year to be six years earlier than it actually was, from 1978 to 1972. This creates problems with the timeline considering that David Duke didn't become the Grand Wizard then, Stokely Carmichael didn't change his name yet, and Coffy wasn't even released until the year after. Kind of a pointless decision on Lee's part. SO while the story is well fleshed out, the history itself is kinda messed up.

The biggest complaint I have concerning this movie is a pretty simple one. The villains of this piece barely have anything to differentiate themselves, hardly even one side. In my last review (Wonka), I mentioned how the original book used one-sided behavior for each of the antagonistic children to act as a collective of bratty kid behavior. We don't get that with this movie. The Klansmen are more or less standard Klan villains in movies dealing with them. As such, there's less life to them as there is with Ron, Flip and Patrice.

I want other people to see this because it's a very detailed cop movie with some excellent thematic exploration, and it's not that bitter when compared to other movies handling race. But be warned that, while it's not the most tense racial movie at first, the last act can get heavy, especially since there's footage of an actual neo-nazi rally and attack afterwards. Still, we get a very good story that's historically worth looking into, and it's told with a good sense of art and moral expression.

= 90

Spike Lee's Directorial Score (7 Good vs. 1 Bad)

Do the Right Thing: 100
Malcolm X: 100
Blackkklansman: 90
She's Gotta Have It: 79
Mo' Better Blues: 69

Score: 87.6 / 5

Spike Lee raises on the Best Directors List from #128 to #77 between David Zucker and John Sturges.

Village of the Giants
(1965) - Directed by Bert I. Gordon
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Sci-Fi / Comedy / Family / Teen Movie
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"W-what's the matter, hotshot? Don't you like your new size?"

Now that I finally got my movie log's number of horror films down to 20%, I am officially back on MST3K. I left off at the last few episodes of season 5, having to continue with Bert I. Gordon's Village of the Giants, which is a very loose adaptation of Food of the Gods, an H.G. Wells book. I started this before, but after the opening credits I found that Bert I. Gordon in fact made a much more faithful adaptation of that same book ten years later. So, I quit this one, and headed to the faithful one, which was so-so.

This Beau Bridges classic featuring the Beau Brummels, and a bunch of other beaus, sees a genius little boy with no other character development messing around in his lab when the cat eats a pink foam he accidentally creates. This foam turns the cat gigantic. A couple of test ducks fly away and a group of teenagers find out that the formula is in the kid's house. They steal it, eat some of it, Beau gets big for his bridges (say that five times fast) and with their new size they decide to take over the town.

OK, remember that common criticism of the 2019 Cats concerning the disproportionate sizes changing throughout the movie between the characters and the surroundings? Well, that's shamelessly on parade here, possibly for comedic effect, but the joke runs so thin that it has to end. The's people are carrying standard trays of food for the giants, and these giants are at least 100 times their size, and suddenly as the giants hold the trays, the trays are proportionately like a third or half of what they originally were? I just watched Top Secret today, and I can promise you, that the use of humorous visuals here is lacking in spirit and effect, assuming that was the idea, and I'm not sure it was since the movie largely didn't have a lot of real jokes besides these predictable visual gags.

On top of that, a large key factor of this lack of laughs is the ungodly slow pace. These close up shots of short boobs and bad actors shaking their heads in beach party fashions doesn't make me wanna party. They make me wanna punch Bert I. Gordon for thinking this movie was a good idea. The scene were the ducks are in the club doesn't have any humorous direction about it, as the scene drags on for a couple of minutes as if that's supposed to matter. Half of each story progressing scene is dragged on for minutes at a time while actors are recycling the same bad acting and direction with no humor at all. I had to force myself not to flip out over losing my patience multiple times in the second half.

Oh, and Mike, Crow and Servo were right: I don't need to see Tommy Kirk in short pants.

Bert I. Gordon was never a "terrible" director to me. He was bad, but not terrible. This cemented terrible. I wouldn't even return to this EPISODE, as Mike, Crow and Servo struggled to make it laughable. This is extremely boring, has no real plotting for either serious or humorous purposes, and makes episodes of Tak and the Power of Juju look like genius.

= 3. That's 3 of 100.

Bert I. Gordon's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 7 Bad)

Village of the Giants: 3
King Dinosaur: 17
Earth vs. the Spider: 18
War of the Colossal Beast: 27
The Magic Sword: 30

Score:

This knocks off The Cyclops (42) from the chart, meaning no movies above 30/100 will affect Bert I. Gordon's score. Bert I. Gordon's score lowers from 26.8 / 5, raising his position on my Worst Directors list from #37 to #24, between Mike Marvin and Albert Band.

The Fisher King
(1991) - Directed by Terry Gilliam
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Psycho-Drama / Dramedy / Buddy
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"Please let me have this!"

When I watch a Terry Gilliam movie, I want it to feel like a Terry Gilliam movie. He's got a distinct style which really works when he uses it, but his other movies tend to fail without it. In the mood for Gilliam, I went for the most highly-rated (as opposed to the most popular) movie of his that I haven't seen yet: The Fisher King. I knew nothing about the movie before giving it a shot, so I'm largely just forcing this on myself.


Jack (Jeff Bridges) was a radio talk-show host that people knew and loved. But one day, he tells a man to stop chasing after women who don't care about him, and he finds out this same man killed seven people in a restaurant before killing himself. Having quit his job, Jack works in a video store three years later, and is about to kill himself when a bunch of hoodlums rough him up, only to be saved by Perry (Robin Williams), a hobo with a severe trauma: seeing his wife killed by that same man on that same day. Now Jack is on a quest to help this delusionary man on the quest the Holy Grail in his own mind, and hopefully find purpose again.

So Gilliam, if you didn't know, is the ex-animator for Monty Python, and is responsible for the legend'ry black beast of

Gilliam eventually expanded on his sense of the visual when directing life-action movies with some theme to them, even for comedies like Brazil, which is a very visual and sometimes hallucinogenic movie, despite its comedy. The Fisher King has some similarities to this, but it's also largely a modern-day drama with real-life problems, largely trauma. This is actually a heavy-hitting movie in that respect. And somehow, Gilliam is able to bring out his comedy with this while still making the drama strong, often combining the two. See, there is such a thing as a dramedy, and they're common, but the absurdities of the plot are what make this movie a challenge to balance the two. It was a hard enough balance for Charlie Chaplin to manage the sentiment and the comedy without tonal shifts until Modern Times. This was handled just as artfully, if not more so. This is Gilliam's Modern Times.

The humor revolves around a large number of eccentricities. The trauma is largely displayed in a pitiful and adventurous form, which helps this movie to keep both the humorous and dramatic aspects of the story in pure harmony. Robin Williams' performance is too real not to love. This could easily be one of his best performances. His adventurous spirit is the very essence of blissful ignorance, but he takes his hallucinations as a way of life. So while we want to keep him from his hallucinations, we can also want to be a part of the adventure. We can sympathize with him every time he's on screen, but we want to have fun with him as well. We can also say the same for Jeff Bridges as his performance is effortless in its glory, and he learns a few things while running with this lone wolf in his own world. This world of Williams is partially built on hallucinations stemming from the trauma. For example, these scenes involving the red night in his head (and the overdressed actor and visuals that come with it) not only recall 80's charm and the vibes of the angelic / heroic form of our lead from Brazil in its visual aesthetics, but also manage to somehow maintain the strong vibes of the various tones without endangering the balance.

The one flaw: It's a TINY BIT SLOW. But most scenes that are slow have perfect dialogue.

I didn't think I was going to like The Fisher King this much. This could end up as one of my favorite movies of all time, because I really want to come back to this. This is Terry Gilliam on a stylistic rampage where he takes the time to perfect as much as possible while being himself as a director. Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges are also being themselves, rocking their roles with a perfect sense of buddy charisma and even misunderstanding of each other, while letting their characters and their realistic dialogue handle the heavy themes. This is a wild, weird and surprisingly emotional movie that justifies its wackiness with both psychological behavior and mere plausibility, and I seriously recommend this for everyone. In fact, I'm reminded of the weirdest drama I've ever seen, American Beauty, which was totally out of whack. But This has less of a moral issue with its subject matter and is more consistent. So with its tiny flaw present, I'm going to give this a very slightly higher position on my chart than American Beauty.

= 99.5

Terry Gilliam's Directorial Score (7 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 100
12 Monkeys: 100
The Fisher King: 99.5
Brazil: 95
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: 90

Score: 96.9 / 5

The Fisher King knocks off Jabberwocky (59), which forbids anything less than 90/100 from making the top 5. With 4 five-star ratings, Terry Gilliam's status in the greatest directors on my Best Directors List is cemented. Because his score raises from 88.8 / 5 to 96.9 / 5, Terry Gilliam raises on my Best Directors List from #70 to #18 between Brian De Palma and Ingmar Bergman.

Lost in Translation
(2003) - Directed by Sofia Coppola
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Drama / Romance
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"The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you."

As a major Francis Ford Coppola nut who even gave five-stars to Tetro, Dracula and Godfather Coda, I pretty much have to see how his daughter is doing as a director. Maybe she wasn't the best actor when she played Mary in Coda, but I don't ever blame a person for wanting to be like their parent. I admit I have trouble bringing myself to The Virgin Suicides because of its subject matter, as movies dealing with religious fanatics tend to piss me off. But I have to get to that and Lost in Translation. Since it's end-of-the-month streaming time, due to movie switches between months, Lost in Translation it is.

Bob Harris is an actor making his way towards "washed up," doing Japanese commercials instead of movies. Charlotte doesn't feel related to her husband at all, and finds it all to be mundane. The two stay at the same hotel and eventually connect, relating to each other in ways that eventually leads into a more vibrant romance than what they have with their spouses.

I find this movies directorial and writing decisions to be somewhere between Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring and Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise. It's a romance that largely revolves around two people's constant encounters with each other, and their developing relationship, largely stemming from their own loneliness, and whatever activities happen around the lives of these two are properly represented as mundane and lifeless, artistically so. How? Simple.

These scenarios will either allow you to relate to the present protagonist's problems are maybe make you laugh a little. So as the movie progresses, it's much more fun to see Bob and Charlotte together. So the directorial decisions are reminiscent of Late Spring and Before Sunrise because of its reliance on two people's connection and the lacking relevance of the surroundings to the plot. Still, I believe the activity of their appointments and jobs helped us look into the reasons why there lives feel so mundane, so it feels like a more complete story than Late Spring, but because it also draws out a little, this pro / con hybrid of mundane experiences also requires some of the Linklater touch to really feel phenomenal. Still, it's a very heartwarming one with a romantic dynamic with heavy power expressed through light sentiment. This effect seems to be created by challenging the mundane experiences we live through. In other words, this is an art-romance.

The only question remaining is: do they GENIUNELY love each other, or do they feel that desperate because they relate to each other much more than they do with their own families? When I think about it that way, I kinda love the ambiguity. Well, one would really like to believe it's real, considering that Johannson and Murray have incredible charisma through their subtle acting. You can just feel their struggle not to mention that they're falling for each other.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think some of these scenes, like the one involving the woman in Bob's room, might be a little offensive towards Japan as the cultural misunderstandings might paint an offbeat picture of their modern culture. But I'll let the Japanese decide on that one. Personally, I don't really think it's going to lower any morale expectations I have for Japan, when I believe every country has its pros and cons and am too bothered by some problems in America to voice major opinions about Japan. For now, I'll just say that whole I could predict some of the humor and kind of seen some of it before on Nickelodeon, some of these outlandish scenes were very entertaining, and I still want to visit Japan for all reasons I wanted to before watching Lost in Translation.

So Lost in Translation's purpose was to experience the mundane and the main characters' emotional responses toward it, and finally find solace in relation to another person, blossoming into a forbidden romance. Was anything neglected or sacrificed to meet this goal? There are two things I can think of: the total length of the mundane scenes, considering that we can easily get the message halfway through the total runtime, and the comedy only being somewhat funny. I mean, great comedy can be mingled with drama, hence The Fisher King's brilliance in that balance between the two. The movie's vibrant and colorful world cannot compensate for the human condition, and Lost in Translation is a subtly effective reminder of that.

I'm really glad I saw this movie. It's gonna help a lot with a personal project of mine.

= 88

Sofia Coppola needs 2 more movies for a Directorial Score.

Public Enemies
(2009) - Directed by Michael Mann
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Historical Drama / Gangster / Biopic
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"My friends call me John, but a son of a bitch screw like you better refer to me as 'Mr. John Dillinger.'"

I'm not very in tune with Michael Mann right now. He's done very little that I've been interested in watching, so seeking out his movies is either academic or on account of other people, like when I watched Thief some time after James Caan's death. I was hoping I would get something big out of Public Enemies, thougj, as it's a historical crime movie. The last movie in that vein that I watched was Brian De Palma's Untouchables, which gave me most of what I wanted from movies like this, so I had my fingers crossed. Since this is my third Michael Mann movie, this is the movie where Michael Mann qualifies for a Directorial Score.

This movie recounts the story of real-life bank robber John Dillenger, who also had a lot of skill in planned escapes and getaways. While he's on the run with his literal partners in crime, he develops a romance while the government uses any sneaky tactic they can to catch him when the law fails them.

The thing that really caught my attention throughout most of the movie was Michael Mann's direction. He had this uncanny ability to capture mass amounts of activity in the background while filming not only on the locations of the events, but putting together very realistic sets and costumes as well. Something about this movie bled the realism of its time despite any changes to history. There's also a good amount of bullet hell action here which keeps things exciting when things get boring. And of course, we have some amazing cast members rocking their roles with very little effort.

This is also a problem. These amazing actors are given very little character development, and so their characters are too easy for them. Eventually, it feels kind of lifeless. This also plays apart in another serious problem on the movie's part: the plotting of this case is by-the-numbers. I didn't really feel like there was anything new here despite all of the detailing put into each individual scene. It kind of makes all the detail seem unimportant in the long run, and eventually leads some scenes to either go around in circles via similarities in bank-robbing and escape sequences we've already seen, and eventually they decide to just make the ending overlong for no reason.

And this is all I have to say about Public Enemies. This is the kind of movie I'm typically into, but this specific movie didn't impress me that much. So much that was great was wasted on tropes and length, and I feel sorely disappointed i Michael Mann because of it considering his status as a modern essential director. Here's hoping Heat satisfies.

= 64.

Michael Mann's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 0 Bad)

The Last of the Mohicans: 95
Thief: 82
Public Enemies: 64

Score: 80.33 / 3

Michael Mann debuts on my Best Directors List at #138 between Albert Hughes and Louis LeTerrier.

1968 Tunnel Rata
(2009) - Directed by Uwe Boll
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Drama / War
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"I can't wait to get back."

The 25th Hour
(2002) - A Spike Lee Joint
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Drama / Crime
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"Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends."

Rampage
(2018) - Directed by Brad Peyton
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Action / Sci-Fi / Monster Movie / Disaster
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"Is it me, or is he considerably bigger?"

I've been watching the world of video game films very closely. Most people in Hollywood don't take the care they need to do so in order to make a proper video game adaptation for the fans and the average movie goer. Usually this is a problem with balancing the realism of real world logic and game logic. Now the Mario movie of the 90's struggled with this, while the 2023 Mario film rolled with it, and rocked it at the same time.

But sometimes there's such a simple concept that making it a more realistic approach is just something you gotta do. This is the case with movies such as Tomb Raider or Rampage. Now these movies have been getting better overtime, but is Rampage really worth watching? Or is it just another video game adaptation? Well, what is Rampage? It's based on a classic cartoonish arcade game involving Mattel-style muscle monsters attacking the city. And the plot...

More realistic monsters attack the city. How so? Well, when a monster tears up the space station it was created in, the capsules containing the formula to mutate animals crashed back down to Earth due to being resistent to atmospheric combustion. Well, the animals get curious, including this one intelligent but humorous albino gorilla, befriended by Davis (The Rock), an ex-soldier who prefers the company of animals before people. So when our gorilla goes crazy, George and a woman with connections to the creators of the formula race to find a cure and stop the other animals before either George or the city is blown away for good.

First and foremost, if you want a blockbuster directed well, then Brad Peyton is certainly not a bad choice. Peyton really has an eye for the thrilling, and he lives up to this every chance he gets. While giant gorilla movies might not have a chance against King Kong in general, we've got a serious level of thrills here with some Emmerich levels of accuracy. Cinematographically speaking, this is the best aspect of the movie, which also may be unfortunate.

The story has its pros and cons. For one thing, I can guarantee you that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict how the plot's going to go right down to the end. However, there's a very strong presence of detail here that's generally absent from so many disaster blockbusters that if you put them all in a specific award show, this may win one for writing (I repeat, against many other movies of its type). It's a real shame that much of the detailing into the science and the action sequences didn't have jack to say about character development, or surprises for that matter. Thankfully, the gorilla and Jeffrey Dean Morgan have some good on-screen presence here. Of course, Dwayne Johnson was just being himself, the lady's character was so generic that I didn't even look up her actress, and the villains were cartoons.

The final thing that must be said is the issue of faithfulness. Now I'll admit, I've never played the games. But one look at the box art for the game and the poster for the movie told me everything I needed to know: this movie is just gonna stick the monsters in, "real-ify" them, and not worry about the original looks at all. So the monsters have no cartoonish aspects about them, and instead of looking like 90's muscle furries like every other 90's protag (looking at Earthworm Jim specifically), they look like they belong in the very same movie franchise that the original games were knocking off. In a way, this feels both appropriate and inappropriate, considering that the source material of the knock off is being lived up to, but also being COPIED which is something I know the games weren't really doing as much as they were just dorking around.

This is more than I thought I'd have to say about our Rampage movie, thankfully. I honestly had some fun with this, considering that it lived up to what you expect and more, but the expectations weren't very high. The movie is made up of generic tropes but does what it can to make things a lot of fun. At least more effort was put into this blockbuster than usual, but even out of respect for video game adaptations, I'd like to see a more wild and cartoonish variant on the big screen one day. Welp, here's hoping the Borderlands and Zelda movies are good. And hopefully they don't "over-realisiticify" these two. And at least we know Disney isn't gonna do that Stitch... right?

= 67

Brad Peyton's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 1 Bad)

Rampage: 67
Journey 2: The Mysterious island: 59
Incarnate: 53
Cats & Dogs 2: 12

Score: 47.75 / 4. For having more good movies than bad ones, he'll receive a staying score of 50 / 4

Brad Peyton is still at the bottom section of the Best Directors List with other directors with mostly good movies but a -50 average. The average will be used for ordering only. Brad Peyton's position changes from #284 to #287 between Harold F. Kress and Jack Perez.

One Sings, the Other Doesn't
(1977) - Directed by Agnes Varda
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Drama / Slice-of-Life
-------------------------------------------------

"I use various images of women to express how I feel in songs."

I'm currently in the process of exploring some higher-grade movies for a personal project, specifically by directors I have little knowledge in. Today I kept looking for the Agnes Varda film "One Sings, the Other Doesn't" because its plot interested me. I was gonna watch Jacquot, but I decided to watch some Jacques Demy films to get everything out of it. I wanted a story-based one for some reason, and found it in this one.

Paulie and Suzanne are two friends that have a long history with each other. After they meet up again, Pauline gives the now mother of two money for an abortion, leaves home and decides to be a traveller. A decade later, she meets up with Suzanne again at an an abortion rights demonstration, and they share with each other their relationship and life struggles overtime through various meetings time after time.

It wasn't really the abortion themes that grabbed me when I read the quick summary of the story on Letterboxd. See, I'm not exactly "pro-choice" in the emphatic sense, but I wouldn't call myself "pro-life," because I feel like this is something I should study more before my opinion has a real effect on the world. So I keep to things I already know about. So instead, I'll just talk about the movie. People agree that in a lot of ways, this is the exact opposite of Varda's "magnum opus," Cleo from 5 to 7. This is largely because this movie chronicles two women's connections with the world around them over the course of two decades rather than a couple of straight hours in the life of one.

What really grabs me about this movie is Varda's unrelenting attempts at capturing all the realism and behavior involved in each scenario, which is exactly what we ask for in a situation like this. And it does so with a high sense of art that's not being molded into the filmmaking alone, but the thematic writing. The most noticeable theme would likely be the abortion themes, which define much of what happens and where the two girls will be. But the movie is about so much more than that. We're dealing with thoughts about the future, which abortion somewhat acts as a subcategory to in this movie. There is constant talk about what happened in the past, as well as constant wonder about what these past events will lead up to. This is a very personal movie that gets right down to the characters emotions without ever being melodramatic. This is a THINKER'S film, and that's what I love about Varda. She's a true-storyteller for the overactive brain.

There's another theme here that's not payed attention to: the passion of art. This is obviously a more personal decision on Varda's part rather than professional, seeing as how she's made art and movie documentaries and docudramas before. But this is something that handles the human passion for it and the desire for success that comes with it. We can see the actions of Jerome and his, ahem, giving up, as comparable to Pauline's decision to keep it up, even while pregnant. You can tell from her singing and dancing that she really understands the passion for the art, and even acts so in artistic situations that don't pertain to the movie's themes of abortion. I mean, these lyrics are very well done, as well as these psychedelic and traditional folk melodies during the musical numbers. Did Varda write them herself? Because whoever did is good at it.

In fact, lemme point out that one of the songs is about the glory of having a child. This movie is about making decisions for the future, not necessarily about abortion.

These conversations were not only realistic thematically, but got down to every plotting and emotional point like it was natural dialogue. There were several times where I was just frozen in place watching the subtitles go on. The subtitles would even be more important to me than the pretty faces of these great actresses. Yes, there are pretty songs in the movie, and I like them, having listened to my share of glorious psychedelic folk, but theses scenes of the band just having fun with their creative songs and the real-life details are equal in cinematic majesty through simple static shots capturing the motions and charisma of these characters. We can feel these thingd as colors and even gloomy skies come together to form a kind of hypnotic imagery that mingles Agnes Varda's other movies Happiness and Vagabond together in what seems to be a mastering of thematic expression from every aspect necessary for cinema.

Watching this Agnes Varda movie was almost like watching an Andrey Tarkovsky movie. But despite that, it confirmed to me every reason why I like Agnes Varda. True, I was not fullt captivated by Faces Places and Happiness, but this is like the female Godfather. It used fairly-fleshed out minor characters to constantly compliment the tweo-decade journey of two characters you wanna see grow in their own way rather than your way. This is not a movie of stakes and thrills, this is a movie about people. And I know there are plenty of people who won't see this movie the way I do, but I can't be honest with myself and say I didn't think of this movie as perfect when one of the biggest reasons why The Godfather is my number one is highly present here. But at the same time, I feel like I should watch Cleo from 5 to 7 to more clearly compare the two.

= 100

Agnes Varda's Directorial Score (5 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Cleo from 5 to 7: 100
One Sings, the Other Doesn't: 100
Vagabond: 98
Faces Places: 80
Le Bonheur: 72

Score: 90 / 5

Agnes Varda raises on my Best Directors List from #81 to #68 between James Wan and Chris Columbus.

Clown
(2014) - Directed by Jon Watts
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Supernatural Horror / Body Horror
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So before the MCU Spider-Man movies, Jon Watts did a horror movie about a clown. Not what you expected, right? Well, I guess I should've predicted it since James Gunn also did a horror movie before Guardians. And to be honest, I have been watching very few horror movies recently, because I'm trying to make sure my log doesn't feature too many horror movies. I'm trying to keep a bare maximum of 20% on it. However, even for finishing this, I'd be 30 movies ahead of that, so I'm safe for now. Let's learn about early Jon Watts!

Kent's child is having a birthday party, but the clown company screwed up and didn't send one. Kent finds a very old clown suit in a locked container and dons it. However, shortly after the party, he finds that it's impossible to take off, even cut off, wig, hair and all. Afterwards, he starts exhibiting weird and even monstrous behavior, and there are only two ways to take the costume off... and neither of them are pretty.

Let me say that I had absolutely no notions about this movie being anywhere near as good as his Spider-Man trilogy. And at the same time, I didn't even consider that this would be a close knockoff of Stephen King's It because usually it's the B-movies that do either that or just do something original and weird like Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

So this clown costume doesn't give you any real surprises. There are minor shocks along the way, but I didn't really find this particular clown movie to be that scary. I pretty much saw how the scares were gonna go. Having said that, the horror plot and development of our villain wasn't bad. They at least put a working story together that makes you care for any and all victims, including Kent himself. But there's very little going on aside from that. Unfortunately, one of the twists in fact IS taken directly from the Stephen King novel...

I guess the best part about this movie would be Watts' direction. While you know how the scares will go, Watts put in a little artistic buildup here and there, which is especially present during the climax. Once again, this aspect of the movie isn't perfect, as it rarely does anything really "worthwhile" or even "fancy" if you will, but at least this means it also uses the gore effectively. It doesn't flood you, usually.

So, the only reason to see this movie is to see what kind of skills Watts had in his early career. otherwise, Clown is just an OK clown movie with nothing new to offer except a bunch of decency in the basics and few scares and shocks. At least it doesn't feel like a B-movie for even a second, and I can see some horror fans having more fun with this than me for its obvious attempts at making a good movie.

= 60

Jon Watts' Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Spider-Man: Far from Home: 99
Spider-Man: No Way Home: 95
Spider-Man: Homecoming: 94
Clown: 60

Score: 87 / 4

Jon Watts' position on my Best Directors List lowers from #38 to #81 in between two other MCD directors (miraculously): Jon Favreau and James Gunn.

Nashville
(1975) - Directed by Robert Altman
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Drama / Slice-of-Life /Satire/Music/ Hyperlink
-------------------------------------------------

"I need something like this for my documentary. I need it. It's... It's America."
"Isn't he a gem? He's got the worst sense of humor."
"Boy, was she a lot of fun, and cooked my favorite, roast beef."
"Don't tell me how to run your life. I been doin' pretty good with it."
"Well, we never let Haven Hamilton take sides, politically."
" I worked here, I worked all over the country, I worked out in California, out in Stockton."
"He wouldn't bathe, so we had to pee in his bed to get him discharged."
"Now a big welcome, if you please, for the Goo-Goo man of the hour."
"No, it's better, it's really better than network." "Y'all take it easy now. This isn't Dallas, it's Nashville!"

3 Women
(1977) - Directed by Robert Altman
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Psycho-Drama
-------------------------------------------------

"What do you think MY name is?"

There's usually something off-putting and intriguing about the mundane "real world" stories of Altman. It's like he's got this weird ability to see deeper meaning in all of the little things. I can describe Altman's style with one movie scene from a non-Altman movie. In Peaceful Warrior, a movie about an aspiring gymnast learning to overcome doubts with the philosophical help of an wise and old convenient store worker, this lead character watches a couple kisses for a few seconds and realizes, "there's never nothing going on." Well, there really is never nothing going on in an Altman movie. He's trying to capture the real world. Ironically, one of his more popular movies these days was based on one of Altman's dreams. This is my second play of the movie.

Millie (Shelley Duvall) works in a care home for the elderly, and doesn't have a lot of friends or even people who pay attention to her. She gets her chance for some friendship when she takes on a young and hopeful new employee also named Millie (Sissy Spacek), but who prefers to go by her nickname Pinky. It's not long before Pinky's childish behavior makes Millie resentful. But thanks to one traumatic experience and the intervention of Willie (Janice Rule), a painter who runs a bar with her husband, sends Pinky into a role reversal in which her independence makes Millie question her own actions.

There's a stark contrast in character between the two more important leads, the young and excitable Pinky (Sissy Spacek) and the older and stricter Millie (Shelly Duvall). Pinky's completely enamored with the world around her and approaches everything like a little kid, and you can see from her shocked-looking facial expressions as she reacts to small things in a childlike manner, even things we find simply commonplace like the existence of twins. Millie, on the other hand, is struggling to find her place and has become disenchanted with her job, hoping to find solace in some semblance of friendship. She's eager to take a roommate in and make it easy, but her attempts at friendship with everyone else are often ignored like she's not even there.

There's a purpose to filming all the little things, like Pinky's going up the stairs to the apartments to the first time. We see how she reacts. And one of the best scenes featuring this brand of direction is the entire "moving in" sequence. By seeing these conversations where they start to relate to each other, and little revelations like the fold-up bed, the familiar feeling of learning the surroundings of a new house is present, especially with this very homey and classic 70's feeling.

As far as Willie goes, I think the very idea of her not talking works well thematically, although it's a risky thing that certainly won't click with most people. An because of Altman's love of ambiguity, all we can do is discuss theory and take what we believe with us. But let's take a look at her character: she's silent, always making paintings, runs her own business with her husband and is pregnant.

In other words, Willie's essentially everything Millie wants to be and the lady doesn't even realize it. Willie is a woman with her own world mostly under control. She's a creator. She creates paintings. She creates life. And everyone else damages what she creates. But maybe that's also where here weird paintings come in. People become intrigued with them and wonder what they're about, and that's just it. She's reached an ascension that we, as the audience, don't understand because deep down we're all more like the two Millie's.

But I think there are a few hints as to why she creates what she does. Her change in behavior during her shooting scene depending on what she's shooting at says at it. It's my guess that she has a disdain for the world and what it becomes and she focuses her paintings on it. These paintings do have an effect, as the nightmares they induce snap Pinky back to normal. In other words, she's practically the influencer like a spiritual being is. This leads me to concur with an idea I read online that the three women are a loose representation of the "Father, Son and the Holy Ghost," but because of their erratic behavior they don't have that same sense of harmony. In other words, we humans cannot possibly comprehend it.

I could be wrong, but I think I figured Willie out. At least, I'm more convinced of this than I am with other theories.

Now as for the rest of it. Dammit, can Altman direct. His sense of visuals captures scenarios and faces in the same way that he did with Nashville, but with more gusto and psychological background, making the wonder in people's faces feel extremely realistic. Pair this with the surrealism of Willie's effed up paintings and the dream sequences (even Holocaust 2000 didn't have a dream sequence like that), you have a visual aesthetic which perfectly captures both emotion and themes. I mean, Altman did a scary good job, as well as bringing the fear of psychological trauma out very well, especially during the end. Shelley's acting as she walked out of the house in that scene scared the piss out of me.

But this is definitely not to say that the actresses didn't have a say in this. Despite playing extreme opposites, Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek are able to capture both vital sides of each character FLAWLESSLY. I mean, it's one thing for the already experienced Shelly Duvall to switch between an ordinary housewoman who doesn't care about people to a woman showing desperation and not even worry about her acting quality. But Spacek's ability to portray a ten-year-old persona on top of an independent twenty-one-year-old persona afterwords with perfect representation is astounding. While I loved Duvall in this, Spacek cemented herself as a master actress with this at such a young age. I won't be saying much about Janice Rule, though, as she wasn't given the screentime needed to compete with the other two. But her presence was always appreciated and she didn't do a bad job.

I'm very glad Nashville kicked a desire for more Robert Altman right into my brain. This is the second time I watched 3 Women, and I didn't get quite this much out of it at first, but I still gave it a great rating. This, however, put the movie in my top 500. This is one of the weirdest and most psychologically effective stories I've seen on the screen. This might even end up becoming a favorite of mine.

= 93. Raises 6 points.

Robert Altman's Directorial Score (9 Good vs. 1 Bad)

Nashville: 100
The Player: 100
3 Women: 93
The Long Goodbye: 90
McCabe and Mrs. Miller: 87

Score: 94 / 5

Robert Altman's position on my Best Director's List raises from #50 to #34 between Ridley Scott and Bryan Singer.

Inside Man
(2006) - A Spike Lee Joint
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Heist / Cop / Thriller
-------------------------------------------------

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another Spike Lee joint! With your host, Keyseeeeeeer Corleone! And for today's episode, we're going to dive into a Dog Day Afternoon-style movie that was five years in the making, written by a lawyer who passed it around until Imagine Entertainment looked around for a director after Ron Howard cancelled for Cinderella Man, making its way to Hollywood's favorite black director! Today's movie iiiiiiiiis, Inside Man!

A group of masked robbers invade a Manhattan bank, organizing things with precision and making constant demands to the authorities outside. Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is called on to negotiate the terms with the mastermind (Clive Owen). Meanwhile, the bank's founder (Christopher Plummer) plans for a fixer to hide something in that vault that could potentially ruin him, so he hires a fixer (Jodie Foster) to keep things quiet. Unfortunately, the mastermind knows all about what's in that case the founder wants hidden.

While I considered the plotting of the actual hostage situation to be at full power, the one thing I was really disappointed in considering the first half was the lack of characterization. It felt minimal and came only in sparse moments, so it was difficult to connect to Washington's character Frazier, especially when comparing it to his performance as Malcolm X in Lee's biopic. I felt like Washington wasn't really being challenged here, so his performance was an easy one, like Robin Williams in Jack. In a way, I wasn't super impressed with Owen, either. He did a great job, but his performance was built on one emotion I had already seen him master in Sin City, made the year before this. So the keep it original, Lee's direction, the hostage plotting, Jodie Foster's mystique as a fixer and the twists involving Christopher Plummer's character keep things rolling.

Thankfully, things change when Washington and Owen finally collide halfway through. Passing the phone conversations, we see the two get up close and personal with a great exchange of dialogue and tension. Some of these decisions between the writer and our director are masterful. So the second half more or less became what I want from a perfect movie, with one exception: Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe are severely underused. As a fan of the Doctor Strange movies, I was really hoping for more of Ejiofor, because I'm not fully versed in him and want to be. And I especially wanted some amazing things from Dafoe, who's one of my all-time favorites. The fact that they didn't give him anything personal or great to work with. They might as well have not hired him.

And now lemme get down to the meat of the plot and the direction. Spike Lee's direction is at some of his absolute best here. This movie shows his skill in slow, frantic, tense and dramatic direction all over. This is perfect for how twisty and unpredictable the movie gets overtime. It doesn't flood with you with them constantly, but rather does a great job pacing them with proper progression, never letting you accurately guess what's gonna happen next. This is exactly what I want in a crime thriller, and I expect no less when I have high expectations.

If Inside Man handled its protagonists more well during the first half, this would be a 100. Instead, I'll address the second half's one flaw in contrast with its many strengths. The second half follows almost every essential I ask for a perfect movie. The plot twists rival those of the original Oldboy (gonna watch the Spike Lee one some time later), and the cast and crew are putting everything they have into it. This is definitely a replay for me, and a fourth five-star for Spike, but at the bare minimum score for a five-star this time.

= 95

Spike Lee's Directorial Score (9 Good vs. 1 Bad)

Do the Right Thing: 100
Malcolm X: 100
The 25th Hour: 96
Inside Man: 95
Blackkklansman: 90

Score: 96.2 / 5

No movies will no affect Spike Lee's score unless one is higher than 90. Spike Lee's position on my Best Directors List raises from #44 to #25 between Peter Jackson and Wes Craven.

Spy Kids
(2001) - Directed by Robert Rodriguez
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Spy / Action-Adventure / Sci-Fi / Comedy / Family
-------------------------------------------------

"My parents can't be spies! They're not cool enough!"

OK, so I got curious about the Spy Kids reviews here, and I saw that nobody reviewed it, which means I haven't reviewed it, and I was passionate about a previous review I wrote on another website. I could've sworn that I did, and I can't find a previous review I wrote anywhere else even though I KNOW that I wrote one. So I'm gonna review it here.

Spy Kids would kickstart a phenomenon that would see many failed emulators like Agent Cody Banks, Cats & Dogs, Catch That Kid, The Spy Next Door and G-Force. I didn't even check out half of these because most of them were supposed to be terrible. Thankfully, this phenom wasn't subject to the plague of over-grittiness that was kickstarted by the success of the Batman cartoon and the attempts at replicating it. It was bad enough that they did it to Sonic, and they didn't even bother to make Loonatics Unleashed a parody of grittiness as opposed to a dark action cartoon, but we almost had this.

Dudes... You literally spend your whole game developing budget on Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman three times in a row, and think this is a good idea. And isn't the Blaze of Fury a Will Ferrell movie?

OK, so Spy Kids... **** YEAH. This is literally the definition of millennial childhood for a plethora of reasons. It ain't just the nostalgia talking. I don't rate based on nostalgia. Spy Kids is a unique concept which is built to recreate a child's desires. Don't believe me? I checked before writing this specific review: Robert Rodriguez wanted to make a movie that felt like it was actually written and directed by kids. Because of this, we need to assume that it's a much more thematic movie than all of its knockoffs. I mean, look at the plot here.

Carmen and Juni are two troubled kids who don't know that their parents are ex-spies. When other spies go mussing, their parents are called in on the case, unaware that the kidnapper is none other than children's TV superstar Fegan Floop, who's really having his strings pulled by his own second-in-command. And of course, he has his own castle where all the weird robots and creatures on the show are REAL. So unable to face Floop properly, the parents are kidnapped as well, and Carmen and Juni end up on an adventure to find out why they're being held captive and hopefully save their parents and the world.

Think about what a spy movie is for a moment: political intrigue, travelling to foreign countries, fast cars, gadgets. Those first two are NOT gonna appeal to kids in the same way. They don't care for politics and they'll likely know very little about other worlds. So if we think about this from a kiddy mentality, writing about travelling to another country from the kiddy mindset would mean rewriting a country to be more outlandish, and maybe accidentally racist.

So what's left? Travel to a world a child can understand: a children's TV show. It's perfect. The parent's can't comprehend this kind of world as well as a child! They've grown past that! The kids have to be the ones to traverse those landscapes and save the day! It's a perfect concept. Any little kid who plays pretend spy would think of this kinda stuff, and they made a literal movie out of it. That's some pretty cool meta-thinking there, even going as far as to remind me of when Tarkovsky made a movie entirely out of a fictional character's memories. Genius thematic touches, Rodriguez. And they said you were all style.

Now for the really kiddy stuff. As a guy who wants to write children's stories, I took a lot out of this movie. I mean, let's be honest. You want a microwave that turns popcorn packets into free McDonald's. Do not deny it. You WANT one. I don't even like McDonald's that much anymore, and I want one. And gum and bubbles that electrify people? That's pretty damn cool. There are plenty of other creative kid's gadgets that are difficult for people to think of. And of course, we get clever story-based ways to use them. That much is demanded, and if we didn't get that I might even be upset. In fact, the story is surprisingly packed and fast-paced for the type of movie it is. There's always something going on every two minutes if not multiple things going on.

Let's not even forget that this heavy SFX of this movie can be described in one word.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
(2016) - Directed by Dave Green
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Superhero / Sci-Fi / Ninja
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"Surf's up, New York!"

I've only got a couple of TMNT movies to go before I've finished the theatrical side of the franchise. I admit I had my doubts about this second and final movie in the Michael Bay franchise (producer, not director), because even though it's said to be better, I don't typically go with the grain. I knew this movie was gonna steer even further into the cartoon side of the franchise. Imagine my surprise when they play the 1987 theme at the end of the movie. But I typically love stories about mutants and superpowers anyway. I'm a massive X-Men fan thanks to my sister showing me the first movie.

The Foot Clan is planning on breaking Shredder out, and despite the turtles' best effort stop keep him locked up, he's taken away by the alien warlord Krang, who needs Shredder to find the missing pieces of a machine that can open up Dimesnion X for him. Thanks to their recent screw-ups, the team is breaking apart while Shredder recruits two new mutants to help him defeat them. Can the turtles come together with April and their new security guard friend Casey Jones to keep Shredder and Krang from obtaining ultimate power?

So what we're dealing with here is another blockbuster gonna crazy, except we at least have some faithfulness to the iconic 1987 series. This is oftentimes both a pro and a con. Lemme tell you, even though I didn't really grow up with the original cartoon, I saw a few episodes. I was extremely happy to see how accurately they got a live-action Krang. They focused hard on his delivery and it mostly paid off. His design was perfect and Brad Garrett did an incredible job voicing him, making him feel real while delivering a cartoonish presence. The problem is that he didn't have much screentime at all. Thankfully, we have Bebop and Rocksteady to make up for that with their faithful representations.

But what's most obvious about this movie is that there are some flaws in the first movie that couldn't be changed in the second. The most obvious is turning the turtles into giant roid-raging Shrek's. But they put together some little changes, like the less obnoxious outfits and even replacing Johnny Knoxville, who voiced Leo in the original, and sounded less natural than our new guy. Unfortunately, there's still guilty of a few flaws here and there. I mean, that Shia Labeouf knockoff doesn't feel like Casey Jones at all. At least his battle scene with Bebop and Rocksteady was perfectly cartoonish for the vibe to be right.

OK, so the movie's cast and crew were working hard to bring the cartoon even further into real life, and this might have its strings attached, but also made it an ENJOYABLE piece of blockbuster tripe. We might be getting the full Michael Bay-produced experience, but we're also getting a strong TMNT experience. All the obnoxiously outlandish sci-fi is there as one should expect. Dimension X, Bebop and Rocksteady, talking Bubblicious, you name it. And yes, since it's a sequel to a very flawed movie, some of the flaws follow. So as far as live-action cartoons go, TMNT 2 doesn't have the punch of Kung Fu Hustle, but it's certainly better than Thunderbirds. It stands proud in its faithfulness while trying hard to just role with what they have, so I'll give it points for that at the very least.

= 60

Dave Green has directed 2 movies and is not currently eligible for a directorial score.