Hot Tub Time Machine 2 - 1 star

The first Hot Tub Time Machine was a good movie.  Three friends – Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Corddry) and Nick (Craig Robinson) – along with Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) are magically transported back to 1986.  Unlike other time travel movies like Back to the Future, there is no danger of them running into their 1986 selves.  When they look in a mirror they see the young versions of themselves, except for Jacob who wasn’t born yet. 

The movie was funny and the filmmakers knew the premise was ridiculous.  By the end of the movie, they had all improved their lives.  Lou would use his knowledge of the future to invent Lougle (instead of Google) and become the father of the internet, and Nick became a successful musician. 

In the sequel, Lougle isn’t doing well and everyone hates Lou.  Nick became successful by recording hit songs himself before the original artist has a chance to record it.  We see him filming the video for Stay (I Missed You) and he runs into Lisa Loeb, who is working as the cat wrangler.  Lou’s story makes sense, since he stayed behind in 1986 at the end of the last movie.  But Nick went back to 2010, so I don’t understand how he could have the future knowledge to write and record all these songs.  Not to mention that Stay was recorded in 1994, not 2015.

But details like that aren’t important in a movie like this.  What is important is the laughs, and there are none in this movie.  I chuckled here and there, but this movie really isn’t funny.  The only funny moments are things they repeat from the first movie, like when Nick and Lou sing about Jacob being a nerd. 

The plot concerns someone coming back from the future and shooting Lou.  Nick and Jacob drag him into the hot tub intending to go back in time to prevent him being shot.  Instead, they end up in 2025 where Jacob is rich, bald and married to the hot girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day in 2015.  She also hasn’t aged a day in 10 years, but whatever.  Lou is now a homeless drunk and Nick has become a joke.  It seems he recorded an original song that nobody liked and his career never recovered.

Jacob figured out that someone from the future went back to 2015 to kill Lou, so now they have to figure out who that is and stop them.  Since the hot tub is the only form of time travel, it would seem like a good idea to stay near the hot tub and make sure nobody else uses it, but that doesn’t occur to them.  They decide to find Adam, thinking he might be the killer. 

They don’t find Adam – John Cusack either wanted too much money or he got a look at the script – but they do find Adam’s son, Adam Jr. (Adam Scott).  They arrive just in time for Lou to get Adam into drugs and mess up his wedding.  I wonder who the killer turns out to be?

The filmmakers throw a lot of futuristic ideas in this movie, like holographic phones and really cool transparent iPad things.  There are smart cars that drive themselves and have personalities, and the most popular game show involves contestants being forced to do humiliating things to themselves and other people.  None of these things are written with any wit or humor.  It’s like the screenwriter had a bunch of ideas but didn’t bother to develop them in any way. 

I’ve gone on far too long about this stupid movie.  It might be worth watching on Netflix one day if you can’t find anything else to watch, but don’t waste money on this movie.

Kingsman: The Secret Service - 3 stars

This is a really unique movie.  It’s kind of a parody of James Bond movies, but at the same time it’s also a pretty serious action movie.  For the first 45 minutes or so, the tone wasn’t working for me at all.  But then the movie got more and more fun, and by the end I was loving it.

The Kingsman is a secret service organization.  The members are all named after members of King Arthur’s knights – the trainer is even named Merlin.  Their headquarters is a tailor shop on Savile Row, because even when fighting for your life and saving the world, a spy should look and act like a gentleman.

The movie mostly focuses on Eggsy, a young troublemaker whose father was a kingsman.  Years ago his father was killed saving the life of fellow agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), and Harry recruits Eggsy to join the service.  The training program is over-the-top ridiculous, involving things like their room suddenly filling up with water while they sleep.  They have only a minute to figure out how to escape or they’ll be drowned.  Another exercise involves them jumping out of a plane and one of them doesn’t have a parachute.

While Eggsy is being trained, internet billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) is threatening to unleash something that will kill like 99% of Earth’s population.  Jackson speaks in a weird lisp that was kind of off putting at first, but it grew on me.  Valentine has a henchwoman with mechanical legs loaded with machetes, which is just awesome.

As the movie gets closer to the climax, it gets crazy.  I couldn’t believe how far it was going, and it was hilarious.  I won’t spoil it, but just wait until the sequence in the church.  It brought the house down at the screening I attended.

Overall I liked the movie.  It took a while to get enjoyable for me, but the last half hour or so more than made up for the weaknesses in the first half. 

50 Shades of Grey - 1 1/2 stars

I admit I had reservations going in.  I haven’t read the book, but I heard that this series started out as Twilight fan fiction.  Two reasons to worry right there.

This is the story of how Anastasia, a virginal college student, begins a very messed up relationship with Christian Grey.  Christian is rich, good looking, runs his own company, and he’s also into BDSM.  Rather than date women, he likes to just have kinky bondage sex with them.  Since Anastasia hasn’t even had sex before, this is a big eye opener for her.

There isn’t much story here.  The screenwriter doesn’t sweat the details.  We don’t learn anything about Christian’s business or how he got so successful.  We don’t know much about Anastasia’s friends or family.  Even the two main characters aren’t developed very well.  The dialogue is bad and the characters’ motivations make no sense.

At times, the story did interest me.  It is interesting seeing Anastasia get more self confidence and stand up to Christian.  And I was curious to see where their relationships would go.  But I got tired of them having the same conversations over and over again.  She keeps asking why they can’t have a normal relationship, and all he’ll tell her is that that’s what he’s into.

This could have been an interesting story if it was written better.  But most of the time I was just bored.  Some of the lines were unintentionally funny, and even the 50 Shades fans who were there laughed quite a bit.  This movie is critic proof, meaning the people who want to see it will go no matter what I say.  But if you’re not a fan and you’re just curious, don’t bother.  

Sundance review: A Walk in the Woods - 1 1/2 stars

Robert Redford plays an author of travel books.  After attending the funeral of a friend, he gets restless and decides to hike the 2,100 mile long Appalachian Trail.  His wife (Emma Thompson) insists that he can't do it alone, so he brings along an old friend, played by Nick Nolte.

It's kind of like Wild crossed with Sideways, but poorly written.  Redford and Nolte have good chemistry together, but they don't have anything interesting to say to each other.  There are no real stakes and no consequences.  They just go from one encounter to the next and by the end, the journey felt kind of pointless.

I was bored watching this movie.

Sundance review: Best of Enemies - 3 stars

From the Sundance film guide:

In the summer of 1968, television news changed forever. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired two towering public intellectuals to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. William F. Buckley, Jr. was a leading light of the new conservative movement. A Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, Gore Vidal was a leftist novelist and polemicist. Armed with deep-seated distrust and enmity, Vidal and Buckley believed each other’s political ideologies were dangerous for America. Like rounds in a heavyweight battle, they pummeled out policy and personal insult—cementing their opposing political positions. Their explosive exchanges devolved into vitriolic name-calling. It was unlike anything TV had ever broadcast, and all the more shocking because it was live and unscripted. Viewers were riveted. ABC News' ratings skyrocketed. And a new era in public discourse was born.

It's a lot of fun watching these two insult each other.  They have such a command of the English language that their insults almost sound like poetry.  Besides watching their debates, we get political scholars and other experts commenting on Vidal and Buckley's history, the political landscape at the time, and ABC's ratings.  One commentator said if they wanted to end the Vietnam War, all they had to do was put it on ABC and it would be canceled within a few weeks.  They also said there were only three networks at the time but somehow ABC was still fourth.

I enjoyed the movie for the most part, but I don't think it's for everyone.  It helps if you're a political junkie.  As much fun as the debates were, by the end of the movie I felt underwhelmed.  But Dick Cavett is one of the interview subjects, so that makes it worth watching right there.

Sundance review: The Tribe - 3 stars

From the Sundance film guide:  

Sergey, a new student at a boarding school for the deaf, must navigate through the institution’s social hierarchy, led by a gang of students reveling in crime and prostitution. Initially shunned, he is eventually initiated into the crew, inheriting the role of pimp to two giddy best friends. After saving up money for a sexual encounter with Anna (notable both for its explicit nature and cinematographic restraint), Sergey begins to fall in love, risking the rest of the tribe’s wrath.

This movie is a unique cinematic experience.  A title card at the beginning prepares us:  there are no subtitles and no voiceover narration.  The characters communicate by sign language, and there isn't even a musical score.  So the movie is almost completely silent.  Even though we can't understand exactly what the characters are saying to each other, we start to understand what's going on.  

I admit there were times I would have loved subtitles to explain a few things.  I was a bit thrown when at first, the gang makes Sergey strip and give them his money, then all of a sudden he's friends with them.  And when the gang goes outside to rob and beat up homeless people, I couldn't help but be reminded of Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange.  You would think that people would figure out that it's dangerous to walk by the school at night after several people were mugged there.

The movie did drag at times.  Ukranian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy likes long, unbroken takes and there were times where I wish he had done a little more editing.  I got a little tired of watching the characters walk from their dorm room to the outside, or watching the prostitutes and Sergey walk around the lot full of parked semi trucks looking for customers.  

It's not a movie I'm eager to see again, but it was a unique accomplishment and I'm glad I saw it.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - 1 1/2 stars

The third movie in the Hobbit trilogy is like watching someone else play a video game.  It’s maybe 20 minutes of story stretched into a two and a half hour movie.  Most of the running time consists of a giant battle between dwarves, elves, humans, and orcs.  The entire time, I just kept wishing Bilbo Baggins would just quietly sneak away and go home. 

When we left Bilbo and company in the last movie, The Desolation of Smaug, they had found their way into the mountain and awakened the dragon Smaug.  Now Smaug is attacking nearby Laketown and killing everyone he can.  Bard the Boatman is the only one who can stop Smaug, and he’ll have to break out of prison first. 

The fight with Smaug is the most exciting part of this movie.  Unfortunately, Smaug is dealt with in the first 10 minutes.  After that, the survivors of the town need a place to stay.  Bard decides that the Lonely Mountain is the best place for them.  Also, Thorin promised them he would split the treasure with them so they want some of that.  But Thorin is starting to develop dragon sickness, which basically means he’s paranoid and thinks everyone else wants to steal the treasure for themselves.  So he refuses to let the humans in.  Then the elves show up, and they want some of the treasure too.  Just as the humans and elves are about to attack the dwarves, an army of orcs show up.  They fight for a couple of hours and then the movie mercifully ends.

Remember how cool the Battle of Helm’s Deep was in The Two Towers?  That was something we’d never seen before.  The scale of it was incredible, and the special effects were amazing.  But it didn’t go on for too long, and we cared about what happened to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.  Then Peter Jackson thought he had to top that battle in Return of the King.  So we got the battle for Minas Tirith which went on way too long  But once again, we knew and cared about the characters involved.  And the movie was about more than just that battle.  We had Sam and Frodo’s journey to get back to.

In this third Hobbit movie, there’s nothing else going on.  The battle is it.  And Bilbo was just in the background most of the time.  It’s hard to care about the outcome of a battle when you barely know the characters involved.  I’m not even sure who the five armies are.  There are humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs. 

I’m sure Peter Jackson wants us to care about the love triangle between the dwarf, the female elf, and Legolas.  And I’m sure he wants us to care about Thorin Oakenshield and whether he’ll come to his senses.  But I didn’t.  I just wanted the movie to end.

As with the first two Hobbit movies, the laws of physics don’t apply.  Characters jump and swing 30 feet in the air and land safely.  If something big is about to fall on our heroes, it misses them by a few inches.  At one point, Legolas is on a collapsing bridge.  As he runs, blocks are falling out underneath his feet, but he is still able to run and jump to safety.  The blocks are suspended in the air just long enough for him to step on them.  You’ll know it when you see it.  The movie has turned into Super Mario Bros.

I remember an interview where Peter Jackson was talking about the challenges of writing The Lord of the Rings.  He said whenever they were unsure how to structure the movies, they just focused on Frodo.  His quest to destroy the ring was the central focus of the movies.  Bilbo Baggins should have been the focus of these Hobbit movies.  But it seems like he was just a supporting character, which is a shame because Martin Freeman was a great choice for Bilbo.  I would love to see all three of these movies edited down to a 100 minute movie with Bilbo as the focus.  I’m sure someone will create a fan edit on youtube that will be way better than this trilogy.

The more I think about this movie, the more annoyed I get.  The first two were overly long, but at least the characters were on a journey.  There was a story there, and I wanted to find out what was coming next.  This time, the story feels wrapped up when Smaug is killed.  Then we have to sit there for two hours and watch these armies fight.  I’m not anxious to watch the first two movies again, but I could never sit through this one again.