Tag: comedy

Dub’s Take: Despicable Me 4 (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

NO STAR RATING

Poppy Prescott gives me impure thoughts.

You’ve heard of Disney animators slipping naughty easter-eggs into their features. These were blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em moments you’d catch on repeat viewings: there was no way anything more than a few milliseconds of indiscretion could make it passed pre-2000 executives; a ratings board; test audiences; and any other stop-gaps preceding a theatrical release.

But Disney doesn’t ride today’s market solo anymore, and – speaking generally – the competition is becoming more shameless for your dollar. This isn’t to say modern family movies are inundated with sex & violence: I’m not that out of touch. But you can crack a specially-worded joke in a diplomatic way and still keep your coveted PG rating.

Case-in-point: “Despicable Me 4″‘s Poppy. As voiced by Joey King (who just headlined Netflix’s “Uglies”), Poppy is a bratty, overprivileged redhead, sporting a skirt; braces; freckles; and a lisp, and who blackmails & uses Gru… for a heist! Poppy’s age isn’t explicitly stated but I trust my ten-second Google search that labelled her 14.

King’s voice work is chipper and snotty: just how it needs to be. But Poppy doesn’t speak until three-scenes-in, after she’s already thrown Gru knowing glances that communicate, as per the plot, that she knows his secret identity. But all I saw in these lingering shots were Alicia Silverstone from “The Crush” or Drew Barrymore from “Poison Ivy”: villains from a special androcentristic subsection of 90’s erotic thrillers that revolved around psychotic, hypersexual adolescent homewreckers.

My post-secondary discipline was live-action film – not animation. The closest my practice ever got was having to re-record dialogue when a covert HVAC system went off in the background of a shot. In that case, the intention of the scene had already been established. We just did the audio again: somewhere quiet, and hopefully to the same level of emotion as the video. What I want to know then is whether DM4’s visual creatives told King about their non-verbal goals for Poppy before she recorded the dialogue, or if King found out what they did at the premiere while everyone around her made the same lewd joke about what they were seeing.

There’s no way an innocent kid in the audience is detecting a sexual undercurrent in their new Minions movie. That’s just for us mature adult credit card holders.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. If you even care at this point, the overall movie was fine: the Minions do their thing; voice-leads Steve Carell & Will Ferrell do their thing; and there’s a madcap energy that keeps the pace moving even when the comedy fell on the ears of the wrong demographic. If I had to give it a proper star rating, I’d throw it a 2 out of 5. Anything to add to the conversation? That’s what the comment box below is for!

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Dub’s Take: The Front Room (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2.5 out of 5

This was a weird one, but not in a Cronenberg way. Personal sidebar: a close friend wants to start going to church. This is not someone who myself, nor any of our mutual friends, thought they would do, but we support their decision. One suggested that they try out different denominations, because if it were up to my friend, they would just continue going to the closest church in walking distance for the sermons and leave at the worship. This particular church’s worship is singing, but it’s different with each and in turn the religion they promote.

While it would be easy for viewers without faith or theological interest to see the speaking-in-tongues and sacred treatment at play in “The Front Room” as ‘crazy’ behaviour, this dramatic revery is typical of Pentecostalism. However, the film doesn’t say this, and while a dichotomy could have existed between Brandy’s Belinda’s study of the Goddess versus the veneration of Kathryn Hunter’s Solange, the central conflict is very vanilla due to this lack of contextualization. On one end it’s problematic, as audiences on the outside shouldn’t be put in a situation where they assume the worst about a belief without all the facts.

On the other end, without seeing Solange as the enemy, there’s no conflict, and ergo no movie. And Front Room would be far different if it didn’t suggest a kind of spiritual deviancy at play, and just concentrated on Solange’s incontinence.

Yes, there is lots of poop and pee in the movie. Front Room seems content hopping genres so I wasn’t sure whether to take this ‘scatalogiquement’ seriously but – having cared for the elderly myself before – it’s no laughing matter when they’re in bed all day, refusing to wear a diaper & covered in C.diff. Front Room puts this front-and-centre, and I have to give props to a film that pans down to surprise diarrhea like Larry Clark to heavy petting, or that properly pays off a shot of a toilet in a care montage, or that brings out those rarely-used squishy sound effects. Speaking of cinematography, the film does look really nice overall, with a dinner scene that jumps the 180 rule most brazenly & a slow zoom-in to a mirror standing out the most.

But audiences will leave remembering the acting, the prominent theremin on the bizarre soundtrack, and the diarrhea.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Could an entertainment property exist in the West where religions with ‘extremist’ worship are given fair treatment (unlike the satire of “Four Lions”), or do you think it isn’t possible for sanitized North American audiences to look passed historical & current context with open-mindedness? Is it fair, then, to compare the far-right Christian beliefs presented in The Front Room with fanaticism? Have a stab at the comments below!

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Dub’s Take: Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

NO STAR RATING *

Actor-turned-filmmaker Viggo Mortensen says, “More and more…what passes for critical thinking in terms of reviews… having some understanding of film history, how movies are made—the level is really low. … It matters to me more…than as an actor because the fate of the movie…hangs in the balance as to how it’s received critically.”

On one hand I agree: modern accessibility in media production means that anyone with a passing interest in cinema & an opinion can produce a TikTok video, or free website (ditto), or novel-length Facebook post to showcase it. Film Criticism may be a category of Pulitzer, but Roger Ebert never bragged about his salary like Dan Bilzerian. On the other hand, even if I have the training (I’m a dropout), why would I want to apply Film Theory to a movie that doesn’t justify it?

I could not take one word of “Deadpool 3” seriously, to the extent I feel a shot-by-shot analysis is not necessary – nor do I think homaging “Intolerence” ever crossed the minds of Ryan Reynolds et al while they made it. I could be wrong, but you don’t get more High Concept than a superhero spoof: they’ve been making spoof movies for years, and Marvel needs one now more than ever.

But Deadpool 3 isn’t a spoof. This is a full-fledged Marvel Studios & Disney production, unlike its pre-merger forerunners. And – despite appearances from Jon Favreau’s Happy and the TVA, firmly mounting this instalment in the same canon – it’s so disconnected thematically from the rest, with it’s incessant fourth-wall breaking & non-sequitur humour, sickening violence (the fight in the Honda Odyssey), and litany of profanities, that I have trouble picturing the upcoming “Secret Wars” even using Deadpool at all, unless he’s toned-down by executive order.

Everyone else seems to love this one: “it’s just for fun, Warren”; “it’s some jokes & cameos, stop taking things so seriously.” I’m not a fan of Reynolds’ deadpan improv and that may be part of my problem. But I’m a fan of Hugh Jackman’s, and his appearance here screams a divorce-inspired desire for future financial security. One cameo was fantastic and another appeared stoned the whole time. As a motion picture, it looked, moved, and sounded fine.

No one cares what I think. Deadpool 3 and its box-office success is the contemporary poster-child of ‘critic-proof’.

*this is a reflection of my feelings towards the film’s posterity, and not the film itself. If I were to give D&W a star rating, it’d be a 1.

Poster sourced from impawards.com.

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Dub’s Take: Bad Boys Ride or Die (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

3 out of 5

“Bad Boys 4” must be the stuff professional movie critics dread: a campy action yarn neither ground-breaking, nor a colossal tire fire. Even without seeing every major 2024 North American theatrical release thus far, I have immense respect for working writers who can pump out 400-words-or-more per screening and still find things to talk about.

There’s much to like about the sequel: sleek cinematography that recalls Billy Gierhart’s direction on the “SWAT” TV show (swooping drone shots a go-go); a refreshingly easy-going Will Smith performance; and at-least 75% mindless entertainment. For most, that will be enough. But a side-story about Martin Lawrence’s Marcus having a near-death experience is too dour; there is wasted opportunity for more action when instead we get more bereavement; and even under two hours, it’s still a bit long. Everything is too long these days.

I don’t think Will Smith is a bad actor: maybe too focused – even in looser caricatures, like here – and his choice of roles is unvarying. Here, his Mike lacks metalepsis, but this is likely the most relaxed we’ll ever see him on-screen. Lawrence is also fine, but this time around, his Marcus is handicapped by a heart attack, and the film’s subsequent riffs on “Fearless” – such as trying to help Mike bond with his estranged son – are too on-the-nose for what’s supposed to be a high-concept action-comedy. The chemistry between the leads is still there thirty-years on (one need only watch the opening scene to agree), but I only laughed out loud once, and it was at DJ Khaled’s cameo.

Ultimately, Bad Boys 4’s visual candy is so sweet that it masks how the script doesn’t take any chances in the same way. Halfway through, the boys are targeted by every LA gang similar to “John Wick 4”, and the film sets up an alleyway confrontation that could have played like an ultra-violent “Anchorman” News Team showdown, but it ends before it begins. Mike & Marcus may be older, but that doesn’t mean the franchise needs to become more rooted in reality as a result.

Maybe swapping Smith’s & Lawrence’s roles for a new property would give everyone – actors & viewers alike – something different to chew on.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Do you think a 90-minute action-comedy where Will Smith plays the goofy Martin Lawrence character and Lawrence plays the serious Smith character would work, or do you think it could only sustain a ten-minute SNL skit? Does anyone even care about the Will Smith “slap” enough anymore – other than Smith himself – to draw parallels between it and Mike’s panic attacks in the film? Leave your comments below!

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Dub’s Take: Ghostbusters Frozen Empire (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

I’m not a “Ghostbusters” fan. The first film was not in my childhood rotation, although it was a clever idea that could have only come from the renaissance of ’80s cinema. I did see “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021), but I don’t agree with bringing dead actors back digitally, so I thought the ending was a cheap excuse to wring a wet rag of nostalgia over viewers’ heads. We saw the cast we wanted back (sans Rick Moranis) plus the Ectomobile & proton packs, and the script regurgitated all the flashy pseudo-science that made the first film’s screenwriters Dan Aykroyd & the late Harold Ramis giddy in ’84. And since it made money, now we have ANOTHER ONE.

For the first 75 minutes of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire”, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a John Cassavetes picture: there’s minimal “busting”; a girl-crush with a ghost; quick flashes of what the old crew is up to; the tribulations of new, inexperienced management taking over an old, established operation; and, ultimately, the triumphant bureaucracy of William Atherton’s Walter Peck. After the small-scale atavism of the last instalment, the only thing producers had to do in this sequel was up the stakes. Yet, so little of consequence actually happens in the first hour-and-a-bit of “Ghostbusters 5” that it feels more like melodrama than the supernatural action-comedy team-up throwback it should be. It’s boring.

It all segues to a big finale that is heavily-spoiled in the trailers. All the new & old actors show up for the one camera shot audiences are all expecting (in uniform walking toward the camera in slow-motion), but the final fight takes place inside the cramped studio corridors of a firehouse when they should be outside in, you know, the world of ice (I thought it was cheaper to shoot against a green screen)? And when our heroes exit to their adoring public in the epilogue, the old actors mysteriously disappear. The final half-hour smells so foul of behind-the-scenes scheduling coordination, and contract negotiation, and cost-saving measures, that its equivalent would be watching a dramatization of the film’s accounting spreadsheet.

Maybe this is all you want out of another Ghostbusters sequel: to see everyone again, one last time. And if they make another one again, then maybe you’ll get to see them all one last time again, forgetting of course we’ve already been through this a few times already. But I’m done with busting. Not that busting ever made me feel good.

1 out of 5

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Am I being overly critical? Do I need to chill out more and appreciate that Paul Rudd can turn in a consistent, median-emotion performance whenever he wants? Would you be as awkward as Finn Wolfhard looks in the pre-show interview sitting next to a blond, long-haired Mckenna Grace? Leave a comment down below!

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