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The Bad Guys 2

The Bad Guys 2

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When you’ve played the villain your entire life, it takes more than a single good deed to change perceptions.  That’s the quandary these Bad Guys find themselves in.  They bought into the whole tail wagging thing last time around and used their talents to do a whopper of a good deed, but their past transgressions are still etched within everyone’s memory.  Did they make the right decision in breaking good?  Or should they revert back to what everyone still holds against them?  The Bad Guys 2 shows that it takes time, hard work and believing in yourself to make that happen.  I’m not sure if this movie’s target audience will appreciate the philosophical argument discussion that’s happening alongside the slapstick and chaos, but their parents can explain it to them later, I suppose.

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The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun (2025)

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When Liam Neeson agreed to star in The Naked Gun, he knew he had big shoes to fill.  If you’ve seen the previous movies in this franchise, you probably heard those words in the voice of leading man Leslie Nielson, a dramatic actor who quickly mastered the art of the deadpan delivery.  You may also have envisioned the 6’ 4” Neeson stumbling around in a pair of noisy clown shoes.  That’s the challenge with following up one of the greatest comedies ever made, filling those iconic shoes.  While Neeson is up to the challenge and the movie is funny, it’s not in the same league of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker films from the Eighties and early Nineties.

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Eddington

Eddington

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Eddington may represent a first for cinema, a mainstream movie making light of a modern pandemic.  To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a humorous take on SARS, Ebola, the opioid crisis or AIDS.  This isn’t to say that such a movie couldn’t have been made.  As George Carlin once noted, there’s no topic that’s off-limits when it comes to comedy.  However, using a traumatic event like the Covid pandemic as the source of laughs requires a take no prisoners approach, no matter how insensitive it may be perceived.  That’s the fundamental problem with Eddington, which is too selective in the targets and too gentile in how it handles what it does take aim at.  The movie is timid where it needed to be ruthless, circuitous when it should have been forthright.

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Jurassic World: Rebirth

Jurassic World: Rebirth

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Remember Nedry, the fat guy played by Wayne Night in Jurassic Park?  Rebirth hopes that you do, because its opening scene is a weird callback to his character.  Seventeen years ago, before the events in Jurassic World took place, the scientists at InGen were just starting to experiment with dinosaur DNA.  One scientist curiously tries to eat a candy bar just before entering a controlled environment.  The guy is a slob and carelessly drops the wrapper just before he enters a sealed chamber with a dinosaur in it.  The wrapper gets sucked into the door’s ventilation and shorts it out.  Uh oh.  In the rush to lock everything down, the candy bar guy is left staring face-to-face with a very nasty dinosaur.  The lesson here is to not be a slob, because the repercussions are fatal.

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F1: The Movie

F1: The Movie

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F1: The Movie would have been an entertaining movie regardless of who was cast in the leading role.  It’s infinitely better with Brad Pitt in the driver’s seat, though.  As one of the few remaining actors who is also a star, Pitt gives the movie its electricity.  It also helps that he’s comfortable with putting his rugged good looks on display again.  If Pitt had insisted upon obscuring his good looks with glasses, a beard and long, scraggly hair, few would want to see that movie.  (If you got my reference to Pitt’s supporting turn in The Big Short, congratulations!)

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Elio

Elio

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If science-fiction films have taught us anything, it’s that meeting aliens from another world should scare us.  Time and again, the aliens that show up just want to kill and eat us.  Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., which depict aliens as being benevolent and even helpful towards humanity, are notable exceptions to the rule.  Elio joins that short list because the aliens the eponymous character meets are a very friendly group who actually need his help.  Unfortunately, Elio can’t make up its mind as to what story it wants to tell, forgoing adventure and excitement implied by its premise in search of emotional payoffs.  The resulting film is fine, but it could have been special.

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Materialists

Materialists

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At first blush, Materialists looks like a typical romantic comedy, where an attractive single woman is forced to choose between two suitors.  Option A is the handsome, rich, older man she’s just met and could give her everything she wants.  Option B is a man closer to her age who’s scrapping by, but who she connects with because they were once in love.  Since both options are good–for different reasons–the fun is in waiting for the heroine to make her choice.  Although Materialists follows the same formula, Celine Song’s follow-up to her wonderful Past Lives aims higher.  It invites you to reflect upon your dating experiences and asks, how did you end up with the love of your life?

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Dangerous Animals

Dangerous Animals

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Horror movies have always given sound advice of where not to go on your vacation.  For example, you really shouldn’t stay at that ominous-looking hotel up on the hill (Psycho), or your friend’s cabin in the middle of the woods (Evil Dead), or that hostel in Slovakia (Hostel).  Dangerous Animals suggests that despite the obvious reasons for visiting Brisbane’s Gold Coast in Australia, you probably don’t want to go there either.  Because even an exciting tourist activity like swimming with the sharks may very well end up being unexpectedly life-altering.  But if you really can’t resist, definitely let your loved ones know what your plans are before you climb aboard that boat.  That way, they’ll know where to start searching for your body parts when you go missing.

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