Sunday, December 17, 2017

WHAT WE BECOME (2015)

Featuring all the excitement of a dry wet fart, WHAT WE BECOME is the snoozerific story of a quiet suburban neighborhood that is, at first, quarantined and then overrun by zombies.  That might sound exciting, but the pace of this underwhelming pigfucker is guaranteed to put all but the most easily amused movie watcher to sleep.

WHAT WE BECOME is a competently made film.  It looks good and the acting is passable, but the story is nothing!  We've seen this same type of slow-burn invasion story dozens of times before in everything from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS to DISTURBING BEHAVIOR and WHAT WE BECOME brings nothing new to the table.  At least MULBERRY STREET helped invent the word "ratpire"!

The best thing WWB has going for it is the short running time and the teenage son who was amusing to laugh at.  That kid was a dork!  It was fun trying to list all of his hobbies...smoking, gaming, girls, bowling, toy collecting, beginner level skateboarding (no tricks, just slowly rolling down the street), urban exploration, baseball, peeping tom, basketball, The Simpsons, reading, guitars, monster trucks, fireworks, etc.

Zero nudity, very little violence, forgettable characters, boring zombies, slow pace, predictable ending that sucked.  Watch it if you want, but I think you can find something better to do with your time.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

THE BAD BATCH (2016)

Imagine if you had an interesting visual concept for a 6-minute long music video and then stretched that concept out to 118 minutes.

Set in some kind of low-budget dystopian future, THE BAD BATCH opens with a pretty chick with a killer body, Arlen (Suki Waterhouse), being locked behind a huge fence in the desert.  She turns and wanders off into the wasteland.  Within a day, she's kidnapped by cannibals and sections of her right arm and right leg eaten.  Soon, the real horror starts when the cannibals start listening to Ace of Base!  Arlen can't take it anymore and escapes.  She eventually shows up in a town full of tweakers and dorks called Comfort.  From there on, more things happen, but honestly...I didn't give a shit.  The story was dumb as fuck, slow-moving and illogical.

The only thing I knew about TBB going into it was it was about cannibals and it starred Keanu Reeves.  That sounds awesome!  In my handsome brain, I was visualizing BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE versus CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.   That didn't happen.

Style over substance storytelling, very little dialogue, lots of music video-style photography, Jim Carrey showing up from some unknown reason, snail's pace, multiple things that brought to mind EL TOPO, zero nudity, very little violence, promising opening act, weak middle act and a lame as fuck ending.

If you need me, I'll be in my room playing Borderlands.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

ONE FOR THE MONEY (2012)

"Shot that sucker in the gumpy."

Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) hasn't worked in 6 months, so she takes a job as a bounty hunter and as "chick flick" (I hate that term) logic would have it, the very first dude she goes looking for, just happens to be a beau hunk that she banged in high school and still carries a torch for.  He's innocent (of murder!!!), of course, but nobody believes it, so it's up to her and him to prove his innocence.

Zero nudity, lightweight cussing, Debbie Reynolds shooting a stuffed turkey in “the gumpy” (whatever the fuck a gumpy is), bland direction, tame script that takes no chances, average acting, good pace. As far as films of this nature go, ONE FOR THE MONEY is okay.  The story is silly as fuck and the danger elements are just kind of laughed off in a bizarre way that left me scratching my handsome head, but whatever...I didn't go into this film expecting anything deep.  

For entertainment, it's pretty weak, but as a timewaster, it fits the bill.