"Independence Day: Resurgence" Review

Independence Day: Resurgence is awful for the most dull reasons. For a franchise whose saving grace was reckless, confident sincerity, watching Jeff Goldblum and co. trudge in front of green screens and recite half-hearted dialogue is a disinterested slap to the face. The first was never Oscar material, but simply put, there's a way to make B-movies with love, and this sequel isn't it.

The plot's the same: aliens invade Earth and threaten global extinction. The difference is that now we spend 45 minutes of a 120-minute movie updating you on what everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) is up to. Did you want to see Judd Hirsch drive a school bus while being chased by an alien? Of course you did.

Did you want to see Steven Hiller (Will Smith) punch aliens and chomp cigars? Well, too bad. Turns out his character is dead, for a reason so glossed over, it's not worth explaining (Why do bad movies justify a dead character by showing their massive portrait in the background?).

Instead, the new hotshot pilot is played by Liam Hemsworth, who's simultaneously out-acted by toast, wood, and concrete. His fiancée, an ex-pilot and daughter of ex-President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is played by the stellar, nuanced Maika Monroe (It Follows). Given her relationships to the first movie and her ailing father, she'd make a far better lead. But Hollywood is still convinced Liam Hemsworth needs to be a star when they most certainly should NOT.

Hemsworth engages in stilted, awkward machismo, getting in dick-waving contests with Hiller's son, Dylan (Jessie T. Usher), newly-minted captain in the Earth Space Defense. Why? The movie pussyfoots around for 30 minutes, with scattered clips of vague exposition, culminating in a barely-coherent mobile video. Mix this in with several other exposition-heavy subplots and you'll start to see my problem: I don't care about anyone.

Say what you will about the first, but at least I felt the stakes. When Jeff Goldblum saw the damage, he acted (appropriately) like a man watching the world burn. Here, he witnesses London's obliteration to dust and remarks "They sure like to hit the landmarks." These characters know they're in a movie, and their sly nudges to the audience pull me out of what should be delightfully corny or (to give Independence Day more credit) emotionally involving on a primal scale.

There are good ideas to expand the universe and turn a disaster film into a sci-fi exploration with intergalactic dogfights. We learn more about the universe beyond the two interested parties, and like in Star Wars, opens up the possibilities. But in an already cluttered film, these ideas are too little, too late.

Independence Day: Resurgence is the worst kind of sequel, one that sucks out what made the first enjoyable, leaving behind a hollow shell. Most of the people on-screen look like they could care less, so as a patron with $10-13 to spare, why should I?

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Florence Foster Jenkins" ADVANCE Review

In Florence Foster Jenkins, Hugh Grant paraphrases a Beethoven quote to Simon Helberg: "To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable." Skirting the line between rip-roaring comedy and touching drama, the film celebrates the joy of making music for music's sake, and serves to inspire anyone paralyzed with fear of not being good enough. Trust me, it won't matter.

Meryl Streep stars as the titular character, a 1940's New York heiress who adores music and desires to be an opera singer. The problem? She can't sing.

And now, another edition of my Letterman rip-off:

The Top Ten Things I Can Compare Florence's Voice To

10) The human embodiment of microphone feedback                                                               9) A balloon squeaking out its last breaths         8) A parrot with kidney stones                             7) Your grandma after a gallon of everclear         6) A Bonobo chimpanzee in labor                       5) Poodles having sex                                     4) The sound someone makes when sticking their finger in a pencil sharpener                                   3) Julie Andrews with a lobotomy and punch to the stomach                                                           2) A squirrel with its testicles in a vicegrip           1) A Chihuahua on fire

Hugh Grant plays Florence's dapper husband, St. Clair Bayfield (doesn't that scream harlequin romance lead?), who, not willing to break her heart with the truth, goes to all measures to make sure she never gets discouraged, up to and including bribing journalists to write glorious reviews. With St. Clair, her vocal coach (David Haig), and talented but untried pianist Cosme McMoon (Helberg), Florence is inspired to sing and put herself out there, on records...in clubs...even Carnegie Hall?

This movie is The Emperor's New Clothes meets The Devil Wears Prada: a dive into a strange scene and the even stranger folk that inhabit it. Unlike Miranda Priestly, Streep's Florence is a sweetheart, a woman who lives, breathes, eats, and exists for music. I can't emphasize this enough and neither can director Stephen Frears, who offers just the right glimpses into Florence's glamorous mind. One scene where Florence watches a soprano sing her heart out is magical, and reminds me of the euphoria of listening to something like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" or Queens of the Stone Age's "A Song For the Dead" for the first time.

Florence has her idiosyncracies, but the movie pays them off; one is actually so heart-breaking that it stunned me when it clicked. She's a woman who spares no expense, and while this display of privilege would bother me in other films, Streep plays it with such sincerity that I'm never not on Florence's side. Her heart sings for opera, and when the movie presents me with such pure intentions, how can you not love this woman?

Let not me forget about the supporting cast, our anchors to reality. Grant is great as always, able to hide so much behind an elegant grin. Helberg's a great comic talent, mixing slapstick and vaudeville into a mild-mannered character. His eyes go through six emotions in a flash of a second; it's crazy how so many small details can make this character a ton of fun. I'm not a fan of The Big Bang Theory, but this film made me a fan of Simon Helberg.

Now, because of how webpages work, you've probably scrolled down and noted that despite the praise, I haven't given this film the full six stars. Stephen Frears' direction, despite it being stylish, intelligent, and great at restraining the joke until just the right moment, is also heavy-handed. There are times when the joke is let loose at the wrong time. I err on the side of subtlety, so some of the outbursts seem like too much, especially at a time when I'm already fully supporting Florence.

Also, when the movie is built off of a bunch of lies, the third act gets predictable. However, the movie pays it all off so well, that I can't really get mad. With any other movie, this would be a deal-breaker; here, it's a nitpick.

I'm scared this won't make a splash here in the U.S. but I promise you it's a gem. I left the theater with a smile on my face and a drive to pick up my guitar and practice. Is it cheesy to already call a Best Actress nomination for Streep? Believe me, this is my favorite performance of hers.

Two days ago, I didn't know this movie existed. Today, it's a contender for my favorite of the year. 

Florence Foster Jenkins hits U.S. theaters on August 12th.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Finding Dory" Review

To say that Finding Dory is everything I wanted is wrong, not because it doesn't meet expectations, but because I don't know what I want. Finding Nemo didn't end with a cliffhanger - the only thing to expect out of Finding Dory is a return to the Nemoverse: a goofy array of characters; witty, yet misguided understandings of the human world; and of course, a lot of heart. Dory delivers; it's not the knockout punch Pixar is known for, but even a mid-tier Pixar movie is leagues above another Ice Age (how did we, as a species allow FIVE of these things?).

A year has passed since Nemo, and Dory (Ellen Degeneres) has adjusted to her new Great Barrier Reef home alongside Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence). Dory begins to receive brief instinctual flashbacks of her childhood - more specifically, of her long-lost parents. With only some choppy hints and tons of determination, the trio travel across the Pacific to a marine life institute in California where (hopefully) Dory's parents still reside.

Notable newcomers include Hank (Ed O'Neill), a curmudgeonly octopus whose camouflage makes him near-invisible; Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a near-sighted sweetheart of a whale shark; and Gerald (Torbin Xan Bullock), a derpy sea lion whose quest for a warm rock is denied, Trix Rabbit style, by the two other sea lions lying there (Idris Elba and Dominic West).

Finding Dory is less of a road trip than its predecessor, more of a character study. We're looking through Dory's eyes: her anxiety that she may forget everything; frustrations at forgetting only the most essential part of a memory; joy when remembering a new piece of the puzzle. Degeneres is guided by pitch-perfect direction from Andrew Stanton. She's warm, bubbly, naive, but smarter than she seems. Spending more time in her point of view lets us see her as less manic our annoying than as through Marlin's point of view in Nemo.

Visual work, such as the background fading as Dory fears forgetting are handled superbly, further linking us to her mindset. One scene featuring a panic attack was confirmed by the person next to me as pretty realistic - not too intense for kids, but handled accurately and respectfully.

The movie handles the experiences of someone with mental disabilities and how it affects others around them. In a flashback, we hear Dory's mom (Diane Keaton) worry if Dory will be able to function on her own. When Dory asks for help, other fish respond with confusion or fear.

In one scene, Dory asks a female hermit crab for directions, and the crab replies with a small list. The look on Dory's face, a blend of shame, frustration, and anxiety says it all: this is too much for her; it's child's play for others; and because of that, she feels inadequate. Above all, Pixar has a talent for empathy, for putting tough subjects in simple yet comprehensive terms. Just as Zootopia did for racism, Finding Dory does for mental disabilities.

But the other talent Pixar has is making fun, imaginative stories. Watching the millions of ways Hank can slink around the Institute with Dory (resting in either a coffeepot, sippy cup, or bucket) undetected is enthralling. There's just as much awe in seeing a flurry of colorful fish swimming around a tower of coral as in noting every individual gain of sand covering a seashell. (The movie's also got a way with launching fish out of water that gets me nervous.)

Finding Dory is all the good of Pixar with none of the bad: a well-told story with extraordinary visuals, characters you either already love or fall in love with immediately, and a wealth of creativity, passion, and wild imagination. It may not be all the greatness of Pixar, but I can't really count that as a fault. I'd say "Go see it," but judging by my box office view, you're probably already here.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off. 

"The Conjuring 2" Review

In The Conjuring 2, a pair of paranormal investigators - Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga) - are called to help a family terrorized by an entity that has latched on to their daughter. In the "White family in a haunted house" subgenre, this is a tried and true (and worn-out) plot. So what room is there left to innovate?

The Conjuring 2 says it's in craftsmanship. Director James Wan helms a good old-fashioned scarefest, with a penchant for mischief and toying with its audience.

Instead of a '70s farmhouse in the bayou, we're given a '70s English townhouse where the Hodgson family - mother Peggy (Frances O'Connor), oldest daughter Margaret (Lauren Esposito), younger daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe), older son Johnny (Patrick McAuley), and youngest son Billy (Benjamin Haigh) - resides.

To the tune of The Clash's "London Calling," we see England in tumultuous spirits: liberty-spiked punks walk the street; a newspaper headline warns of England's bread shortage; government protest rage on. Turmoil carries to the Hodgsons: dad is gone, and on Peggy's income, it's tough to feed a family of five.

Negative energy, Ed says, facilitates paranormal activity.

"They like to kick you when you're down," he says.

Janet starts seeing and hearing things go bump in the night, and not before long, the episodes escalate to more physical manifestations. One of the film's funnier scenes sees the police investigating disturbances in the house when a chair, before their very eyes, slides down the hallway and into its rightful place at the dinner table. Needless to say, this is beyond law enforcement. 

While Janet is plagued, Lorraine continues to struggle with the consequences of talking with spirits. It's her character, and Farmiga's earnest, understated performance, that really distinguishes the Conjuring franchise from other horror movies.

She's afflicted by visions of a nun-faced demon and premonitions of her husband's death. Could these visions be connected to London? Have you seen a haunting movie before?

James Wan is the perfect marriage of William Castle and John Carpenter.

The former put the "show" in spookshow. In screenings of House on Haunted Hill, Castle would plant a skeleton on the ceiling. When it was time, he would cut a cord and the skeleton would swing into the crow, barely missing the audience's heads.

Of the latter, Guillermo Del Toro praised Carpenter's ability to direct scares with mathematical precision, knowing just the right time and manner to catch the audience off-guard and maximize the jump out of their seats.

When these two forces meet, you get a prankster who's skilled enough to truly get you. Wan will direct a scare you've seen in other movies, but subvert it enough to become new. We'll call this Scare A. In Scare B, the scene will guide you to think it's Scare A, but then shift and get you in another manner. And the same is true for all of them, but the great thing is that with each scare, the moments in Scare Z that remind you of Scares, A, E, and L are convincing red herrings.

Where other horror films rely on muted blacks, grays, and blues, this movie's '70s setting allows for vibrant uses of yellows, oranges, and reds. Where other films use violins to jolt and sting, Joseph Bishara's angular score lets the mood sink into your bones, twisting the metaphorical knife in your gut as you anticipate the scares.

From day one, The Conjuring found its strength where all good horror movies find them: their characters. In recent years, Hollywood has interpreted from the "torture porn" boom that audiences only care about the spectacle. The Human Centipede lauded its "medical accuracy"; the Paranormal Activity series, with each installment, grasped for gaudier gimmicks to get teens to hop out of their seats; The Gallows made its camera-wielding protagonist utterly loathsome so we'd anticipate a swift death.

Here's the problem. Watching these movies are like wading through a dungpile for a diamond ring. Eventually, I'm gonna get there, but in the end, is it really worth it?

Carey and Chad Hayes, credited for the characters, understand that the more our heroes feel like us, the easier it is to immerse ourselves in their story. These people - the strong-willed, but tired Peggy, the cheeky, but good-hearted Janet, the Warrens, who complement and love each other so much it's damn palpable - are people that we, in some aspects, are. We care for them because in some way, we see reflections of ourselves. Therefore, when they're in danger, we're in danger, and the movie (listen close, Hollywood) becomes scarier as a result. You're going to get your jumps, your shrieks, and your relieved hyper-giggling. But the effort MUST come first.

And so, Wan and crew are proven right. It's been so long that I've seen a "3,000-plus theatres" horror movie where the audience felt genuinely happy to be there, happy to share in the spooks and laughter, immerse themselves in the creepiness and the struggle of the characters. With The Conjuring 2, James Wan has made mainstream horror fun again. So go out and support this in the theaters, 'cause money talks, and if you want more smart, inventive, exciting, and downright fun scary movies, you gotta put your wallet on the line.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows" Review

What a time to be alive - we not only have pizza-eating turtles and warthogs with purple Mohawks, but strangest of all: I think movie producers might be listening to audiences.

In 2014, after Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, gave us a shallow misfire of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adaptation, Paramount cleaned house. With a new director, the goal was set: don't anger the fans. I think it's a goal well met.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows comes in the wake of Deadpool, another film that could be considered a studio's apology for the past. And while the critical and box office climate's not looking as favorable for the Turtles, this sequel, like Deadpool, breathes childish (in a good way) life into the franchise.

After the defeat of Shredder (Brian Tee), the Turtles - Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), and Michelangelo (Noel Fisher) - defend New York City in secrecy. Fighting crime, eating pizza, and watching basketball from Madison Square Garden's scoreboard is a pretty good gig, but the brothers long for acceptance, a day where they can live among the rest of the world. 

The peace ends when Shredder breaks out of jail with the help of Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), a scientist who teleports Shredder out of a police convoy. Shredder ends up in another dimension, where he meets the villainous Krang (Brad Garrett), a talking brain with a robot body. Krang enlists Shredder to help him build a beacon that will summon an interdimensional weapon of mass destruction. Shredder agrees, and with newly-mutated minions Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams), a warthog, and Rocksteady (pro wrestler Sheamus), a rhino, at his side, works to bring Krang into our dimension, so he and Krang can rule.

When reviewing the first film, I hoped the sequel would be a "playful action powerhouse," and it is. There are extended sequences that see the Turtles zooming through land, sea, and air at breakneck speed. Unlike the first film, the action is easy to make out, and I never got lost.

The movie operates on cartoon logic- if your suspension of disbelief snaps at the sight of a rhino/human hybrid operating a tank, a hockey-masked hero beating ninjas with expertly-fired hockey pucks, or Tyler Perry's felt-like mustache, you won't like this.

However, there's a sincerity to this production that makes me smile. Out of the Shadows embraces a lunacy that hearkens to Saturday mornings - it wouldn't be too far a stretch to imagine Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes watching this with a bowl of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs. Everyone is over-the-top, and to watch Brian Tee dress up in a cheese-grater-meets-samurai costume and scheme about "purple ooze" is the right kind of silly.

Missteps include Stephen Amell's Casey Jones, who's less Punisher and more Robin; and some of the subplots involving Leonardo could be easily avoided if he would get off his archetypal high horse, but I guess all teenagers, even mutant ninja turtles, can be stupid at times.

They've just got to be the right kind of stupid.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"X-Men: Apocalypse" Review

In X-Men: Apocalypse, an ancient purple-tinted tyrant seeks to obtain legendary powers with which he'll destroy the world; it'll take the combined forces of every hero available to have any chance at stopping him. 

This is the same plot for a superhero movie to come, 2018's Avengers: Infinity War - Part 1, and serves to highlight the X-Men franchise's place in the genre. They're the first soldier over the hill, trying out different ideas and taking all the hits. X-Men took on an ever-evolving bevy of characters a decade before The Avengers. Marvel Studios watched their attempt, learns from the mistakes, and comes out richer, wiser, and better.

That's not to say Bryan Singer (Superman Returns, The Usual Suspects) and crew are bad storytellers - Apocalypse may give decent evidence to the contrary, but don't worry, this is a positive review - but flawed ones. This is ambition with no guidance, a joyfully stupid endeavor, a doom-not-gloom apocalypse.

Oscar Isaac plays the aforementioned purple tyrant, Apocalypse, who in ancient Egypt, transferred his consciousness into the strongest mutants, absorbing all their powers along the way. The warmonger was stopped and imprisoned underground, but when he awakens millenia later, threatening to cleanse the Earth by stripping it bare, the X-Men, led by Professor X (James McAvoy) are the ones to stop him.

The movie takes place in 1983, so we get younger reimaginings of the old guard, namely Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smith-McPhee), and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). Teens in X-Men complain about being bullied and shunned for being different, and after six films, the dialogue gets familiar and heavy-handed. Jean Grey, after a foreshadowing nightmare, fumes to Professor X "You don't know what it's like to shut your eyes and be afraid of what might come out." I wonder what other mutant is afraid of their eyes and what flies out of them. Will they meet, start a romance, marry, have a time-travelling son played by Jon Hamm (hopefully) in Deadpool 2?

However, when the kids start fighting, they work well together, using their powers as an effective unit, a staple of the comic.

The older acts do well with what they're given. Isaac has the year's most deliciously hammy lives ("You will never...strike...GOD!"). Nicholas Hoult is kind-hearted and nerdy as Beast. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are perfect; they consistently rise above the script, yanking on heartstrings. Fassbender's Magneto is this trilogy's (First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse) strongest character - pained, chilling, caught in an existential crisis. One advantage Fox has over Marvel: Magneto is a better villain than anyone in the MCU, and it's all Fassbender.

It's apparent Jennifer Lawrence is fatigued with her role as Mystique. She looks bored, even when delivering the rally-the-troops speech to take down Apocalypse. To have such a non-presence from one of Hollywood's most vibrant young actresses is a shame.

A large complaint from many people is what the movie does with Psylocke (Olivia Munn). The katana-wielding mutant is criminally underused, with barely any screen time or dialogue. The car-chop superhero landing from the trailer is her highlight. In Munn's profile with "American Way", she described taking Psylocke over the role of Vanessa, the girlfriend in Deadpool: "I thought Psylocke was always one of the most lethal characters, and I said, ‘Yes, as long as you’re not using her to be the eye candy. She has really powerful abilities.’ And they said, ‘Yes, that’s an important part.’ " 

Considering Deadpool's success, it's easy to give this comment an ironic twist, but further down the profile, Munn acknowledges the film is out of her control.

"'You can do the first-look cover on Entertainment Weekly,' she says, 'but if they’ve chopped up some stuff or taken out moments and the fight scene is reduced for whatever reason, then the moment is gone.'”

X-Men: Apocalypse bombards the screen with computer-generated destruction and a plethora of underused characters (Jubilee [Lana Condor], who can fire plasma from her fingertips, does so not once), but unlike the similarly over-stuffed Batman v Superman, I feel Singer and his crew approach the franchise with love and a sincere appreciation for these characters. There's a reckless abandon I can't get too mad at, but I think the ability to pause the movie and stretch is a necessary one.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.