Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: The fun is gone

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too generously, for nasty action violence, profanity and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.5.23

Writer/director James Gunn has stamped his portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a sense of playful chaos that sets it apart from its numerous superhero colleagues.

 

Star Lord (Chris Pratt, center) and his companions — from left, Mantis (Pom Klementieff),
Groot (Vin Diesel), Drax (Dave Bautista) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) — prepare to face
yet another megalomaniac who wants to re-shape the universe.

But while some of that snarky atmosphere remains present, it’s blemished this time. The character roster has grown too large to grant proper attention to all concerned, and — more crucially — far too much time is spent with the helpless furry victims of vivisection gone horribly awry.

That latter subplot is necessitated by this third entry’s primary focus on Rocket, and the back-story that explains his bio-mechanical enhancements. (I hope nobody thought the MCU includes a planet populated by hyper-intelligent warrior raccoons.) 

 

It’s a solid topic, and two or three brief flashbacks would have been sufficient. But spending great chunks of time as young Rocket befriends three similarly imprisoned but atrociously mutilated critters feels like audience abuse, and leaches the “fun” right outta this film.

 

(If Gunn and co-writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning intended to make a point, they didn’t need a sledge hammer.)

 

The individual responsible for this horror is a longtime Marvel Comics villain dubbed the High Evolutionary, whose deplorable efforts in genetic manipulation date all the way back to a 1966 issue of The Mighty Thor. He’s played with malevolent fury here by Chukwudi Iwuji, and is genuinely scary.

 

But that’s getting ahead a bit. Events actually kick off with the explosive arrival of another familiar Marvel Comics character: golden-hued Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a Superman-gone-bad who flies into Knowhere spaceport, current base of operations for the Guardians, and damn near takes out the entire team.

 

They are, by way of reminder, gung-ho Starlord, aka Peter Quill (Chris Pratt); the genetically enhanced Nebula (Karen Gillan), adopted daughter of the slain Thanos; the powerful but somewhat dim-bulb Drax (Dave Bautista); Mantis (Pom Klementieff), an empath able to sense and alter another’s emotions; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), the hyper-intelligent, tree-like organism.

 

Along with Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), who is critically injured during this initial, landscape-leveling battle with Warlock.

Gunpowder Milkshake: Gleefully explosive

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for frequent profanity and strong, bloody violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.23.21

A title such as this one practically screams “guilty pleasure.”

 

Indeed, it’s a pleasure.

 

Albeit extremely guilty.

 

With all manner of vicious thugs hot on their heels, Scarlet (Lena Heady, left) guides
Sam (Karen Gillan, right) and young Emily (Chloe Coleman) through a secret
escape route.

Director/co-scripter Navot Papushado’s opulently stylish revenge/survival thriller is a total kick: the sort of high-octane B-movie that’ll be adored by fans of Baby Driver and Guy Ritchie’s early-career crime flicks. Papushado, production designer David Scheunemann and cinematographer Michael Seresin give this violent romp all manner of atmosphere: way-cool settings, exaggerated and cleverly distinct color palettes, and a degree of intensity that threatens to burst from the screen.

These backdrops are populated by outré characters laden with ’tude: burlesques who couldn’t possibly exist in the real world (and thank God for that). Then there’s the most important element, which sets this film apart from grim, joyless cousins such as John Wick and its sequels: The script — by Papushado and Ehud Lavski — has heart.

 

The hyper-violence is mitigated by our lead character’s virtuous decision to Do The Right Thing.

 

Fifteen years ago, 12-year-old Sam (Freya Allan) learned — in the worst possible way — that her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey) worked as an assassin for a ruthless crime syndicate known as The Firm. That day also was the last time Sam saw Scarlet; the girl subsequently was raised by The Firm, and has followed in her mother’s lethal footsteps.

 

She has become coldly, mercilessly efficient: the go-to “handler” dispatched to clean up The Firm’s most dangerous messes.

 

As the film opens, Sam (now Karen Gillan) has been a little too thorough with her most recent assignment, much to the chagrin of Nathan (Paul Giamatti), her handler and surrogate parent figure. The blowback is likely to enrage the local Russian mob, with which The Firm has an uneasily cordial understanding.

 

While Nathan frets over how best to handle the repercussions, he sends Sam on an easier assignment: to kill a man (Samuel Anderson) and retrieve a bundle of cash that he stole from The Firm. During this confrontation, she learns that he took the money in order to ransom his 8-year-old daughter Emily (Chloe Coleman), who has been kidnapped by a quartet of mopes concealed behind monster masks.

 

This triggers Sam’s memory of her own younger self, orphaned under similarly dire circumstances. In the blink of an eye, Sam’s loyalty to The Firm evaporates; we see the shift in Gillan’s gaze. No matter the consequences, she intends to protect that little girl.

 

Consequences prove plentiful.

 

The Call of the Wild: Bad dog!

The Call of the Wild (2020) • View trailer 
Two stars. PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.21.20

This certainly isn’t Jack London’s Call of the Wild.

To a certain degree, that’s good; among other things, the novel’s handling of Native Americans is a lamentable reflection of its 1903 origins.

As they spend more time in the wilderness of the Canadian Yukon, John Thornton
(Harrison Ford) senses that his canine friend Buck is responding to something
instinctively more powerful than his attachment to mankind.

But prudent adjustment on behalf of cultural sensitivity does not justify the insufferable Disney-fication of this otherwise classic saga. Although Harrison Ford does his best — as both narrator and human star — the story’s nobility has been lost in scripter Michael Green’s clumsy, tone-deaf and wildly uneven adaptation.

On top of which, the decision to rely on CGI fabrications — as opposed to actual dogs — is a serious miscalculation. That may fly with the wild animals in The Lion King and The Jungle Book; most of us aren’t intimately familiar with how lions, tigers, elephants and the like actually move. But we all know how dogs think, behave, walk, run and jump … and this film’s faux canines frequently look wrong, wrong, wrong.

No surprise, given that visual effects supervisors Ryan Stafford and Erik Nash “built” their canine star — Buck — from the athletic movements of a former Cirque du Soleil performer pretending to be a dog.

Are we to imagine that Hollywood lacks real dogs that could have served as models for London’s powerful, 140-pound St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix?

Poppycock.

OK, fine; the SFX grants Buck more insight, sensitivity and expressive personality than we’d likely get from an actual dog actor (although seasoned canine trainers likely would argue that point). But this anthropomorphization constantly feels false and phony; it was fine for the wholly animated pooches in Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians, but here it’s merely distracting.

Green’s script follows most of the significant plot beats in London’s novel, so we initially meet Buck as the pampered, wholly out of control pet in the genteel, staff-laden household of wealthy Judge Miller (Bradley Whitford). This prolog marks an inauspicious beginning by director Chris Sanders, who unwisely channels the dreadful 1960s Disney comedies that involved animals — often dogs — running amok and destroying furniture, spilling the contents of every container in sight, and generally making as huge a mess as possible … supposedly because this was the height of hilarity.

It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.

Jumanji: The Next Level — Droll derring-do

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for fantasy peril, mild suggestive content, and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.13.19

This sequel definitely fulfills its mandate: It’s fun, fast-paced and exciting.

Not exactly suspenseful — it’s hard to imagine anything really bad happening to these characters — but nonetheless laden with plenty of Perils of Pauline-style danger.

Having (mostly) survived an attack by a herd of killer ostriches, our heroes — from left,
Mouse Finbar (Kevin Hart), Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Dr. Shelly
Oberon (Jack Black) and Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) — contemplate how best to
proceed to their dangerous game's next level.

Jumanji: The Next Level isn’t as fresh as its 2017 predecessor, although writer/director Jake Kasdan — with co-scripter Jeff Pinkner — have made some clever refinements. At just north of two hours, the pacing flags a bit; Kasdan should have let editors Steve Edwards, Mark Helfrich and Tara Timpone tighten things up a bit. (Why else have three editors?)

A few years have passed since small-town New Hampshire teens Spencer (Alex Wolff), Martha (Morgan Turner), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) and Bethany (Madison Iseman) “became” fictitious video game avatars in a dangerously haunted old console edition of Jumanji. They survived that adventure — as depicted in the previous film — and have moved on to separate college lives.

Spencer, alas, feels unfulfilled. Juggling classes and a part-time job have worn him down; his long-distance relationship with Martha also has crumbled. Returning to Brantford for a reunion with his three friends leaves him uneasy: a feeling intensified when he discovers that his Grandpa Eddie (Danny DeVito) has become a semi-permanent houseguest, while recovering from hip surgery.

The fact is, Spencer suffers from a syndrome all too familiar to those who’ve survived harrowing, life-or-death experiences; he misses the opportunity to be heroic. He misses the rush.

When Spencer fails to show up for the long-awaited get-together, his friends go looking for him. By coincidence, they find Grandpa Eddie reluctantly hosting a long-estranged friend: Milo (Danny Glover), with whom he once shared a thriving local restaurant business. Martha, Fridge and Bethany are barely inside the door when they hear the characteristic rumbling drums that signal Jumanji-style peril.

Tracing the sound to the basement, they’re shocked to find the malevolent game console … which they all assumed had been destroyed. Worse yet, there’s every indication that it has been re-activated. With Spencer nowhere to be found, the conclusion is inescapable.

Stuber: Stoo-pid

Stuber (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for relentless violence and profanity, sexual candor, and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.12.19

Good grief.

I haven’t seen this much contrived, gratuitous and pointless destruction of property since the inane Disney comedies of the 1960s, when a bear would “accidentally” stumble into somebody’s garage and wreak havoc with scores of spilled paint cans.

Stu (Kumail Nanjiani, right) objects strongly when Vic (Dave Bautista) insists on giving a
ride to a dog they've just rescued. Stu should be more tolerant; this pooch is far more
entertaining than most of the rest of the film.

The bear in this case is Dave Bautista’s Vic Manning, a rogue cop with serious anger issues, thanks to a violent, over-the-top prologue dominated by his protracted, dog-nuts fight with gleefully sadistic bad guy Oka Tedjo (Iko Uwais). Alas, the villain gets away, fueling Vic’s rage during six subsequent months of frustrating, futile investigations.

Director Michael Dowse’s Stuber is one of the most uneven action flicks ever unleashed by Hollywood: at times genuinely funny — mostly when Bautista’s hulking Vic trades verbal barbs with Kumail Nanjiani’s meek and mild Stu — and then atrociously violent and/or needlessly vulgar. 

Dowse doesn’t have the faintest idea what sort of movie he’s making, which is no surprise; Tripper Clancy’s clumsy excuse for a script doesn’t give anybody much to work with. Absent Bautista and Nanjiani’s inherent timing and camera presence, this flick would be a total bomb.

Which is a shame. Bautista and Nanjiani aside, Dowse’s lame effort also wastes the time and talent of solid co-stars Natalie Morales, Karen Gillan and Mira Sorvino. This is an abysmally stupid movie, and Clancy’s script is strictly from hunger.

The result is the sort of tasteless, mean-spirited mess that delights in introducing innocent civilians who hang around long enough to make an impression, before being needlessly snuffed.

On top of which, the publicity campaign is quite misleading. The lovably slobbering dog featured so prominently on the poster art has two fleeting scenes, and plays no part in the action.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle — Fast-paced fun

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for fantasy action, mild profanity and considerable blue humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.22.17

When it comes to the action comedy genre, the pitfalls awaiting careless directors and scripters are far more dangerous than anything faced by the characters in this film.

Too many dumb jokes. Relentless mugging by unrestrained cast members. Too much slapstick. Eye-rolling vulgarity. Gratuitous property damage. The list goes on.

Conquering one difficult task merely leads to a harder challenge, as this saga's reluctant
gamers repeatedly discover: from left, Dr. Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black), Jefferson
"Seaplane" McDonough (Nick Jonas), Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), Dr. Smolder
Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) and Franklin "Moose" Finbar (Kevin Hart).

Happily, director Jake Kasdan sidestepped all those miscalculations, which is a surprise — frankly — given that his résumé is littered with disposable junk such as Sex Tape, Bad Teacher and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Much-deserved credit also goes to writer Chris McKenna, whose initial story was deftly fine-tuned with help from Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner. And, of course, they all borrowed a bit from the 1995 Robin Williams version, which in turn was adapted loosely from Chris Van Allsburg’s popular 1981 children’s picture book. (Got all that?)

However the gestation played out, this new film is a very welcome surprise: droll, clever, fast-paced, exciting and laden with enough gender-based humor to fuel the next half-dozen relationship comedies. I can’t quite call the result family-friendly, because the PG-13 rating is well earned by risqué one-liners ... but they’re all quite funny, and crisply delivered by a quartet of practiced scene-stealers.

This’ll be a popular repeat-viewing experience, because half the fun is zeroing in on everybody else’s expression — not possible, the first time through — as each verbal zinger is unleashed.

While it’s true that veteran video gamers will most enthusiastically embrace (and understand) the core premise, the learning curve is gentle enough for uninitiated mainstream viewers, who will return home well-versed in jargon such as “game lives” and NPCs (non-player characters).

As those familiar with Van Allsburg’s book know, Jumanji is a “haunted” board game with the disorienting ability to amaze — and endanger — players by bringing actual jungle environments and animals into the real world. No surprise, then, that such a game would adapt to changing times — in order to remain seductively enticing — by re-inventing itself as a late 20th century-style home video game.

The new roster of unsuspecting victims, initially associated solely by their presence in the same high school, includes Spencer (Alex Wolff), a smart but neurotic hypochondriac; Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), an overly cocky jock too “busy” to do his own homework; Bethany (Madison Iseman), the school’s condescending, self-obsessed queen bee-yatch; and the outspoken but socially awkward Martha (Morgan Turner). Only after-school detention could bring this quartet together, at which point a make-work assignment to clean up an unused classroom takes a sinister turn, when Spencer finds a dusty, long-unused video game console.

With you-know-what stuck in the game slot. Which we already know is dangerous, thanks to an intriguing prologue set 20 years early.