The Jerk (1979)

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The Jerk (1979)

7/10

Starring

Steve Martin

Directed by Carl Reiner

Three times I have tried to watch The Jerk (1979) and three times I couldn’t get pass his hitchhiking from his home, which he was struggling with going farther than his fence.

The movie didn’t have a good start, and if not for my resolution to see just 20 minutes in before I make my decision to delete. 20 minutes in and I was hooked. The Jerk is Steve Martin’s first feature film after a long success as a standup comedian. It will make you laugh at the extent to which this movie can be silly, and yet the movie held its character in high acclaim.

Here is what I mean, Navin in this movie is the dumb and dumber of other movies, where the character is oblivious of what is happening around him and is too dumb to notice. Here Navin’s character started as dumb and oblivious, but as he gets out there into the world we see him become smarter a little in his actions. Navin went after the things he wanted and tried to balance things in his life, and yet still remain dumb.

That to me is what makes this movie a classic, in other movies they go full dumb and oblivious, here we see something different and it is amazing that we still have movies which have failed to learn from what Martin did in this.

The movie was written by Martin with the hope of being his intro into Hollywood. Other than the difficulty he had getting this movie done, I can imagine Martin didn’t expect his career in Hollywood to extend to such, which people will remember him more for his movies than his standups.

The movie starts with Navin telling the camera about how he became a homeless bum. Navin was an adopted white kid living with an African American family and not having a clue that he is a white man among black folks.

After hearing an Orchestra song on the radio, which got him moving, he decided to hitchhike to St. Louis, going after the music. Navin’s life started immediately he got a ride that took him beyond his home fence. From meeting a dog, getting his first job, running away with the circus, getting a girlfriend, falling in love (in that order), becoming a millionaire then lose it all to end up a bum.

It was a wild ride.

The movie is more than just interesting it was a huge financial success in the box office, raking in over $73 million from a $4 million budget. And it was a critical acclaim movie and you will find The Jerk in AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Laughs at number 89. If you haven’t seen The Jerk, you should.

The Wedding Ringer (2015)

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The Wedding Ringer (2015)

4/10

Starring

Kevin Hart

Josh Gad

Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting

Directed by Jimmy Garelick

A friend told me I will enjoy The Wedding Ringer, since I’m not a Kevin Hart fan and I didn’t fancy his other film Get Hard (2015).

The Wedding Ringer was better than Get Hard (2015) when it came to the individual characters because here I did get to appreciate Hart’s acting and that of Josh Gad. But when you add them and other crew that came with this movie, what you have is people who seem not to gel at all. Then the story to which this movie was based on, was so lame and out of the window dull that if not for scenes like a dog biting Josh Gad’s character Doug on his genitals.

Or the scene where Gretchen (played by Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting: Gretchen is Doug’s soon to be wife) picked a song for their wedding which happened to be the song she and her ex-lover had playing in the background the first time they made love. I would have stopped watching this movie way back when.

The movie plot is very odd, Jimmy (Kevin Hart) is what you will call a professional Best Man, as he renders Best Man services to men who lack friends to fill the position.

Doug is a man about to get married to a woman out of his league, so happy to be nailing such a catch. Doug called everyone he had called friend in the past, for them to be at the wedding. None agreed to show up, then he hired Jimmy to come make the magic happen. Jimmy keeps things professional between the two and hires other men to pose for pictures with Doug, so they could pass as his friends and grooms men.

Everything doesn’t go well for this wedding (can’t say much to avoid spoilers). But the movie took a surprise turn from the time Gretchen choose the wrong song, until the end.

For me crap is crap, but some good things on the side is what keeps you watching. The Wedding Ringer had those good things on the side even though the main dish was a total waste and tasted horrible.

Well, the good side of seeing this movie for me is I got to appreciate Kevin Hart as an actor, but still struggling to see a movie that will make me change my perspective about him not being as funny as they say.

If you have missed this movie, I will advise you just keep moving, except you are one of the Kevin Hart fans who won’t mind seeing him in a good role for once.

Batman Unlimited: Animal Instinct (2015)

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Batman Unlimited: Animal Instinct (2015)

4/10

Starring the voice of

Roger Craig Smith

Dana Snyder

Chris Diamantopoulos

Directed by Butch Lukic

The animation started looking lame in the first 5 minutes, as the drawings were not exceptional like the previous Warner Bros animations and I had to go all Wikipedia on the animated movie to be sure it was done by Warner Bros. The animation was annoying to behold because I know they could have done better, but probably because they were planning this to be a sequel to an upcoming series so not much was pumped in as budget.

Then the story kicked off, it dragged for one too many minutes on what was meant to be the story depth. I guess this is one of those, which was not meant to be a great money puller, based on the way the story went. But in the end it was more like a boring introduction to an interesting turn of events. Although if this was not a Batman animation I would have gladly turned it off and probably missed the interesting things ahead.

I guess (not sure) the reason I didn’t see this in the DC animated original movies list is because the movie and its sequel Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem are meant to be prequels to a set of animated series and not much of an addition to the DC universe.

Another thing in the movie I don’t quite agree on is the way Flash was portrayed, the funny and useful Wally West (I believe it was Wally because the guy joked around a lot to be Barry Allen) is here seen as lame and clumsy, he was like a kid who just learned how to walk.

The other thing missing in this movie which in a way (I’m talking about the movie) was supposed to be the origin of The Penguin or Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepo, was the main thing itself, the origin of the Penguin. I guess they expected the viewer to have seen the live action TV series Gotham to have gotten an insight to who The Penguin was and why he was so bad.

Well here is the plot, Batman and his family crew Red Robin and Nightwing are faced with what appears to be attacks from various animalistic villains who are attacking high risk places, but nothing seemed to be missing. In the whole hullabaloo, Green Arrow and Flash joined in the case of trying to round up these criminals before the succeed in their plot, a plot none of them has a clue what it is, except rich man Oswald Cobblepo (The Penguin) who has a clear hand into all that is going on.

Here is a movie you can miss, plan on watching the sequel Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem, hope it will be better.

Terminator 5: Genisys (2015)

Terminator 5: Genisys (2015)

6/10

Starring

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Jason Clarke

Emilia Clarke

Jai Courtney

Directed by Alan Taylor

This movie is not fantastic, but it was okay, and I enjoyed it enough. I have seen worse movies get sequels, so this is not a bad watch. But I can understand how hard it can be to continue watching a franchise when you know the studio is trying to milk the life out of it. This franchise's high days were in the 80s. One thing I will severely criticise in this movie is the plot. The plot seems to be all over the place, and that is the thing with time-travel movies, if you do not make it simple, you will have a lot of plot holes which fans can find very annoying.

The warmth in having the T-800 (Model 101) back in action and taking the lead after them Christian Bale woeful attempt to make a terminator movie without The Terminator we know.

The movie had it all for me, the emotion that developed in the bond between human and machine, and the action and fight scenes are more fluid here than in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the choreography was captivating.

It is arguable that the TX in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) seemed like a more formidable foe for the T-800, than the T-3000 in this movie, but that is my view.

Wow!!! There is no stopping Skynet and the eventual manifestation of Judgment Day. Every time we see a Terminator movie, Judgment Day gets postponed, and the earth is safe for some years to come.

Thanks to scenes after the credit, yeap there is going to be a Terminator part six and a seventh as long as this and six makes the required cash that will cause the studio to finish the trilogy.

Here is how the movie went, John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to save his mother Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and be his father in 1984. Which is how the Terminator story goes, but things changed.

During the time travel, Kyle sees John killed by a terminator (T-5000 played by Martin Smith) and when he gets to 1984, there is another terminator waiting to kill him, a T-1000.

Kyle runs and is saved by Sarah Connor and meets T-800 (Model 101) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The past is all messed up, and in this 1984, we have more than one terminator running around.

Kyle soon discovers that when Sarah was nine years old, she and her family were attacked by a terminator killing her entire family, and she was saved by a T-800 whom she now calls Pops, as the T-800 raised her and taught her how to defend herself and prepare her for 1984 where she will meet Kyle Reese.

The mystery in this plot is, who sent the T-800 back in time to save Sarah when she was nine?

The plot continues to thicken and our three heroes (Sarah, Kyle and T-800) must stop Skynet before it takes over the world.

In the end of the movie, there is an upgrade done in favor of our old T-800 (Model 101), as he is upgraded to a T-1000 with a mimetic poly-alloy (liquid metal). The whole idea is to have him ready for future sequels, this idea was killed as this movie kind of messed up the whole story with its very convoluted plot.

All of Me (1984)

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All of Me (1984)

6/10

Starring

Steve Martin

Lilly Tomlin

Directed by Carl Reiner

Saw this movie when I was much younger and the line that stuck in my head was:

“Back in bowl”

And the scene I recall clearly is the idea that a blind man, drowned down water containing a soul, thinking it was whiskey.

This movie is crazy, funny and fantastic there is nothing wrong with this movie at all and I felt Steve Martin’s performance was over the top and memorable. For me a good movie is no good, if I can’t remember the fun moments. When I wanted to see this movie I spent time on my site and recalled the good time I had watching this movie way back when.

The movie plot is about a lawyer Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) who is ready to do anything to be a partner at his law firm. He was sent to manage and oversee the Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) estate worth over $20 million dollars.

Roger took the assignment only to meet the lady and discover that after she dies, she wants her soul taken out of her body and placed in a bowl by a spiritual specialist, who then transfers her soul into the daughter of her stable guy. Roger found everything going on to be nuts and storms off after making things rather unpleasant in the Edwina house, only for Edwina to arrange a meeting with his bosses and dies there.

Her soul is then taken out of her body and into the bowl which then fell in Steve Martin’s head.

I like the future and development around us in this millennium, you are able to seek out your favorite movies of time past on online and pay a few dollars to see them, I don’t have to fumble around looking for a video store that kept old relics like this one.

The movie’s plot is pitiable and can make you not be interested in seeing the movie, but that is not it for All of Me, the movie is funny and the crazy plot develops into a funny ride.

I read somewhere that an attempt is being done to remake this movie, well that to me will be a very risky investment. This movie is great, but deciding to do a reboot based on this same story, I don’t think many will enjoy it.

So if you are in the mood for some Steve Martin fun, All of Me should be added to your list for a movie fest of Steve Martin.