Scream 2 (1997)

Scream 2 (1997)

7/10

               

Starring

David Arquette

Neve Campbell

Courteney Cox

Directed by Wes Craven

As with the first Scream movie, the first scene of Scream 2 stars actors who are now established in their own right. The first death scene was acted by Jada Pinkett Smith and Omar Epps.
Well, this first murder scene wasn’t as spectacular as the iconic opening of the first movie, but it did deliver something very different. Our victims were murdered in a cinema—one got stabbed through the ear while eavesdropping, and the other was killed while watching a movie. She walked to the front of the theater and bled out.

What I love about this second part is that Gale (Courney Cox) got sucker-punched again by Sidney. This movie also featured more teen actors who ended up becoming stars—Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, and Portia de Rossi were all in this movie.
Scream 2 is considered by many to be better than Scream (1996), but to me, both delivered the same power punch needed to make the movies unforgettable.

This time, masterful acting was the driving force in Scream 2. I guess the "seen it all before" feeling was something the writer and director duo were afraid of, especially since the movie was made just a year after the first. So, they took more obvious steps to improve the quality of the production and writing.
If you haven’t seen this movie before, the killer was given enough camouflage this time to keep you, the viewer, guessing.

The twist in this movie was: crazy runs in the family. It’s an idea the makers sold well as we watch things unfold in the second installment of the Scream series.

This time, our leading lady Sidney has moved to a new town and started a new life two years after the events of the first movie. Thanks to Gale’s new book, which was about the incidents in the first movie, a film adaptation has been made and is airing as this movie begins. It’s during the screening of this movie that the first murder occurs.

At first, it seems the murders aren’t connected to Sidney, but as the killings continue, the police notice a pattern, and Sidney is placed under protective custody. Soon, the killings bring the survivors of the first incident together as they begin to search for the killer. As they get attacked one by one, desperation sets in—and here’s where I stop. But, like the first movie, it couldn’t have been just one person behind it all, so we must find out who the new killers are.

Scream 2 was also a critical and commercial success, just like its predecessor, and both movies are must-watches.

Scream (1996)

Scream (1996)

7/10

               

Starring

David Arquette

Neve Campbell

Courteney Cox

Directed by Wes Craven

The first scene in Scream is so epic and unique that you can never get tired of it. Drew Barrymore’s performance was just classic and unforgettable—I’ll always remember her for it. Wes Craven directed the hell out of this movie to deliver the perfect slasher feel. Scream follows the character of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as she goes up against a killer in a “Ghostface” mask.

Many other slasher and horror movies have tried to replicate the incredible opening that Scream delivers in the first thirteen minutes (thirteen minutes exactly) but have failed. How many movies have the lead actor attacked in the first thirty minutes? This movie was awesomeness after awesomeness—scene after scene was thrilling. It’s the first slasher movie I can remember seeing, and it will always be one of the best, if not the best. Wes Craven truly delivered a directorial masterpiece.

The movie’s plot, like I said, follows the life of Sidney Prescott, who lives in Woodsboro, as she copes with the gruesome murder of her mother. Her friend (played by Drew Barrymore, who delivered the best movie intro ever) was killed alongside her boyfriend at their house. What caught the public’s eye was how gruesome the killings were—the couple was brutally gutted.

It didn’t take long before Sidney herself was attacked, but she wasn’t ready to die yet. She fought off the killer and escaped. The killer continued his torment by calling her at her friend’s home, where she was staying after the incident at her place, vowing to catch and kill her the first chance he got.

She believes he attacked her again at school, and with the attacks becoming more frequent, the whole town was placed under a curfew starting at 9:00 PM. Sidney’s friend convinced her to go to a party, where someone else got killed—and that’s when things get even more interesting.

Scream was unique at the time for having characters who were aware of real-world horror films and discussed the flaws and clichés that happen in them. Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson tried to dodge these clichés. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson went on to direct and write Scream 2 and Scream 4. Scream 3 was directed by Wes Craven but written by Ehren Kruger.

The movie was a critical and commercial success and became a cult classic. If you haven’t seen this movie (I find that hard to believe), I have to ask: what rock have you been living under?

The Mummy (2017)

The Mummy (2017)

5/10

Starring

Tom Cruise

Annabelle Wallis

Sofia Boutella

Jake Johnson

Directed by Alex Kurtzman

This movie deserved the Razzie nominations it got.
I felt like I was watching Mission Impossible mixed with a bit of Indiana Jones. Let’s be honest, there’s little to expect in a mummy movie. You’ll expect a raggedy old mummy, some mystic powers, and a deep thriller. All of that we can easily get from the first Mummy flick done in 1932.

The only way to make it different is to add something new, which the Brendan Fraser movies (the first two) starring Rachel Weisz did. The Mummy (1999), the first in the Fraser trilogy, had wit, romance, and an exceptional comedic cast. Those additional factors made the movie exceptionally good and inviting to watch anytime. The second movie, The Mummy Returns (2001), just rode on the first, trying to increase the intensity of the exceptional cast and making sure we didn’t forget Imhotep that easily.

This new Mummy movie, however, just washes away very quickly. Universal Studios ended up being what DC is—struggling to create a universe that can rival Marvel. Instead of learning from Marvel, they tried to do it the DC way: connect all the dots in one movie.

It didn’t work for DC, and it didn’t work for Universal here either. In this movie, we’re meant to be introduced to the Dark Universe, where Universal’s classic monsters live. Our lead in this movie, the man who’s supposed to kick things off, is Tom Cruise playing Sergeant Nick Morton of the U.S. Army. His antics led to the discovery of the tomb of Princess Ahmanet, a mummified princess whose crime was joining forces with the dark power of Set and murdering her family to take the throne.

Nick wasn’t an all-around good guy—he was a thief who used his military deployment to steal relics and sell them on the black market. The plot starts to unravel from here, revealing boring directing choices and a weak storyline.

The movie was set in present-day London, which makes you wonder: why not just set it in the old days of horses and swords like the Fraser movies? That was cool. But Universal wanted to waste finances showing us a pointless plane scene, bus scenes, underground tunnel scenes, and way too many guns and explosions.

My God, the movie was just too much happening at once. Ahmanet is resurrected and wants to kill Nick because he’s been chosen as the vessel to bring back Set (the Egyptian god of the desert). This was part of a ritual Ahmanet was performing before she was captured and mummified. Now, there’s also a secret society—this society is the thin thread Universal is using to tie all their Dark Universe movies together. The society is led by Dr. Henry Jekyll (yes, that Jekyll and Hyde). We get to see him transform in this movie, which was another distraction in an already scattered film, as we watch Mr. Edward Hyde battle it out with Nick at some point.

Please note, the outcome of this fight had nothing to do with the current movie. Universal just needed to lay down some groundwork for future films—groundwork that could’ve been done in a movie of its own. It’s in that movie where Tom Cruise should’ve had a cameo. That’s how you link stuff and create a universe, not like this.

In the end, thanks to the huge marketing costs Universal pumped into this, combined with the bad plot, not-so-great acting (all Cruise had to do was run around), and the overuse of CGI, the movie ended up being a commercial loss. This made Universal pull back on their Dark Universe plans. Even though there will be a Bride of Frankenstein much later, I hope Universal will be wiser this time.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

4/10

Starring

Brendan Fraser

Jet Li

Maria Bello

John Hannah

Directed by Rob Cohen

The first Mummy was a gem, a diamond in the rock. The second was Universal pushing their luck, this las one is best unseen. The third movie in the Mummy trilogy happens during World War II, and it has way too much going on after the fortieth minute—and not enough before that. This time, we’re not dealing with an Egyptian mummy like we did in The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001), so there’s no Imhotep. Instead, the bad guy is a Chinese tyrannical warlord called the Dragon Emperor.

The movie isn’t spectacular, and it deals with too many daddy and son issues. Maria Bello’s acting as someone with martial arts and fighting skills wasn’t bad to see, but the rest of the cast were swamped in too many action scenes requiring guns and explosions to be as impressive as they were in the previous two films.
All that comedic and awesome supporting cast that made the first two movies magnificent? Gone. All we have is just too much fighting.

The plot, like in the first two films, introduces the mummy we’ll be dealing with. This time, he’s a Chinese bad guy who wanted to live forever. He made all the necessary plans for everlasting life, but things didn’t go as planned—he betrayed those who helped him, and they, in turn, betrayed him. He was mummified in stone and kept underground, guarded by a bunch of people (who, like in the previous movies, aren’t great at their job).

But as things go, the mummy gets resurrected again. The people behind the resurrection, as you can guess, are the O’Connells. Now, as they’ve done in the previous movies, they must work with the people guarding the mummy (who, again, never do a good job at guarding) to stop him.

The movie was a commercial success but not a critical one. The pacing could have been done better, and the writing removed all the comedy, making the movie too serious for its own good. I ended up missing the presence of Imhotep and his lover Anck-su-namun.

The series was supposed to get a fourth movie, with the cast from this film set to reprise their roles and Antonio Banderas planned to be the new bad guy. However, Universal pulled the plug on this and decided to launch their Dark Universe franchise instead, with The Mummy (2017) reboot as the first film in the upcoming series.