Halloween Kills (2021)

 

Halloween Kills (2021)

3/10

Starring

Jamie Lee Curtis

Judy Greer

Andi Matichak

Will Patton

Directed by David Gordon Green

Lazy writing, lazy editing and directed like a low-budget horror movie, Halloween Kills is all the cliché horror movie antics with no style. This movie wasted a good layup from Halloween (2018).

A third of the movie had nothing actually happening, just people running around getting into each others way. The second third is about things that happened in the past, with flashbacks and what not, which amounted to nothing at all in the present. The final third of the movie is just Michael killing with all the horror movie cliché you know.

Back in 2018 when we got back to the Michael Myers saga I was not expecting the first movie to be good, but it was. The 2018 Halloween had the suspense thrill and the need excitement/horror to make you want to see what else they have packed for this trilogy. Now that I have seen this (Halloween Kills) I can safely say they pulled out all their rabbits from the hat in the first movie, this was dreadful.

You can actually skip the first twenty minutes, It was all flash backs and a town losing their heads. Then the movie packed itself with so much killings and death that it became boring.

Halloween Kills falls in the genre of normal slasher movie formula where the bad guy is one man and no one can stop him. In fact, what this movie teaches is that even a mob of angry blood thirsty citizens cannot stop the killing spree of Michael Myers.

After wasting twenty minutes of my time running around from what happened in the last movie and years before, we see Michael on the prowl. He is killing everyone he runs into without a break in flow. The towns people are angry and formed a militia of some sort to find and kill him. Like horror movies go, the bad guy is super human with some level of luck always on his side. Either the people trying to shoot him run out of bullet when he is centimeters close to them, or they miss out of fear and run out of bullet trying, you know these things. People getting stuck in a spot out of fear and he just walks and kills them. There is one in this movie, where a man is sitting in the back sit, and waits his turn to be stabbed through the eye. This movie has the typical stupid people thinking, you know he has killed everyone before me so I believe I have a shot, so I will take him on.

The movie does not do anything useful with the fine start the 2018 revamp gave. Instead it kicks this movie off with a chaos and then jumped from one chaos to another. Laura (Jamie Lee Curtis) had little to do in this movie, as she was hurt from the incident in the first. So it was up to her daughter and grand-daughter to try and do something. Well, the grand-daughter decided she and her crew of wasted meat were the best to go stop this man, well since there is a third movie to be released in the franchise it is no spoiler if I say they failed.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

 

6/10

Starring

Tom Hardy

Michelle Williams

Naomie Harris

Reid Scott

Stephen Graham

Woody Harrelson

Directed by Andy Serkis

Succinct and straight to the point, Venom 2 does not waste anytime messing about, just straight to the point delivery on comedy and action.

The movie transcends to a sort of superhero buddy-cop genre thing with Venom being the lose canon. If you liked the first Venom movie, you will as well like this one. The focus here is more on the comedic side of things with Tom Hardy having so much fun playing the character it oozes at you from the screen. Venom 2 has a PG rating so do not expect to find things remotely close to what you would see in a Deadpool movie.

The break in communication between the characters is fun to watch, as both fight for individualism within the same body. Venom getting majorly upset that has been downgraded from eating brains to munching on Chickens and chocolate. And Eddie (Hardy) struggling to keep his life together as Venom keeps making a mess of things as he bumbles around. The whole Venom and Eddie being a perfect host and symbiote combination was side stepped a little, with Venom jumping around when he and Eddie had a breakup. What led to this is a string of bad choices started when Eddie interviewed Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Venom from seeing Kasady’s cell and listening from Eddie when they spoke was able to deduce where the psychotic serial killer (Kasady) buried the body of his victims.

In a last interview between the two before Kasady gets the lethal injection Kasady bites Eddie and got a bit of Venom in him. From here the symbiote carnage is born as an offspring of Venom living inside Kasady as his host.

Carnage is a red symbiote and from sight you can tell he is more powerful than Venom a black symbiote. Kasady used the new powers he now has to free his lady Shriek and together the trio decided to get revenge on everyone they believe has in one way hurt/hinder them.

The movie uses CG effects to the max to pass across majority of the things you see on screen and does not go overboard doing it. One thing about the movie that I did not feel is the final battle between Venom and Carnage which seemed to drag on for way too long.

With the way this Spiderverse is growing and making massive millions for Sony I do not think Disney has any chance getting their Spider-man (and his friends and villians) back into the MCU.

I really enjoyed the movie and believe you will too if you are a fan.

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

 

3/10

Starring

Alessandro Nivola

Leslie Odom Jr.

Jon Bernthal

Corey Stoll

Directed by Alan Taylor

This movie is very into itself being busy achieving nothing. Occupied with needed violence going nowhere and an end that mattered to nothing spectacular. It is so ordinary a movie it does not deserve to be told to anyone to go see it. When you do a movie that is unnecessary to try and please fans, this waste of movie reel is what you get.

They could have called this movie anything else other than the prequel to The Sopranos and it will still work. And that is because nothing in this movie shed any light to what you already did not know about Tony Soprano and did not help in giving depth to the things you suspected. In fact Tony Soprano was not even the major cast or can be tagged a main supporting cast in this movie. Yes, his name is mentioned and we see him hoping about. The only time he became a focus in this 120 minutes movie is in the last 10 minutes. Then Chase says there is a planned sequel of Tony in his twenties (suggesting more focus on him), please why not do that movie then, what was the point of this?

From the series we know there is a strained relationship between Junior and his nephew Tony, in this movie we see that Junior has always struggled to have a hold on things in the DiMeo crime family. Set in the 1960s and 70s, the movie depicts the humble beginnings of the DiMeo crime family, how they struggled to maintain order during the riots that broke out in the 60s caused by the maltreatment of black people.

The movie focuses more on the teenage years of Tony and the young Tony is played by the late James Gandolfini’s (Tony Soprano in the series) son, Michael Gandolfini.

Fans will get to see how Tony related with Dickie Moltisanti who was the main driving force in Tony’s life. We also get to see how Dickie took charge of things in the DiMeo crime family the atrocities he committed and how they played out for the remainder of the other family members. Tony never talked much about his father in the series. We just know there was a lot of respect from him towards the man. In this movie we get to see how the father’s crime dealings had an influence on Tony’s upbringing.

On like the series where we get to enjoy the intricate dealings of the crime world, things here flash about a lot lacking that fun.

As time continue to go by the more I get stronger in the resolution that you do not have to see every movie and even though you saw the first part you do not need to see part two if part one was crap. For those who want to see this movie, I will advise you not to.

Queenpins (2021)

Queenpins (2021)

 

7/10

Starring

Kristen Bell

Kirby Howell-Baptiste

Directed by Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly

(Contains spoilers)

I have to say Queenpins is one of those movies that does not try to pass any moral message across, just two women who decided to beat the system and did. The movie is loosely based on a real coupon scam. When watching though what you end up wishing is that the movie itself was totally real and that the ladies got away with their scam with just a slap on the wrist.

Acting wise Kristen Bell (Connie) and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (JoJo) made this comedy worth every minute. I feel the movie could have hit a homerun with shorter running time, but that said the comedy was subtle. The movie had a more drama feel and the best way to describe the movie is a drama with some light comedy, which I believe is not what the writers and director were aiming for.

Here you are watching a movie about a woman who is having a huge blow to her existence. Connie has had four miscarriages from IVF treatments which has sunk the family down a financial black hole. Her husband was written to be a jerk, something I believe the movie should have done something more creative with his presence. It was certain the writers wanted him out of the way so the ladies could carry out their scam with a lot of freedom, but making the man the monster has been overdone. Like I said his presence in the movie was not needed. He was written to blame his wife for their present financial issues. The way he decided to handle it is to spend three out of four weeks flying about for work.

Well with his presence no longer influential in her life Connie has dived into shopping to ward off the depression and loneliness. Since they don’t have money coupons has become her thing and when I say her thing, she was a legend. She with her neighbor JoJo collect coupons to try and get ahead. JoJo has a bad credit and together the pair came up with an idea from sending a customer complaint mail.

When she got a free coupon back from a product complain mail, she wrote more (fake ones this time) and got more free coupons. From there a scam was birthed. They tracked down the company that made the coupons for the big companies, got an inside man to help them steal coupons and started selling fake coupons. They went further, got consulting from a tech guru and did all they could to take advantage of the system. Then we have a character created to be another punk, who is tasked with finding out the people behind the scam and getting them to face the books.

In the end I really enjoyed the movie and I think you will too.

The Addams Family 2 (2021)

The Addams Family 2 (2021)

 

3/10

Starring the voices of

Oscar Isaac

Charlize Theron

Chloë Grace Moretz

Nick Kroll

Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon

When the creepy, cooky Addams family get together with the hope of plastering down some entertainment you should be weary. The old times when the Addams family were a hit is long gone and the firstanimated movie (The Addams Family (2019)) to me was just a spark in the pan. I felt they had found a way to bring back something from the past with new light, but instead this second CG animated movie just proved that this franchise should return back to retirement.

This animated sequel just draws out all the wrong things from the first movie and leaves out the needed excitement and fun. Imagine a family themed animation without any reason for you to laugh. There is no point creating a sequel when you have a script that waste so much time dragging us from an ending which was unavoidable.

Wednesday Addams feels like she does not belong. You know that feeling every child gets when you wish you were born into another family? It is understandable and something any adult or teenager will be able to relate to. This movie decided to take a very familiar subject and marinate it with unfunny incidents and parents trying so hard to be more irresponsible than could possibly be.

How the writer was able to drag this whole thing for more than an hour is amazing. If there was an award form the animation that just drags unnecessarily, this movie will win it. This whole movie could have best been done in twenty minutes. But instead, Gomez and Morticia avoid facing up to the reality that Wednesday could not be their child and drag the matter with an unneeded road trip.

Wednesday already had all the needed gadgets and the Addams as we know are never lacking in money that they could not have handled this better. You may see this as overthinking, but the challenge is the road trip to which Gomez planned to avoid getting a DNA test resulted in the end to a DNA test (which packed some surprises). So I am watching this delay tactic which proved not to be worth it.

The jokes in the Addams family is their interactions to the outside world, but here all the interactions were not bringing out the best in the characters. They dynamic to which made the first movie worth the time was missing in this one. What we now have is a too Addams – Addams family, trying to get by in a world not suited for people like them. In the first movie at least I enjoyed them trying to gel with the people around them. Here they just pissed me off.

The movie starts with false hope of Wednesday getting upset with the way children are being given participation trophy, removing the needed for useful competition. The science fair to which her school organized showed off the powers of Wednesday’s mind as she was able to merge the DNA of a smart octopus with that of her uncle Fester. The man (Dr. Strange) who sponsors the science fair saw this and wanted the whole thing, but Wednesday was not willing to share.

So he thought of a way to get her. All this is tied to the whole Wednesday is not an Addams and we watch a cat and mouse game which led no where fun at all.