The Fate of the Furious - Movie Review

Starring Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Scott Eastwood, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kristofer Hivju, Elsa Pataky, Luke Evans and Helen Mirren.
Written by Chris Morgan.
Directed by F. Gary Gray.

★★

These movies are now so loud, so huge, so spectacular, so stunt-reliant, the plot matters less and less each time. Maybe the plot never mattered. They're dangerously close to venturing into Tranformers territory. Would it surprise anyone if this franchise wound up going to space?

This centers around Dom (Vin Diesel) who's been a criminal since the first movie, but he keeps getting pardoned for weird reasons, or just on the lam with no official desire to bring him in. The latest giant international incident that's worthy of a Mission Impossible movie has the world's most dangerous cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) blackmailing Dom into helping steal the God's Eye device (the high-tech thingy from the last movie that allows the user to see what's going on at any location on Earth), and once she has that, she's going to use to steal nuclear codes.

It's a late reveal what leverage Cipher has on Dom, but you know, not only do people die over the course of events, but he's giving her the power to start World War III. What possible leverage would make Dom do that?

Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) enlists Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Dom's crew to stop Cipher, and he even gets Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the main villain from the last movie, to help them out. Now this franchise likes to say it's about family. Han was part of the family for a few movies, and in Furious 7, Deckard killed Han. Killed him. And no one brings it up. Han's name is never said. By the end of the movie, Deckerd is embraced as a full member of the crew.

He killed Han!

I'll give you Dom not once but twice driving a car that's engulfed in flames and not getting a single burn, or Dom outdriving a heat-seeking missile, but you can't just have everyone forget that Deckard killed one of their members.

I suppose in the next movie, Cipher will return and help the crew fight a different villain. And Han will come back from the dead because *shrug emoji*.

Deepwater Horizon - Movie Review

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Kate Hudson, Dylan O'Brien, Ethan Suplee, Brad Leland and J.D. Evermore.
Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan & Matthew Sand.
Directed by Peter Berg.

★★★½

This is a solid, straightforward effort as the star (Mark Wahlberg) and director (Peter Berg) of Lone Survivor are reunited to tell the story of the 12 hours that led up to the explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig that led to the biggest oil disaster in history.

It's white-collar vs. blue-collar. Kurt Russell is Jimmy Harrell, the head of the rig and the one who wants to make sure all of the safety tests have been conducted. John Malkovich is Vidrine, the BP exec who feels like they're behind schedule and they don't really need to do all of the tests. While they're the main conflict, the movie also has us get to know Mike (Mark Wahlberg) and Andrea (Gina Rodriguez) and a few other crew members so that we care about these characters before the inevitable disaster hits.

Once it does, it becomes The Towering Inferno at Sea. Berg has already demonstrated himself to be a solid action director, and he makes the stakes harrowing. A few crew members did die that night, and unless you studied the backstory before seeing the movie, you won't which ones might be among them.

At the same time, this does feel respectful to the people who were involved in this tragedy. No Jack & Rose love story thrown in.

The Hateful Eight - Movie Review

THE HATEFUL EIGHT (R) Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, James Parks and Channing Tatum.
Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino.

★★★

This is boldly advertised as the 8th film from writer-director Quentin Tarantino. For that to work, we're considering the two volumes of Kill Bill as one movie so we can count the extended version of Death Proof. I only saw the Grindhouse cut of Death Proof so I don't feel like a QT completist. Someday I'll get there.

This movie is a polarizing experience. It features the worst and best tendencies he has. I have no problem with the long running time or the cartoonish violence. QT seems to be challenging the audience by not providing anyone likeable to side with.

While QT had extended to operatic heights with Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, he's shrunken his canvas here to be more like Reservoir Dogs: The Western. Filmed in 70mm, it's gorgeous to look at. We can enjoy the broad, snowy landscapes of Wyoming as a stagecoach tries to outrun an oncoming blizzard. We first meet Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a Union soldier turned bounty hunter, who has put himself and three dead bounties in the path of the stagecoach. He first meets the driver O.B. (James Parks) and then the passengers - fellow bounty hunter and Union veteran John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his prisoner, a murderer named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Both men want to get to Red Rock to collect their bounties, Ruth on his live one and Warren on his dead ones.

Further down the road, they come across the equally stranded Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a Confederate vet who's on his way to Red Rock to be the new sheriff. The blizzard comes too quickly so they hole up at Minnie's Haberdashery, essentially a large cabin store being run by Bob the Mexican (Demian Bichir) while Minnie's away. Also present are cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), Confederate general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), and British hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), employed at Red Rock. These hateful eight (plus nice guy O.B.) are trapped under one roof to wait out the storm, and as Ruth surveys the place, he quickly assumes that one of these men is lying about his identity, and that he's really in cahoots with Daisy to save her.

John Ruth might be the one we could root for, with his John Wayne inflection and clear-eyed sense of justice, except he beats on the helpless Daisy under the slightest provocations.

Major Warren could be the one, but when he spins a tale of what he did to a helpless prisoner of his own, it's easy for sympathies to fade.

Daisy? She copes by wearing her broken-toothed smile as a feral mask, but it might have helped if the movie ever explained exactly who she'd killed and why. I actually felt bad for her at the end, and I don't know if that was QT's intention.

Minnie's Haberdashery serves as a microcosm of American society then and now. Then, it's the 1870's, and you have north and south, black and white, male and female trying to figure out what next. I also really admired QT's directing job here. We're aware at (almost) all times where everyone is in the cabin, even as the story needs to hop from this conversation to that. The tension increases and mounts, and it starts to feel more like John Carpenter's The Thing than anything else before it explodes in its gory, nasty finale.

This is one where I think I might like it more on a second viewing, but I can't say it's in my top half of favorites from the director. I think deep down he knows it'll be this way for most people. There's no cheer-worthy scene like Nazis getting killed in Basterds, slavers getting killed in Django, Butch saving Marcellus in Pulp Fiction, or even Mr. Orange shooting Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs. These are all brutish sorts, and I didn't feel like the ending had the payoff he might have been going for.

Random Movie Stuff - 5/14/12

- Warner Bros. has scheduled The Gangster Squad to open September 7. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin as agents leading a team to take down gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). It also reunites Gosling with his Crazy Stupid Love co-star Emma Stone. The trailer's below. Meanwhile they've moved back the space thriller Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, to some time in 2013.

Personally I don't understand why they'd open Gangster Squad the week after Lawless, another ensemble period law-and-order movie.


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- Kurt Russell has dropped out of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained during filming. He'd replaced Kevin Costner, who'd cited scheduling conflicts. It'll be interesting to see who QT finds now.


- Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows) and Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) will star in The Quiet Ones, about a college professor who leads his best students to try to create a poltergeist using negative energy.


- Michael Scott may be gone, and Dwight, Toby, Kelly and Robert will be gone soon, but at least Jim, Pam and Andy will still be there. John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and Ed Helms have signed new contracts to return to NBC's The Office.  Good thing too, since the anti-climactic season finale made it clear that Andy is here to stay.

Kurt Russell, Don Johnson join Django Unchained

After some largely ignored supporting roles (Machete, Bucky Larson), Don Johnson has joined the cast of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. This pits the original Miami Vice's Crockett in a movie with the new Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) in a movie. Johnson will play an evil plantation owner. It also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L. Jackson. Kurt Russell recently replaced Kevin Costner in the role of DiCaprio's malevolent right-hand man, and Dennis Christopher (Breaking Away, It) has also signed on.