Mud - DVD Review

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard, Jacob Lofland, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Paul Sparks and Joe Don Baker.
Directed by Jeff Nichols.

★★★★

Jeff Nichols is a rural poet, a director that just captures the middle and lower-class Bible Belt with an honesty and beauty like no one else.

Shotgun Stories was his debut, a modern Hatfield & McCoy about three older siblings feuding with their father's next generation of sons, the ones that he actually loved and raised.  Next he did Take Shelter, about a man who thinks he's seeing visions of coming disaster.  Both starred Michael Shannon, lately best known for Man of Steel or HBO's Boardwalk Empire.  Shannon's usually the bad guy or creepy guy, but in Nichols' world, he's allowed to play good three-dimensional characters.

He's a supporting part here.  "Mud" is the name of Matthew McConaughey's character.  Mud is a drifter hiding on an island, discovered by two friends, Ellis (Sheridan) and Neckbone (Lofland).  Ellis and Neck like to boat up and down the river by their town, exploring.  They find Mud living in a boat stuck in a tree, dropped there from some previous tornado.

People here are so poor I couldn't tell if this was a period movie or not.  The only radio song that we hear is from The Beach Boys, and Ellis and Neck would fit right in with the kids from Stand By Me.  It could be set in the 1980's, or present day.  Some of the residents would be just as comfortable moving in by Hushpuppy from Beasts from the Southern Wild.

I'm going to be bummed if this gets forgetten come award season.

Butler wins weekend

1. The Butler - $25.01 million - 1 wk (Wein)
 . . . 2933 screens / $8527 per screen
2. We're the Millers - $17.78 ($69.51) - 2 wks (WB) -32.7%
 . . . 3325 / $5347
3. Elysium - $13.6 ($55.91) - 2 wks (TS) -54.4%
 . . . 3284 / $4141
4. Kick-Ass 2 - $13.57 - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 2940 / $4615
5. Planes - $13.14 ($45.09) - 2 wks (BV) -40.9%
 . . . 3716 / $3536
6. Percy Jackson 2 - $8.38 ($38.9) - 2 wks (Fox) -41.8%
 . . . 3080 / $2719
7. Jobs - $6.7 - 1 wk (OR)
 . . . 2381 / $2814
8. 2 Guns - $5.57 ($59.22) - 3 wks (U) -50.5%
 . . . 2471 / $2255
9. The Smurfs 2 - $4.6 ($56.91) - 3 wks (Sony) -50.7%
 . . . 2349 / $1958
10. The Wolverine - $4.43 ($120.46) - 4 wks (Fox) -44.9%
 . . . 2058 / $2150
11. The Conjuring - $3.91 ($127.86) - 5 wks (WB) -41%
 . . . 2001 / $1954
12. Despicable Me 2 - $3.78 ($345.99) - 7 wks (U) -36.1%
 . . . 1818 / $2080
13. Paranoia - $3.5 - 1 wk (Rel)
 . . . 2459 / $1423
14. Blue Jasmine - $2.36 ($9.49) - 4 wks (SP) +.6%
 . . . 229 / $10,301

I know its official title is Lee Daniels' The Butler, but that's only because Warner Bros. decided to be jerks about rights to the title.  The Butler is a showcase for Oprah Winfrey (reminding us all she was an actress first) and a parade of extended cameos portraying Presidents and First Ladies through the decades. I haven't seen it yet, but at best, this is Forest Whitaker's Remains of the Day opportunity.

This is a summer where half the sequels are just not living up to their predecessors.  Kick-Ass 2 swapped Nicolas Cage for Jim Carrey, but Carrey decided a few months ago he's had a change of heart about violence in film and therefore wouldn't promote the movie.  Percy Jackson 2 and Smurfs 2 are also films where their business isn't justifying their greenlighting, but I suppose they rely more on families buying the DVDs or renting VOD to make their money back.  Red 2 can't leave theaters fast enough.

Jobs wound up being a trifle.  Paranoia completely squandered the talents of Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman.  These movies might have fared better opening in September.

In holdovers, We're the Millers is the surprise hit of the summer and could make its way to $100 million.  A 32.7% drop in week 2 is a sign that audiences are disagreeing with critics.  It occurs to me that it reunites two of the stars from Horrible Bosses (Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis), the slightly less surprising hit from its summer.

Neill Blomkamp's Elysium isn't quite doing the business of District 9.  Its going to need to be a hit overseas if it wants to make a profit.

Planes had a mere $50 million budget, so it's proving to have been worth a theatrical run.  In fact, Planes: Fire & Rescue will be hitting theaters next summer.

In limited release, Austenland had a $10,650 per screen average on 4 screens.

Random Movie News - 8/15/13

- Warner Bros has ended its deal with Legendary Pictures, and Universal has moved in on a partnership.  This means that Universal is trying to find a new release date for the fantasy adventure Seventh Son, starring Jeff Bridges, and it also means they'll distribution on 300: Rise of an Empire (3/7/14) and Godzilla (5/16/14).

- Foxcatcher will now open in limited release December 20 to make it Academy-Award eligible. It's directed by Bennett Miller (Moneyball) and stars Steve Carell as eccentric millionaire John du Pont, who was convicted of murdering his friend Dave Schultz, to be played by Mark Ruffalo.  Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Michael Hall will also star.

- Lionsgate is pushing forward with a sequel to Now You See Me. The surprise summer hit has grossed over $230 million worldwide on a $75 million production budget.  No word yet on how many original cast members will return or if director Louis Letterier will return.

- Ethan Hawke is reuniting with his Hamlet director Michael Almereyda for Cymbeline, based on the Shakespeare play but will be set in 21st century.  Ed Harris and Milla Jovovich will co-star.

- Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory) will write, direct and star in We'll Never Have Paris, about a man who screws up on a transcontinental level trying to win back "the one."  Maggie Grace (Lost, Taken) and Jason Ritter (The Event) co-star, and Helberg's wife Jocelyn Towne will co-direct.

- Abigail Breslin (Zombieland, The Call) will star in the zombie thriller Maggie, about a father (Arnold Schwarzenegger) dealing with his daughter who's been infected with a walking-dead virus.

Weekend Box Office - 8/11/13

1. Elysium - $30.4 million - 1 wk (TS)
 . . . 3284 screens / $9257 per screen
2. We're the Millers - $26.56 ($38.04) - 1 wk (WB)
 . . . 3260 / $8146
3. Planes - $22.53 - 1 wk (BV)
 . . . 3702 / $6085
4. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters - $14.6 ($23.46) - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3031 / $4817
5. 2 Guns - $11.13 ($48.52) - 2 wks (U) -58.9%
 . . . 3028 / $3675
6. The Smurfs 2 - $9.5 ($46.6) - 2 wks (Sony) -45.9%
 . . . 3867 / $2457
7. The Wolverine - $8 ($111.99) - 3 wks (Fox) -62.5%
 . . . 2867 / $2790
8. The Conjuring - $6.7 ($120.75) - 4 wks (WB) -48.6%
 . . . 2650 / $2528
9. Despicable Me 2 - $5.75 ($338.31) - 6 wks (U) -43.3%
 . . . 2395 / $2400
10. Grown Ups 2 - $3.7 ($123.8) - 5 wks (Sony) -53.4%
 . . . 2102 / $1760
11. Blue Jasmine - $2.52 ($6.22) - 3 wks (SPC) +35.7%
 . . . 116 / $21,750
12. Turbo - $2.25 ($75.02) - 4 wks (Fox) -63.9%
 . . . 1771 / $1270

Four new releases this week, and the only real disappointment was Percy Jackson.  Maybe the studio hoped interest would be there for a second installment.

Elysium, meanwhile, is a modest success.  Modest considering its $115 million production budget.  We're the Millers had a much smaller budget and will wind up doing about the same domestically.  Planes had been intended as a straight-to-DVD spinoff but the theatrical release paid off.

The Conjuring - Movie Review

Starring Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Joey King and Mackenzie Foy.
Directed by James Wan.

★★★1/4

James Wan made his name with Saw, a clever, grisly indie that spawned several sequels with diminishing returns.  He then came back with Insidious, where he kept the scares within a PG-13 realm, and while it had numerous flaws, it did a great job with its primary goal - to be scary.

The Conjuring is similar to Insidious in that it goes for PG-13 scares with supernatural forces.  The MPAA rated it R simply because it was too scary.

The movie's based on a true story from Ed & Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators who were also involved in researching what came to be known as the Amityville Horror.  Here, they're helping the Perron family, who've moved into a farmhouse that's apparently haunted by some former occupants.

What holds The Conjuring back is that notion that it's "a true story."  Even if you believe in spirits, it goes places where you just know they're embellishing for the movie's sake. I even tried looking up the "true story" and it wasn't easy to find.  The oldest daughter has since written a book based on her experiences from that house; I'm sure it may have been spooky for her but didn't come close to what the house manifests here.

Is it scary?  Yes. Especially in the middle, Wan and his crew do a great job with lingering camera shots, dim lighting, and playing with audience expectations and outsmarting them for effective jump-scares.  This movie is now the answer to "What film has the scariest hand-clap in cinematic history?"

Upstream Color - DVD Review

Starring Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig and Thiago Martins.
Directed by Shane Carruth.

★★★½

I never thought I'd love a movie that was told in mostly montages, but this weird, weird movie pulled it off.  It has a plot in its head, but if it was told straightforward, I don't think it would make much sense.  By telling the story in a more abstract fashion, it worked, leaving more open for interpretation.

We find a man identified as the Thief, who's found a drug that he can put in worms.  When a person ingests the worm, it puts them in a hypotized state, where the person will do or see anything someone else says.  While in this state, the Thief gets the person to empty their bank accounts and take large loans. He makes off with the money, and the victim is left with amnesia.  We see this happen to Kris (The Killing's Amy Seimetz), and there is another man identified as the Sampler.  The Sampler helps extract the worm from her system, and he then puts the worm into a pig.

Months later, she's getting her life back on track, and somewhere in there she meets Jeff (Carruth), whom we gather had the same thing happen to him. And it goes from there.

How much choice to we have in the choices we make? Why do people connect? How much of this was in her head? It's all open. I have my own theories on what it all meant, what really happened, and I've started reading the others. It's a movie that made my mind swim.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation - DVD Review

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis, Byung Hoo-Lee, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson, Adrianne Palecki, Elodie Yung, D.J. Cotrona, Walton Goggins, Luke Bracey and Arnold Vosloo.
Directed by Jon M. Chu.

★½

The first movie was not good.  You had director Stephen Sommers' Mummy-sequel sensibilities, Marlon Wayans, those CGI suits the Joes wore, phoned-in performances from the likes of Dennis Quaid and Rachel Nichols, and a movie that felt like the entire purpose was to set up Part 2.

Chu takes over directing duties, and he kills off most of the Joes, thereby nullifying a lot of the events from Part 1.  Gone are Hawk, Baroness, Scarlet, Ripcord, Heavy Duty, etc.  Destro's left in his Minority-Report-type prison, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt has left Cobra Commander duties to an actor named Luke Bracey.  GI Joe 2 had a smaller budget, and I see where some significant cuts were made.

Master-of-disguise Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) has assumed the disguise of the President (Jonathan Pryce), which means this time around, Pryce gets to be the villain.  (I don't think Vosloo himself worked more than a day on this film.)  Storm Shadow (Byung Hoo-Lee), whom I swore died in the first one, is back, but his allegiances aren't as obvious.

New Joes include Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (the bland Adrianne Palecki) and Flint, played by D.J. Cotrona, who makes Palecki look like an Academy Award winning actress. Maybe his part was underwritten, or maybe they cut a lot of his stuff out after they saw what a dead weight he was, but he was sore-thumb bad for me.

For those who grew up on the 1980's cartoon and toy line, I can't say it's any better than the first one. But if you liked the first one, you'll probably like the second one. I didn't care for the first one, and I was hoping the significant changes might result in a better movie.  Didn't happen.

Bright spot of the movie: Walton Goggins (Justified) as the supermax prison warden who loves his job.

Since GI Joe 3 is happening, and Chu will again direct, I hope they kill Flint quickly and bring back Destro. I can't imagine Christopher Eccleston couldn't use the money.

2 Guns is #1, Smurfs is #3

1. 2 Guns - $27.36 million - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 3025 screens / $9045 per screen
2. The Wolverine - $21.73 ($95.04) - 2 wks (Fox) -59.1%
 . . . 3924 / $5536
3. The Smurfs 2 - $18.2 ($27.76) - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3866 / $4708
4. The Conjuring - $13.66 ($108.59) - 3 wks (WB) -38.5%
 . . . 3115 / $4385
5. Despicable Me 2 - $10.39 ($326.67) - 5 wks (U) -36.7%
 . . . 3207 / $3240
6. Grown Ups 2 - $8.1 ($116.4) - 4 wks (Sony) -30.2%
 . . . 3075 / $2634
7. Turbo - $6.4 ($69.48) - 3 wks (Fox) -53.4%
 . . . 2985 / $2144
8. Red 2 - $5.65 ($45.15) - 3 wks (LG) -39.5%
 . . . 2755 / $2051
9. The Heat - $4.73 ($149.57) - 6 wks (Fox) -31.7%
 . . . 2074 / $2278
10. Pacific Rim - $4.57 ($92.96) - 4 wks (WB) -40.7%
 . . . 1803 / $2535
11. The Way Way Back - $2.85 ($13.67) - 5 wks (FS) -17.3%
 . . . 1001 / $2847

2 Guns is the new #1, and while it didn't quite cross the $30 million opening Universal was hoping for, it was good enough to make the headlines this weekend.  The Smurfs 2 has to be considered a fizzle.

This Is the End - Movie Review

Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Emma Watson, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Rihanna and David Krumholtz.
Directed by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg.

★★½

This meta-movie where these actors play versions of themselves actually works quite nicely.  Many of them tend to play themselves over and over, so why not just have them be themselves instead of with "character" names? I wonder if Adam Sandler's upset he didn't think of this first.

Jay Baruchel is visiting L.A., a town he doesn't really like.  He and Seth Rogen hang out and get high (what's a Seth Rogen movie without everyone doing pot?) and then head to a party at James Franco's house.  Jay doesn't really want to hang out, but that's when the apocalypse hits.

After the rapture and fire and brimstone and chaos, the cast gets whittled down to Seth, Jay, Franco, Jonah, Craig and Danny, and the six of them are holed up in Franco's house until they can figure out what their next move is.

Each guy is willing to make fun of himself. Jonah Hill has a new air of superiority about himself now that he's forever an "Academy-Award nominee."  Even when he prays he introduces himself to God as "Jonah Hill, from Moneyball."  Franco has a man-crush for Seth but wishes Danny would just die already.  The six have to look at their shallow actorly lives to figure out why they've been left behind.

There is a lot of crudeness and pot humor, but it has a lot of funny moments as well.

Epic - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Colin Farrell, Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Christoph Waltz, Beyonce, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Pitbull, Steven Tyler and Jason Sudeikis.
Directed by Chris Wedge.

★★½

You can still catch this at $2 theaters, which is how I saw it.

What I took away most was the visuals.  The animation is really lovely, the weaving of this fairy world in with the trees and bushes and so forth.

The story is your fish-out-of-water variety, where a teen girl finds herself shrunk to the size of the leaf-men, who've somehow stayed hidden from mankind all this time. And when you're small, suddenly you can have conversations with slugs and snails.  Meanwhile they're an evil race that wants to turn the forest rotten. Very FernGully.

The humor isn't as crossover as your usual Pixar effort, but it's not too obnoxious either.  I'd rank it just above Arthur & the Invisibles.

Jack the Giant Slayer - DVD Review

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Ewan McGregor, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan and Ewan Bremner.
Directed by Bryan Singer.

★★

This movie is a prime example of an over-reliance on CGI to cover up problems with the actual story. The giants are fake, they look fake, and so there's no weight to them, cool as it may be to watch the humans run around on giant sets.

Hoult (Warm Bodies) plays Jack, the young man who eventually gets magic beans. A twist this time around is that the princess likes to travel in disguise among her people to get a taste of the real world (think Aladdin and Jasmine), but she is at Jack's when one of the beans accidentally gets wet and shoots into the sky.

There is some wonder building up to the meeting of the giants, but then when we do meet them, it's underwhelming.  They look like a cross between LOTR's cave trolls and ... the people of Polar Express.  If they're this humanoid, why not go for make-up and prosthetics and get some real-looking creatures to fight?  The 100% CGI-ness of the giants sucks out the wonder, and it sucked me out of the movie.

It's clearly made for children when it comes to the acting styles, but there's also enough heads getting bit off by giants that it earns its PG-13 rating.

Wolverine wins weekend

1. The Wolverine - $55 million - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3924 screens / $14,016 per screen
2. The Conjuring - $22.13 ($83.87) - 2 wks (WB) -47.1%
 . . . 3022 / $7323
3. Despicable Me 2 - $16.02 ($306.41) - 4 wks (U) -35.7%
 . . . 3476 / $4610
4. Turbo - $13.33 ($55.77) - 2 wks (Fox) -37.5%
 . . . 3809 / $3498
5. Grown Ups 2 - $11.5 ($101.66) - 3 wks (Sony) -42.1%
 . . . 3258 / $3530
6. Red 2 - $9.4 ($35.07) - 2 wks (LG) -47.9%
 . . . 3016 / $3117
7. Pacific Rim - $7.54 ($84.03) - 3 wks (WB) -52.9%
 . . . 2602 / $2898
8. The Heat - $6.85 ($141.25) - 5 wks (Fox) -26.4%
 . . . 2384 / $2873
9. R.I.P.D. - $5.86 ($24.35) - 2 wks (U) -53.9%
 . . . 2850 / $2055
10. Fruitvale Station - $4.66 ($6.34) - 3 wks (Wein) +529%
 . . . 1064 / $4377
11. The Way Way Back - $3.3 ($8.93) - 4 wks (FS) +50%
 . . . 886 / $3725
12. World War Z - $2.76 ($192.62) - 6 wks (Par) -46.8%
 . . . 1440 / $1917

The Wolverine is off to a nice start, showing there's still life in those adamantium-boned legs of his.  Meanwhile some of last week's releases (Turbo, Red 2, RIPD) are sinking fast and will be hard-pressed to be profitable.

Random TV Stuff - 7/25/13

MOTIVE (ABC) - Kristin Lehman (The Killing) and Luis Ferreira (SGU: Stargate Universe) play two cops who investigate homicides.  The twist to this Law & Order-type procedural is we know who the killer is early, and we watch as the cops try to solve the crime.  But so as to not confuse it with L&O, it's filmed in this gritty yellow sheen. Reminded me of the failed Victor Garber drama called Justice.  It's not a bad watch-it-once procedural I guess, but also like L&O, the cops aren't really characters so much as stand-ins to spout the facts, and since there's no mystery whodunnit... what's the point?

----

BIG BROTHER (CBS) - The twist this year was that America would be able to vote for an MVP each week who would then pick a third houseguest to nominate for eviction each week.  But one of the HGs this year is Elissa, sister of previous winner Rachel Reilly.  So each week, Elissa wins the MVP vote.  To mix it up, this week "America" was MVP and texters got to vote for who they want to see nominated.  Now because Aaryn was already nominated, I'm assuming second place was America's pick and it was... Elissa.

It created some interesting drama by BB not telling the HG's the twist that America picked.  Since Elissa always confided to most of the house she was MVP each week, now the hamsters got paranoid.  Some even theorized Elissa put herself up to throw off suspicion.  Elissa won the PoV and saved herself, so GinaMarie took her spot, and now the three Mean Girls are all nominated. Kaitlyn, the Kristen Stewart doppleganger, is the nicest of the three Mean Girls so they get rid of her because she's the biggest "threat."  Aaryn's the most despised, so she may stay for a long time.

----

THE KILLING (AMC) - I hope the reason Peter Sarsgaard wasn't nominated for an Emmy was because this season isn't actually eligible for nominations until next year.  His work as a death-row inmate who's likely innocent has been incredible.  Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman still have their chemistry as Lindon and Holder, two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.  The third season's been the best for this show, by far.

Random Movie Stuff - 7/24/13

- Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan are teaming with Sylvester Stallone to make Creed.  Stallone would reprise his role as Rocky Balboa as a trainer who helps Apollo Creed's grandson (Jordan) to be a professional boxer.

- David Goyer and Zack Snyder, the respective writer and director of Man of Steel, will reunite for Batman vs. Superman, coming in 2015.  The title's not for sure yet, but Goyer confirmed they're already in pre-production.

- Gil Kenan (Monster House) and Rosemary DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married, The Watch) will star in a remake of Poltergeist.

- Carey Mulligan (The Great Gatsby) is in talks to star in The Fury, about the UK suffrage movement.  It'll be written by Abi Morgan (Shame, which co-starred Mulligan).

- Topher Grace is the latest to join the cast of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.  It's set for release on November 7, 2014, and stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck and John Lithgow.

- Jessica Alba has joined the cast of Stretch, starring Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring) as a limo driver on his last shift who picks up a billionaire (Chris Pine) whose freaky special requests get darker as the night goes on.  Ed Helms and Brooklyn Decker co-star. Joe Carnahan (The Grey) will direct.

- Clint Eastwood will direct The Jersey Boys, based on the hit Broadway musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  Christopher Walken is the first cast member to join. He'll play mobster Angelo "Gyp" DeCarlo.

New trailers:

- Keanu Reeves leads 47 RONIN, opening on December 25.



- Rachel McAdams marries a man who can do a bit of time-traveling in ABOUT TIME, opening November 1.

The Watch - DVD Review

Starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Adaoye, Rosemary DeWitt, Will Forte, Mel Rodriguez, Nicholas Braun and Billy Crudup.
Directed by Akiva Schaffer.

★½

It was unfortunate for this movie that the George Zimmerman case became national news before its release.  The studio changed the movie's name from Neighborhood Watch to The Watch, and they played up the aliens subplot, which I think they wanted to be more secretive about leading up to the release.

Stiller & Vaughn, that comedy duo from Dodgeball, are left to their own comic devices where a lot of their lines come off as improvised, but they're never actually funny.  Stiller's the OCD guy who starts up 20 different community groups to compensate for not having any actual friends.  Vaughn is the local jock-idiot who likes the excuse "Neighborhood Watch" gives to get out of the house.  Hill, at least, has a little more of a character, but he's the vigilante-cop-wannabe, an intense guy that you do not want holding a gun or joining the force.  Can't help but think of Zimmerman with him.

The motivations of the aliens didn't make sense, and not just the ones they blast like video-game monsters.  That wouldn't matter as much if the film had laughs to hide its flaws.  Its flaws stand naked.

The Lone Ranger - Movie Review

Starring Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Ruth Wilson, James Badge Dale, Barry Pepper and Helena Bonham Carter.
Directed by Gore Verbinski.

★★½

The Lone Ranger is one of those characters who's just about extinct.  I'm 40, and I barely remember him.  I mean, I know there was him and Tonto, and I'm pretty sure I saw an episode of the TV show before. I remember the Filmation cartoon from 1980 that rotated with Tarzan and Zorro.  I remember the William Tell Overture and "Heigh-ho, Silver!"  I remembered enough to know that the guy from this movie was not the Lone Ranger.

John Reid was a character who stood for justice in the Wild West.  He also abhorred killing and tried to take 'em alive whenever possible.  Maybe it today's age that seems too square or corny, whatever the word is, but rather than embrace the earnestness like in Captain America, they turn him into a sissy-man joke.  This Reid is a naive, foppish lawyer who even stand carrying a gun in a gun fight.  He's a dweeb who must be propped up by Tonto (Depp), a Comanche who has his own weird problems.

Remember Without a Clue? It was a comedic spin on Sherlock Holmes where Holmes (Michael Caine) was the face but Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley) was the real brains behind the operation.  I wondered if this movie realized it was going the same route here. This is like a Tarzan movie that starts with him afraid of heights. (Even the poster tries to scoot him out of the picture.)

Aside from that glaring, gaping problem, for the most part I had fun at this movie.  And looking back, it was actually faithful to the source material in many other ways.  I watched the premiere episode and was delighted to see that the set-up was the same, with the group of rangers pursuing the outlaw Butch Cavendish through a canyon when they get ambushed and killed, thanks to a traitor named Collins.  The movie was even filmed in the exact same canyon as the TV show.

Reid now travels with the mask in pursuit of Cavendish. Tonto wants Cavendish caught too, for he believes him to be a wendigo, a devil who must be killed.  Meanwhile, the railroad's being built and you just know the head of the railroad company is going to wind up being the main villain that Cavendish happens to work for.  Progress, claims the movie, is evil.

Now this movie suffers the same excess problems as the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.  It goes for 2 1/2 hours, and it could easily trimmed ten minutes here, ten minutes there.  Helena Bonham Carter's part could have been cut completely, but she is here because her soul is bound to Depp's, and it provides the opportunity for the men to visit a whorehouse.  All Westerns these days must eventually visit a whorehouse while looking for the bad guy, just like how today's detective movies always have to visit a strip-club to crack the case.

There is a moment of movie magic, when things are looking dire, when the Lone Ranger arrives to save the day and ignite our climax.  The William Tell Overture kicks in, and I got fuzzies.  We're over two hours in, and finally "The Lone Ranger" has arrived!  The final 20-minute chase scene using two trains on parallel tracks was as thrilling as any action scene in any movie the past couple summers.

Gore Verbinski, who won an Oscar for Rango, his animated Western, knows how to stage scenes and execute them.

This movie isn't as bad as some critics have been suggesting. I can't honestly call it good, but I was entertained, and I'd rather see The Lone Ranger 2 over Pirates of the Caribbean 5.

Conjuring wins weekend

1. The Conjuring - $41.53 million - 1 wk (WB)
 . . . 2903 screens / $14,306 per screen
2. Despicable Me 2 - $25.06 ($276.16) - 3 wks (U) -42.9%
 . . . 3820 / $6560
3. Turbo - $21.5 ($31.2) - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3806 / $5649
4. Grown Ups 2 - $20 ($79.5) - 2 wks (Sony) -51.8%
 . . . 3491 / $5729
5. Red 2 - $18.5 - 1 wk (LG)
 . . . 3016 / $6134
6. Pacific Rim - $15.96 ($68.24) - 2 wks (WB) -57.2%
 . . . 3285 / $4857
7. RIPD - $12.76 - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 2852 / $4475
8. The Heat - $9.33 ($129.29) - 4 wks (Fox) -33.4%
 . . . 2689 / $3468
9. World War Z - $5.2 ($186.94) - 5 wks (Par) -44.2%
 . . . 2066 / $2517
10. Monsters University - $5 ($249) - 5 wks (BV) -52.9%
 . . . 2186 / $2290
11. The Lone Ranger - $4.26 ($81.17) - 3 wks (BV) -63%
 . . . 2273 / $1874
12. White House Down - $2.4 ($68.45) - 4 wks (Sony) -61.1%
 . . . 1454 / $1651
13. The Way Way Back - $2.24 ($4.63) - 3 wks (FS) +99.7%
 . . . 304 / $7368
14. Kevin Hart Let Me Explain - $2.1 ($30.01) - 3 wks (LG) -55.8%
 . . . 748 / $2807
15. Man of Steel - $1.84 ($285.02) - 6 wks (WB) -61%
 . . . 1050 / $1752
16. This Is the End - $1.23 ($94.48) - 6 wks (Sony) -57%
 . . . 622 / $1969
17. Fruitvale Station - $.74 ($1.33) - 2 wks (Wein) +92.1%
 . . . 34 / $21,824

The Conjuring had one of the highest debuts ever for an R-rated original horror flick.  It also had the smallest production budget ($20 million) of any of the new releases.  Turbo is a big disappointment for DreamWorks Animation, so between that and Blue Sky's Epic, Fox had two underperforming animated releases. (Epic, at least, managed to cross the $100 million mark and will be ultimately be profitable once it hits DVD.)

Red 2 opened a little lower than the original. Maybe it should have picked a less crowded weekend.  R.I.P.D. is D.O.A. (har-har!).  It looked like a Men in Black ripoff at first glance, and it's had terrible reviews.

Despicable Me 2 will be the second-highest grossing film of the summer.  Thanksgiving 2014 is when we'll get the Minions movie, and I'm sure DM3 will hit Summer 2016.  Grown Ups 2 justifies Adam Sandler's lack of effort in his last few movies.  Pacific Rim had a worrisome dropoff for its second week.

The Walking Dead Season 4 Trailer

More Daryl Dixon = Good thing