BEFORE: Well, I promised you the most ridiculous Nicolas Cage film I could find for April Fool's Day, and I'm thinking this has just GOT to be it. Read the plot description below and tell me you. don't agree. Certainly if I WERE inclined to mess with you and just make up a movie with an outlandish plot, this might be the kind of thing that would at least SOUND made up, but I assure you, this film is for real. Look it up on Hulu or the IMDB if you don't believe me.
I also promised you my actor links for the month of April, and they are: Alex Wolff, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, Elizabeth Banks, Ed Harris, Gerard Butler, John Leguizamo, Stephanie Beatriz AND Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega AND Christopher Jackson, Bradley Whitford, Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph, Thomas Jay Ryan AND Alex Karpovsky, Louisa Krause, Ethan Hawke, Jim Gaffigan, Amanda Peet, Allison Janney, Chris Lowell, Alfred Molina. A lot of doubles, and a lot of people in three-movie chains, which explains why there are only 20 actors linking films in a 30-day month. You'll see when we get there, or have fun trying to figure it all out now. But in addition to an Easter film, I think I've got THREE of this year's Oscar-nominated animated features in there, so it should be fun - I'm going to try to work in "The Batman", too.
Oh, and tonight Nicolas Cage enters into a TIE with Bruce Willis for most appearances this year so far, they both have nine. Can I stand another Nic Cage film tomorrow, to push him into the lead?
THE PLOT: A quiet drifter is tricked into a janitorial job at the now condemned Willy's Wonderland. The mundane tasks suddenly become an all-out fight for survival against wave after wave of demonic animatronics. Fists fly, kicks land, titans clash - and only one side will make it out alive.
AFTER: OK, so this throwaway, nonsensical little horror (?) comedy actually has a bit of depth to it. Wait, am I kidding? This is April Fool's Day, so you should probably know better than to take me seriously, I'm barely serious on a regular day, so all bets are off today. Still, I'd probably rather watch THIS pile of hot garbage than something like, say, "Sonic the Hedgehog". That just looks even more horrible than this does.
BUT, Cage plays a guy who's just driving through a peaceful Southern town when his tires blow out - the local mechanic tells him that some teenagers must have stolen the spike strip from the sheriff, and left it in the road. Then a little later in the film, when the mechanic starts running up the bill on four new tires and the towing charges, I thought, "Wait a second, the mechanic probably put some nails in the road just to make a quick buck!" (This happened to my wife TWICE in the same spot on Route 128 in Massachusetts, and wouldn't you know it, there was a service station RIGHT where she pulled off the highway, just a bit too convenient...). But then why would the mechanic offer to let the drifter work off the repair bill, just by cleaning up a rundown children's party restaurant overnight, what's the angle here?
Ah, but things become clearer later on in the picture - there's something lurking in the shadows of this former party palace, it seems the animatronic performers have a life of their own, and they're hungry...for your SOUL! Around the same time the drifter gets to work cleaning up the bathrooms, a group of teens arrives, they've been planning for a long time to burn down Willy's Wonderland, because it seems like nobody else will. Really, kids, was the pizza THAT bad? Or did they all get molested in the ball pit? Maybe they just can't get those annoying birthday songs out of their heads, in which case burning down the building would be totally understandable.
But wait, there's more, the drifter seems to be prepared for what's about to happen - so now we have to think back to the tow-truck incident, the mechanic's bait-and-switch and wonder if the drifter knew what was happening all along, and he went along with it, just to get inside so he could battle these horrible cutesy monsters. How else would he know the best way to kill each one? Wow, who was exploiting who, back at the start of this tale?
And here's (maybe) the best part - Nicolas Cage is the lead actor here, and I don't think he has ANY dialogue at all, not one line. This isn't like when Bruce Willis made all those lame action movies I watched in January, and shot his scenes for each all in one day, Cage is all over this film, and never, ever speaks. That's pretty genius, I have to say - because it's that theory again, hiding the book in the library, Cage is surrounded here by little-known actors who I don't recognize from anything else, and therefore, he stands out. Talking at this point would just ruin the illusion, I think - as long as he's strong, silent and gets the killing done, who cares if he talks? Honestly, there are a few actors out there who could learn a thing or two from watching this performance. It's all in the nuanced expression, right? Or maybe in the lack thereof. Don't worry, the group of teens is there to pick up the slack, they're very talkative as they commit every bad mistake that teens do in horror movies. (Really? You want to have sex NOW, in the abandoned pizza restaurant? The one that hasn't been cleaned in 20 years? Ewwww.)
It takes a few cans of "Punch" energy drink, and a few breaks playing pinball, to really clean this restaurant, physically and spiritually. And look, I don't know why this character doesn't have a name (he's just called "The Janitor" in the credits) or why he doesn't talk. Who cares? This is just good, clean, stupid fun. This may make a tiny bit more sense than "Prisoners of the Ghostland", it's a bit tough to say, and maybe neither film really has a point, but if Nic Cage doesn't care, why should you? Anyway, the whole thing's easily explainable, because if you drink THAT much Punch energy drink, you'd probably hallucinate a bunch of singing animatronic characters killing teens, too.
I've got one slot left for a Nic Cage film tomorrow, and that film has to connect me back to another film on my list, and that's got to point me in the direction of Easter. So I can't get to "Mandy", "Primal", "Kill Chain", "Color Out of Space", "Mom and Dad", "Arsenal" or "Left Behind". Nic Cage sure has been busy these last few years! It's also a darn shame that "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" isn't getting released until April 22. Well, I guess there's always next year, right?
I also don't think I can land a war film on Memorial Day, the best I can do is the week before - but I'm planning to hit Mother's Day, Father's Day and July 4 right on the nose, things are lining up quite well for this spring and summer, I must say. And in between Mother's Day and Father's Day, I think I can get to three Marvel movies - "The Eternals", "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" and " Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", if I just stick to the plan. Come on, no whammies!
Also starring Emily Tosta, Beth Grant (last seen in "Lucky"), Ric Reitz (last seen in "Broken City"), Chris Warner, Kai Kadlec, Caylee Cowan, Jonathan Mercedes, Terayle Hill (last seen in "Love, Simon"), Christian Delgrosso, David Sheftell, Jiri Stanek, Jessica Graves Davis, Taylor Towery, Chris Schmidt Jr., Christopher Bradley, Duke Jackson (last seen in "Baby Driver"), Billy Bussey, BJ Guyer, Chris Padilla, Olga Cramer, Grant Cramer, Jason Tyler, with the voices of Emoi, Mark Gagliardi, Abel Arias, Madisun Leigh.
RATING: 4 out of 10 garbage bags tossed in the dumpster
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