Minions: The Rise of Gru

Year 14, Day 260 - 9/17/22 - Movie #4,246 - VIEWED on 7/21/22

BEFORE: I'm working at an art sale this weekend, and I have to be there early, so this is a great time to run a review I wrote a month ago, for a film I saw TWO months ago, this saves me from staying up late tonight...

So I watched this one in the middle of my Summer Doc Fest, in-between the doc about Sammy Davis Jr. and the one about Jerry Lewis.  First off, I badly needed a break from docs about the Rat Pack, they were fine, but my brain needs some fictional entertainment, and I needed to stop focusing on dead celebrities, just for a bit. I figured, maybe some positive energy from a wild animation film.  Plus I'd determined that watching the new "Minions" movie was critical to keeping my chain going in September, only I couldn't be sure if the film would be available then.  With my luck at that point it would probably have left theaters, and not been available on streaming yet, though with release dates being what they are these days, who can tell?  It seems if a movie is doing well in the theaters then it could be six months before the film is on Netflix or Hulu, but then again, the release date on streaming might be pre-planned to follow 45 or 60 days after the theatrical, there are some funky arrangements out there right now, between the studios and the streamers.  Anyway, I wanted to be sure to see this one, I need the chain to continue, I didn't watch almost 250 films this year just to drop the ball now. 

Yeah, it looks a little funky when a 53-year old man shows up at a theater in midtown Manhattan to watch a kid's movie, without a kid.  Pretty bad optics, but they have to allow for older childless animation fans, right?  We're a bit weird, but we're out there. I think I saw "Despicable Me 3" in a movie theater, years ago, but I'm thinking I also passed on "Minions" until it came to cable.  This animated film thus counts as both a sequel and a prequel, or just a continuation of the story as a cash-grab.  Let's see if they can inject some life back into this franchise...

Russell Brand carries over from "Death on the Nile".  

THE PLOT: The untold story of one twelve-year-old's dream to become the world's greatest supervillain.  

AFTER: This is a film that's had its release date delayed several times, I guess the studio felt they were sitting on a winner, so they didn't send this one straight to streaming, they just sat on it and kept moving the date.  That's usually a sign that a movie is bad, like they did that with "New Mutants", but I think this proved to be a smart move.  The film made back its $80 million budget in the first weekend, and currently the gross is up to $548 million worldwide.  Somebody at Universal just got a corner office and a raise.  

It's been 12 years since the first "Despicable Me" film, and I feel like maybe I should have done a re-watch of all the films before going to see "Minions 2", but since Gru is 12 years old here, and in charge of the Minions for the first time, it's really not necessary.  The only thing that ties this story to the original trilogy is the presence of Gru and the Minions, almost everything else here is all-new.  There's just one other character from the first film that's back, and that's Dr. Nefario, and this film also explains how he came to work for Gru as a mad scientist.  And they got the original voice actor back, I guess Russell Brand wasn't available for "Despicable Me 3" so his character spent that whole movie frozen in a block of carbonite like Han Solo, so he wouldn't have to say anything.  

Other than that, we're a far cry from the first film, when Gru stole the moon and adopted those three young girls, or the second film, where Gru joined the Anti-Villain League and fell in love with another one of its agents, or the third film, where the whole family met Gru's brother and they fought that weird ex-child star character.  But that first "Minions" film got released between DM2 and DM3?  That's not how I remember things, but I guess I'm wrong - I should go back and re-watch them all, probably.  Anyway, that "Minions" prequel ended with them finding Gru and going to work for him, and that's just before this 2nd prequel starts.  Ah, yes, there's my review of "Despicable Me 3" from July 31, 2017 - I didn't like it that much. Also, five years ago feels like a lifetime away.

Since there's an Anti-Villain League, it makes sense for there to be a Villains League, too - here it's called the Vicious 6, and this group of weirdos with bad puns in their names steals this stone with the powers of the Chinese zodiac, which will give them great power on the first night of Chinese New Year or something.  In the process of stealing it, five of them take the opportunity to kick one member, Wild Knuckles, out of the group, by killing him, only I knew for sure he wasn't dead, why introduce a character just to kill him?  Anyway, the group conducts auditions to replace him in the group, and they contact Gru, for some reason - this doesn't make too much sense because Gru is 12, and has no reputation as a villain yet, so how would the Vicious 6 even KNOW about him? (NITPICK POINT). 

But Gru fails the audition, only he doesn't, because he takes their accidental advice and steals the stone, so that they'll have to let him into the group to get the stone back.  This is the first of about a dozen reversals over the course of the film, concerning who's working with who, who's fighting who, who has the thing and then who tries to get it back.  And everything's difficult, every time somebody says THIS has to happen, you just know there's going to be a roadblock put in place to make that harder, because nothing in this world comes easy.  Everything is difficult, problems keep arising and then the struggle continues, and once that's solved, on to the next problem, but that's going to be hard too.  It's like somebody is preparing the kids in the audience for their adult jobs, whatever they may be.  

The Minions all represent this crazy, problematic work ethic, too - whenever they think of something it seems like a great idea, only then they mess it up, and they have to go way far out of their way to try and fix it, then once in a while they get lucky and stumble on a solution only not the one they intended, but then five seconds later, it's on to the next problem.  Sure, there's a through-line and eventually everything works out for the best, but it's so enormously frustrating along the way.  This is life, kids, you might as well learn that now, it takes a lot of effort just to maintain your place in this world, and not everything is going to go your way.  

Gru teams up with Wild Knuckles, who is (surprise) not dead, and he is Gru's favorite villain, what a coincidence, so after a kidnapping and some torture W.K. becomes Gru's mentor, meanwhile three of the minions travel to San Francisco (don't ask how) and realize they need to study kung fu in Chinatown, somehow completing a multi-year martial arts training program in under two days.  Well, they had a good if unlikely teacher.  Meanwhile the fourth main minion chases after a guy on a motorcycle with just a Big Wheel, but still somehow manages to catch him - instead of stealing the Zodiac stone from him, they just hang out on a long cycle ride, do fun stuff and hang, and the biker just gives it to him.  Another good lesson for the kids, not everything needs to be done through fighting.  

But everything gets really manic and confusing during the climactic battle, the five villains get the stone and turn into giant fierce animals from the Chinese calendar, while the three minions get turned into a rabbit, a goat and a chicken, which is just odd. Gru's tied to a clock that supposedly is going to tear him apart, just very slowly, and Wild Knuckles and the minions are expected to battle these 5 giant super-powered animals, it's all very surreal but doesn't make a lick of sense.  And where are the Anti-Villain League agents when all of this is going down?  Oh, I guess they just show up after everything is over and arrest anyone who's still alive, that's a big letdown. 

Sure, it's fun and crazy and I guess exciting, but it's no "The Bad Guys", even though it played off of some similar themes.  For that matter, it's no "Encanto" or "Mitchells vs. the Machines" either.  Still, it was better than "Raya and the Last Dragon".  Setting this one back in the disco-era with all the crazy fashions and great music was a stroke of genius, and also there are many great cultural references and in-jokes along the way for those of us who remember the 1970's, or people who can't remember much since then.  I love great phony names for restaurants and stores in movies, and to have the villain's lair hidden in a record store, what else would you call that, except "Criminal Records". Tha's also genius. 

Also starring the voices of Steve Carell (last seen in "Irresistible"), Pierre Coffin (last heard in "The Grinch"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Taraji P. Henson (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Michelle Yeoh (last seen in "Boss Level"), Julie Andrews (last seen in "Becoming Mike Nichols"), Jean-Claude Van Damme (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 3"), Dolph Lundgren (last seen in "Creed II"), Danny Trejo (last seen in "The Replacement Killers"), Lucy Lawless, RZA (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Jimmy O. Yang (last seen in "Fantasy Island"), Kevin Michael Richardson (last heard in "Tarzan & Jane"), John DiMaggio (last heard in "Scoob!"), Will Arnett (last seen in "Let's Go to Prison"), Steve Coogan (last seen in "Greed"), Colette Whitaker, Raymond S. Persi (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 fireworks

Death on the Nile (2022)

Year 14, Day 259 - 9/16/22 - Movie #4,245

BEFORE: I (sort of) met Kenneth Branagh back in February, during awards season things kind of heated up at the theater where I work part-time, a lot of big actors and directors come to speak to the various guild members at the screenings, they do Q&A's to try to influence their voting, I guess.  Not for "Death on the Nile", no way, this was at a screening of "Belfast", which I'm trying to save for St. Patrick's Day next year, maybe.  But I got to cue him to go on stage after the screening was over, and the tech team gave me a few seconds notice that the credits were about to end and the lights would be coming on.  I got a picture of him in the lobby, not a selfie, just a candid shot.  I love sending my wife blurry candid photos of celebrities, especially ones where you can't tell for sure who it is, so, really, it could be a photo of anybody, but I know it's a photo of Kenneth Branagh.  

Two actresses carry over from "Sing 2", Jennifer Saunders and Letitia Wright. Sorry for dropping in a murder mystery in a week that's mostly kids movies, but the logic of dropping this one in here will be apparent tomorrow, this one also connects to another animated movie for kids. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Murder on the Orient Express" (Movie #2,901)

THE PLOT: While on vacation on the Nile, Hercule Poirot must investigate the murder of a young heiress. 

AFTER: What's funny is that I watched the 1978 version of "Death on the Nile", with Peter Ustinov playing Poirot, WAY back in Year ONE of this project, in June of 2009 - and of course I don't remember the identity of the murderer, because that was like over 4,000 movies ago.  (4,072, but who's counting?). I mean, I remember who the killer was in "Murder on the Orient Express", but largely because I'd seen the MAD magazine version back when I was a kid, and of course, that Agatha Christie story has a very memorable and distinct ending.  This one, eh, maybe not so much.  

They pull that "I've gathered all the suspects together in this room...." jazz at the end, but it's really not necessary.  I kind of feel like I could have guessed the killer and the twist here, it's almost painfully obvious.  What starts as a love triangle ends in a murder, after Simon Doyle, the fiancé of Jackie de Belfort leaves her for the more attractive and richer heiress, Linnet Ridgeway.  After the couple leaves on a honeymoon cruise down the Nile, the scorned Jackie keeps turning up somehow at every stop.  Also on the ship is Linnet's maid, Louise, her godmother, Marie Van Schuyler, her godmother's nurse/companion, Mrs. Bowers, her financial manager and cousin, Andrew Katchadourian, and her former fiancé, Dr. Windlesham.  Also, for some reason, blues singer Salome Otterbourne is on the cruise, I guess because she was performing at a club in London, the night that Simon and Linnet met, and this means that Salome's niece and manager, Rosalie, is also aboard.  Rosalie is in love with Bouc, who was a character in the previous movie, "Murder on the Orient Express", and Bouc's mother, an artist named Euphemia.  Bouc is also friends with Hercule Poirot, which kind of explains why he's on the ship.  

(When we saw Hercule Poirot at the end of the last movie, he was being summoned to go on the river cruise down (up?) the Nile River, but that all seemed a little weird, because the murder in question hadn't happened yet, so why was he needed BEFORE it took place?  Ah, he was being hired to be on that ship for a totally different reason, which we find out later.  Getting to solve a murder while there is really just the icing on the cake for him.)

But before all this goes down, there's a flashback to World War I, where Poirot, as a young soldier, puts his powers of observation to good use.  He notices that the birds are flying a certain way, which means the wind is from the east, which makes it a good time for Belgian forces to attack the German army and take back the bridge, since the fog will cover their crossing of the No Man's Land between the trenches.  He's right, of course, but the traps on the bridge still take the life of his commanding officer, and he feels responsible.  Also, this sequence serves as the origin story for Poirot's moustache, and I really wish I were joking about this.  

Anyway, back to the murder.  Everybody who's on the boat after the heiress gets killed had some kind of grudge against her, or would somehow profit from her death - so it started to look like a repeat of the group from "Murder on the Orient Express", who all had a reason to kill Johnny Depp's career - I mean, the businessman played by Johnny Depp.  But this mystery then goes in a different direction as Poirot starts eliminating the suspects, and as Sherlock said, once you have eliminated what is impossible, what remains, however improbable, is the solution.  Or it also works if what remains is pretty darn likely in the first place. 

They obviously modernized the story here and there, like authors couldn't write about interracial couples back then, or secret lesbian long-term relationships, but all that is more common now, so why not work it in?  I know, the Agatha Christie purists out there are probably up in arms.  Times change and attitudes change, and period pieces should probably change with the times, except for those weird movies that insist on showing multiracial aristocrats during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots.  But then it seems like a lot of streamlining was also done here, the film combined a couple of characters and dropped a couple others just to make things less confusing for the average audience of dumb Americans. 

But it's almost a comical coincidence to have Poirot in the same London nightclub where the initial romance between Simon and Linnet started, and for him to pay attention to these people that he didn't yet know, and have such insight into their history, along with all the other people from that club who ended up on that boat.  But then, you have to remember, this is set back in 1937, and there were a lot less people on Earth back then, so naturally you would expect there to be more coincidences like this.  

Also starring Kenneth Branagh (last seen in "Tenet"), Tom Bateman (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Annette Bening (last seen in "Hope Gap"), Russell Brand (last heard in "Trolls"), Ali Fazal (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Dawn French (last heard in "Coraline"), Gal Gadot (last seen in "Red Notice"), Armie Hammer (last seen in "Call Me by Your Name"), Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo (last seen in "Dirty Pretty Things"), Susannah Fielding, Michael Rouse (last seen in "Artemis Fowl"), Orlando Seale (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Charlie Anson (last seen in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"), Adam Garcia (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Crispin Letts (ditto), Rick Warden (last seen in "Hellboy" (2019)), Noel White, Victor Alli, Rachel Feeney, Sarah Eve, Aron Julius, Francis Lovehall, Stacy Abalogun, Naveed Khan, Katie Smale, Kemi Awoderu, Nadine Leon Gobet

RATING: 6 out of 10 heiroglyphs

Sing 2

Year 14, Day 257 - 9/14/22 - Movie #4,244

BEFORE: OK, I'm deep into kiddie movie territory now - this one's been out on the Netflix since last Christmas, but of course, for me that's the WORST time for a movie to come out, because by then my whole Movie Year is over, and it's too late to work anything in.  My wife watched this on Netflix months ago, but it took me THIS long to get to it.  I'd seen all the movies on my list with Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson in them, so honestly I had a better chance of linking to this one through Peter Serafinowicz or Nick Offerman - or I could have come there through Bono from some documentary, but that wouldn't feel right.

Well, better late than never. Bobby Cannavale carries over from "Tom & Jerry". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Sing" (Movie #2,679)

THE PLOT: Buster Moon and his friends must persuade reclusive rock star Clay Calloway to join them for the opening of a new show. 

AFTER: Well, damn, there are moments of greatness here, the film overall seems really well put together, but that could be a lingering effect of watching it after "Tom & Jerry", which was terrible.  "Sing 2" may just look great by comparison, I'm not sure.  I think I like the original "Sing" film better, but through a weird quirk, I may end up scoring THIS sequel better than the original.  That's because I wasn't sure about "Sing" the first time I watched it, and it got better with a second viewing, also watching it with my wife the second time helped, because she really took to it. So I don't know, maybe I need to watch "Sing 2" a second time with her before I really can judge it well.

Hey, at least this takes place in a world where there are no humans, that would just be really weird, if all the animals were cartoon characters and all the humans were real, flesh and blood live-action.  Like, WHY? And also, HOW? What the HELL were the makers of "Tom & Jerry" even thinking?  The "Sing" world is like the "Zootopia" world, it's filled with animals of all different species dressing and acting like humans, and by comparison, that's not weird at all!  Just kidding, it's totally freakin' weird if you overthink it, like I tend to do. 

But what was really great about the original "Sing" movie was that many of the characters had real singing ability, but they also had personal problems that they had to overcome, like stage fright, or being in your father's gorilla gang, or having to babysit a bunch of piglets and still get to the audition on time.  And if you notice, these animals all tend to date their own species, I'm sure there was a writer's meeting about this over at Illumination, because the pig is married to a pig, the porcupine dated a porcupine in the last film, and here in the sequel an elephant falls in love with an elephant, and a lion mourns his late wife, who's a lioness.  There's not a lot of inter-species romance here, it seems kind of forbidden, and it kind of makes parts of the film look a bit like a metaphorical Noah's Ark, it's all two-by-two if you overthink it, like I tend to do.  (There's not any LGBTQ representation either, but that probably merits a separate meeting.  One might argue there's not much LGBTQ representation in the real-life animal world, unless you count those gay zoo penguins and that goose that lived in a committed three-way for a couple decades. You know, I really wish I were joking about this.)

But let's put that aside - if Disney can have gay characters in "Cruella" and "Thor: Love & Thunder", then maybe Illumination will follow suit in "Sing 3", and yeah, there's probably going to be a "Sing 3", bigger and better and with more animal species represented.  Some characters from the first film didn't make it to the second film, the voices of Seth McFarlane as the Sinatra-like mouse and John C. Reilly as the slacker sheep are M.I.A., and so is Jennifer Hudson as the young Nana, but she appeared only in flashbacks, so it makes sense.  I don't know if these actors just weren't available or if the story outgrew them, it's tough to say.  But as Buster Moon and his band of no-longer-amateur singers tries to get an audition in Redstone City with Mr. Crystal, it feels like once again, Buster keeps reaching for the stars and his optimism keeps winning out over his self-doubt.  

But since these singers are no longer amateurs, the film had to throw a bunch of new roadblocks in their way, like Rosita suddenly develops a fear of heights, which would only be a problem if she had to do rope-work in the new musical, so guess what.  And Johnny the gorilla suddenly has to dance as well as sing, and he just doesn't have the moves.  And Meena the elephant has to do a love scene on stage, but has never been kissed or felt love before - although there is suddenly an elephant ice-cream vendor she has her eye on, so the solution to this problem seems to be RIGHT THERE, doesn't it?  But these all feel like manufactured problems that are just there because we're going to feel SO GOOD when they work themselves out - Johnny finds a street cat with real dance moves to teach him, but since he's a gorilla and she's a cat, well, they can only be friends, right?  Don't date outside your species...

And the way that this aging recluse rock star gets dropped into the audition conversation seems very clunky, like was this really the BEST way to introduce this plot point, all awkward-like?  But of course they somehow manage to find this star's secret address, and convince him to come perform again, even though he's been crippled with grief for 15 years.  This actually turned out to be the best moment in the film, all of the other U2 songs they used didn't really work, like is "Where the Streets Have No Name" really about outer space?  I don't think so...  But using "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" works well on so many different levels - a personal one for Clay Calloway, and also the other characters in the space musical are searching for him on various planets.  They borrowed quite a bit from the version of the song that appears on "Rattle & Hum", the version with the gospel choir and the audience sing-along.  But I absolutely love that version, so I'm going to allow it.  

(I had a very vivid dream, about a year ago, that I was watching "The Masked Singer", and there was a polar bear character who sang "She Blinded Me With Science" and was really Bono in disguise.  The show's coming back on in a week, so I just wanted to get that in print once again - if this happens in real life on the show then it would be very freaky, but also it would prove I have the power of prophecy.)

But some stuff here is also very corny - Bobby Cannavale's producer character, Mr. Crystal, is a wolf, both in character and in temperament, but isn't it time to dispel the stereotype of producers being evil and ruthless?  Just me? Also the "we have to cast the producer's daughter, who has no acting ability, or we'll lose our financial backing" bit, hasn't that been done to death? 

I may not have known all of the songs here, like the Shawn Mendes song (who is he?) but at least I knew "Can't Feel My Face" and "Girl on Fire" and even "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish. I should get some points for being over 50 and still knowing those songs, right?  And since I now watch movies with subtitles whenever possible, because I have a hearing aid, I got to see the lyrics to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" in print for the first time, and they really don't make a lot of sense.  Look, I get that we don't want the elevator to bring us down, that's fine, but what's all this about a purple banana?  "Let's look for the purple banana before they put us in the truck"?  WTF does that even mean?  I guess it's too late to ask Prince now...

Also starring Matthew McConaughey (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Reese Witherspoon (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde"), Scarlett Johansson (last seen in "Black Widow"), Taron Egerton (last seen in "Rocketman"), Tori Kelly (last heard in "Sing"), Nick Kroll (last seen in "How It Ends"), Pharrell Williams (last heard in "The Grinch"), Halsey (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Chelsea Peretti (last seen in "Game Night"), Letitia Wright (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Eric André (last seen in "The Amazing Johnathan Documentary"), Adam Buxton (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Garth Jennings (last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets 2"), Peter Serafinowicz (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 2"), Jennifer Saunders (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Nick Offerman (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Bono (last seen in "New Wave: Dare to Be Different"), Julia Davis (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Spike Jonze (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Asher Blinkoff (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), George Griffiths, with cameos from Wes Anderson, Chris Renaud (last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets 2"), Tara Strong (ditto), Elizabeth Daily (last seen in "Streets of Fire"), Jason Schwartzman (also last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Edgar Wright (ditto), Fisher Stevens (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Debra Wilson (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker")

RATING: 7 out of 10 paintballs

Tom & Jerry

Year 14, Day 255 - 9/12/22 - Movie #4,243

BEFORE: Daniel Adegboyega carries over from "The Gunman", and it's another one of those situations where I'm absolutely sure I'm the only person who followed up THAT movie with THIS movie, because, why would you?  I'm the freak.

It'll be mostly kiddie movies this week, except for "The Gunman" and, well, one other because I couldn't keep that theme going for the whole week, I had to drop in a murder mystery to make the other films connect. 

THE PLOT: A chaotic battle ensues between Jerry Mouse, who has taken refuge in the Royal Gate Hotel, and Tom Cat, who is hired to drive him away before the day of a big wedding arrives. 

AFTER: God, there are SO many things wrong with this movie.  First off, that it got made in the first place, when nobody was even ASKING for an updated version of Tom & Jerry, or a reboot, or whatever this is.  And certainly nobody wanted a movie that was half-cartoon and half live-action, because how would that even WORK?  This depicts some kind of alternate Earth where all the animals are cartoons?  What?  So, on this planet man descended from cartoon apes?  It doesn't look right, it doesn't FEEL right, and worse, it creates this weird disconnect in your brain, watching humans interact with cartoon animals, when that's just not possible IRL.  It worked (sort of) in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" but those toons were TOONS, they weren't considered real animals, and every character, toon or human, was aware that the toons were toons and the humans were not.  But otherwise, there's a reason why nobody's really attempted a cartoon/live-action hybrid since then - it's just too weird. Wait, they did another "Space Jam", didn't they?  It looked like it sucked, too.

I sort of get why they did it, if they cast these actors to just do voices in an all-cel or all-CGI cartoon, you'd never recognize their voices.  OK, so great, I recognize Colin Jost and Chloe Grace Moretz, and they're playing people, but people interacting with cartoon animals, as if nothing is odd about that at all.  That BY ITSELF is very odd.  But since we all that know Tom & Jerry look like cel-animated animals, they couldn't change that, or we wouldn't recognize them as the characters from our childhoods, so we end up with this weird hybrid film, and that ends up causing more problems than it solves.

Actually, the whole film is like that, it spent twelve years in development hell, and that means probably dozens of writers tried to put some kind of coherent plot together, and what ended up on the screen is pure nonsense.  You can't write a film by committee, and I bet there were hundreds of story meetings for this film over the years, everybody trying to put in their two cents and make the film better, but "too many cooks", as they say.  So they ended up with this movie that fires off in every direction at once, and there's no coherent over-arching plot - instead the movie lurches forward in fits and starts, then has to go back and explain every little thing, and then it's plot complication on top of plot complication, then chase scene and END IT.  It was absolutely agonizing for me to get through this. 

Take the two celebrities (?) getting married at the hotel - they need to break up at some point and call the wedding off, just to give the other characters something to "fix", something that will unite everybody on the same project, and also lead to a wrap-up in the last act.  But they can't show a couple having real terrible couple problems, like he cheated on her, or she's secretly a man, nothing like that, because it's a kids movie.  So the big "problem" is that he doesn't listen to her enough, and they both sort of forgot how to argue, so each one just goes with whatever the other one wants, and it leads to a wedding that's too big, with cartoon elephants and a cartoon tiger, and a big fight between all of the animals.  Which is entirely wrong because they stated in the beginning of the film that the hotel doesn't allow pets or animals, and then of course they immediately break that rule for the celebrities' cat and dog, then for Tom, so he can catch Jerry.  So, umm, if you're going to break this rule of the hotel 10 times during the film, why have it in the first place?

Similarly, Jerry takes up residence at the hotel - makes sense, it seems like a nice place to live, and within 10 minutes of screen time, he's nicked everything he needs to furnish a nice little space for himself in the radiator (?).  Where it is, is pretty unclear - but somehow he has his own little mouse-sized hotel door in the hall, which doesn't make any sense, either.  What mouse-hole, even in a cartoon, has a DOOR?  If he took over a space in a radiator, that wouldn't be anywhere in the wall adjacent to the hallway. Am I overthinking this, or does nothing in this film follow any sense of logic?

They fall back so many times on the "cats chase mice" and "dogs chase cats" trope, which has been done to DEATH in cartoons, but then they also have to explain this animal relationship every, single, time, too.  Give me a break!  It seems like maybe they really wanted to respect some of the old cartoon traditions from the 1940's and 1950's, but then they couldn't quite manage to get them right.  They pull the angel/devil thing with Tom, you know, when he's got an angelic version of himself on one shoulder, and a devilish version of himself on the other, and he can't quite decide whether to be good or evil?  The tradition is that this bit is supposed to end with the devil defeating the angel, or maybe vice versa, but here it ends with a subway car running over both the angel AND the devil.  Huh?  That's just not how it's supposed to work. 

The best thing about this film is the elaborate "Rube Goldberg" type machine that Tom invents and builds to catch Jerry in a cage - I had to slow it down and watch it a few times to really appreciate it, it's a thing of genius.  But then the worst thing about this film is that one character has to walk Spike the bulldog and apparently he takes very large, stinky poops.  WHY?  This was never a part of any cartoon before, not ever. Cartoon animals don't poop, because we don't want to think about that when we're watching a cartoon!  Maybe they did a bit on this somewhere in "The Secret Life of Pets", but it wasn't this blatant, or this disgusting. I bet nobody pooped in "Zootopia" or "The Bad Guys" or any Disney film ever.

And come on, the hotel is known for it's gorgeous, elaborately fragile glass atrium?  Gee, I wonder if some characters are going to break all those windows at some point in the story. YA THINK?  So many other terrible decisions here, like Tom & Jerry catch a fly ball at a Yankees game, or Tom rides between subway cars (illegal, and sets a bad example for the kids), or Tom has to pretend to eat Jerry in front of the street cats, or they will eat him themselves. Even when the story does manage to lurch forward, it can't help but do that in the most clunky way possible. 

And having the main character steal someone else's resume and present it as her own to get a job at the hotel.  That would never work, plus it HAS to be illegal, and also sets a terrible example for the kids, because she succeeds after doing that, and so the karmic balance is off, she needs to get punished for her actions, even more than she does.  The fussy chef character played by Ken Jeong also feels incomplete, like his story is only half-written.  Is he a good chef, a bad chef, a crazy chef, a chef with OCD?  Not that it matters, but I'd like to know WHY he does what he does to the wedding cake, like everything else in the whole film, it's pathetically unclear. 

The worst news is that this film actually made some money, so that means there may be another one on the way, and we can anticipate more very awkward conversations between characters, such as, "Hey, so, if someone were to lose something valuable, and somebody else wanted to try and find that thing, how would they maybe go about doing that?"  Is that a serious question? An adult human somehow doesn't know that when something gets lost, they should maybe LOOK FOR IT?

NITPICK POINT: One of many, MANY things this film got wrong about New York City, but somehow this one stands out - down at the Fulton Fish Market in NYC, they do NOT throw fish from vendor to vendor.  That's only in Seattle at the Pike Place Fish Market.  It's just because they have their fish scales in a very inconvenient place, and I guess they can't be moved closer to where they need to be.  Now it's a tradition in Seattle, but nowhere else, sorry.

Also starring Chloe Grace Moretz (last heard in "The Addams Family"), Michael Peña (last seen in "CHIPS"), Rob Delaney (last heard in "Ron's Gone Wrong"), Jordan Bolger, Patsy Ferran (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Pallavi Sharda (last seen in "Lion"), Colin Jost (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "My Spy"), Somi De Souza, Ajay Chhabra, Patrick Poletti (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Natinon"), Janis Ahern (last seen in "A Hologram for the King"), Camilla Arfwedson (last seen in "The Duchess"), Joe Bone (last seen in "Six Minutes to Midnight"), Edward Judge, Christina Chong (last seen in "W.E."), Edward Dogliani, Ozuna, with cameos from Joe Buck, Chris Wilson (also carrying over from "The Gunman"), archive footage of Gene Wilder

and the voices of Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Shall We Dance?"), Nicky Jam (last seen in "Bad Boys for Life"), Joey Wells, Harry Ratchford, Will "Spank" Horton, Na'im Lynn, Lil Rel Howery (last seen in "Fatherhood"), Utkarsh Ambudkar (last seen in "Tick, Tick...Boom!"), Tim Story, T-Pain (last seen in "The Boss"), Mel Blanc, June Foray, William Hanna.

RATING: 3 out of 10 dinosaur bones

The Gunman

Year 14, Day 254 - 9/11/22 - Movie #4,242

BEFORE: OK, so I navigated my way through my first beer festival in three years, and it probably helped that it was in the same location as my last one, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  By "beer festival" I'm not talking about an underground sporting event like the one in the movie "Beerfest", or just a restaurant serving a lot of beer, it's more like a showcase, where the local brewers all come to hand out samples, they have new flavors or seasonal flavors they want everyone to try and (ultimately) buy, so they're willing to hand out 2 oz. samples to the heavy drink-fluencers and fans of the beverage.  I wasn't sure if I'd be available for this, there was the possibility I'd be booked to work a screening, so I didn't buy a ticket right away, and the admission price went way up over time - BUT, I found a Groupon about a week ago, and ended up getting in for just $30, even with bus fare and food costs I think I still came out ahead.  Food is a necessity at these events, I used to just drink and not eat, but then I would get super-drunk, I learned that eating any kind of sandwich or bread kept me more sober - makes sense, right?  So yesterday I got there super early and had a bagel and coffee nearby, then ate a sausage sandwich about halfway through the event.  I didn't break any drinking records, because I still needed to be sober enough to find the right bus after, get on the bus, and get off at a bus stop close to my house.  I had a nap for a couple hours when I got home, and I was fine, no hangover, and I really drank a lot of different things - limoncello, hard seltzer, flavored whiskey, a Guinness coffee drink.  And lots of flavors of beer, including a sour one made with pickle juice - variety is the spice of life, I suppose. 

Idris Elba carries over from "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom", and that's it for him this Movie Year, I have to make a pivot now and move on to some animated films.

THE PLOT: A sniper on a mercenary assassination team in the Congo kills the minister of mines, but his successful kill shot forces him into hiding. Returning to the Congo years later, he becomes the target of a hit squad himself. 

AFTER: Well, after "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" I was dying for more action in a movie, and man, did I get it.  Sean Penn seems a bit like an unlikely action star, I must admit, but this kind of worked. I guess be careful what you wish for, that's all I'm saying - I couldn't take Sean Penn seriously when I watched him in "This Must Be the Place", but I think that's because he was doing a riff on the lead singer of "The Cure" searching for the old Nazi who killed his father, umm, or something. Has Sean Penn made a lot of action movies? "Gangster Squad", maybe, or "The Thin Red Line", which was a war movie, and maybe "The Weight of Water", but it still feels weird to see him fighting hand to hand and doing spy stuff. Oh, yeah, "Casualties of War" and "U Turn" and "The Game", maybe he has done a bunch of action movies, I guess it's just me. 

The first part of the film is about the assassination of a government official, which apparently is something that military contractors might be asked to do in a foreign nation, though, really, isn't this the CIA's job?  We're farming this out now to freelancers?  Maybe leave this to the professionals, because here the removal of the mining minister just leads to civil unrest and the collapse of the regime, so somehow the mining minister is the one that was holding everything together in the country?  Anyway, there are three potential assassins, and none of them know which one's going to be asked to pull the trigger until the last second (Is this the last-minute drama Lee Harvey Oswald went through?)

What a shocker, the one who gets the nod is the guy who just happens to be in a love triangle with his commanding officer, and the trigger-man's going to have to leave the country, that's the deal.  So there's a blatant conflict of interest here, it never should have come to this - based on the casting alone, the audience should really be suspect of the C.O.'s motives here. You just don't cast THAT actor unless you need a villain, a charming villain, sure, but still a villain.  We kind of know what the situation's going to be before it's revealed here. 

Sure enough, when Jim Terrier tracks down his commander, Felix, years later in Barcelona, that man is married to Jim's ex-girlfriend, who was an aid worker they were both assigned to protect, and they're close to adopting a child. Jim inserts himself back into the mix, and the love triangle is rekindled, very quickly. Felix doesn't seem concerned, because he's sure that Jim can't steal Annie away from him. Again, casting and the way movies work kind of determine how this is all going to go down.  Felix calls in a hit squad, but doesn't realize that the squad is going to take down both men, because they were both involved in this operation that desperately needs to be covered up.

Jim ends up with Annie, that's the easy part, but they still have to figure out how to stop the hit squads, and who wants Jim dead for what he knows.  To make matters worse, Jim gets diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome AND post-traumatic stress disorder, and he can't really tell the doctor how he got these conditions, because it's all top secret government stuff.  The doctor tells him to avoid loud noises, stressful situations and strenuous exercise, but really, that's all that spy stuff really is.  Sure, Jim tried to carve out a new career digging wells for the people of the Congo, to try and make up for killing their mining minister, I guess - but once he gets dragged back into the world of espionage, it's all explosions, hand-to-hand combat and SO much running, which are all the things the doctor told him he needs to avoid in the future.  

We're so used to watching James Bond deal with all this stuff, and he never breaks a sweat, right?  Or they would never give Bond a medical condition that would get in the way of him doing all his super-spy stuff, but maybe they should?  I'm thinking back to a time years ago when DC comics re-booted Superman, and the new writer felt that maybe he was just a bit too powerful, and regular non-superhuman readers might not be able to relate.  Watching Superman save the world on a daily basis has a tendency to get repetitive, so the compromise wasn't to take away any of his powers or make him weaker in any way, they decided to keep depicting him doing the same things, though they'd make it more of a struggle.  He could still leap tall buildings and stop runaway trains, so nothing really changed in the end, but I guess we need to see fictional characters work harder to succeed, it creates a bigger payoff. 

NITPICK POINT: The second half of the film is set in Barcelona, and the climax happens in a bullfighting ring, but there's a credit at the end of the film reminding everyone that Barcelona outlawed all bullfighting in 2011. Probably they couldn't depict this in the film without running a disclaimer, but then why set the action there?  Why not just add a line of dialog that explains they had to follow the villain to the next city over?  Am I overthinking this? 

I had to wait a LONG time for Idris Elba to show up in this film - I was really starting to think that maybe I'd made a mistake, or the IMDB incorrectly listed him as being in the film.  Finally about 90 minutes in, he showed up as an Interpol agent, thank God.  The chain stays alive, and there are just 58 movies left in Movie Year 14, I still have to drop one film but I should still have a clear path to the end.  I was worried about "Morbius" showing up on cable, I thought maybe I'd have to pay iTunes $5.99 for the privilege of watching it when I want to, but just the other day, it turned up on Netflix, so things are looking up. 

Also starring Sean Penn (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Jasmine Trinca, Javier Bardem (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Ray Winstone (last seen in "Cats"), Mark Rylance (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Peter Franzen (last seen in "Cleaner"), Mark Billingham, Daniel Adegboyega (last seen in "6 Underground"), Ade Oyefeso (last seen in "Lost in London"), Rachel Lascar, Sarah Moyle, Chris Wilson (last seen in "Operation Mincemeat")

RATING: 6 out of 10 rowdy soccer fans