DC League of Super-Pets

Year 15, Day 175 - 6/24/23 - Movie #4,475

BEFORE: Well, I said I was going to get through all the outstanding DC Comics films before starting on the Marvel ones - "The Flash" doesn't seem to be doing too well at the box office so I'd better hurry up and get to the movie theater next week before it goes away.  Is that likely to happen?  I can't risk it, if I miss one of the four films I want to see on the big screen, I'll have to re-arrange my chain...let's keep this Superhero Summer going! 

Dwayne Johnson carries over again from "Hercules". I'm so bored at home that I've programmed my chain all the way to Halloween - might as well take it 20 more films and figure out what I'm going to watch on Christmas...

THE PLOT: Krypto the Super-Dog and Superman are inseparable best friends, sharing the same superpowers and fighting crime side by side in Metropolis.  However, Krypto must master his own powers for a rescue mission when Superman is kidnapped. 

AFTER: I've always been a bit confused about Krypto the Super-Dog - part of the problem is that whole "sole survivor of the dead planet" thing, because that's what Superman is, except for Krypto.  And Supergirl.  And if you watch the current "Superman & Lois" TV show, there's also Clark's half brother.  Oh, and then there's General Zod and Ursa, they were in the Phantom Zone or something at the time the planet blew up.  And then all the people in the bottled city of Kandor.  So he's just NOT the last survivor, there are a whole bunch, including, and I swear this is true, Beppo the Super-Monkey.  Superman flew in a rocket (or a giant prism, whichever) alone to the planet Earth.  Only now THIS movie says he wasn't alone, he had Krypto as a puppy with him. Umm, OK, only what did they both eat on this month-long journey to Earth?  Just sunlight, I suppose. 

But follow my logic here for just a second, we have dogs on Earth because they evolved from wolves over millions of years, and then humans decided to invent cities and farms, and needed dogs to do specific functions for them, so they bred dogs for particular purposes, and over time the dogs came to look certain ways, and that's why we have so many different types of dogs, but they're all the same species, they can produce offspring together.  The odds against dogs, or any creatures resembling dogs, are astronomical, because different events probably took place on Krypton, not the same ones on Earth that caused dogs to look the way they are. Krypto is not a dog, he's an alien creature that somehow looks exactly like an Earth dog, which shouldn't be possible. I guess he identifies as a dog, and these days maybe that's enough?  But, he's not one, sorry.  Alien creatures shouldn't look like Earth creatures, and for that matter, Kryptonian people shouldn't look like Earth people, but for some reason they do.  Superman's colleague on the Justice League, the Martian Manhunter, sometimes appears human, but it's an illusion - his real form is that of a green Martian and he doesn't look human at all.

Whoever created Krypto for the comic books clearly didn't put much thought into it, they just wanted Superman (or maybe Superboy) to have a dog.  Ah, I just looked it up, Superman's father, Jor-El, used Krypto as a test subject before sending his son off to Earth in a rocket - but something happened to Krypto's rocket, it got knocked off course, and he didn't arrive on Earth until years later, when Kal-El had become Superboy.  That all makes a bit more sense, only again, what did Krypto eat for years in space?  As with many of the DC characters, Krypto's use and origin has been changed many times as new writers take over the comics and jettison the concepts written by previous writers - putting Krypto and Jor-El in the same rocket is just the latest example of this. So I guess if you knew Krypto back in the day, well, you don't really know him now. 

The same goes for Ace, the Bathound. The first version of Ace appeared in Batman comics back in 1955, and he's been forgotten, re-introduced, forgotten again, changed around, and re-booted many times. The latest version was a dog belonging to the Joker that attacked Batman, and after the Joker was defeated, the dog was sent to a kennel, but Batman's butler Alfred went back and adopted him, which is a nice touch.  The version seen in "DC League of Super-Pets" is a boxer, and his pointy ears seem to mimic the ones on Batman's cowl, another nice touch.  He's in a dog shelter because his family gave him away, the couple thought he bit their young daughter, but he was just trying to keep her from falling down a set of stairs. 

The thing that gives the animals here super powers is orange Kryptonite, and that material is another thing that writers fool around with, whatever they want to have happen, they just invent a new color of Kryptonite that causes that thing.  Green hurts/kills Superman, red kryptonite makes him evil, white kills plants, gold removes Superman's powers, and I think pink Kryptonite makes him gay. Maybe?  There was orange kryptonite before in the comic books, and it did give super powers to animals, but only for 24 hours. OK, good to know.  Maybe that's the case here, and the animals affected by it will eventually lose their super powers - because having THIS many super pets could create some problems.  

Eventually, there's a pet for every hero and villain - the one that identifies with Lex Luthor is a bald guinea pig who got inspired to be evil when she was experimented on in a LexCorp lab.  Krypto rescued all the test animals at one point, and Lulu resented him for it - she wanted to stay in the lab with Lex.  So once she gets powers from the orange kryptonite, she knows exactly what to do, get her revenge on Superman and Krypto.  Makes some sense.  She gives some green Kryptonite to Krypto in a piece of cheese (dastardly!) and he loses his powers for several days (NITPICK POINT: why didn't she use the gold stuff?).  Krypto has to find the other pets from the shelter who got exposed and get them to use their powers to rescue Superman, because he's got only normal dog powers.  Krypto also has to learn to be an Earth dog for the first time, to run without super-speed and track things down by smell, not with x-ray vision.  

There's some good stuff here, like focusing on all of the animals in shelters, not just the cute ones, and saying that they all have worth.  PETA must have loved this film.  And even the pot-bellied pig and the jittery chipmunk find their forever owners, so good messages all around for once in a kid's movie.  But the story starts at ridiculous and gets more and more so, even in a world full of super-powered heroes and villains, a team full of powered animals is a bit much.  And the whole Justice League gets taken down by ONE guinea pig?  Seems unlikely.  

Some of the voice casting is just really inspired, like John Krasinski as Superman, and Marc Maron as Luthor.  Krasinski would never, ever be cast as a live-action Superman, he just doesn't have the same look as Cavill or even Routh, but wow, his voice is really perfect for the character.  Same for Maron, I would normally expect Luthor's voice to be more refined, but I love Marc Maron and I'm glad he was considered for the role. Keanu Reeves as Batman?  Again, I can't see it ever happening in live-action but if you're just casting on voice alone maybe this one is fine also.  

This version of Aquaman is not in line with Justice League continuity, though, and which Green Lantern is this?  Jessica Cruz?  Never heard of her - I realize that Hal Jordan is still box office poison, but they could have used the John Stewart or the Kyle Rayner version.  I guess I've seen Jessica Cruz in the recent Justice League trades, but she looks completely different here, why couldn't they just keep her Latino and not make her plus-sized?  Sure, body-positive images are in fashion, but come on, it's a comic book movie, a fantasy.  Isn't it a stereotype to say that Latina women are chunky, and play into that?  

I'm going to try and be nice here with my rating, because the film is for kids and it at least tried to send out some positive messages about adopting shelter pets.  But still, it's all very silly.  I guess just treat it as taking place in an alternate DC universe, where pets can talk to each other.  Maybe that's universe #51 out of 52 in their megaverse? 

Also starring the voices of Kevin Hart (last seen in "The One and Only Dick Gregory"), Kate McKinnon (last seen in "Life Partners"), John Krasinski (last seen in "Nobody Walks"), Vanessa Bayer (last seen in "Ibiza: Love Drunk"), Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "Glass Onion"), Diego Luna (last seen in "Blood Father"), Marc Maron (last seen in "Respect"), Keanu Reeves (last seen in "Street Kings"), Thomas Middleditch (last seen in "Being Flynn"), Ben Schwartz (last seen in "How to Be a Latin Lover"), Olivia Wilde (last seen in "How It Ends"), Maya Erskine (last heard in "Scoob!"), Yvette Nicole Brown (last seen in "Muppets Haunted Mansion"), Jameela Jamil (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Jemaine Clement (last seen in "I Used to Go Here"), John Early (last seen in "Other People"), Dascha Polanco (last seen in "In the Heights"), Daveed Diggs (last seen in "The Starling"), Alfred Molina (last seen in "Identity"), Lena Headey (last seen in "The Purge"), Keith David (last seen in "Unplugging"), Busy Philipps (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Dan Fogler (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore"), Winona Bradshaw, David Pressman, Sam J. Levine, Jared Stern, Michelle Morgan, Amanda Ames, Gavin McCrillis,

RATING: 6 out of 10 floating hot dogs

Hercules (2014)

Year 15, Day 174 - 6/23/23 - Movie #4,474

BEFORE: I took some steps to fix my income problem for the next two months - two words: medical research.  Don't freak out now, I saw an ad on Facebook for a medical study run by a legit NYC well-respected hospital, and it's testing a vaccine that I was probably going to get anyway, that was on my "to do" list.  But when I saw the research promo, I thought, "Why should I pay for a doctor's visit to get that vaccine, when I can join a medical research study, get the vaccine for free, and also get compensated for my time?  It's not a lot of money per visit, but if there are multiple doses and follow-up visits, then that per diem could add up to some real money very quickly.  I just have to pass the medical interview, and since I'm the right age, with no chronic conditions, that should be a breeze.  A couple shots, a few trips uptown, and then I've got some money to get me through the summer if I don't get hired for the jobs I'm applying for.  Maybe I can also find a couple of focus groups to take part in, and then September will be here before you know it.  (Look, I worked a lot of hours in May and June, so I've still got money coming in for the next month, the school is on a delayed payment schedule.  That takes care of July, so I just need a little more income in August, and then I don't have to worry. Thanks, Big Pharma...)

Dwayne Johnson carries over from "Black Adam". I feel like I've done a Dwayne Johnson mini-chain every year for like the last five years.  There always seem to be about three films with him that I missed the year before, or is it just me?  I guess I did overlook him in 2021, but I made up for it with 7 appearances in 2022.

THE PLOT: Having endured his legendary twelve labors, Hercules the Greek demigod, has his life as a sword-for-hire tested when the King of Thrace and his daughter seek his aid in defeating a tyrannical warlord. 

AFTER: Ah, I realized a bit too late who the director of this film is - somebody who I once banned outright from my Movie Years, because I knew him in college at NYU and he was a total jerk. But then I watched "The Family Man" and "After the Sunset", which he also directed, so I guess I couldn't ban him forever if I'm going to keep doing this.  Around here I just refer to him as "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named", but you can look him up.  He got cancelled during the "meToo" movement, and rightfully so based on everything I knew about him back in the late 1980's. Eventually the world caught up with me and realized this was a terrible, terrible person who degraded women, and therefore he's no longer allowed to make movies.  Seems about right, but didn't he make a lot of money in the past, and wasn't he also a terrible person then, too?  Maybe he still owes compensation to somebody, just figure out who and make it happen, because I think he probably still has a house and a car and why not take all that away from him, since he made that money while degrading women. 

I wonder how many of the problems that Warner Bros. has had in the last few years can be traced back to him - his production company had a mega-deal with WB to produce like 75 movies, some of which were based on DC Comics, and I think the trouble for him started when Gal Gadot wouldn't work with him, based on his reputation and the allegations against him - that was the beginning of the end, and not long after that several women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, and then, well, major companies started cutting ties with him.  "Hercules" was the last film he directed before his downfall, and it just may end up being, well, the last film he directed.  I'm OK with that. 

At the same time that one person's star was falling, another person's star was rising - while this was by no means the first film that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson appeared in, it was just as he was transitioning from movie star to superstar.  Sure, he got his start as the Scorpion King, but he kind of got bogged down in comedies like "Get Smart" and "Tooth Fairy", and low-class action films like "Race to Witch Mountain" and "The Rundown".  And what the heck was "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island"?  Around about "Hercules" was when Hollywood started to say, "Oh, we GET IT, this guy belongs in super-outrageous, big budget action movies..." and this led to "San Andreas" and "Rampage" and "Skyscraper" and the "Jumanji" films, all kind of over-the-top and a bit tongue in cheek.  I think maybe "Hercules" was some kind of turning point, if that makes sense. 

And I hate to say this, I really do, but this isn't a terrible movie.  It's no "Red Notice", hell, it's no "Jungle Cruise", but it gets the job done in being a sword-and-shield ancient Greek sort of thing.  If I've got a problem with the story, it's that the famous 12 Labors of Hercules are only seen at the start of the film, in quick flashbacks.  Umm, that's the single most famous thing about Hercules, that he did these twelve very difficult, near impossible tasks.  THERE'S your movie, watching Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion and slaying the Hydra, capturing the Erymanthian Boar and the Cretan Bull, stealing the Mares of Diomeded, the girdle of Hippolyta, and the cattle of Geryon, and so forth.  Hell, I'd watch that movie, if somebody would make it - or maybe there are enough labors for two or three movies, so hey, it's a franchise!  Part of the fun would be seeing Hercules tasked with something impossible, like cleaning the Augean stables, then coming up with an ingenious solution like diverting a river to accomplish it. 

Instead, we're shown Hercules after these labors were accomplished - supposedly. It's kind of implied that maybe he DIDN'T do all these near-impossible things, and the stories that we know now were also just stories back then.  Eh, this is KIND of interesting, because it suggests that maybe the Greek religion is just as impossible to believe and full of crap as our modern religions are.  Maybe Hercules was just a strong guy and an accomplished warrior who just got a lot of good press, or had professional storytellers working to enhance his travels and feats JUST a bit, but actually a lot.  I can work with this, too - because we all know now there were no Greek gods, that people back then would believe just about anything, like Zeus turning into a bull to impregnate young maidens (or the women back there were into some kinky stuff...).  And therefore, by extension, if the Greek gods weren't real and just stories, then....well, it's not looking good for Jesus either, if you follow me. 

Ugh, so I want to hate this based on who directed it, but I also kind of appreciate what it had to say about religion being a lot of hooey and tall tales.  Can I like what this movie was suggesting and still hate the director who made it?  OK, good, that's the plan then.  The story also says that Hercules was driven mad by Hera and killed his whole family - but then maybe that's not true, either.  If not, then what happened?  Ah ah, no spoilers here. 

Hercules also travels with a whole team of comrades here, a few too many to keep track of if you know what I mean.  I couldn't keep Autolycus apart from Ialoaus at the end of the day, too confusing. And wasn't Hercules also known as a lone wolf sort of guy, who single-handedly did all those labors and fought whole armies and stuff?  Having so many companions kind of dilutes the brand a bit, doesn't it?  

What's weird is that none of these great strategists hired by King Cotys to defeat Rhesus and his army of non-Centaurs is able to figure out that training the Thracians is a BAD idea, and that the King is a similarly BAD man.  They're all wracked with regret when they realize that they took a bunch of soldiers on the wrong side of history and taught them all their good battle tactics.  Oh, great, now the army of soldiers with bad intentions is also great at fighting, and it's all your fault! Who could have seen that one coming?  What good is earning gold for training the army when that army takes over the whole of Greece and triples the taxes?  You guys broke this ancient city-state, so you'd better march right back there and start fixing it!  And who knows, maybe if you take down the evil power you might also find out what really happened to Hercules' family at the same time!  That would be a bonus, wouldn't it? 

Also starring Ian McShane (last seen in "Hellboy" (2019)), John Hurt (last seen in "The Limits of Control"), Rufus Sewell (last seen in "The Father"), Aksel Hennie (last seen in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), Ingrid Bolso Berdal (last seen in "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters"), Reece Ritchie (last seen in "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time"), Joseph Fiennes (last seen in "Risen"), Tobias Santelmann, Peter Mullan (last seen in "Welcome to the Punch"), Rebecca Ferguson (last seen in "Reminiscence"), Isaac Andrews (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Joe Anderson (last seen in "Becoming Jane"), Stephen Peacocke (last seen in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), Nicholas Moss, Robert Whitelock (last seen in "The Bank Job"), Irina Shayk, Christopher Fairbank (last seen in "Papillon" (2017)), Ian Whyte (last seen in "The Northman"), Karolina Szymczak, Barbara Palvin, Robert Maillet (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Mark C. Phelan (last seen in "Radioactive"), John Cross.

RATING: 5 out of 10 MORE unhelpful premonitions

Black Adam

Year 15, Day 173 - 6/22/23 - Movie #4,473

BEFORE: All right, so I've got a plan for the summer - October 1 is just 80 films away if I put my new plan into motion.  Add 26 horror films to that total, and then 21 more films gets me to Christmas, believe it or not.  But the tricky part for me is stretching out 80 films over the next 100 days, that's 20 days of down time.  How many films should I watch in July, how many in August?  Will I be busier in September than in the other two months?  It's hard to predict.  Should I do 25/25/20 over the next 3 months? 

For now, I'm going to focus on the outstanding DC Comics-based films, then I'm going to start on the Marvel Comics-based films I haven't seen.  Henry Cavill carries over from "Enola Holmes 2".  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" (Movie #4,452)

THE PLOT: Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods - and imprisoned just as quickly - Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world. 

AFTER: Gonna issue another SPOILER ALERT tonight because this film was in theaters back in October of last year, and it just hit cable like last month, so I guess it's still considered new?  New-ish?  Well, regardless I've already given away the cameo at the end, but stop reading if you don't want to learn all of this movie's secrets and my complaints about them. 

It's not that surprising that I don't know very much about this superhero Black Adam.  Or is he a villain in the comics? See, that's how little I know about him - the only DC comics I read are the Batman books, the Superman books, and then the Justice League, only I don't stay current on that last one, I buy the trade paperbacks which get released a year or two after the comics, and they bundle 7 or 8 comics together in a story arc.  This means I'm not usually up on the big company "crossover" events like "Dark Nights: Death Metal" or "Blackest Night" unless it affects those characters I read about regularly, or if the story crosses over into Justice League books. So I think Black Adam comes from somewhere in the Shazam! (Captain Marvel) world but I wasn't exactly sure where.  

This means I don't read Justice Society, either - I have watched some of the "Titans" TV show, but only what's been on TV, not on HBO Max.  But Justice Society is way outside of what I read - I know a bit about Hawkman, not a lot, and I know almost nothing about Dr. Fate.  So I'm way outside of my comfort zone, but I was willing to give this movie a try.  

Yeah, I still don't quite get it. I guess he's a villain, or more correctly, an anti-hero and we have to allow that every villain maybe thinks of themselves as the hero of their own story?  Like Lex Luthor probably thinks of himself as a hero who's trying to rid the world of Superman, who he sees as an alien invader.  The Joker's probably an exception because he's, well, crazy, but some of Batman's other villains maybe see themselves as heroes, like Poison Ivy's sometimes fighting to protect the environment and Catwoman's trying to bring down the system by stealing jewels?  I don't know, sometimes a villain is just a villain and the writers try to make things more complicated than they are.

They teased Black Adam in the first "Shazam!" movie, and the wizard in that film is seen here, he was part of the council of wizards that granted Black Adam his powers back in ancient Egypt, to be their champion and battle a rogue pharaoh who had allied with demons or something.  You can see that Black Adam's costume is like a darker version of Shazam's, but the same design - and he gets his powers from 6 Egyptian gods and heroes whose initials also spell S-H-A-Z-A-M, they're just not the Greek gods and heroes. (For the record, Khandaq is a fictional North African country, one that must be close to Egypt, but is not Egypt.)

The movie here departs from the comics a bit (as far as I can tell) by saying that back in ancient Egypt, the Council of Wizards originally chose Black Adam's son, Hurut, to be their champion - this would have been in line with their later choice of Billy Batson, choosing a young, innocent but maybe troubled teen to have all the powers of an adult superhero - maybe because for children and teens it's easier to understand the concepts of "good" and "evil" before the adult world makes things very confusing?  IDK.  Anyway, Hurut gave the powers to his father, Teth-Adam, to save his life, but then Hurut got killed shortly after that.  (We learn all this in a set of flashbacks that maddeningly takes almost the whole film to reveal...). Teth-Adam became Black Adam, fought the evil pharaoh and then got placed in a tomb/prison for 5,000 years.  

In the present, Black Adam is awoken by an archaeologist who reads the inscription on the Crown of Sabacc, just before she and her team are ambushed by Intergang, a criminal organization that's taken over most of the country of Khandaq.  Adam, easily bests the Intergang members and takes out their trucks and helicopters, which brings him to the attention of Amanda Waller, who runs Project X (as seen in the "Suicide Squad" movies).  She sends the Justice Society to stop Adam's rampage, because of some historical text they found that describes him as a killer, not a hero.  But for some reason the Justice Society consists only of two veteran members (Dr. Fate and Hawkman) and two rookies (Cyclone and Atom-Smasher).  Why they choose to send untrained heroes on a mission, I can't quite figure out.  Like, Atom-Smasher keeps making mistakes, why is he on the team if he's not ready?  And Hawkman keeps blaming him for everything, like it's his fault, but not if he hasn't been trained properly, that's your job, Hawkman, stop being a dick!  

When he's called out for not being a true "hero", Black Adam surrenders to the Justice Society - but does this make any sense?  He should see himself as a hero, as Khandaq's champion, why would he surrender like this, and agree to be placed in stasis?  First you tell me this guy is as tough as nails and will fight to the end and never surrender, but as soon as a couple superheroes appear on the scene and say, "Hey, you're doing this wrong..." he just gives up?  I'm not buying it - unless he truly believes that the world has changed in the last 5,000 years and he just doesn't think he's going to fit in with modern times.  Maybe he thinks if he goes to sleep for another couple hundred years the world will change again and become more to his liking?  I'm not sure that's how things work, either. 

Meanwhile there's a former member of the archaeological team who manages to get his hands on that crown, and (because he's a descendant of the ancient pharaoh or something) he gets turned into a demon-powered super-villain himself named Sabbac.  But if I'm being honest, he looks a LOT like the villain that was in the movie "Justice League", Steppenwolf?  And both villains are similarly undistinct, they're kind of demonic, they've got horns, their powers include super-strength, growling and I don't know, bad breath?  Really, the villain here in "Black Adam" is a big blank, so generic and forgettable, I guess this is so he doesn't outshine Black Adam/Dwayne Johnson?  Like a great superhero film needs a great villain, not a totally forgettable one with random demon powers. 

Sabbac unleashed a bunch of demons/zombies into the streets of Khandaq, but all this does is unite the populace and encourage them to rise up and take arms against the demon horde, so, well, that didn't work out very well, did it?  Meanwhile, Dr. Fate realizes that the only champion who could possibly defeat Sabacc already exists, and it's Black Adam.  Gee, if only they hadn't put him in suspended animation and locked him up...  For a guy who can see the future, you kind of have to wonder why Dr. Fate didn't see they were going to need Black Adam to defeat the evil power.  Something's just not adding up here.  Dr. Fate has also been troubled with visions of his teammate Hawkman getting killed, which he then decides to prevent by sacrificing himself - or does he suddenly realize he's been reading his own visions incorrectly?  This is all a bit unclear. 

What is the deal with Dr. Fate, anyway?  I've heard him described as a sorcerer type, a bit like DC's version of Marvel's Dr. Strange - the two comic-book companies once published an "Amalgam" crossover of their two universes and they briefly merged the two characters together as Dr. StrangeFate - much like they merged Superman and Captain America to form "Super-Solider" and Batman and Wolverine to form "Dark Claw".  But that's about all I know about Dr. Fate, his power here seems to be that he can...wear a helmet?  Duplicate himself?  See the future?  Well, he's not really good at predicting things, we've established that already - so what's his deal, then?  I guess we'll never find out in this film or any other now. 

Cyclone and Atom-Smasher are both fairly useless here, I guess Cyclone's the granddaughter of a hero(ine?) called Red Tornado and Atom-Smasher is the nephew of the original hero (who was also the Fonz) but they're both quite ineffectual here, they could have just made this movie without them and it wouldn't have made much difference. Geez, from what I understand there are SO many other members of the Justice Society, like Atom, Hourman, Sandman (not that one), Spectre, the original Flash, the original Green Lantern, and more recently Power Girl, Starman, Wildcat, Huntress, Black Canary, Stargirl, Mister Terrific and Doctor Mid-Nite.  All that to choose from, and this movie went with two established members and two useless rookies? 

I understand, though - you can't use the original Flash (Jay Garrick) without interfering with the upcoming "Flash" movie (with Barry Allen) and confusing people.  The first Green Lantern (Alan Scott) was in the Justice Society, but the movie with Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) made the character box-office poison.  Sandman, same problem, confusion with the Neil Gaiman character, who's got a Netflix series.  And most of the others like Wildcat, Mister Terrific and Stargirl would elicit the same "Who the heck is THAT?" responses from most fans as Cyclone and Atom-Smasher probably would. 

To make matters worse, the Justice Society and Justice League used to live in two different universes - yeah, DC had a metaverse before it was cool.  So it was OK to have two heroes named "The Flash" or "Green Lantern" because one lived on Earth-One and was in the JSA and the other lived on Earth-Two and was in the JLA.  And they talked once in a while and maybe had an intra-universe crossover once a year, followed by a softball game (No, wait, that was the East Coast/West Coast Avengers...).  Fast-forward a few decades and then DC had the Crisis on Infinite Earths and killed off a bunch of heroes, then had the New 52 and brought them all back, but in 52 separate universes (because that's not confusing at ALL) and then they had "Rebirth" and started everything over from scratch again, but somehow all the universes and all the heroes who had ever been were crammed into one tiny universe.  Jesus, it's like they can't keep a solid storyline going for 90 years without messing with it from time to time.

The problem is, I think, that the readers keep getting older and either dying or aging out of the comic-book purchasing lifestyle (I'm a proud rare exception) and so every few years DC (and also Marvel) has to tear the whole system down and create these "entry points" to attract new readers. DC does it about every three years now - Crisis, Zero Hour, New 52, Flashpoint, Convergence, Rebirth, and most recently Infinite Frontier and Dawn of the DCU.  They're not really starting EVERYTHING over each time, but with Superman, for example, they did a storyline a few years ago where he revealed to the world that he was also Clark Kent, because he was a hero who stood for truth and justice, but he was also lying to the world by having a secret identity and getting paid to write newspaper articles about himself.  So he told his truth and it worked for a while, but now in the last few months they had Luthor find a way to make everyone in the world forget his secret and he blackmailed Superman back into hiding.  Really, a new writer probably got hired and just wanted things to reset so he could tell the stories he wanted to tell.  That's a soft reboot, but stuff like that's going on in the comic-book world all the time.

And the DC Movie Universe is going through this now, too - James Gunn is trying to unite all the movies into a big, consistent storytelling space going forward - but this is also what they said when "Justice League" came out, that all the future movies would spin off from there and take place in one unified, consistent universe - but it didn't happen.  They came out with "Joker" and "The Batman" and those are apparently set in alternate realities, and Ben Affleck is no longer Batman and the most consistent team out there is the Suicide Squad, which is a problem of its own.  I think this just means that "Wonder Woman 1984" really sucked so all plans to make "Aquaman 2" and more Superman films with Henry Cavill were put on hold, which is a shame. There's still "The Flash" though, and I want to watch that film within the next two weeks, because it's going to be a sign of how the DC Movie-verse continuity is going to work going forward.  But I'm afraid it also looks a lot like "Spider-Man: No Way Home", which was a total cop-out, stating that every Spider-Man movie ever really happened, just in different universes. 

Nothing succeeds like success, of course, so Marvel gets to keep their movie-verse intact, more or less, and maybe even re-boot the X-Men into it somehow, while DC has to keep tearing everything down and re-building it every five years, much like the Spider-Verse.  I'll check back in here after watching "The Flash", of course, but my outlook for continuity in the future isn't very good. There is a bit of hope, if the "Shazam!" movies keep doing well, because maybe both Shazam and Black Adam could appear in a Justice Society movie, and while that might be a little awkward with both of them on the same team, it could also be a little bit awesome.  I think in the comics something like the events at the end of this movie did happen, with Superman coming to Black Adam because the Justice League needed his help - but I haven't read that far in "Justice League" comics, remember I wait for the trade paperbacks, and they're a year or two behind. 

Also starring Dwayne Johnson (last seen in "The Queen of Versailles"), Aldis Hodge (last seen in "The Invisible Man"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "The Long Good Friday"), Noah Centineo (last seen in "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser"), Sarah Shahi, Quintessa Swindell (last seen in "Voyagers"), Marwan Kenzari (last seen in "The Promise"), Bodhi Sabongui, Mohammed Amer, James Cusati-Moyer, Jalon Christian, Odelya Halevi, Uli Latukefu (last seen in "Alien: Covenant"), Jennifer Holland (last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Chaim Jeraffi (last seen in "Just Like Heaven"), Patrick Sabongui, with cameos from Viola Davis (last seen in "Air"), Djimon Hounsou (also last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Henry Winkler (last seen in "Down to You"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 unhelpful premonitions

Enola Holmes 2

Year 15, Day 172 - 6/21/23 - Movie #4,472

BEFORE: It's a weird feeling, knowing I have all my summer movies picked out already - umm, I think.  The plan could still go south, but I think that if I just hang tight and do nothing, maybe everything will work out, or at least I'll get more comfortable with the plan.  I kind of went through my list and I tried to find movies on it that I definitely wanted to see, ASAP, that are NOT currently on the summer plan, and I didn't come up with anything.  This suggests, maybe, that I've properly prioritized things, and maybe I can just relax and watch a bunch of movies this summer that I want to see?  That would be nice.  

Sure, I'd love to plan my September and my October schedules - NY Comic Con is in October and we sometimes maybe take a vacation, too, but since I'm half out of work in July and August it might make more sense to take a road-trip or too, maybe not a big vacation because again, half out of work.  But the thing about August is that it's usually too hot to go anywhere, wouldn't I rather spend more time at home with the A.C. on, or more time watching movies in an air-conditioned theater?  I think half of the films I want to see in theaters are programmed for July, though, so I should probably start making plans to see them, plus who knows how long movies stay in theaters these days?  Don't things end up streaming after like 90 days or something now?  How does that work, do they count 90 days from the date of first release, or from the LAST day that a movie was in theaters?  Would be helpful to know - but I guess if there's a new Indiana Jones movie playing in cinemas, I should probably get my ass out there to see it, especially since the theater I work at is closed for the summer.  In what universe does THAT make sense?  Oh, yeah, the one where the theater is run by a college.

Millie Bobby Brown and at least five other actors carry over from "Enola Holmes". Seems about right for a sequel. 

THE PLOT: Now a detective-for-hire, Enola Holmes takes on her first official case to find a missing girl as the sparks of a dangerous conspiracy ignite a mystery that requires the help of friends - and Sherlock himself - to unravel. 

AFTER: I was surprised to find that there was a lawsuit over the first "Enola Holmes" movie, and it was sort of about copyright, but also sort of not - the main complaint seemed to be that the film wasn't being true to the character of Sherlock Holmes because initially it portrayed him as too emotional.  As if the greatest detective of his day couldn't POSSIBLY also have feelings for his family members, because at his core he should apparently be nothing but logical and deductive.  It's a silly argument, but somebody in charge of Arthur Conan Doyle's estate felt it was an important point to make, and I think maybe they made some changes to that film as a result, but ultimately the filmmakers won the case, and their right to portray the character as they saw fit. (Again, if an animated film can portray Holmes as a CGI dog, then what's the big deal with letting us see his vulnerable side?)

Umm, standard SPOILER ALERT tonight, because this film's only been on Netflix since last November, so if you're not current, please keep calm, carry on and tune in again tomorrow.  Thanks. 

Well, I liked the second installment in this franchise a little better than the first - probably partially because we all already knew the characters going in, so the film didn't have to spend an hour introducing everybody.  And Mycroft doesn't even show up in this one, so that's a time-saver, plus he was a bit of a Debbie Downer, anyway.  Enola is now the ward of Sherlock, and that's how things should be, especially if she wants to progress from an amateur detective to a professional one.  They still are reluctant to work together, because Enola doesn't want to be in her big brother's shadow (both figuratively and literally, the guy is BUILT) and Sherlock is the kind of detective who prefers to work alone.  That's right, ALONE, I mean, whoever heard of the great Sherlock Holmes working with a partner, somebody to share his flat with, somebody to bounce ideas off of, someone to watch out for him and take after him and act all shocked when he solves a mystery by fantastic observations and deductions, I mean, that would really really drag him down, to have to work every case with a PARTNER, right?  How absurd would THAT be?  

I'm kidding, of course - Watson gets introduced in the very very end of this movie, like post-credits, so I guess he'll be important if there's an "Enola Holmes 3" released in 2024. I would support that, though, except they may have gone a bit too far by making Watson of Indian descent - I mean, that's all well and good for Lestrade, but WATSON?  No, no, no, but if I complain about this too much then I'M the racist, I'm the bad guy, I suppose.  Still, if you run the Conan Doyle estate and you're looking for another reason to sue the filmmakers, this would probably be a good one, by my estimation.  Watson is English, full stop.  No, really, just stop, stop turning all the classic literary characters into people of color, because it's not necessary.  You can surround these characters with people of every ethnic background, but you shouldn't change the way the main characters are written, and that extends to their race.  Sorry, but I'm taking a hard line on this one.

Though I will admit, the director (or casting director) is willing to go all the way with this - because if you're going to do bling casting on the heroic characters, you've got to do it for the villain characters as well.  No spoilers here, but I think that's only fair.  You'll see what I mean before the end of "Enola Holmes 2" if you watch it - it's a bold move and I'm honestly shocked that this casting didn't cause a wave of BAD publicity.  

Let me remind you that at one point some people thought that the first "Star Wars" film was racist, because all the heroes wore white and Darth Vader was dressed in black, and there were almost NO black actors cast in "A New Hope". I don't remember which was the greater sin, to depict black as evil and white as good or to just not hire any black actors, but from a liberal standpoint, they're both bad.  It's a bit of an over-simplification, though, because stormtroopers wear white armor, and they're on the evil side, and then you have the voice of Darth Vader portrayed by a black man - so it is what it is, since it's really a Western in space you have to just fall back on the "white hat / black hat" motif that old Westerns used to tell the good guys from the bad guys.  Anyway they hired Billy Dee Williams for (ultimately) a hero role in the sequel, and this is probably why.  

Anyway, "Enola Holmes" carries some of the same liberal themes from the first film into the sequel - Enola wants to be an independent woman running her own business, while her mother is still championing feminist causes and blowing up postboxes as sort of a wanna-be Guy Fawkes. (Gal Fawkes?). And the central story centers on girls who work in a match factory, who keep getting sick because of the phosphorus being used to make the match heads - there really was a strike by these workers in 1888, led by labor activist Sarah Chapman, because 20 percent of the workers tended to die when constantly exposed to the chemicals used to make the match heads. On top of that, the workers (mostly poor girls) were paid low wages and then fined for a wide variety of reasons, which reduced their pay further. 

Three years later (in real life) the Salvation Army opened its own match factory in London, and they switched back from white phosphorus to red, which was safer for the workers to be around.  The bad publicity from white matches also convinced some of the other manufacturers to switch back to red, but these matches were more expensive to make, so those factories had to use child labor to cut costs and compete with the companies that were still making white matches.  Finally, the House of Commons passed an act prohibiting white phosphorus in matches, but not until 1908, twenty years after the strike - and the act didn't take effect until 1910.  Way to be on the ball when lives are at stake, Parliament.  I think the British match companies learned everything from American tobacco companies, only they killed their WORKERS and not their CUSTOMERS.  (How the hell did tobacco companies do so well in America for so long, given that they were selling a deadly product?  Oh, right, it was a deadly and addictive product.)

When I was a kid they released a Sherlock Holmes movie not based on any Conan Doyle book, not one that suggested Sherlock had a sister, but a film that was meant to be a sort of origin story for Sherlock Holmes, and it was called "Young Sherlock Holmes".  It was directed by Barry Levinson and written by Chris Columbus, and produced by some hack named Spielberg, I wonder whatever happened to him.  Anyway, it wouldn't fly today because all of the characters were white and male, but if you get a chance to look it up, I remember it was a very decent little film for its time, and that was 1985. I must have it on DVD somewhere, maybe I'll do a rewatch, it's been a few years since I last watched it.  Looks like it might be on Roku or Sling or maybe Amazon Prime?  Nah, I'll just watch the DVD. 

Anyway, the second film in this franchise held my attention a little better - I didn't drift off to sleep until much closer to the end while watching the sequel.  Still, that happened, and I had to wake up, rewind, and force myself to stay awake, several times.  Which is strange, because I've been getting more sleep than usual this week, but I've also been working on the new summer to-do list, so maybe that's why I'm so tired and I can't make it all the way through a movie.  Maybe I just need to find a new summer job - I'll start looking again tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. 

Also starring Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Susan Wokoma, Adeel Akhtar, Helena Bonham Carter, Sofia Stavrinou (all carrying over from "Enola Holmes"), David Thewlis (last seen in "Val"), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (last seen in "Dune: Part One"), Himesh Patel (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), Hannah Dodd (last seen in "Eternals"), Abbie Hern, Roisin Monaghan, Gabriel Tierney, David Westhead (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Tim McMullan (last seen in "Cyrano"), Lee Boardman (last seen in "The Young Messiah"), Serrana Su-Ling Bliss (last seen in "Belfast"), John Parshall, Catriona Chandler, Tony Lucken, Alison Knox, Jules Wallace, Donovan Louie, Nia Gandhi, Peter Groom.

RATING: 7 out of 10 men who don't mind trading clothes with Enola (future drag queens?)

Enola Holmes

Year 15, Day 171 - 6/20/23 - Movie #4,471

BEFORE:  OK, this is going to be a weird thing to say, but you've probably come to expect this sort of thing by now - I've got a path to the end of October.  I'm not sure it's THE path, but it is A path, and that's a comforting thing to know.  Given that I know what film I'm scheduled to watch on July 4, and given that I think I know what film I want to watch on October 1, there's just a little matter of filling up the space in between.  I thought about picking a random point halfway through and just naming a movie, then that would make things easier.  But in the end I didn't need to, I just estimated that I would need about 63 or 65 movies to bridge the gap and still have room left for 26 or 28 horror movies, that would save about 20 slots for November and December. 

So I just started linking today, not really randomly but based on what I WANT to watch from my list, which feels a bit odd, because I don't usually program that way, and considering there are about 4 blockbuster movies coming out this summer that I might want to catch in theaters - well, I just kept linking and shifting things around and flipping various parts of the chain when I saw another way to arrange them - and in a couple hours I had connected my July 4 film and my October 1 film.  Well, I did this a few times, really - the first time I connected them in about 10 films, and that was way too few.  Next try, and I really went for it, taking whatever weird direction I could think of that felt like it was bringing me closer to horror movies.  OK, stop and count the steps - 53, well that's still not enough, I have to fill up July, August and September.

A couple more flips, adding some more bridging material, and I found a few new paths, and I got there in 62, not quite the 63 or 65 I was hoping for, but I think it will do, if I can't come up with a better plan.  If you think about how there are probably 2 or 5 or 10 possible directions to go with each step, depending of course how many actors any film shares with the other films on my list, you can see that to fill up 62 slots, there are probably at least 100,000 possible paths.  The trick is finding one that I like, that focuses on films I want to watch, mostly, and then whatever bridging material is needed to connect those.  It can be done, it just takes up a lot of my time. 

Well, I've got time now, I'm only working three days a week, and I made a big list of things for me to get done before my second job needs me again.  Crossed off two things today, I went to the podiatrist and learned why my feet have been hurting so bad (calluses) and I came up with one possible path to program my summer movies.  OK, what can I get done on Thursday now? 

Adeel Akhtar carries over from "Murder Mystery 2". 

THE PLOT: When Enola Holmes (Sherlock's teen sister) discovers her mother is missing, she endeavours to find her, becoming a super-sleuth in her own right as she outwits her famous brother and unravels a dangerous conspiracy. 

AFTER: You know, what could really ruin my summer would be if I plan to watch "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" on Disney Plus in August, and then it doesn't start streaming until September.  That could be a big monkey wrench in my plans, then I really wouldn't know what to do.  So I guess I better start making back-up plans.  Anyway, that's something to think about later.  Today I have to think about Enola Holmes, secret never-before-mentioned sister of Sherlock.

This is based on a book series that started up in 2006, because I guess there's no copyright law that says you can't write about another author's characters' relatives that they forgot to mention or never wrote about in the first place.  Obviously the Sherlock Holmes character must have aged out of copyright protection, because "The Great Mouse Detective" and those movies with Robert Downey Jr., plus the CBS series "Elementary" and the PBS series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. I think there are a few cheapo animated films out there were Sherlock Holmes is a CGI dog or something, too.  I think once Mel Brooks made a parody movie about Victor Frankenstein's grandson, all bets were kind of off on the whole relatives thing.  So watch for movies coming soon about Robin Hood's secret daughter and James Bond's female second cousin, once removed, on his father's side.

That adaptation I watched late last year of "David Copperfield" comes to mind, also, even though it was very true to the narrative, it also depicted 1800's London as a very ethnically diverse time and place, when, come on, we knew it was anything but that.  And a couple years back they came out with films like "Mary, Queen of Scots" and "The Favourite" that went even further back into history to also depict those past centuries as hotbeds of liberalism, with characters of many colors and sexual orientations featured, and I'm not exactly sure who benefits from this, maybe all the teens today feel more comfortable in thinking that those time periods weren't extremely racist and conservative and anti-gay, but they kind of were.  "Enola Holmes" fits right into this model, with a few prominent characters of color, like Inspector Lestrade is played by an actor of obvious Indian descent, and yet this probably was set before Great Britain even colonized India, so it doesn't really make much sense.  Well, as long as it makes people today feel better about themselves, then it's OK?  Not sure. 

There's a heavy feminist message here as well, which is to be expected with a female lead character, during a time period when women of the day were fighting for voting rights.  No spoilers here about why Enola's mother left the family estate, because that's kind of the central mystery to be solved here, but yeah, it's got something to do with suffrage, I think I can let that slip and still preserve some secrets.  Enola enlists the help of her older brothers Sherlock and Mycroft to find their missing mother, but then once she realizes that Mycroft's going to put her in boarding school, she heads out to London herself to do her own detective work and solve the mystery of the missing mother. 

Instead, she encounters the young Lord Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwater, while on the train.  He's in a similar position, he's about to be shipped off to a military academy, and he maybe doesn't feel like being a soldier - jeez, what's the point of the aristocracy if you can still die in a war?  Say, you don't suppose that the young teen boy running away is somehow connected to the other mystery of the missing mother?  How could THAT be, unless it's all part of some larger picture that the characters just can't see yet?  And you don't suppose that by spending time together, after leaving the train and making their way to London, that the male teen aristocrat and the female teen detective might come to an understanding of sorts, and perhaps even be attracted to each other?  Nah, that's crazy talk - still, stranger things have happened, no pun intended. 

Once they reach London, though, they separate, and Enola uses some of the money her mother left for her to rent a flat, and then tries hard to avoid her brothers, who have also returned to London, by dressing as a sophisticated lady.  You see, her brothers would expect her to disguise herself as a boy, that would be the obvious move, so she's got to go in the other direction, get a corset, and a black dress to look like a young widow, because everybody avoids talking to a grieving widow.  (Do they, though?)

On her own, Enola takes the initiative and leaves coded messages in the personals section of the newspapers her mother is likely to read, and then also manages to puzzle out what part of town her mother might be living in, and also visits her old martial arts instructor to get more clues that way - she's a young woman of action, where Sherlock is depicted here as more of a man of inaction, he's very observant when it comes to visual clues, but he doesn't seem to want to get out and do the legwork, he'd rather sit in the club with Mycroft and wait for clues that come from reading between the lines in newspaper articles.  I'm not sure I agree with this depiction.  

Anyway, it all plays out like a solid origin tale, as Enola takes the time and opportunity to figure out who she wants to be. Sure, there's a larger mystery to be solved but I wish the origin and backstory didn't take up so much time.  It's kind of like how it would be if a "Batman" movie spent its first hour just telling us who Bruce Wayne was as a teen, when really, we just want a five-minute recap of the origin we all know so we can get to the Batman stuff.  Once this film finally got rolling, it was fine, so I'm expecting a bit more from the sequel.  Yes, it took me so long to get to this film in my Netflix queue that there are now TWO films in the series to watch.  My bad. 

NITPICK POINT: I guess I've never heard the word "Marquess" spoken before, because I thought that maybe a marquess was a female marquis, maybe.  OK, so I guess I was wrong about that - but naturally I assumed that it should be pronounced "mar-kess" because the French word "marquis" is pronounced "mar-kee".  But every British person here said "mar-kwess", so what the hell do I know?  Next thing you know, they'll be saying "vis-count" instead of "vie-count".

Also starring Millie Bobby Brown (last seen in "Godzilla vs. Kong"), Henry Cavill (last seen in "The Cold Light of Day"), Sam Claflin (last seen in "Love Wedding Repeat"), Helena Bonham Carter (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Louis Partridge (last seen in "Paddington 2"), Burn Gorman (last heard in "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio"), Susan Wokoma, Hattie Morahan (last seen in "Operation Mincemeat"), Ellie Haddington (ditto), David Bamber (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Frances de la Tour (last heard in "Dolittle"), Claire Rushbrook (last seen in "Secrets & Lies"), Fiona Shaw (last seen in "Colette"), Alex Kelly, David Kirkbride, Mary Roscoe (last seen in "Paddington"), Esther Coles (last seen in "Emma.")

RATING: 6 out of 10 times Enola breaks the "fourth wall". 

Murder Mystery 2

Year 15, Day 170 - 6/19/23 - Movie #4,470

BEFORE: Adam Sandler carries over from "That's My Boy". You may recall I already used him as a link back in January, then he popped up unexpectedly in a couple documentaries, and now I've added three more films, for a total of 7 appearances this year.  Yeah, he's doing OK and he'll be part of the year-end countdown for sure.  Some Movie Years just turn out to feature certain actors again and again, what can I say.  I made certain decisions in January and I made different ones in June, and so we're Sandler-heavy this time around. I'll try to cap it here and go in a different direction tomorrow as we head toward the Fourth of July.  I think I'll have to either drop something or double up to get there on time, we'll see which makes the most sense. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Murder Mystery" (Movie #3,489)

THE PLOT: Full-time detectives Nick and Audrey are struggling to get their private eye agency off the ground. They find themselves at the center of international abduction when their friend, the Maharajah, is kidnapped at his own lavish wedding. 

AFTER: Three years and three months ago, I watched the first "Murder Mystery" film on Netflix - I barely remember what happened in the movie, so thank God it's not that important to enjoy this one. A couple of characters other than the leads carry over, but you can still catch up pretty quickly if you don't recall what happened in the first film.  But back then, March 2020, we were all still at the start of the pandemic, or maybe it was the start of the middle, but then again, nobody knew how long lockdown was going to last, so we couldn't be so bold as to presume it would all be over in a few months. I used the time at home to catch up on all my shows on my DVR, filed for unemployment so I would have some income for at least a while, and then I set on really figuring out what I could watch on Netflix to pass the time.  (Remember, when everyone was bingeing "Tiger King" and then making lists of what to knock off next?)

Now it's 2023 and things are totally different - I'm facing two months at home again, but for completely different reasons, still, thanks to the writers' strike I've been able to catch up on all my TV shows on my DVR, and I think tomorrow I'll file for unemployment so I'll have some income for a while, and now I really need to figure out what I can watch on Netflix to pass the time.  Wait a minute...this is all feeling very familiar all of a sudden. 

OK, so it's deja vu all over again - Father's Day films are over and it's time to watch some mysteries, followed by some superhero films, that should at least get me to the weekend.  I think maybe I should have a "summer blockbuster summer" and try to get out to the movie theater a few times in July, now that I'm not working at a movie theater three or four times a week.  "The Flash", "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse" and the new Indiana Jones film all look like solid options if I can work them all in, plus I need to catch "Ant-Man 3" on Disney and when are they going to start streaming "Guardians of the Galaxy 3"?  I've been a little busy.  (But it turns out "Secret Invasion" is a Marvel TV series, not a movie, so I can watch that one any time I want.)

Nick and Audrey Spitz do NOT have kids - so as I said, films about fathers are done, right on schedule.  But they do bicker a bit, and also argue about things, so yeah, definitely a married couple.  Like the famiilies in "Blended", they could really use a vacation, and summer's a perfect time for that.  The Maharajah (from the first film) is having a wedding on his new private island and he invites his favorite crime-solving couple - gee, you don't suppose that a murder will take place on the island that they'll have to solve?  Well, close, there is a murder but mainly they have to solve the kidnapping of the Maharajah, and try to figure out if any of his closest family members, exes and employees are in on the scheme.  Logically there MUST be someone still on the island who's part of the plan, it says so right in the detective handbook, or something, that there had to be a person on the inside working with the kidnapper(s).  

The couple also has a rival, a guy named Connor Miller, a former MI6 agent and also the guy who literally wrote the book that the Spitzes have been studying, and he covered everything from hostage negotiation to ransom drops to hand-to-hand combat.  Umm, gee, I wonder if any of those skills will be relevant here to this situation.  But then, there's also the possibility that the expert on kidnappings might also be working with the kidnappers himself - so who can they trust?  

Yeah, I realize this film isn't as complex as a Shakespearean tragedy, but it turns out that when compared to "That's My Boy", it appears very well put together, at least by comparison.  Yeah, I could see the poorly hidden set-ups in the story, but I was LOOKING for them.  But hey, if you're an amateur filmmaker, there's an important lesson here, if you want people to enjoy your film more, just make sure that right before they watch YOUR film, they watch a much more terrible film right before.  Well, it couldn't hurt - I'm not sure how you'd arrange this, but it might be worth a try.  I sure enjoyed this one a lot more over the previous Adam Sandler offering.  

This one also calls to mind "Glass Onion", in that it's set on a very rich person's private island and the suspect pool is just six or seven people.  No, it didn't use the same plot points, and the detective in that other film was a professional, not a couple of amateurs, but still, there are some basic similarities. No spoilers here though. 

Then the action moves to Paris where the couple has to make the ransom drop in exchange for the Maharajah, but things go bad during a van trip that turns into a quite exciting car chase, and then in a restaurant halfway up the Eiffel Tower, the kidnap victim is turned over, the villain is revealed and there's some more action that will mess with you if, like me, you're afraid of heights.  Maybe there are a few too many reversals here, but the action scenes are all thrilling and the comedy isn't too obnoxious, maybe they found a good balance here by keeping Sandler in check and not letting him do any of his "funny" voices.  And hey, he probably got to take his family to Hawaii for the third time, and maybe Paris for the first time.

Some jokes do go nowhere - particularly the repetitive one where Sandler has to keep moving heavy furniture that's blocking the door every time somebody comes into their hotel room - if the table and the plant are in the way, then why do you keep moving them BACK, genius?  

Also starring Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Mark Strong (last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Mélanie Laurent (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Jodie Turner-Smith (last seen in "White Noise"), John Kani (last heard in "The Lion King" (2019)), Kuhoo Verma (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Dany Boon (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Adeel Akhtar (last seen in "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain"), Enrique Arce (last seen in "Terminator: Dark Fate"), Zurin Villanueva, Jillian Bell (last seen in "Brittany Runs a Marathon"), Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "King Richard"), Annie Mumolo (last seen in "Confess, Fletch"), Larry Myo Leong, Carlos Ponce (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"), Anouar H. Smaine (last seen in "Hustle") and the voice of Ray Chase (last seen in "Licorice Pizza").

RATING: 6 out of 10 confusing business cards

That's My Boy

Year 15, Day 169 - 6/18/23 - Movie #4,469

BEFORE: Well, that's a wrap for the Tribeca Film Festival, as I worked a 14-hour shift yesterday and tomorrow the theater closes for two months. See you guys in...August?  Now I have to figure out what to do with myself between now and then, since I'm only scheduled to work three days a week at the primary job.  Well, when in doubt, make a list - of all the things I've been putting off, including seeing a couple doctors, clearing out some old e-mails, looking for temp work, maybe cutting back the vines in the backyard, taking some comics to storage - there's plenty to do, I just haven't been motivated to do any of it.  Maybe boredom will motivate me to get some things done instead of just moping around.  I can also pull some DVDs from the collection that I need to watch before June 4 and then try to program a chain that connects July 4 and October 1. Maybe I can even go to the movies once or twice, I know there are some blockbusters coming out that I may want to see, plus I'm behind on my Marvel movies, so that's a thing to do.  Whatever gets me through the next two months - I can cut back on movies in September when I may be working more. 

In the meantime, it's Father's Day at last, I've been building up to it for the last three weeks at least.  I called my Dad today, and he's considering taking my sister up on her offer to move my parents down to North Carolina.  I hate that I don't really have a say in this matter, but the truth is I only see them a couple times a year anyway, this probably won't change that, it will just mean I'll need to travel further when I do see them. Great. 

Adam Sandler carries over from "Blended". 

THE PLOT: While in his teens, Donny fathered a son and raised him as a single parent until his 18th birthday. Now Donny resurfaces just before his son's wedding after years apart, sending the groom-to-be's world crashing down. 

AFTER: Wow, this movie was terrible, it just aimed so LOW with its comedy.  Who makes a comedy that STARTS with a teacher having sex with a high-school student?  How is THAT a jumping-off point for some good old-fashioned comedy?  And then it goes even lower from there, with jokes about incest, strip clubs and bachelor parties, masturbation, fantasizing about sex with senior citizens, and more.  Which all really amounts to less - I know Sandler started his whole career in low-brow comedies, but this really should have all been beneath him.  Maybe this is why he wanted to transition to dramas like "Uncut Gems" and "Hustle", but then again, he still made "Hubie Halloween" lately so I just don't get it.  Maybe actors don't have as much control as they think they do, if they can't control whether a movie is going to end up being "funny" or "good", whatever those terms mean.  But this one is neither funny NOR good. 

Now I have regrets, because there were so many other, BETTER movies about fathers that I could have place on this day.  Fathers are everywhere, and I settled for this one, so I guess I apologize for this, only it's not really my fault.  I have to watch a movie to determine just how bad it is, and this one's just terrible.  I wish I could just drop it and not count it - actually I could and you at home would never know, but I don't like to be dishonest.  I watched it, I'll take the hit and I'll hope for something better out of Adam Sander tomorrow.  

I can go almost all the way back to Mother's Day and find better films with fathers in them - starting with "The Pale Blue Eye", then "Eighth Grade" would have been a fine choice, too, "News of the World" had Tom Hanks acting like a surrogate father figure, "The Land of Steady Habits" had Ben Mendelsohn as an irresponsible father, "White Noise" had Adam Driver trying to save his family from a deadly toxic cloud from a train crash, "Stillwater" had Matt Damon trying to prove that his daughter wasn't a murderer, and in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secret of Dumbledore", Credence Barebone learned who his father was - any of those films would have been better than "That's My Boy".  "Dom Hemingway" (absent father safe-cracker), "A Simple Favor" (father with a missing wife), "Top Gun: Maverick" (ace pilot Rooster tries to live up to his father's legacy), "Apollo 10 1/2" (boy remembers his father in 1969), "Shazam: Fury of the Gods" had kids with a foster father, "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again" (teen takes over his father's job), "Senior Year" (cheerleader's father supports her when she wakes from a coma), "School Ties" (Jewish kid going to prep school gets advice from his father), "The Tender Bar" (Long Island kid has an absent father), "Nobody" (father uses his skills to protect his family), "Respect" (Aretha Franklin clashes with her father), "Dope" (L.A. kid with absent father), and "Blended" of course.  Hell, even "Bullet Train" had a couple fathers in it, who then fought each other with swords.  Any of those I could have chosen over this one, and I could have made it work.

But "That's My Boy" is just a whole lot of garbage. If feels kind of like a Peter Farrelly film, like you could trace the humor back to "There's Something About Mary", which also had jokes about masturbation and also had a weird old lady character that got naked. (Like, WTF?). But is this really what the general public is craving in a comedy film?  Not me, I just don't get it.  Sandler has proved that he's better than this, so why do all these lowest-common-denominator gags and play to the cheap seats?  

Look, I don't really want to break down WHY the jokes are so bad, because explaining comedy tends to kill it, and it's already pretty dead here.  But I kind of have to mention a few things, like that characters work best when they are consistent, and there are inconsistencies all over this thing.  The worst example is probably  Jamie, the fiancée character - we never really get any read on her at all, she's a giant blank. What is she all about?  We have no idea, because the screenwriter never bothered to give her anything to DO throughout the whole film, except be a person engaged to Todd Peterson (aka Han Solo Berger).  A screenwriter should not be allowed to create a character this underdeveloped, she's practically invisible until the script needs her to do a particular thing, which is to cheat on Todd.  Very very bad, from a feminist point of view, that a woman has nothing remarkable about her at all, except for who she's sleeping with. 

The teacher who had a relationship with her student is almost as bad - umm, what subject does she teach?  We don't know anything about her either, except for her name and that she's having sex with Donny.  What's her motivation, why does she do this thing?  Why does she give Donny detention for him coming on to her, then quickly reverse herself and seduce him?  There's an opportunity here to get inside the head of a Pamela Smart-type character, but it's completely wasted.  Was she abused as a child?  Was she dumped by her boyfriend, is she divorced?  I will admit it's a clever idea to have her played by Susan Sarandon's daughter when she's young and by Sarandon herself when she's older.  That's a little bit of genius, but even when the character comes back into the storyline 28 years later, we still don't learn one personal fact about her.  Very, very bad, obviously this came from a screenwriter who can only view women as sexual objects and doesn't care one bit about their thoughts or hopes or dreams. 

Donny's a terrible character as well as a terrible person - he owes $43,000 to the IRS in back taxes, so how am I supposed to, you know, like him?  He apparently made some money as a minor celebrity after the trial of his teacher, but then he wasted most of it, invested none of it, and apparently spent NONE of it on raising his son?  Well, it's a good thing he's not irresponsible, right?  Then he let his son have cake and candy every day for breakfast, which led to Todd/Han being very overweight and getting diabetes.  Well, now I really hate him, I hate the car he drives, I hate everything he wears, and I really hate how everybody seems to like him when he's such a complete a-hole.  How does that even work?  There's no rational explanation for it, he's got no job, no charming personality, no responsibility, and he's been coasting for decades on the fact that he slept with his high-school teacher?  No way that the court of public opinion would have championed his cause for so long, it doesn't compute. 

Then, of course, he sells out his whole family and arranges for a TV camera crew to be there when his son reunites with his mother, who's still in jail.  For this, Donny will get $50,000, more than enough to pay the IRS his back taxes.  NITPICK POINT: This doesn't compute either, because if he gets another $50,000 in income to pay his back taxes, he'll still have to declare the new $50K in earnings for the current year, and if the TV producers don't take out withholding taxes, then he'll have to pay taxes on THAT, and it's just a vicious cycle that's never going to end.  To make it stop, he'd probably have to earn at least $60K gross, pay the taxes in advance on the $60K, and then MAYBE he'd have $43K left to give to the IRS for the previous years. But what do I know, I'm not an accountant. 

Anyway, the plan doesn't work because Todd/Han gets angry and doesn't sign a release form.  So Donny's back to trying to borrow the money somehow or win a bet on the Boston Marathon.  Umm, here's a crazy idea, did he ever think about maybe getting a job?  Oh, I hate this character so much, who the hell decided this was a good character to build a movie around?  He's just going to give young people bad ideas about how to live their lives, like earning money from being TikTok and Instagram influencers and not realizing that all income is taxable income. Or that betting on a really fat guy to win a marathon is a super-terrible idea, also it's very very impossible, because duh, of course it is.

The priest is another example of a character that just makes no sense - what's his deal?  Why did he get into fights with everybody?  Because he's Irish?  That's a very poor excuse.  I mean, I know there had to be something wrong with the priest to cause some kind of wedding mishap, but every little story element has to make sense even in a fictional world.  You can't just have "priest who for some reason gets into a fight with the lead character" be a thing and get away with that. It's just bad writing when there are this many loose ends that come out of nowhere, and worse, don't end up going anywhere.  What was with the naked people in the car?  Same problem.  What happened to Donny's best friends in high school, why did they disappear from the movie?  Why don't we get to see what Donny's father looks like? It's just all so damn sloppy.

I can usually find something redeeming about any movie, besides the fact that it links me to the next one, but I'm really struggling with this one.  I regret watching this, and I almost never say that.  What a terribly inappropriate movie for Father's Day.

Also starring Andy Samberg (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania"), Leighton Meester (last seen in "Life Partners"), Vanilla Ice (Rob Van Winkle) (last seen in "The New Guy"), James Caan (last seen in "Eraser"), Milo Ventimiglia (last seen in "Gamer"), Blake Clark (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Meagen Fay (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Tony Orlando (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Will Forte (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Rachel Dratch (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Nick Swardson (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Peggy Stewart (last seen in "The Runaways"), Luenell (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Ciara, Ana Gasteyer (last seen in "Val"), Eva Amurri Martino (last seen in "The Banger Sisters"), Justin Weaver, Susan Sarandon (last seen in "Jagged"), Todd Bridges, Dan Patrick (also carrying over from "Blended"), Jackie Sandler (ditto), Sadie Sandler (ditto), Sunny Sandler (ditto), Abdoulaye NGom (ditto), Robert Harvey (ditto), Rex Ryan, Erin Andrews, Peter Dante, Baron Davis, Brad Grunberg (last seen in "Eagle Eye"), Dennis Dugan (last seen in "Love, Weddings & Other Disasters"), Nancy Yee (last seen in "Dumb & Dumber To"), Koji Kataoka (last seen in "The Slammin' Salmon"), with cameos from Alan Thicke (last seen in "The Clapper"), Ian Ziering (last seen in "Domino"), Colin Quinn (last seen in "Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists"), Rich Eisen, Arsenio Hall (last seen in "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool") and David Letterman (last seen in "Nothing Compares")

RATING: 3 out of 10 fungoes hit in a replica of Fenway Park