BEFORE: OK, this will be my fourth attempt to schedule and/or watch this movie - first I figured I would get here via Giancarlo Esposito, because I watched him in "The Show" and "Night on Earth", but I guess I couldn't fit it in, what with Mother's Day coming up and all that. No worries, Mr. Esposito was also in "Captain America: Brave New World", which was going to be on Disney Plus soon, so I could just work it in then. But then "Thunderbolts" came out and I had an opportunity to watch that back-to-back with Captain America, so this film got left out again. So then I saw how it connected with "Music by John Williams" via Ke Huy Quan, so it seemed like a natural fit for being the outro to the Doc Block, only I tried watching it last Sunday and I just couldn't get into it. These are bad movie scheduling vibes all around, really - but I got 30 minutes into it already, so I really just have to devote another hour and a half to it today to try and get through it. I can tell myself it's the only way to get to post my review of "Superman" in a few days.
Millie Bobby Brown carries over from "Damsel".
THE PLOT: An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.
AFTER: Again, I feel like this kind of should have been a slam-dunk for me, it feels like it's RIGHT up my alley, there's a bunch of animated robots, a giant cast with some of my favorite MCU actors in it, plus Millie Bobby Brown from "Stranger Things" (Hey, why is that final season taking so damn long, anyway? Will I get to watch it in seasonally appropriate October? Nope, doesn't look like it.). Plus, it's based on a comic book (sorry, illustrated novel, that's the newest euphemism...) and it's directed by the guys who made "Infinity War" and "Endgame".
So why the hell am I just not feeling like I enjoyed this one? For starters, it's as confusing as hell, it's set in the 1990's, but it's not the history I remember from that decade, so, great, we're dealing with an alternate timeline. There's been some kind of war between humans and robots, but it's already OVER, which is a bad sign if you ask me. You know what would probably be more interesting? If the film was set DURING the Robot Wars, not after. Just saying, there's your movie, not whatever THIS is. Robots have been exiled to an desert area of the U.S. called the Exclusion Zone, where humans are forbidden.
Meanwhile, the hot new non-robot technology is called the NeuroCaster, which allows people to transfer part of their mind into a mechanical drone to do their work, while the other part of their brain gets to go on a VR vacation. I don't know, that seems like an awful lot of work for a very small result, you can't really tell me this is easier in the long run than working for 50 weeks and taking 2 off and going on a REAL vacation, like on a REAL beach. A VR vacation is never going to be a proper substitute for a real one, like you can't eat great food in virtual reality - just like when we have VR sex worked out, it might be a moderate substitute for the real thing, but it can never replace the good old-fashioned flesh-on-flesh sex. Prove me wrong, science. I feel like we're back on the Star Wars Holiday Special wookiee porn dispute.
In the world of humans, there exists Michelle Greene, who's been living in foster care since her parents and genius brother died in a car crash, and she refused to use the NeuroCaster at school, and I guess this is suppose to be symbolic of kids using their phones as a substitute for real learning, so this is the preachy part of the film. We're supposed to respect the girl who refuses to live in a fantasy world and use the new technology as part of her learning - she's a book girl, which is totally retro, but I can't really imagine a kid these days who doesn't want to use a phone or a computer to get things done. Maybe there are still Amish kids out there somewhere.
One day Michelle is contacted by a robot named Cosmo, who was a character from a cartoon that she used to watch with her brother, and though the robot has a limited vocabulary of preset phrases, he manages to convince her that her brother's consciousness was transferred into this robot body, so they take off together for the exclusion zone to seek out his body. Sure, like you do sometimes, who's not up for a long journey across a dystopian future landscape on the slimmest of hopes? Michelle has a vague memory of the doctor who told her that her brother was dead, and Cosmo seems to know where they need to go, somehow. But they're being tracked by human piloting one of those drone warrior suits, which is definitely NOT a robot because a human is controlling it. It's a fine line if you ask me.
They encounter a smuggler named Keats who's been raiding the EZ for various collectibles he remembers from his childhood, in the hopes they'll be worth a lot of money someday (this is probably the most relatable part of the story, if you ask me) and Keats is partners/frenemies with Herman, a construction robot who saved his life during the Robot Wars. After fighting off the bounty hunter hired by the mysterious CEO of the Sentre corporation, this ragtag group finds themselves stranded in the Zone, which is apparently a quite dangerous place for humans to find themselves.
The ragtag group gets even more ragtag when they visit an abandoned shopping mall that's filled with old and weird but still functioning robots. There's a mail robot, a baseball robot, a magician robot, and a football robot, and their leader is a giant Mr. Peanut robot for some reason. By this point, really nothing made sense any more, not at all, but it's too late to turn back now. In for a penny, in for a pound, so to speak. What do you know, this combination of humans and robots has exactly the skills needed to track down the mysterious doctor with glasses and figure out what happened to Michelle's brother's body and learn how his mind ended up in a robot. But this information would have been more helpful if they could only DO something with it, and it's just way too late for that.
There's some novelty here in figuring out the identities of the actors doing the voices of the robots, and some of the casting is quite clever - whoever imagined Mr. Peanut with the voice of Woody Harrelson, for example, was at the top of their game. But in using Anthony Mackie as the voice of Herman, they computerized his voice and changed the pitch so much that you can't even tell it's him. So, umm, what's the point of THAT? The cameo game is strong here, but most of the main actors don't seem to have to work that hard, nobody's going to win any awards for this one, to say the least, unless it's a Razzie. How the hell could "Five Nights at Freddy's" be a better movie about robots? Well, maybe it just is.
I feel like this should have been really cool, like maybe there was an opportunity to say something about the possible dangers of A.I., which is still a burgeoning industry that has a great chance of spiraling out of control. Yes, the mysterious definitely evil CEO of the Sentre Corporation is a step in the right direction - he who controls the robots could easily control the world, after all. But we need to stop thinking of the robots as our allies in the future, depending on how they're programmed, there's a decent chance that they'll be just the opposite. Making them appear cute and friendly and helpful at this point in time is just going to send the wrong message, across the board.
Directed by Anthony Russo (director of "Welcome to Collinwood" & "The Gray Man") & Joe Russo (ditto)
Also starring Chris Pratt (last seen in "10 Years"), Ke Huy Quan (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Jason Alexander (last heard in "Leo"), Giancarlo Esposito (last seen in "Captain America: Brave New World"), Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Woody Norman (last seen in "C'mon C'mon"), Marin Hinkle (last seen in "Imagine That"), Michael Trucco (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Holly Hunter (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Patti Harrison (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Ann Russo (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Greg Cromer (last seen in "Are You Here"), Vince Pisani (last seen in "The Burial"), Camrus Johnson (last seen in "Quiz Lady"), Juan Uribe Brandi, Roshni Edwards, Aubrey Brockwell, Camille Marquez (last seen in "The Gray Man"), Lia Russo (ditto), Chris Castaldi (ditto), Tuc Watkins, Merle Dandridge, Ian McShay, Anthony Vorhies (last seen in "Extraction II"), Walter Strickland, Joe Avena, Necar Zadegan,
Brooklynn, Antoinette LaVecchia, Rahul Kohli, Terence Lee, Christopher Brearton, Augie Rosalina (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Terry Notary (last seen in "The Square"), Adam Croasdell, Chris Silvestri, Devyn Dalton (last seen in "Brothers"), Phoenix Notary, Gabrielle Maiden (last seen in "Under the Silver Lake"), Martin Klebba (last seen in "Movie 43"), David Alexander (also last seen in "The Burial"), Brooke Bloom (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Cuyle Carvin (last seen in "American Made"), Rory Keane (last seen in "Fly Me to the Moon"), Art Newkirk (ditto), Jenna Pinchbeck, Casey Shirley (last seen in "Reptile")
with the voices of Anthony Mackie (also last seen in "Captain America: Brave New World"), Woody Harrelson (last seen in "A Scanner Darkly"), Jenny Slate (last heard in "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"), Alan Tudyk (last heard in "Wish"), Brian Cox (last seen in "The Minus Man"), Hank Azaria (last seen in "Great Expectations"), Colman Domingo (last seen in "All Is Bright"), Rob Gronkowski (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Jordan Black (last seen in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar"), Billy Gardell (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Susan Leslie (B), Joe Russo (also last seen in "The Gray Man"), Kurt Loder (last seen in "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon"), Will Lyman (last seen in "School Ties"), Billy Bob Thornton (last seen in "Cut Bank") and archive footage of Walt Disney (last seen in "Dear Mr. Watterson").
RATING: 4 out of 10 G.I. Joe lunchboxes
No comments:
Post a Comment