Pixels (2015)

** out of ****

Adam Sandler clearly surrounds himself in life with yes men. He writes ridiculously self-indulgent “comedy” that he thinks is funny – him doing stupid voices, acting like an annoying psycho loser, making faces like a kid in a mirror, and spouting a non-stop array of potty jokes. The yes-men around him tell him that it's funny, so he just keeps on doing the same crap, usually getting even more self-indulgently stupid to “push the envelope”.

To paraphrase Sandler's old SNL coworker Dennis Miller: At least that's my opinion; I could be wrong.

And it's too bad, because when he actually has some material to work with, Sandler is funny. Often extremely funny. There are still scenes in “The Wedding Singer” and “Happy Gilmore” and “Fifty First Dates” that I crack up at. But they are always overshadowed by the childish crap.....

“Pixels” at least isn't a complete waste of celluloid. It isn't Sandler's strongest effort, but it has some entertainment value, some pretty cool special effects, and a clear and obvious appeal to the 40-to-50 year old nerd set.

Way back in the early 80s, Sam Brenner (Sandler) was an arcade champion. He could recognize patterns within video games that let him know what the game was going to do next. But at the age of 13 he is crushed when he loses the World Video Game Championships to “Fire Blaster” (Peter Dinklage). Sam's best friend Will (Kevin James) is unable to console him, and Sam goes on to never really make much of himself.

However, at that World Championship it's said that the USA is launching some video games into space as an attempt to communicate with aliens, which becomes part of the central plot. Fast forward 35 years and aliens are arriving, having taken the video games as a challenge to war. They have designed real-life versions of some of the classic arcade games with which they attack Earth. In one of the movie's funnier moments we find that Will has grown up to be the President of the United States, and he recruits Sam and Fire Blaster to try to defeat the aliens.

It's actually kind of a fun and clever plotline, and the scenes of a Centipede attack on Hyde Park and a giant Pacman war in New York City are really quite terrific ones. The special effects are great and it's all well executed. But Sandler's periodic juvenile self indulgence shines through in many places, and James' almost equally stupid schtick do everything they can to ruin the film. Josh Gad's turn as Ludlow, a beyond-weird conspiracy geek, has some really fun moments but most of his “comedy” also falls flat.

I expect this movie to appeal greatly to younger kids – the 9 to 13 year old set, and possibly even become somewhat of a cult classic to the folks that still love to spend time on classic arcade games.  By that I mean guys that would feel at home with most of the recreational activities seen on the “Big Bang Theory”.

And I will admit to having some laughs at the film and kind of liking it in many places (unlike all of Sandler's recent movies). But the childishness of some of the execution makes it impossible for me to really recommend.

Spy (2015)

* ½ out of ****

I have been outspoken in the past about Melissa McCarthy and how much I detest her movies. It isn't so much her acting, it's her characters – she plays one-note, loudmouth, foul, despicable women who I couldn't imagine wanting to spend even a moment with, let alone the length of a movie. In “Spy” she almost overcomes her self-created stereotype..... then falls face first back into it.

McCarthy is Susan Cooper, a CIA operative whose duties solely involve assisting super-spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) with his assignments. She sits at a computer, watches satellite imagery, warns him about what to look for, escape routes, etc. All fine and good, except she's head over heel in love with Fine, though he appears too dim to notice. Cooper is a “nice girl”, not terribly attractive but extremely sincere and hopeful. But when Fine is killed in the line of duty, and it would seem that all the CIA field operatives have been compromised, she volunteers to take to the field as the sole agent the enemy will not know.  Up to this point the film is funny and engaging, and McCarthy is considerably more likable than she has ever been.

…..but then she creates a new persona for her field spy, which can only be described as .... a one-note, loudmouth, foul, despicable woman. Basically, she reinvents “Tammy” (2014) although Tammy can now kick some ass. It's at this point that the film falls on its face, becoming a contest to see what insult McCarthy can come up with for the film's various characters that will be the most shocking or horrifying. It's pathetic.

There are some laughs to be had, mostly from Jason Statham as a rogue agent and Miranda Hart as another deskbound analyst, but for the most part once Susan Cooper heads into the field the whole thing loses any momentum it had. Many critics liked the film, but as with many star vehicles it relies on the performance of the primary actress, and we've seen McCarthy's act before. A lot. And it's always been a waste of time.

Funny if you are easily entertained by obvious shock humour and potty jokes. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

San Andreas (2015)

* ½ out of ****

I am no fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I think he is a terrible actor, bereft of charm and virtually without any screen charisma whatsoever. It doesn't help that the characters he plays onscreen have roughly the same intellect as a bag of wet hair. Yet for some reason Hollywood has decided to make him into the next Arnie – a big muscleman that, by all rights shouldn't be a movie star, but is. Unfortunately, The Rock couldn't carry Arnie's jockstrap.

“San Andreas” isn't an utterly awful film , it's just another run-of-the-mill bad movie. Johnson is “Ray Gaines”, an ex-military pilot now heading a helicopter rescue crew in LA. He is almost divorced from wife Emma (Carla Gugino), and is emotionally shut down since the loss of his daughter who drowned on a rafting trip. He has one other daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario) who he would do anything for, and when a series of massive earthquakes rocks California, Ray and the ex take off for San Francisco to rescue her.

I have read that some were impressed by the CGI in “San Andreas” - I wonder what they could be thinking. It is TERRIBLE. Rather than using CGI to augment scenes, many sequences are fully CGI, leaving them seeming fully animated. There is a scene right at the start of the film of a car tumbling down a mountainside that is so poorly done it's almost a cartoon. There is some good CGI in the film, but the bad CGI is so bad you can't get past it.

Paul Giametti is the movie's sole beacon of light as a Cal Tech professor who is trying to warn people to evacuate before the big one comes, but his role is far too small and insignificant. Johnson tries to carry the action as he pushes farther into the rubble looking for Blake, but he has too little to work with and not enough personality to do it. There are some interesting scenes, but by-and-large we've seen it all before. This movie is so reminiscent of older disaster films that I can't even think of exactly what it reminds me of. “Earthquake”, “The Posieden Adventure”, “Daylight” and countless others all seem to have greatly influenced the tone of the story and some of the actual scenes.

I won't rip this movie fully – if you have nothing better to do “San Andreas” will pass the time. But it isn't very good and if you have something better to do, you won't be missing anything you'll later regret by not bothering with this film.

Cop Car (2015)

*** out of ****

Has there been any actor in the last 30 years that has shown more diversity than Kevin Bacon? If there is, I can't think of who it might be. Hero, villain, victim, bystander, guilty, innocent.... the guy can do it all, and has a habit of surrounding himself with talent that helps him shine. He may not be Al Pacino, but he keeps finding himself in solid films that have helped to craft him a great career (“Footloose” notwithstanding).

“Cop Car” is a really interesting, tense little film. Two young boys (roughly 10 years old) have run away from home and are trekking across fields (apparently in the middle US). They're not too bright for their age, and passing the time by reciting all the swear words they can think of. Surprisingly, they come upon a police car parked in a small grove in the middle of nowhere. It isn't locked, the keys are under the visor, and there is a half empty beer bottle on the hood. They goof around in it for a while, and after starting the engine and finding nobody coming to stop them, the assume “finders keepers” and start a maniacal joyride across the fields.

A quick flashback tells us what happens. The local sheriff (Kevin Bacon) is a pretty dirty cop. He drove the car out there with a couple of bodies in the trunk, and is absent because he's dragging the first one off to an old abandoned well to drop it in (along with a bag of lye). He finally returns to where he left the car to find it missing, and now the game's afoot. He needs to find the car (along with the bloody mess in the trunk) without any of the other local cops being alerted, or else get the hell out of Dodge before having to face a murder rap.

But what happens when the boys hear somebody banging on the trunk from the inside?

I have to admit to really enjoying this film. It's very low-key, I'm sure it was made on a shoestring budget, and it is extremely spartan in the number of cast members and in the settings. Bacon is terrific as the frantic dirty cop, and the movie is laid out in such a way that the rather fantastic plot all seems plausible. The only minor issue I had was with the two young boys, played by James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford. I know 10-year-old boys aren't too worldly, but these two seem pretty damned stupid, even for their age. Every decision they make is completely absent of any concept of repercussions.... it would seem that they might expect some trouble eventually from a stolen police vehicle or a battered half-dead guy in the trunk, but they don't.

Perhaps they were running away from “special class”.....

Even that doesn't detract from the film. It could have been developed a bit more to make the tension more real, but the story is fascinating and the climax well worthwhile. Anyone looking for a totally “Hollywood” ending may be disappointed, but it worked like gangbusters for me. Another winner in a long string of winners from Bacon.

It Follows (2015)

*** out of ****

Scary movies are a dime a dozen, though very rarely do they actually scare. Cheap parlour tricks and loud bangs designed to make you jump are not scary, they're more silly. So when a truly scary movie comes along it's a rare, savoury treat. And “It Follows” is very rare indeed.

I can sum up how I felt watching this movie in three words: “Holy fucking crap!”

Jay (Maika Monroe) is a pretty college freshman who has a mysterious new boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary). Nice enough guy, a bit odd, but he has that dark quality so many young girls are attracted to. So he and Jay go to the local 'Inspiration Point' and do what young people do in the backseat of a car, and he surprises her afterward by jumping on her back and choloforming her. Not the best start to a romance. But wait, it gets worse.....

When she wakes up he explains that he has “passed on” to her a curse. There is some sort of entity that wants to kill the person in possession of the curse, which is now Jay. This entity moves slowly, if you keep your eyes open you can see it coming, but it is ALWAYS coming. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it doesn't stop. If follows. They wait until the entity shows up, and Hugh explains she can only pass it on to someone else by having sex with them. But whomever is the holder of the curse, if the entity gets that person, it moves back to pursuing the previous target. He has truly given her a gift that will just keep on giving....

Did I forget to mention that only the people that have the curse can see the entity? Even when you pass it on you can still see it, but it is invisible to anyone who has never held the curse. This makes the people around you think you're nuts when suddenly you scream and bolt from the room.

“It Follows” isn't a big budget picture; in fact its settings, cast and production all seem very bare bones. But MAN is it frightening. Like all the best scary movies, it isn't what you see that scares you, it's what you don't see. The tension, knowing that the entity is out there and definitely coming straight at Jay at all times is utterly terrifying. Director David Robert Mitchell builds tension so effectively that I nearly soiled myself when a basketball banged into a window that Jay was near.

I love scary movies but this one was SO scary that it was actually a bit unsettling to me. I look forward to another viewing because the first time I was just a coiled spring – thankfully nobody walked into the room or they would have been peeling me off the ceiling.

"It Follows" is a great horror movie. If you enjoy being scared, tense and terrified (as I do) you have a sure winner in “It Follows”.  But don't blame me for any nightmares.

Maggie (2015)

** out of ****

Zombies are so in right now that even Arnold Schwarzenegger thought they might revive his barely-breathing movie career. But they can't.

Maggie seems to me to have been written about a girl with a terminal illness and her relationship with her Dad, who is desperate to save her. My guess is that the screenwriter decided the story was a bit dull and tried to liven it up by making the terminal illness “zombie-ism”. Unfortunately, it didn't do much to liven it up.

Maggie (Abigail Breslin) has been bitten by a zombie, meaning her days are numbered before she transforms into one herself. The world is suffering from an outbreak of zombie-ism, though society seems to be dealing with it like a SARS epidemic and going on with business-pretty-much-as-usual. Maggie's father (Arnold Schwarzenegger) gets her out of a hospital so he can have her at home, and he resists any attempt by the authorities to remove her. Good for him – who'd want their teenager to die alone and terrified in a cold institution?

Maggie tries to go on with her life as best she can knowing the end is near, spending time with friends and attempting to cope with her impending fate. Her father is at least as tormented, especially about the idea of what he will undoubtedly have to do after she “turns”. He is far less concerned than I would have been in the same position, sleeping with the door open and trying to act like everything's okay. Of course, things go downhill and the only question is, will she take him with her when she goes?

Two things. First, this movie is deadly boring. The story crawls along and never really gives you much excitement or emotion. Second.... Arnold is actually really good in it. The role of Maggie's dad is that of a man who is tortured by the things he must do and his hopes for his daughter that he knows can never come true. I would have thought Arnold would overact, trying to muscle his torment into our faces, but he plays it subtlety and in a very subdued way that actually made you see it in him. Kudos to Arnold – he's never been much good at anything but action heroes, but in “Maggie” he shows that he may have picked up some decent chops along the way.

Unfortunately, even Arnie's effort don't save this from being a dull, dreary and unhappy film.