MY BLOODY VALENTINE: D- 

This was a remake, so I can only hope that the original was much better than this utter pile of rubbish.  The only saving grace of this entire film was that it had an all star cast. It's a shame that talents like Tom Atkins & Kevin Tighe were wasted on such a nonsensical, convoluted script, but it was fun to see them on the screen nonetheless. 

So little of this film made sense. You were left wondering, "why?" "what?" "how?" "when?" & "who?" so many times throughout the film. It was written as if someone had one idea that they wanted to go with, someone else had another & then a third person came in and wanted to go a completely different direction. The director took a look at all three ideas & decided that even though they contradicted one another, all three would be implemented into the film.  

Of course like all films that fail, there are few likable characters & the more likable they are, they more likely they were to be killed off. Then of course the character you like the most, turns out to be the killer. 

What a pile of garbage.  If it wasn't for getting to see Atkins & Tighe on the screen, this would have been an F. 

M3GAN

 

M3GAN = C

Be it rather ironic that a film whose very topic deals with the consequences of unpreparedness, not thinking things through & moving forward despite plausible ramifications, when it itself suffers from the exact same problems. It's almost hypocritical in a way, as it is doubtful that this was intentional. A film's goal should be to be as perfect & flawless as possible. Yet M3GAN was every bit as flawed & foible as was Gemma in her design & implementation. 

The film suffered the same fate as our main character. A good central idea, that was put together too quickly & not thought out well enough before being launched.  The death of the dog made sense as it attacked Cady and posed a serious, immediate threat.  The death of the neighbor who could potentially cause problems made sense as well. Although the bully at the school was cliched, unnatural & so convenient to the plot that it about makes you vomit, even his death made sense. 

You know what didn't make sense though?  The death of David & the death of Kurt. I could see why M3gan wanted to eliminate Tess & Cole. That made sense. They were aware of the danger & of what she was capable of. If anything killing David & Kurt was detrimental to M3gan's plan. Neither of them were aware of the danger or what she had done. As far as they knew she was the answer to as David said, "Kicking Hasbro right in the ' ' ".    David & Kurt would have been the types to have wanted to have made more M3gans and to have consistently updated her.  Killing them not only didn't make sense, it killed the momentum of what was supposed to be a very intelligent self learning computer. 

I appreciated the usage of Bruce at the end of the film to aid Cady & Gemma's fight against M3gan, but again the fight in itself didn't make a whole lot of sense. If M3gan's core objective was to protect Cady at all costs, as the programming was said to have done, then no amount of self learning would have ever put itself ahead of its main objective. In other words M3gan wouldn't have put herself/itself ahead of the protection of Cady. Had it seen itself as a threat to Cady, it would have either stopped itself or even tried to destroy itself. It made no sense from an objective standpoint for M3gan to turn on Cady.  Not from the setup, the dialog or the structure of the story.  

I have to commend the film on the character arch of Gemma.  The shift of her starting off cold, callous & almost robotic in nature against the actual robot of M3gan seeming more empathetic & human was done quite well.  As the layers of M3gan were stripped away to reveal the inhuman bronze structure beneath, the layers of Gemma were added to reveal her humanity.  The film did well here. 

Yet overall, there was too much convenience to move the plot forward. There were too many character choices, especially from M3gan that didn't fit the narrative. The pieces didn't fit the board smoothly & were instead jammed into places where they didn't fit.   The suspense and mystique of it all is enough to keep you watching, as the action seems to make up for the obvious holes within the plot.  The good is there, but so is the bad. Hence the straight C, as fair and objective a grade as one can give it. 

Have to comment on how much the M3gan doll looked like the Olsen twins.  It was so similar it was almost freaky.  If only M3gan had said, "you got it dude" somewhere within the film. 

M3GAN  is in a nutshell THE TERMINATOR meets CHILD'S PLAY (2019) meets ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK'S: THE TALE OF THE CURIOUS CAMERA.  

NOPE

 

NOPE =  B


I enjoyed this film.  Of all the Jordan Peele films I have seen thus far, this was by far the best. It was a simple, man vs nature story, that might have benefited by sticking on the paved path, rather than occasionally venturing down the unknown.  Then again without the occasional, ambiguous, cryptic scene here and their, would it really have been Jordan Peele? 

It took me a while to really understand the character of Ricky Park (Steven Yeun) and what his true purpose was to the story.  It was obvious that the Gordy scenes had a deeper meaning to the story's message, but it took me a while before it all came together.  When simplicity  interweaves with convolution, it can cause you at times to make things more difficult than they actually are.  I kept thinking that the two stories would literally come together at some point, when in fact it was pure symbolism. 

The Gordy incident didn't happen out of ignorance. Those in charge were fully aware of the risks involved but they didn't care because of the monetary gains that could be acquired through exploitation.  Hence why we see the Chimpanzee wreck havoc killing & injuring his costars , with history to repeat itself when Park & his audience are devoured by the extra-terrestrial. 

The acting was good in this film.  Daniel Kaluuya is to Peele what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton.  I was disappointed we didn't get to see more of Keith David & I thought Brandon Perea did a fine job. Keke Palmer was rather annoying, but I'm sure that had to do more with the way the character was written than the way she portrayed her.  

What was most fascinating to me was hearing Michael Wincott speak in what I would assume is his actual speaking voice?  From Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to The Crow to The Count of Monte Cristo  he usually accentuates and exaggerates his iconic voice.  It's been well over 30 years, but this marks the first times I think I've heard what he actually sounds like. 

No real deep thoughts on this film, although I could go into a long rant about Peele himself & how he's become a representation being judged not so much by his work, or his performance as he is the topics he deals with & the issues he tackles.  

Again, this was one of the better films of his that I have seen.