Author: todd.wade

ADMR – My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is a Big Fat Mess – 2/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date September 13, 2023

So…the Average Dude is many things…writer, artist, movie afficionado extraordinaire, golf hacker, budding entrepreneur, fantasy football demi-deity and so on. But what I am most in life is a family man. I love my family above myself. So when Mrs Average Dude was excited to go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, how could I say no? She has so very dutifully accompanied me to see almost every movie I’ve reviewed (she skipped Fast X and I continue to remind her that she missed out). And to be fair, I did see MBFGW 1 &2. I didn’t pay to see them in theater, of course. But I remember that I didn’t hate them.

(And, I’m not saying that I spray Windex on lots of stuff you wouldn’t normally spray it on, but I’m also not saying that I don’t. Full disclosure, as always.)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is the sequel that we never cared enough to know we didn’t need

MBFGW was released over two decades ago (in 2002) and the first sequel released 14 years later. For a long awaited (ahem) second helping of souvlaki (I looked it up…think gyro without the pita) it was not too bad. Focusing on Gus and Maria was nice because, frankly, Toula and Ian were the least interesting characters of the lot. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 arrives in theaters in 2023 and it is amazing that a lot of the original cast were still around and able to participate. Sadly, one of the missing was the very heart of the Portokalos family. RIP, Gus. I truly loved you.

Heart and Soul

With the heart that holds the family together gone, apparently the soul departed as well. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 was all over the place and never found any real identity. Was it about who would now lead the family? Was it about honoring Gus’s memory (on multiple fronts, apparently)? Was it about connecting with distant family? Was it about young love? Old love? Forbidden love (x2)? An existential soul-search? Believing in yourself? Finding yourself? Was it about saving the past or evolving? Immigrant rights or overcoming bigotry? Was it about how to care for an elderly loved one with some stage of dementia? Yes to all of thee above. And unfortunately, none were done well.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 was a master class in trying to cram way too much into a movie and giving nothing time to flourish. So many plates spinning that I can’t even list them all. Every single character seemed to have their own mission, secret or internal dilemma. And in the final reel, they all were resolved – weakly – because ‘the movie is ending sooo SHAZAM! RESOLUTION!’

As disappointing as that was, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 also shoe-horned in a whole handful of new characters that had their own storylines to flesh out. One of which was apparently meant to check a certain box. The ham-fisted inclusion of the whole trans question only served to make what could have been an interesting character shallow. That sounds contradictory but it isn’t.

In fairness to Mrs Average Dude, I should tell you that she liked MBFGW3. Am I missing something? Some emotional disconnect inherent in the male mind? Maybe. I am a dude after all so probably. But since I didn’t hate MBFGW 1&2, I feel like I have sufficient cred to be able to say that My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 was a big fat Greek mess and doesn’t add anything to the quirky characters we loved and, in fact, detracted from them. I’m giving My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 a shakey 2 out of 5. I’m glad now that Gus wasn’t in this movie. I don’t think even he could have weathered this unscathed.

Oh, and just btw, they managed to jam an actual Greek (sort of) wedding in at the finish line. Otherwise, they would have had to call it My Big Fat Greek Vacation…that would have worked, actually. They need to have me on speed dial. Seriously.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – The Equalizer 3 is a Super Satisfying finish to the series – 4/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date September 5, 2023

Equalizer 3 is worth the cost of ticket and corn

For a dead zone movie, Equalizer 3 falls into the rare category of a quality August movie. How do I come to this conclusion? Have no fear, I shall elicidate. But I’ll save the clincher for the last.
Not all actors are created equal

The Equalizer 3 stars the insanely talented Denzel Washington. If you need me to run down the massive list of reasons I come to that conclusion, thanks for coming, grab a fruit bar on the way out and have a nice day. As an actor, sage and whole person…Denzel is a Hollywood man among boys. There are very few exceptions (Keanu).
Washington plays Robert McCall, an ex-special operative who has self-retired from ‘the Agency’. What agency is never clearly stated (though Google says he’s ex-Marine and DIA). It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that McCall is an unwilling killer, a hesitant force of nature who is in constant battle not only with those that would do evil but also himself and the evil within. We also never know for sure what McCall has done in the past in service of God and country. But it haunts him. It fuels his conscience, which kicks into overdrive and spurs him into action. Lots and lots of action.

This aint your TV Equalizer. Either version.

The Equalizer 3 gives us a McCall who is more than your average super-good-guy arse-kicker. He combines the sure-handed knowledge of how to inflict maximum pain to maximum effect like Bryan Mills (Taken) or Jason Bourne (duh) with the 360 degree nearly precognitive awareness of surroundings ah la Sherlock Holmes (the Downey Jr version). That in itself is cool enough, but Washington adds the aforementioned gravitas to bring a performance that really packs a punch. McCall has reconciled in himself the rightness and necessity of the shite-storm he unleashes, even as he is clearly suffers the burden of it. Not as much as his enemies suffer the burden of it, but still…

How does Equalizer 3 differ from 1 & 2? I personally found it to be the best of the three, and what sets it apart is the personal growth we see in the character. Where this could easily have been yet another Wick-like killfest (and in truth, that’s what I expected for a dead zone film) the writers did us all a solid by giving Denzel a vehicle that allowed him to show another side of McCall. In the first two iterations, we saw McCall doing yeoman’s work protecting the little guy. In Equalizer 3 we get to see him find a place of peace and, as fate would have it, fight savagely to protect it. Now, not only is he fighting for the little guy, he becomes the little guy he’s fighting for. And of course, Denzel being Denzel, he brings that cauldron of mixed emotions to us in a way that very few in Hollywood can.

The scenery of the crime

I would be remiss if I didn’t give proper credit to Antoine Fuqua and the film crew for their amazing work. Mrs Average Dude and I have a list of places to visit on this earth. Scicily was not even on the list. Oh, but it is now. Or rather, the small southern Italy town of Campania (where much of the movie was filmed). It was so very good for the soul to see a little slice of the world that somehow seemed to find a happy medium between old and new. In this country, if it’s old, it’s torn down and replaced with something ‘new’. But this is the Old Country. Buildings were made to stand the test of time, and they most certainly do. I love that. I think it’s something that we Americans have lost, to our detriment. We can re-learn to slow down and enjoy a cup of tea in a little cliff-side café and also casually scroll our email. We do it while on vacation. They do it as a way of life. That is aspirational.

Fanning the flames of WTF?

Equalizer 3 was not perfect, no sir. It introduced Dakota Fanning as Emma Collins, an Agency agent that McCall feeds intel to throughout the movie. Fanning is a very capable acteur in her own right (her performance in War of the Worlds is standout) and at first, offered all kinds of promise. However, what started out as a fantastic quasi-adversarial relationship between the two sort of fizzled out, which was really disappointing. I’m guessing there might be some good stuff left on the cutting room floor.

Conclusion: I loved Equalizer 3 and am giving it a 4/5 conditionally. That condition is that this should be the last of the series. If they try to do it again, I’m deducting a point for sheer greed and stupidity. Both of which Hollywood is famous for.

The clincher for this movie, as promised: Mrs Average Dude was somewhat hesitant to see this with me. I bade her, watch the first two (both are a mere remote click away in the Average Dude collection). She politely declined. After seeing Equalizer 3 with me two nights ago, she could not wait to watch the first two (which she also loved).

Sigh…when will she learn to trust me on these things?

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Retribution – Nothing in this movie is impressive – 1.75/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 29, 2023

Average Dude says: Absolutely nothing impressive in Retribution

Retribution is the latest offering from Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions. At the wheel is Liam Neeson, a veteran everyman action star. Why do we love him so much? I think it’s because he could be us. He doesn’t have tatooed muscles popping out of his second-skin v-neck shirt. He can’t (I presume) do the splits between two chairs. No leaping, twirling wirework in his movies. No martial arts training. He’s just a dude with ‘a very particular set of skills’. I have a very particular set of skills but they probably wouldn’t help me in a close-quarters battle with tree-trunk biceps, insane flexibility or the average Asian assasin.

Liam, Liam, Liam…what have they Taken from us?

Yet, for whatever reason, most of us like Liam Neeson. Taken let us believe that, if our daughter somehow ran afoul of the absolute worst, darkest, fast-pass to hell souls on earth, we could take any hit, any pain and still rain merciless wrath down ‘pon them and sleep like a baby afterwards. In fact, the Aslan’s share of Neeson movies do similar service. Average Dudes doing above average shite for the most bestest of reasons. It’s pretty much a given that this is an inherent element of his movies.

But O. M. G…just make it good

The premise of Retribution is that Neeson plays a workaholic businessman from company X that is particularly skilled at convincing investors to give him insane amounts of money. What does company X do? No idea. But when shite starts going south, his job is then to convince them to stay the course and not cut bait and curse their losses. No new cinematic ground, that’s for sure.

Also, there appears to be a series of car bombings going on around the region that foreshadow the protagonist’s dilema. But aside from one, none seem to be connected to said dilema. Huh? What the frick? But away we go anyway.

Don’t make me turn this bomb around!

Neeson, the emotionally distant father and husband, has to take his two tweenage kids to school. We the audience are inflicted by their cliche’d and unremarkable acting as the bickering siblings and disrespectful angsty adolescents. Boredom begins to set in.

Then, the real ‘action’ (uh huh) picks up as a hidden phone rings and is answered. The villain is now established by way of voice modulated threat of incineration and the ominous promise ‘I’m always watching’. Okay, sure.

Now that you have the setup…

What follows is about an hour of cat and mouse between villain and victim, but only if the cat was advanced in years and about 30 lbs overweight, and the mouse was the emotional equivalent of your computer mouse. Every performance in Retribution was as bland and forgetable as the average male high school substitute teacher. Which actually seems hard to do, given the stakes of the whole movie. I feel like I might have been a tad bit more invested in current events if I were sitting on fiery death that could be set off because of a bad burrito dinner.

As in almost any suspense movie of this nature, part of the fun is trying to figure out who the villain is before the end of the movie. I won’t tell you who that is, but given that there were less than a handful of characters to choose from (if you include the children) I don’t think you will have a problem with it. In fact, all doubt is pretty much erased long before the final reveal. Ugh.

what’s in a name?

I’m even having trouble reconciling the title of the movie with exactly what element of it pertained to actual Retribution of any kind? It’s like the producers asked ChatGPT to kick out a list of menacing words to title an action movie and this one was near the top.

I’m going to give Retribution a 1.75 out of 5. The one thing I liked about this movie was that it was short, clocking in at 1 h 30 m. And thanks to lackluster acting, it still seemed long and bloated. Having been in such gems as Chronicles of Narnia, The Grey, Rob Roy et al, it’s sad to see Liam Neeson resort to shlock this bad. You were Zeus, for cryin’ out loud! C’mon, man! I know you have a particular set of skills. I just really hate that you are not that particular about what movies you use them in.

Maybe I can sneak into Blue Beetle for a half hour or so.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Blue Beetle is a mish-mash of other successful movies and ultimately fails miserably- 2/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 22, 2023

Blue Beetle bugs me

I’m not going to pull any punches here, gonna hit you with it right out of the gate. Blue Beetle is not a good movie. It’s not horrible (see the Meg 2 for horrible). It’s just…not good. And in its not goodness, it exposes an awful – and hopefully brief – direction for Hollywood. I’m putting this hot take out there and it might get me in trouble. But that’s okay. It’s not said with any malice whatsoever and predicated on my iron-clad promise to tell the truth.

Blue Beetle was created primarily with the Latino community in focus. To back up that assertion, I would point out that there was, as far as I could see, one single non-Latino star – Susan Sarandon (we’ll get to her later). There were countless references and asides that went over my head and who knows how many I didn’t even know I should be wondering about. Even the credits were overwhelmingly – almost exclusively – Latino talent. I’m not saying that Latino actors and industry workers are bad. There are tons of movies featuring Latino talent that are amazing. Encanto, the two Spiderverse movies, Stand and Deliver, both Zorros, I could go on and on. I’m saying that aiming it at them is not necessarily a recipe for success. It feels like pandering and it often excludes the largest viewing demograph out there, which almost always results in lower box office numbers.

But it gets worse. Blue Beetle tried to make this movie about Latinos by drawing from elements of other successful movies. This only served to give it a terminal identity crisis. When I say it is a mish-mash, I’m not kidding. Here are those receipts as promised:

The Green Beetle

At first, I felt like I was watching a retelling of Green Lantern. Okay, not a successful movie, granted. But the comparison is fair. An alien artifact drops to earth and gets to decide who it wants as its champion. At least the costume was mostly not animated. On the downside, it clearly looked rubber. Pick your poison, I guess.

Iron Beetle

The aforementioned Blue Beetle scarab was technological in nature. Once selected, our hero has to learn how to fly and appropriately use his new tech. He also has a Jarvis-like AI entity attached (literally) that he talks to in his very Iron Man like display in his helmet. Or mask. Or nanotech. Whatevs.

The Blue Panther

What seemed to me to be the most glaring and out of place ripoff was the spiritual plane that Jaimie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) entered to chat with a relative. Where the ‘Great Veldt’ from Black Panther was applicable to the culture and adequately fleshed out, Blue Beetle seemed to randomly jam it into the story. It was unexpected and didn’t quite fit the ‘family’ narrative for this movie. Not that more was needed. The importance of family was well established early on.

Milagro-fina

Jamie’s sister Milagro Reyes (Belissa Escobedo) was a wise-cracking second banana that possessed all the annoyance of Awkwafina without any of the charm (there was a moment of literal bathroom humor that I’m only slightly ashamed to say I laughed at).

As for the rest of the movie, Blue Beetle clearly followed the superhero formula. Soulless villain pursuing world-conquering power (Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Black Panther, Age of Ultron, need I go on?) In Blue Beetle, the villain was corporate in nature and portrayed by Susan Sarandon in a performance as lacking in effort as I have ever seen. Was it really that awful? I’m afraid so, Janet. Funny how the only caucasian person in the movie was evil and rich but whatevs. It’s kind of cliche at this point.

So, what was there to like about Blue Beetle? There were a couple of mid-points (I can’t really call them high points). George Lopez played Uncle Rudy, a seminal MacGuffin on which much of the plot relied. I dig him because he’s not affraid to make fun of himself and Latino tropes without debasing them. We should all be so self-effacing and willing to laugh at ourselves.

There is also Nana Reyes (Adriana Barraza) who first seemed like a very generic throw-away character but was a clever reminder to not judge a book by its cover and also respect the wisdom and experience of your elders. That’s all I’ll say about that. I’ll let you discover this gem on your own.

There’s not much else to say about this hodge-podge of other superhero flicks except to say that, in every instance, it was done much better. Once again, the sum of the refurbed parts does not a greater whole make. Even though I saw this coming, I still feel like I’ve been crane-kicked in the face.

And also, it’s not bad to make a movie highlighting an underserved segment of society. But this movie didn’t do it well. That’s its greatest downfall. I’m giving Blue Beetle a 2/5. And will someone please explain to me what was going on with the claymation and why it should have been entertaining? Thanks in advance.

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Post Review comment: A lot of reviewers I follow (ALWAYS after my own review, btw) have given this movie high marks. I don’t get that, myself. But since I am open to considering all opinions (especially conflicting ones), I wanted to present that to you all. In the end, I think I’m more ‘One Of You’ than they are (or have become, maybe that’s more accurate). And being one of ‘us’, I’m invested in not being swayed by anything other than ‘what do we enjoy?’ Challenge me in good faith and we’ll discuss! ~ Average Dude

Movie Reviews

ADMR – The Meg 2: The Trench is super shallow – 1/2 out of 5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 15, 2023
2 Comments on ADMR – The Meg 2: The Trench is super shallow – 1/2 out of 5

The Meg 2: The Trench ain’t deep

Rodman Philbrick is an American author whom I had never heard of until I Googled quotes about bad things. He once wrote “I don’t suppose anybody really knows how bad a thing can be until it actually happens.”. A generic truth that could have been written specifically about The Meg 2: The Trench. Me sitting through this movie actually happened and I didn’t really know how bad it could be. But oh, how I know it now.

Full disclosure, I suspected badness from the git-go. I saw Meg the first back in 2018. It was an August movie, which was strike one. Everyone knows that movies released in August and February are almost exclusively poop-trash (with the notable exceptions of Guardians of the Galaxy – August 2014, and Deadpool – February 2016). Those months are the movie ‘dead zone’. The Meg was as ‘meh’ as ‘meh can get, a total throwaway show. I literally only remembered that Jason Statham and a big shark were in it. But, because I love you all THIS MUCH, I took a bullet for you with The Meg 2: The Trench. Greater love hath no man…

Because of legal representation…

The Meg 2: The Trench again starred Jason Statham and Cliff Curtis (and a few others that I’ve been informed by their lawyers I must keep out of any reference to this movie). Once again, they are called to ‘the trench’, a super deep pit with a layer of super-cold water that keeps the super shark from menacing the oceans, lakes, streams and public swimming pools of earth. That’s science. This time around, the intrepid gang has somehow captured a female meg and is keeping it in a lagoon like Shamu. For study, of course. And apparently training. And this is the point where I knew things were going to go terribly, terribly wrong for me.

The Meg 2; The Trench starts out as a fairly benign, formulaic monster movie in the vein of Rampage, Kong and the like. Well-meaning scientists want to study this wonder of nature because climate. Nefarious forces embedded in the group of good-guys scheme to subvert the science for financial gains. Deckard Shaw/Handsome Rob/Lee Christmas/Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham always plays the same guy, which I’m totally good with) just happens to be visiting his Meg the First pals when the evil cabal plans come to fruition. Hi-tech adventure ensues (which was a total waste of Statham’s kick-@$$ action style, which I am NOT good with) and the evil cabal is thwarted. The End.

Except it wasn’t. To the detriment of everyone involved.

Had The Meg 2: The Trench ended there, it would have been exactly what I expected from a B movie second pass released in August. But for reasons unimaginable, the movie devolved into Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. I’m guessing here…I never saw that Sci Fi channel masterwork even though it starred Debbie Gibson (Shake Your Love) and Lorenzo Lamas (star of I have no frickin’ idea).

To further up the ante, we have a school of super sharks threatening a nearby vacation paradise. Now, I know it seems illogical to point out that being ON LAND would be kryptonite to the salt water assassins (there are some other trench-dwellers that have legs and can breathe oxygen because science). But we watchers had long abandoned anything like logic. Or coherent story-telling expectations. Or self-esteem.

I could truly go on and on with examples that seem to suggest that this movie was actually written by a 5th grade class’ suggestions pulled from a hat. I think you all get the point. The overuse of conveniently available MacGuffins is mind-boggling. Worse, these MacGuffins were also created by 5th graders who got D’s in science. If I hadn’t already checked out by the third reel…

RIP Handsome Rob…

I love me some Jason Statham. Even though he is the same guy in all of his movies, I still take notice when I see his name on the marque. I loved Hobbs and Shaw. Fight me. So, seeing Statham jetison every ounce of work integrity he had by signing on for this chum bucket movie just hurts the heart. I don’t know how or if he can bounce back from this. Maybe if he saves the life of Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell.

Sometimes bad is good. But not today

I watched the movie Machete way back in 2010 (Sept 3, which is still in the Dead Zone). That was a rare, rare bad movie that was so bad it was good. It’s a highly subjective category but I feel safe in proclaiming Machete as such if viewed under the right circumstances. It almost feels like that’s what The Meg 2: The Trench was going for. Sadly, that was never going to work.

If I am pressed to find something that I liked about this movie experience, I’m going to have to cheat just a little. I saw this on Cheapskate Tuesdays at the 10 AM showing. I was one of two moviegoers in the building that early and the only one in my theater. It was nice. The smell of old and new popcorn. The squeak of my arm on cool theater seats. The whisper of my sneakers on the carpet. The muzak that sounded overloud in the empty lobby. All of these things were memories of the best jobs in my youth. So awesome.

I am giving The Meg 2: The Trench a .5 out of 5 (if there had been even one gratuitious boob in it, the number would be 0). At least the little yorkie in reel 3 survived and that’s worth a .5. I implore you…if you like Jason Statham movies at all, avoid this at all costs. Together, we might be able to save a career.

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ADMR – Haunted Mansion mostly wastes great actors, BUT… 2/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 9, 2023

I’ll be up front about this…I went to Haunted Mansion because my beloved wife wanted to see it. Maybe because she had been to Disneyworld (I haven’t been) and it brought back some rememberberries. Whatever. I try to be a good husband (You’ll have to ask her if I succeed. Hint: it’s a ‘yes’) so off we went. And I think this is going to be a fairly short review because, quite honestly, there is not a lot to talk about here.

The story was as bland and generic as a PG 13 kids scary movie could possibly be. That order would be Goosebumps, then Haunted Masion. Far, far above would be Army of Darkness and so on. If Goosebumps is the most ‘kiddie version’ scary movies can get, then Goosebumps could reach up and tickle the tootsies of Haunted Mansion. In short, it was not scary. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Take your nanna with a severe heart condition, it’s fine.

Haunted mansion…Ya basic

And if the story was this basic, the dialogue did nothing to enhance the experience. I kind of feel like this script was written by scab writers during the LAST writer’s strike back in 2007. That this movie had SO MANY great talents that were given SO LITTLE to work with is staggering to me. The sum of this movie’s parts actually detracts from the whole because we kept waiting for a beloved actor to give us something to enjoy and it never came. In fact, were someone to tell me that the script was written by a soulless AI chatbot, I would not be shocked. Not. One. Bit.

Let’s do a roll-call of superb talent totally wasted in Haunted Mansion. Rosario Dawson. Owen Wilson. Dany DeVito (this one hurt me physically). Tiffany Haddish (well….). Jared Leto. And Jamie Lee Curtis! Girl, you are a horror movie veteran, some would say the First Lady of Horror. No excuse, JLC. Ya got none.

Here comes the BUT

HOWEVER…while the aforementioned talents were phoning it in and collecting a paycheck, there were a couple of exceptions that actually stood out. I thought LaKeith Stanfield turned in the best performance of the lot, including an emotional moment that was far and away best in show. Also worthy of praise is Chase Dillon, who plays Rosario Dawson’s introverted son with as much emotional range as the limited script would allow.

Haunted Mansion continued the current Hollywood trend of shoehorning cameos into their movies. It was nice to see them but the delight that I used to have when a famous face popped up unexpectedly is waning. It was bound to, I suppose. If we can count on Hollywood to do anything at all, it would be to beat a dead horse. Embarassingly and shamefully. We aren’t there yet but it’s coming, make no mistake. And it’s really sad that these little surprises meant to be after dinner mints are actually the most satisfying part of the whole two hours.

Anyway, here they are: Dan Levy ( I went to parties last year dressed as David Rose. My wife was Moira. We go all out for Halloween). Winona Ryder. Hasan Minhaj. Jo Koy. And Marilu Henner, who had slightly less screentime than her Taxi co-star. Slightly.

I wish that I could give you all more of a reason to see Haunted Mansion but unfortunately, this one will strictly be for your pre-adolescent kids. It didn’t even have anything shoved in as a little sumthin’-sumthin’ for parents (have any of you watched Bluey? I can’t lie, I love that kiddie show). I recommend going to a matinee with reclining seats and maybe taking a nice nap. Haunted Mansion gets a meager 2/5.

And this year’s Halloween costumes in our house will be EXCELLENT. Take my word for it.

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ADMR – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Indy is still the BEST – 3.5/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date August 1, 2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Sooooo…I have to issue an apology to you all. I am guilty of listening to certain segments of the MSM that preached the cinema heresy of boycotting a movie over someone else’s politically driven opinion. And in doing so, I almost missed seeing Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Worse, I undoubtably coerced some of you into skipping it, as well. This week, I offer my whole-hearted mea culpa. And as weird as it might sound, I have both Barbie and Ben Shapiro to thank for correcting me.

I listen to a lot of movie reviewers. I copy none of them and all of them in some small way. I learn how to do some things. But mostly, I think I learn how NOT to do things. I learn that my opinions of a movie don’t have to match someone else’s views. I hone my critical thinking skills and as part of my process, I am reminded to also look at it through my positive lense. That’s the goal, anyway.

Being an Average Dude, I sometimes eff up. In the case of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, I effed all the way up.

Got to eat my own words…and they are bitter, bitter, bitter…

If you look back a few weeks, you’ll see that I did a non-review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I stated without the slightest bit of self-awareness (or maybe it was way too much self-awareness. I’ll think on it later with beer in hand) that I had heard all the negative chatter about Indy’s last ride and that there was no way on this planet earth that I was going to take my daughter – whose nickname is Indy – to see what was for sure going to be a massive insult to one of the greatest action heroes ever to grace the big screen.

Let it not be said that I don’t admit when I am wrong. And I was very, very wrong.

The truth about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Watching Barbie reminded me to not listen to all the negative chatter (some of which came from Ben Shapiro) and form my own opinions. Do the work, Dude. Shapiro also went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and found it ‘delightful’. Ben was wrong about Barbie. Might he also be wrong about Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny? Time to check myself, lest I wreck myself. And I’m oh so glad I did.

The opening thrill-ride was everything you would expect from an Indiana Jones movie. Edge of your seat action, fisticuffs, whips, German bad-guys from WWII, humor, ‘splosions…all of the stuff that the Average Dude loves. The de-aging CGI was not perfect but certainly good enough. I think if they had done a better job of de-aging Ford’s voice it would have been excellent. The plot established, the MacGuffin’s introduced, the cast of characters set. Boom, boom and boom.

Jump forward to current Indy, circa summer of ’69. An aging, depleted Indian Jones, now facing a lonely retirement, is thrust back into action one…last…time. Seems like Fate has a particular fancy for Indy and is fond of bringing old, unresolved adventures back to get some closure, just like in Last Crusade. Thanks, Fate.

So many underused stars

Of the co-stars in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Phoebe Waller-Bridge had the most screen time. I haven’t seen her in anything else, though I’ve heard Fleabag received positive aclaim (I can only watch so much, ya’ll). Glad to report that she didn’t upstage Indy, as was previously reported. Her character was fairly likeable if a bit of a cad. Mad Mikkelson was his usual professional self. I’ve yet to see him in a movie where he wasn’t pretty much that same self. Toby Jones, I like him very much wherever he appears. He’s one of my favorite second bananas. He took an almost throw-away character and breathed what life the script allowed into him. Nice. Same deal with Antonio Banderas. And it was great to see Boyd Holbrook show up again. I really dug his bad-@$$ characters in Sandman and Logan. He was just as BA in DoD with what screentime he was given. And special nods to Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies.

In my own defense, I can easily see how some of the negative chatter would have been true had this movie been released as it was originally intended by Kathleen Kennedy (this is factual). That version would have been an insult to George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and everyone who ever loved the iconic character. And an insult to my daughter, as well. Phooey and pishaw to that.

The subsequent rewrites, re-shoots and re-scores saved Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny from a fate much, much worse than death (how I hated the death of Han Solo. His blood is also on Kennedy’s hands. Factual). What we were treated to was an exciting send-off for Indy. And though it wasn’t a perfect one, it was satisfying enough.

I’m giving Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a solid 3.25/5. Was Harrison Ford too old to pull this movie off? Yeah, a little, I think. I’ll be interested to see how they handle him as the new General ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross in the MCU. Nobody likes to see an actor age-out of the roles that brought so much joy. And Ford is, above all, an action star. Anybody remember ‘Sabrina’? I rest my case.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Awesome or Awful: Barbie isn’t what anyone thinks 3/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date July 28, 2023

Like almost everyone else on planet earth and parts of the known galaxy, I’ve heard the outraged opinions about the Barbie movie from both the right and the left. And to be fair, there is some truth to a lot of it. I will do my very best to avoid that. I mean, enough is enough, right? I do not subscribe to the tribalist mindset. Not only do I believe we can bring both tribes together, I think we have to. If we are going to survive as a country and a species, we have to find our way back from the edge.

In so saying, I appreciate a lot of what the Barbie movie had to offer. Did I like it? Parts of it, I did. Were there parts that were poop-trash? Yeah, there were, for sure. But try, if you can, to set aside your biases and pretend that this is just a movie about a child’s doll. Because at its core, that is exactly what it is.

Check your lenses at the concessions stand

Advice to the right-wing Barbie movie haters…you need to stop viewing this through the lense of the problems of current culture. Remember, movies are (for the most part) supposed to be an escape from those things. If you do that, there is a movie here that has some redeeming qualities.

Offering advice to Hollywood about excising woke from their movies is a lesson in futility. And, in this case, the clash of political ideolgies only served to sell more tickets for Barbie. Was it part of the plan for this movie to become a standard-bearer for wokeness? Don’t know. What I do know is that this movie contained a metric shite-ton of wokeness even as it overtly ridiculed same. I found this to be curious, hilarious and disheartening in turn. Everything about this movie is appealing to a certain sub-culture of society. Again, this is a child’s toy. Specifically, a female child’s toy. That there are a lot of adult men excited for this movie is…well…insert eye-roll here.

Okay, now that I have that all out of the way, lets look at the things I liked about Barbie. From the git-go, this movie reminded me of Wreck-It-Ralph…an inanimate thing (or block of code that has not achieved AI status…yet) that has now realized that there is a bigger existence than previously imagined. This part was fun. Toy Story did it better, but whatever.

‘There is no Ken without Barbie’

The status of Ken as an accessory of Barbie and his existential angst over that was hilarious. And in the world of Barbie, totally true. Nothing to get bent out of shape over. Or to cheer for. Remember…it’s Barbieworld. The world of a little girl. Feminists who love this as a champion of their cause or right-wing anti-wokers alike are overlooking the fact that Kenneth Sean ‘Ken’ Carson has been a Barbie accessory for 62 years. Stop trying to coopt him for your respective causes. Jeez.

Then Barbie took a page from Pleasantville. Societal norms are tested and shattered by this new truth. Cartoonish emotional reactions ensue: fear, disgust, denial, rejection. Margo Robbie portrayed a sentient child toy’s journey through all these stages quite well. Again, we saw it done to perfection with Buzz Lightyear, but whatever.

Sometimes less is more

Finally, the Barbie movie shoehorned Pinocchio in. Having seen and heard too much, Barbie couldn’t be happy with her life of ease and excess and perfection. The fog of illusion was dispersed. No closing Pandora’s box (giggety). Adding this element is a lot to digest in one movie and something had to suffer. In retrospect, it might have been a good idea to explore this path in Barbie 2: the Awakening. But whatever.

There is a lot more that could have been left out of the Barbie movie that would have made it so much better and so much less of a controversy. The woke-embracing, angry, entitled bully-child was cliche’ and unnecessary. Worse, it was poorly done. Same thing with the Mattel boardroom filled with corportate suckups headed by a man-child (played by a completely un-funny Will Ferrell). Totally gratuitous. And don’t get me started on the mega-cringe anti-patriarchy diatribe spewed in the final reel. Puh. Leez.

To try and sum it all up and failing miserably…

I get that maybe adult women would want to see Barbie. Nostalgia. Fashion. Girl stuff. Even a reminder that women can achieve greatness in their own right. Not that anyone needed that reminder. It’s common knowledge at this point and Barbie over the decades had something to do with that. Much in the same way, dudes love seeing a Transformers or G.I. Joe movie. Cool tech toys come to life. ‘Splosions. Good childhood memories. It’s not quite the same but you get the point.

Trying to turn Barbie into a woke commentary on patriarchy fails utterly because in doing that you have to recognize that Barbieworld is a matriarchy on steroids. Or estrogen. Or whatever. You can’t really promote the one without recognizing the other. That would be blatant hypocrisy. Sadly, this movie tried to do exactly that. Even the most dishonest intellectual observation has to acknowledge this. Just a gentle scratch of the surface on the Barbie movie reveals so much that is antithetical to woke ideology that it melts my brain. Which brings me to my final point…

It kind of annoys me when I see the major right-wing talking heads trying to brow-beat us with the anti-woke battle cry. My dudes, we get it. We got it a long time ago. Believe it or not, we are smart enough to see what you all see and brave enough to take appropriate action. And we are smart enough to watch the Barbie movie and not get unconsciously indoctrinated into the ranks of woke. Let a word to the wise be enough and trust us.

After all of this, I’m giving Barbie a 3/5. There’s a lot of fun in this movie. Unfortunately, it gets blunted or outright abandoned in the third reel (that’s an ancient projectionist term. Look it up). Enjoy it if you dare. Remember that doll and movie alike are pretty much just plastic. And sorry for the Pandora’s box (giggety) joke. Couldn’t help myself.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Oppenheimer is an intense and complicated movie – 3.5/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date July 25, 2023

Okay, I admit that I am as susceptable to movie marketing blitzes as anyone, even while being fully aware of them. So given a monumentally difficult choice* between seeing Oppenheimer and Barbie, I chose the one I heard the most positie buzz about. I saw Oppenheimer.

*Dude’s note – that is a facetious statement. I am putting off seeing Barbie until Tuesday ‘Cheapskate Day’ at my local moviehaus. I am not looking forward to this. I do it for you. You’re welcome.

Oppenheimer is a biopic helmed by the awesome Chris Nolan and starring the equally talented Cillian Murphy as Robbert ‘Bobby’ Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is the titular head of the Manhattan Project, the US entry in a horserace with the Germans to create an atomic bomb. The media blitz focused primarily on Murphy’s role, with a smattering of Matt Damon and Emily Blunt thrown in for variety’s sake. What I didn’t know, however, was that those three were just the tip of the iceberg. Oppenheimer is literally exploding with talent unheralded. I will go as far as to say that some of these performances were the best of this movie.

I am…RDJ.

To wit, I point out the spectacular performance of one Robert Downey Jr. RDJ expertly played not one, but two different shades of Lewis Strauss, a Jewish-American philanthropist who eventually became a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission and who, for unclear reasons, became an advarsary of Oppenheimer.

Flo Pugh does it all. Literally.

The next pleasant surprise was Florence Pugh, powerfully playing Berkley student and card-carrying communist Jean Tatlock. Tatlock was Oppenheimers romantic obsession/sexual fixation and Pugh did indeed play the part with…ahem…gusto. I’ll never look at Black Widow’s sister the same again.

Do you really want me to point them all out for you?

Other very notable players in this movie were Josh Hartnett (good to see him again), Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Quaid, David Dastmalchian, Mathew Modine, Scott Grimes, Michael Angarano and even Rami Malek had a tiny part that was fun to see. I could go on for a minute, but you get the point. And I love unannounced cameos. I may even someday do a blogpost of my favorites over the years. But I digress. The point is, it almost seems like Chris Nolan sat outside the sound stage sipping a mojito and just grabbed any actor that happened to be walking by and threw them in. I like it a lot.

So, the magnificent star-power aside, on to the movie itself. I kind of felt like it was having trouble finding itself. It was a biopic, sure. But in trying to add a little something – I guess? – to make a tough-topic biopic like Oppenheimer his own, Nolan added some stuff that I genuinely had me asking myself ‘whut the whut?’ Unnecessary to say the least. If there were more moments like…I don’t even know what to call them…the sureality?…then maybe they would have worked. But they were too few and far between and does that kind of thing even belong in a biopic? Soooo…nope. Swing and a miss.

Likewise, the aforementioned sex scenes between Oppenheimer and Tatlock were pretty graphic and, in my opinion, unnecessarily so. The relationship may have been true to actual events but honestly didn’t do anything to add to the story as a whole. If we want to tell the actual story of Oppenheimer then I get it. But if that, then why take the focus off of Oppenheimer and tell the backstory of Strauss (which was a real treat, I might add). It just seemed fractured to me.

Also, amid a firestorm of great performances (RDJ, Damon, Tom Conti and of course, Emily Blunt) it felt like Cillian Murphy’s turn as Robert Oppenheimer was kind of one-note and bland. It could be that the portrayal was an accurate characterization, I’ll grant that. But it would not be the first time Hollywood changed the personality or demeanor of a real life character to punch up a movie. I mean, were the sex scenes strictly adherent to history? Just sayin’.

Was Oppenheimer a blast…or a bomb?

Answer: Neither. Am I glad I saw Oppenheimer? Sure, if only for the surprise of seeing a new cameo every 5 minutes. Was it all it could be? Nah, not even close. It didn’t go far enough into the underbelly of the Manhatten Project, the politics (of which there are plenty) and the players. I’m sorry, but Oppenheimer the man just didn’t come off as that interesting a character. And having a one dimensional focus character makes the 3 hour run-time a slog at times. So, a little bit of a dud, not an actual bomb. Is that irony? Not really but it sideswipes it. As biopics go, I wont be rewatching this on the regular like I do Cinderella Man. Giving it a3.5/5.

And…I’m going to see Barbie at the bargain shoppers cheapskate show tonight. Sometimes feeling something…anything…is better than feeling nothing.

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Movie Reviews

ADMR – Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Totally Delivers! 4.5/5

Post author By todd.wade
Post date July 18, 2023

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Totally Delivers!

If we are judging movie franchises in general, the MI movies have to rate near the top. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 is shaming the whole of Hollywood. While the rest of the industry stumbles along a self-destructive course, here is a 61 year old Tom Cruise gifting us with a 7th (and soon to be 8th) tasty helping of MI. Is it just me, or does it seem like Tom Cruise is the only dude in Hollywood that actually knows what we want to watch and is willing to give it to us? And has, in fact, been doing it with Mission Impossible for nearly 30 years!

It Doesn’t Take Scooby Doo to figure out this mystery…

That’s a rhetorical question. Hollywood knows perfectly well what we like. As recently as a decade ago we were still being treated to some awesome movies that pretty much omitted the ‘new age’ messages that they are trying to force-feed us. Maybe they were counting on us to just consume because there was nothing else to consume and we’ve become a nation of folks who just want to be distracted from the shite-storms that swirl all around us every day. Maybe they are so convinced of their self-deity that they no longer want to entertain us, but mold us.

Whatever their reasons, it’s clear that the movie-makers who stick to the mantra of ‘give them what they want’ will be making bank. Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning is totally going reward Paramount. And I think it’s safe to say that Cruise is the most bankable star in the world. Last year, he gave us Top Gun: Maverick. This year, it’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Next summer, we get Part 2 (I can’t wait!) Three years running that Cruise will be the top grosser in Hollywood by bucking the system. Bravo and kudos, Mr. Cruise. You are the MAN.

Man plus Machine equals Mission…

Enough pontificating…What is there to like about Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning? Plenty. Per it’s formula, the action smacks you in the face from the very start. Only this time it comes in the form of telling the villain’s back-story. Fast-forward to the current-day, where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, and if you needed me to tell you that, you can see yourself out…) has been enlisted to find the MacGuffin(s) necessary to thwart the evil ‘machinations’ of the villain.

Along for the ride are the usual second bananas Luthor Stickle (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). Also returning are Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and Alanna Mitsopolis – the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). Halley Atwell is introduced as Grace, a highly competent and clever master thief who seems to be an equal to Ethan in at least that respect. I’m loving the chemistry of those two that reveals mutual respect but stops short of attraction (which would have been a gross writing mistake).

Nothing New Under the Sun

I’ve kept quiet about the villains of this movie for good reason. While there is pretty much no way for Hollywood to create any new types of villains – its all been done – the bad guys of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning do manage to put a newish twist on things we’ve seen before. And at all costs, I will not ruin that for you.

Likewise, the action sequences are pretty much as expected. Car chases are car chases. Train crashes are what they are (but even that was made a little bit special). And the scene where Hunt launches himself from the top of a mountain astride a motorcycle? Visual awesomeness made exponentially MORE awesome because Tom Cruise did that stunt himself. Six times. Clearly, Batman wants to be Cruise. Who could blame him? And now I’m adding that to my bucket list.

Are their klinks in this movie? Sure. I thought Luthor and Benji were under-utilized, and that’s a shame. There’s been some chatter that Ving Rhames might have some medical stuff going on. At 64, it’s bound to happen, I guess. The movie did feel a bit overlong. And this movie felt a little light on humor, given that there was so much situational opportunity for it, especially between Cruise and Atwell.

I’m also going to give it a slight knock for being yet another two-parter (what is the frickin’ deal with that trend?) I feel like this movie could have been done in one go. But it gives us at least ONE movie to look forward to next summer. And for that, I am grateful.

I’m giving Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 4.5 out of 5. You should all choose to accept it.

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