todd.wade - Lights Camera Action

I was torn between going to see Renfield and The Pope’s Exorcist this weekend. A quick ask of my wife’s preference ended my quandry. Time will tell if I made the right call. Was Renfield good? Eh, that’s a very relative term. I would call it just okay. Definitely not a movie I will be eager to have a second helping of. They made room for a sequal, but I would be surprised if it gets made and I would only go see it in theater if the other choice was Fast and Furious: Baby Buggy Burnout.

Having set your expectations, lets look at what was good about the battle of the Nicholas (Nicholases? Nicholai?) You all know by now that I like to find the good in any movie night that I just dropped $$$ on. Saying that, I like Nicholas Hoult when he’s doing what he does best, and I’m not quite sure how to describe what that is. If anyone has seen him in ‘the Great’, you’ll know what I mean. He is just SO MUCH fun to watch him do whatever that is, and he does it perfectly in Renfield. Maybe we’ll call this niche acting ‘hillarious and broken fellow clueless to his surroundings, his effect on others or his place in life’. Dry humor is a difficult skill and he delivers it perfectly and effortlessly.

Nicholas Cage is a veteran over-actor (not a knock, mind you…I give you Jim Carey, the master class of overactors). There seems to be no comedic vehicle that he can’t deliver on. Even in a vehicle so anorexically lean on story as Renfield is. His turn on the infamous blood-sucker was enjoyably campy and over-the-top in just the way you would expect him to be. Was it a phone-in performance? Maybe. But even so, he’s just so darn good at it that it hardly mattered.

And in the same vein, Awkwafina was quirky, sarcastic and imminently excitable…the same character you’ve seen in every single thing she’s done. That we are not yet tired of it is testimony to how unique her one-trick pony is. There was just enough of it to be ejoyable and not become tiresome.

Do I recommend Renfield? Ahhh, I’m going to say maybe wait until its on streaming. Worth a watch but seeing it when there is nothing else to see will increase your enjoyment of it. I’m already prepared to say that I should have dropped my coin on Russel Crowe last weekend. I give Renfield 2/5

An honest movie review: Dungeions and Drgons: Honor Among Thieves

As always, what follows will be a 100% honest movie review from a dude that has no agenda other than escaping for a couple of hours and chomping some corn.

I readily admit to going into ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ fully expecting to be disappointed. I had heard that it shamelessly demasculated the guys and empowered the women. And if I’m being honest, it totally did. Chris Pine was the defacto leader and yet was kind of a bumbler, getting by on charm and an enthusiastic confidence in himself and his friends. Hugh Grant was his stock character…charming in a benign but smarmy, oily way. Michelle Rodriguez was the muscle, Sofia Lillis was powerful and confident. Justice Smith was weak and lovesick. Pretty much across the board, the women were superior to the guys with the exception of an over-serious Zenk Yendar, portrayed enigmatically by Regé-Jean Page. There was even a cameo by Bradley Cooper that was BLATENTLY demasculating. And yet, I loved the dude characters all the more. Chris Pine’s charm is next level and carried what could have been a tragically un-entertaining movie. This movie could have easily fallen into the current Hollywood proclivity of switching traditional gender roles and been a complete FAIL. Instead, the writing was perfectly attuned to the character’s strengths and deftly made fun of itself. There will undoubtably be a D&DII and my big fear is that they will try to catch lightning in a bottle again. This almost never works (I say almost because I’m sure it happened once or twice but I couldn’t name one off the top of my head). And that would be a shame. But living in the moment, I found this movie endearing and am giving it a 3.75/5! My best advice to WB: Don’t try to demasculate the dudes in the next one or let D&DHAT stand on it’s own.

Official movie site: www.dungeonsanddragons.movie/home/