Category: Movie Reviews

Warfare tells it like it is

This week, the Average Dude is reviewing Warfare, the true story of Seal team Alpha One who, on an observational mission during the Battle of Ramadi (2006), are attacked by Iraqi forces. What sets Warfare apart from any of the other Iraqi war movies we’ve seen is the fact that this story was written by Ray Mendoza – an actual soldier in the actual battle. All the details were put together from the testimonies and memories of the platoon. As far as true to life accounts of battle, it doesn’t get any more accurate than Warfare.

This ain’t Hollywood’s Seal Team

As always, I wait until after I’ve seen a movie before I watch any reviews of it. I try not to absorb anyone else’s take so that I can give you a very honest AVERAGE DUDE’s opinion. And, having watched Warfare, I can tell you two things:

1: it is absolutely worth watching. It’s a reminder that even the much lauded, infinitely capable and imminently deadly US Navy Seal can be overcome. They can be hurt and killed. They are not indestructable. They are most definitely in harm’s way.

2: Seeing a movie about a real deal, honest to goodness battle brings with it some heavy emotions. Completely without thinking about it, we mentally separate reality from fiction, and that fact shouldn’t be ignored. If you are looking for a little escapism, Warfare is actually a reminder of how brutal this life is in some places. And Warfare is brutal. Not even kidding a little.

It’s just…different

Watching the blood and violence of Warfare is different from, say, a John Wick movie. In your head, there’s always the knowledge that Babayaga is not real. Heck, even in a true life movie like 13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Bengazi (I watch it several times a year), you know that Michael Bay did some of his magic on it.

Not so with Warfare. From all accounts, this is just as it happened. No Hollywooding here. Just the raw, horrible truth.

 

No real good feels walking out though

I guess you would have to say that Warfare had a happy ending of sorts. Most of the home team made it out alive. Some with less of themselves than when the movie started. And we feel for them and we were happy when they got the hell out. But we didn’t really feel relieved. We weren’t smiling. We were uneasy. And I think I know why.

Honest but kind of pointless

Warfare was an honest portrayal of an actual event. There were no real heroes (except that all of them are heroes). And there wasn’t really a heroic mission. It was just a mission that didn’t seem to have a purpose. People died, soldiers were maimed for an objective that was unclear at best. Not defending a strategically critical bridge. Nobody was taking out an enemy airfield or storming a beach. The entire reason Alpha One was holed up in that building was just so mundane. Maybe that is part of the point. In Warfare – as in war – soldiers often die for little reason. And that is an uncomfortable thought.

This may be an unpopular take…

Some of the reviewers I really like have heaped high praise on Warfare for it’s gritty realism and keeping amazingly true to actual events. That’s fair. Hollywood doesn’t deal in things like truth and honesty and realistic all that often. And that’s kind of the whole point of movies…to take us away for a couple of hours. It’s our numero uno form of escapism. Is there room for a Warfare that gives us the unvarnished truth? Sure, yes, absolutely. But in this case, don’t look for an uplifting message or good feels on the way home. And while I liked Warfare, I can’t really say I enjoyed it. Weird, but true.

So, with some genuinely mixed feelings, I’m giving Warfare a 3.5 out of 5. If you want to give it higher marks, I’m not gonna argue. For this Average Dude, it just felt bleak. Honest, but bleak.

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The Amateur would have been an above par movie…for February

Mrs Average Dude and I were somewhat eagerly waiting for The Amateur to arrive at our local moviehaus. I say somewhat because, at least from the trailers, the premise was not horribly overused and the star seemed very believable in the roll. It’s worth noting that I have had to dramatically adjust my movie expectations downward over the past year or so. With that in mind, The Amateur was okay and even a little bit of a surprise.

Funny how a 110 lb girl can do it

The Amateur is the story of Charles Heller, a mid-high level tech genius for the US Government, who is driven into action when his wife is killed by terrorists half a world away. Mostly, Heller’s field of expertise is decryption. So, in a efficient bit of story, Heller’s bona fidas are established…he’s super smart. That is his power.

The writers of The Amateur are smart enough to realize that turning Malek into a full-fledged action star like John Wick would be stretching disbelief beyond its breaking point. Heller’s nerdy brain-power is believable. Unlike, say, Lioness. Or Charlie’s Angels. Or the children of Sucker Punch, which are totally unbelievable. And therein lies the hook. Like John McClane and Sarah Conner, tech-nerds needed a hero, too.

Oh, and along for the ride but mostly wasted are Lawrence Fishburne and Jon Bernthal (who is in just about everything these days and I’m here for it).

Rami Malek is the hero we never knew was possible

Of all the suspensions of disbelief we are called on to adopt when we step into the theater, maybe the most subtle one is this basic premise…nerdy tech genius focuses his grief and anger and channels it into revenge. The Average Dude has a lot of friends and among them are a number of nerdy tech geniuses. I have to say, I don’t think a single one of them would respond in the way that Charles Heller did in The Amateur. I also don’t know a single average dude that would strap on a fire hose and jump off the top of Nakatomi Plaza, but that’s beside the point.

Point is: these are one in a million guys who don’t know what they’re capable of until they are in the sh!t. And that’s every man’s fantasy.

Alpha Nerd

And I think that may have been the goal of The Amateur. Outside of Revenge of the Nerds, there really hasn’t been a techie star to stand toe to toe with the bad-guys lone wolf style. Someone called them the Alpha Nerds, and that’s really cool. Charles Heller is a much needed hero for the tech-nerd class. Maybe that was the whole thinking behind this movie.

Only the $$$ will tell

I loved how this movie didn’t try to make Charles Heller into the smartest guy in every room. Sure, he’s super smart…in his field. But putting him in the deadly world of spy-catching and globe-trotting, Heller was a fish out of water. He was out of his element, learning as he stumbled along. An helping of luck was necessary for him to keep living and that was not left out. In the end, Heller prevails (sort of). Will there be a second Heller adventure? Could they still call it The Amateur? I dunno. Only the box office will tell.

Passing grade

The Averaged Dude is giving The Amateur a passing grade of 3 out of 5 for decent story that didn’t make us throw logic too far out the window and providing a very emotionally relatable hero. Again, this would be totally overlooked if released in July. For April, it was good enough. Never going to be an annual watch. But they can’t all be Die Hard.

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Black Bag for a black time

Well, the gloom of February’s movie Dead Zone has swallowed up March. When the best theater movies for the year have been Last Breath, Unbreakable Boy and A Complete Unknown…its been beyond bleak. Literally, there has not been one single movie that your Average Dude has been truly excited to see and, for most of them, much less than excited to review for you. And Black Bag, yet another star-studded feature film by a well-known and loved director (Steven Soderbergh) is the pickle on top of this crap sandwich of a movie season.

Not much to review but here goes nothing

Steven Soderbergh is no slouch when it comes to film-making. He has 14 Oscar nominations and five wins, including Best Director for Traffic in 2000. That was a pretty great year for Soderbergh, as he was also nominated for Best Director for Erin Brockovich. Crazy.
Soderbergh’s bona fidas established, there was reason for optimism going to see Black Bag. However, it became very apparent fairly early on that this movie was not going to end well…for the audience.
Black Bag boasts some excellent stars to go along with an Oscar-winning director. Michael Fassbender has been one of my favorites ever since I saw him in Band of Brothers. Cate Blanchett still carries celebrity cache even after the tragedy that was last summer’s Boarderlands.

And yet, here we are

Those three names attached to Black Bag were enough to give me more than hope…they gave me expectation. So, my post-movie disappointment and frustration are understandable. When you get a big nothing burger out of a show you expected nothing from, the taste of that burger is what it is. But when you expect a juicy steak and it tastes like sawdust…it’s bitter.

When I say ‘Snoozer’, I mean that literally

I’m giving Black Bag a pretty low review. But to be totally transparent, I didn’t watch the whole movie. I literally fell asleep for a few minutes somewhere in the middle if this slogging, single-tone chore of a ‘thriller’. And when I say single-tone, it wasn’t like a John Wick movie, where the bloodletting barely gives you time to shove some corn in your face, lest you miss something cool. I’m talking about a tone so devoid of energy it was akin to playing white-noise on your headset while working. It was just. that. ssssssllllllloooooooooooooooowwww.

The Positive Take-away

To say something good about Black Bag is kind of a stretch. It’s not that the acting was bad. In truth, I would have found it increadibly hard to play a character that, BY DIRECTION, was supposed to show as little emotion as possible at all times. To Michael Fasbender’s credit, he managed to convey an intense, all-consuming adoration to his co-habitant (the weren’t even married). Blanchett was able to subtly portray a woman who knows her man is a total cuck, yet not demean him TOO much. If that was the goal of this movie, it did it’s job. But here’s the biggest rub…

Just like Drive Away Dolls. Or Mickey 17.

Yet again, Hollywood does the old switcheroo on us. Instead of giving us the tense, whodunnit thriller that the trailer promised, we got a barely fleshed out generic plot that was presented so blandly that I didn’t care enough to try to figure it out before the final reel. Instead, we got a movie about a brilliant, respected, capable yet broken man and a brilliant, respected, capable yet narcisistic woman in a relationship of convenience that seemed about an inch deep (by necessity, I’ll grant you). Nothing to admire. Nothing to aspire to. And very little in this movie to appreciate or remember.

I’m giving Black Bag a disappointing 2.5 out of 5. I’d love to discuss a different opinion if anybody has one. But the Average Dude stands by the score. You’ve been warned not to expect much. Unless that’s your thing.

Not for Nothing

As always, I wait until I’ve seen a movie before reading anyone’s reviews. I saw one reviewer call Fasbender ‘James Band’. That was so good I should have thought of it.

Then, an NPR reviewer called Black Bag ‘a witty, sexy, espionage thriller’. Sexy? Meh, I’ll give it that. There certainly is enough cross-character sexing to add to the ‘intrigue’ (although I found it about as titilating as a prostate exam). But witty and thriller are not words I wouild use to describe Black Bag. So I will say this about the NPR review…consider the source. I said what I said.

Not for nothing 2.0

Go to Google, call up Black Bag 2025 film and click on images. You will see the movie poster, a couple of stills from the movie, and uncountable number of women’s fashion accessories instead of images from the film. Literally, there was not enough in this movie to produce even a handful of press images. That kind of backs up my review. Take that, NPR.

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A Working Man…to BEE or not to BEE

This week, Mr and Mrs Average Dude ventured out to our local moviehaus to see A Working Man, the latest action flick from the ageless Jason Statham. A Working Man is the story of Levon Cade, an ex-special ops agent who has chosen the simpler life of a mild-mannered construction foreman. When the daughter of the company owner gets abducted by human traffickers, Levon is forced back into old habits.

Let’s get this right out front…I like Jason Statham. His unconvential good looks and British accent set him apart from the generic, @$$ kicking action star that is everywhere. He has a trademark killer stare that just doesn’t seem to grow old (like the man himself).

Having said this, I’ll say that Statham’s career trajectory seems very much to be on the downward slide. My receipts: Mechanic. Spy. Safe. Parker. Both Megs. And of course, Beekeeper. His movies are as BEE movie as BEE movies can get.

And that’s okay

Like Bruce Willis in the twighlight of his career, it almost seems like a natural progression for action stars. None of the greats were immune. Stalone has his Escape Plan, Bullet to the Head, Smaritan (and don’t get me started on Driven). Ahnold has his Escape Plan, The Last Stand, Maggie, etc. All of those are a steep dropoffs from the movies that made their star great. We see them for nostalgia, for the mindless action. We see them for their fun-factor, like riding a roller coaster we’ve ridden a hundred times. They definitely have their place and that’s fine. That’s where I’m putting A Working Man.

Nothing new here

So, did the Average Dude like A Working Man? I did. It was everything I expected from a Statham movie. No surprises, good or bad. Unlike the aforementioned Beekeeper, there were really no poorly done, over the top special effects (an understatement…they were horrendous). If you don’t count the unkillable hero as a suspension of disbelief, there was nothing I saw that made me lean over to Mrs Average Dude and say ‘yeah, that’s never going to happen’. That counts as a plus in my book.

So, I’m giving A Working Man a modest 3.1 for meeting expectations, low as they were. And maybe a +.1 for being so much better than Beekeeper. It also helps that it was rolled out to us in what might be the biggest dip in Hollywood movie quality I can ever remember, and that includes the year of covid. At least that year had Free Guy. A saving grace if ever there were one.

And What is going on with THIS?
While searching for images to add to this review, I came across this movie poster.

Call me crazy, but I think I might have remembered this scene. Was A Working Man originally supposed to be a very different movie? If anyone knows the answer, message me. Thanks!

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The Electric State was an easy choice

To my own professional shame, I had not heard a peep about The Electric State. I found out about it from the always magnificent Mrs Average Dude. Since we went to see Novacaine on Friday, we found ourselves at home in the Mancave home theater Saturday night and looking for a streaming movie. I have yet to find a Chris Pratt movie that didn’t have something to offer. The Electric State was an easy choice.

The Electric State is an alternate reality retrofuturistic movie where automated sentience evolved in the early 1990s. By the 2000s, a war between robots and humans has been fought, with flesh and blood being the victors. Because of society’s compassion for ‘robotic rights’, the defeated automatons are not disassembled and repurposed, but exiled to a massive walled internment camp in the desert.

I was a little uneasy watching the band, not gonna lie

What makes The Electric State different than Terminator or The Creator is the cartoonish form of the robots. Think about the old Showbiz Pizza animatronics. Or if Five Nights at Freddies were a PG movie. I watched the Showbiz Pizza Rockafire Explosion as a kid. I was fascinated but also had a nightmare or two about them. Seeing Mr Peanut lead a rebellion that reinforced those childhood ‘discomforts’ was special and I loved it.

Trusting the science

The theory behind the title is that consiousness exists in an electric state and creates a bond between people that can exist outside of distance, time or even death. The theory is akin to quantum physics, which theorizes that objects can remain linked after physical contact. I don’t know whether the Electric State theory has any real scientific juice or not. But we’ve been asked for much greater leaps of faith in our escapism, so we’ll suspend any disbelief and go with it.

The Electric State stars Millie Bobbie Brown as Michelle, a ward of the state due to a car accident that that un-alived her mom, dad and tra-genius little brother, Chris. Michelle now lives with her foster father played perfectly but briefly by Jason Alexander. Depressed and lonely, Michelle is visited by a robot avatar of Chris’s favorite childhood cartoon – Cosmo.

Wanting so much to believe that Chris is alive, Michelle and Cosmo embark on an adventure that takes the to the desert of misfit robots. Chris Pratt (playing Keith, an ex-soldier-now smuggler) and his own robot side-kick Herm get tangled up with Michelle and Cosmo in a search for her flesh and blood brother.

Who Knew Mr Peanut was a bad-@$$?

The Electric State was short on story, short on character development, but long on retrofuturistic robotic special effects. Pratt’s Keith was Starlord with Bon Jovi doo. Stanley Tucci was never given enough room to grow. Ke Huy Quan (Short Round, remember) had a brief appearance, Giancarlo Esposito continues his recent run of short, one-dimensional bad guy roles (Captain America 4) and Woody Harrelson shows up as Mr Peanut, the deposed and exiled leader of the robot rebellion.

A case can be made (and I’m one who would make it) is that the least deserving live actor got the most screentime. Bobby Millie Brown as the life-hardened angsty teen (though she looks like she is in her late-twenties) chewed up scene after scene and never felt very relatable. I was more emotionally invested in Herm. And speaking of…

The Real Stars of the show

Even though the ‘star power’ was there, the scene-stealers were definitely the automatons. Sure, there were the usual cold steel battle-bots that we’ve come to expect. But the real attraction – the retrofuturistic robots – were both charming and discomforting at the same time. I was enthralled, looking for more and more of our commercial cultural icons to make an appearance. I honestly expected to see the Michelin Man or Shoney’s Big Boy marauding through cities like the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man. In a movie world where CGI has all but replaced actual story-telling, the special effects here were actually ‘special’.

Well, no wonder!

Having no advance knowledge or The Electric State, I found myself saying throughout the movie ‘this is really Marvel-like’. Starlord, check. Dr. Erskin, check. Short Round, check. Captain Iron-Falcon-man, check. When the credits rolled around, I finally figured it out. Directed by the Russo Brothers. Music by Alan Silvestri. The Electric State was an off-Marvel production. Not a slam but clearly, there is a signature style that the Russos adhere to. And a successful one.

The Average Dude is happy to give The Electric State a solid 3.75 out of 5. If they had added maybe 20 minutes of character dev for Pratt or Tucci, that might have elevated the score. And Millie Bobbi Brown was, in my opinion, a poor choice for Michelle. Jenna Ortega might have been a better choice. Either way, The Electric State is a really decent choice for a Saturday night at home popcorn pusher. Enjoy!
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Ho-lee crap. Mickey 17, wtf was that?

Once again, we see that the Hollywood marketing machine is on point. Anyone who saw the trailers for Mickey 17 were intrigued. We thought we were going to be treated to a futuristic dark comedy. What we got was…well, I’m not really sure WHAT we got.

O Coens, where art thou?

Creating good dark comedy is hard. It may be the hardest kind of movie to make. Mostly they’re a kind of niche that you either get or don’t get. Example: I don’t think my mom and dad would ever be able to appreciate most of the Coen brothers dark work*. They might like a gag or two from Raising Arizona or Big Lebowski or Bad Santa. But some of the more nuanced elements of the Coen brother’s work will escape them. They may laugh at ‘Gimme back mah baby, you warthog from hell’ and totally miss the irony that the baby was stolen to begin with.

I bring up the Coen Brother’s work because there are times when Mickey 17 seemed to channel its inner Fargo. Those times are few and far between, unfortunately. And in total honesty, there are as many times it channels its inner Drive Away Dolls.** Truly polar opposites.

You’ll always be Glen to us

Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes. Mickey and his business partner Timo (Steven Yeun – Glen from The Walking Dead) are on the run from a small-time loan shark and decide their best course of action is to flee off-world to a cult-like space colony on a snow-bound planet.*** Leading this pilgrimage is TV Evangelist and failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his back-stage controlling wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). It’s all very over-the-top farcical in the same vein as the Coen Brothers work.

 

Timing is everything

I don’t think I’m overstating things by saying that Mark Ruffalo has a particular political leaning. He’s been very vocal about it over the years. His portrayal of Kenneth Marshall is a very thinly veiled commentary on who he sees as a political adversary. And Ruffalo plays it with utter commitment. In a time when the national sentiment is weighted against that leaning, it casts a shadow over his performance, making it somewhat polarizing. In short, it’s too on the nose. Now, if the part had been given to Mel Gibson? The juxtaposition would be comedy gold.

Kind of like Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys

I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Pattinson’s work. Admittedly, I steered clear of anything Twilight related. His small part in Harry Potter was a non-factor and his take on Batman was infuriating (though I don’t necessarily put that on him. I blame the writing). Regardless, I am happy to admit that his portrayal of Mickey 17 was eye-opening. Dude showed a bit of range and I won’t be so dismissive of him going forward.

So, what went wrong?

Mickey 17 seems to be suffering from a complete lack of identity. Is it a dark comedy? Is it a space adventure? Is it a socio/political commentary? Is the message about technology run amok? Mickey 17 touches on all of those but never really commits to any of them, giving us a disjointed movie full of unresolved strings and uneven, inconsistent behaviors. Its all over the place, which is frustrating. And what the heck was that ending about? I still don’t understand wtf that was about. Sigh…

I’m very sorry to say that I was utterly disappointed with Mickey 17 and can only muster a weak-@$$ rating of 2.2 out of 5. Feel free to watch it on streaming. I’m sure it will be there soon. So far, this year, the stuff coming out of Hollywood has been really, really pitiful, like the studios are cleaning out their cinematic junk drawer. I kind of wish I had stayed home and cleaned out my own junk drawer.

*I may be beating a dead warthog with this, but I am on record as saying that the Coen brother (singular) movie **Drive Away Dolls is the WORST movie I’ve ever seen and absolutely taints any desire to see Coen work in the future.

***And lest I forget, Mickey and Timo owe their loan shark a whopping 35k, for which he sends a thug into space to ‘collect’. That’s couch cushion change in a futuristic world, I would imagine. Coen-esqur or just crappy writing? If you can’t tell, it’s the latter.

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The Unbreakable Boy will be overlooked by most of us

Thankfully, we are into the home-stretch for the early 2025 movie Dead Zone. From here, we might find a decent theater-watchable show peppered here and there. This week, there were two new offerings…The Unbreakable Boy and The Monkey. And even though the Average Dude has read nearly everything that Stephen King has published (I currently have 3 of his books in progress), I chose The Unbreakable Boy. Why did I choose The Unbreakable Boy over the latest King to big screen adaptation? That’s a discussion for another place.

A movie with the heart of a lion

I have to hand it to Lionsgate, they stepped up to the plate and took their swings with The Unbreakable Boy. With the rising popularity of movies like Cabrini, Possum Trot and the wonderful Sound of Freedom (all from Angel Studios), Lionsgate fearlessly threw their hat into that ring to give us another wholesome yet conscience stirring offering. And just like most of the Angel Studio movies, wholesome content that stirs the soul just isn’t a big box office draw.

Some Marvel movies can’t hit that mark

The exception to this rule is Sound of Freedom. SoF is based on a true story so shocking that America took notice to the tune of a $184M domestic ($251M worldwide). The amazing success of SoF was, in part, the catalyst for every true story of hope to follow. And therein lies the rub. But more on that later.

Choices

The Unbreakable Boy is the story of Scott and Teresa LeRette and their son Austin. Austin was born with autism AND brittle bone disease, a genetic disorder passed down from his mother. The basic message of The Unbreakable Boy is one of hope, love, optimism and the choices we make (both good and bad). If you’re a sucker for true stories about hope triumphant – as is the Average Dude – then you’ll enjoy this movie. Make sure you watch the ‘where are they now’ part of the end credits.

The Unbreakable Boy stars Zachary Levi (Shazam, Chuck) as Scott LeRette, a medical supply salesman from Oklahoma with big city dreams. Scott meets Teresa (Meghan Fahy) while shopping for some new pants and romance ensues. The magic moments.

Life Intervening

Due to a quite unexpected pregnancy, Teresa is forced to reveal that she has brittle bone syndrome and that there is a very real possibility the condition will be passed down to their child. Scott chooses to accept his responsibility as a father and so the family is formed.

A hint of the divine

Austin narrates the story, emphasising his many, many bone breaks. But the story is acually about how Scott and Teresa handle being constantly on the edge of crisis. As Life is fond of doing, it intervenes. Difficult times that fall on all of us are made exponentially harder when stacked on top of the LeRette’s already extraordinarily tough challenges. Yet, for reasons mostly taken for granted, Austin (Auz-man) develops an attitude of wonder. In his world view, he accepts that he has limitations. You never hear him bemoan his fate. A chatterbox he is. A whiner he is not. Auz-man is a mile-a-minute optimist. And though his constant verbal onslaught is a trial for his parents (and at times, the viewer), I think it’s fair to be reminded that their reality could have been much worse.*

Why do stories of hope generally make squat at the box office?

Movies, by their nature, are transporting. They take us out of our day-to-day. They are escapism, pure and simple. Except movies like The Unbreakable Boy don’t remove us very far. These types of movies often remind us that we take a lot for granted. If we are wise, we take the hint and nurture gratitude in ourselves, in our family and friends. Gratitude or victimhood…it’s always a choice. Stories of overcoming adversity can inspire hope in us and also shame us. Nobody likes to be reminded of their own selfishness. Making our lives all and only about ourselves is also a choice.

So how does the Average Dude rate a movie like this?

Movies like The Unbreakable Boy nearly always get overlooked. They’re not flashy. There’s no special effects budget to speak of. No thrills. They’re just stories of real life that we usually choose to ignore. I’m no different. I nearly chose to go see The Monkey. Pretty sure that would have been a big mistake. The AD is not a horror fan AND I read the short story from King waaaay back in high school. I’m glad that I decided to walk willingly into a movie I suspected would be a reminder that I spend too much time focused on self. These movies don’t transport. They force introspection. They drive it home and hopefully, remind us to be better people.

The Average Dude is giving The Unbreakable Boy a sound 3.5 out of 5. Be ready to look inward. Be ready to get choked up. Be wise enough to not dismiss the lessons. Be brave.

*The Average Dude has had a decent amount of exposure to autism. I know of one young person on the spectrum that is very much the opposite of the Auz-man. Always crying, always in a state of chaos. I imagine the turmoil in that household and I have a new compassion for them. My choice.

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Last Breath, a true story

One of the movies on the Average Dude’s Annual Watch List is Apollo 13, nominated for Best Picture at the 1996 Oscars and was beat out by another annual watch (Braveheart). Tough draw, astronauts. Still, your humble AD regards it as the absolute Diamond Standard of movies based on actual events. When you get choked up at an ending that you knew before walking into the theater? Amazing. Last Breath is not Apollo 13, but that’s okay. The bar is just too high.

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes

This week, the Average Dude reviews Last Breath, a true story. I knew literally nothing about it walking in the door. There were just no other more attractive options, so I rolled the dice. And the dice came up seven.

I hope the pay is beyond excellent

Last Breath is the story of a team of deep-sea divers working on oil pipelines on the ocean floor, one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. Not only is the work they do extremely unforgiving of mistakes or bad fortune, but the preparations to even put yourself to such a hazzard are extremely grueling. Truly it takes a special kind of person to do a job like that. Mad respect.

Sometimes I take a little nap

I am adamant about not giving away any spoilers when I do a review, that is well-known. And in so saying, I can’t really go to any – ahem – depths about Last Breath. What I can tell you is this…it was an hour and 33 minutes of tight story telling and edge of you seat suspense. Not a second of time was wasted, which felt perfect. And truth be told, I was pretty bushed when we arrived at the theater and wondered if I was going to make it through. No worries there. I was 100% glued to Last Breath from the moment they left port to the final credits.

I have the sense of humor of a 12 yr old

Last Breath top star on the marque is Woody Harrelson, who turns in a decent performance as Duncan Allcock (giggety), the A team crew leader. Simu Liu plays David Yuasa, a veteran diver. And the pivotal role of Chris Lemons is played by Finn Cole (a face and name I did not recognize).

But the real star of Last Breath is the perfect pacing of this drama. We the viewer are never left in one place with one character very long. Where a movie like Apollo 13 forces the three astronauts to interact constantly, the main trio in Last Breath are for the most part isolated, which only adds to the claustrophobic feeling of this terrifying thrill ride. The downside is that you don’t get a ton of character development that way. Good thing the story itself is what makes this a great watch.

It should probably be noted that going into Last Breath and not knowing a thing about the story very much helped build suspense. In fact, I was thinking the movie might be about the tragic fate of the commercial sub Titan, which imploded and killed all five onboard in 2023. When I realized it had zero to do with that particular tragedy, I was able to fully immerse myself in a nerve-wrecking drama whose ending was unknown. So maybe reading this doesn’t serve you well except to hear that the Average Dude gives Last Breath a heart-pounding 4 out of 5. It’s not ever going to replace Apollo 13. But for early March? Man, this movie is a gem!

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Den of Thieves 2 was a long time in coming, and not in a good way

I have to admit, I barely remembered a thing about Den of Thieves. It starred Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr (both returning for Den of Thieves 2 Pantera). It had a ‘bad cop’ feel a la Training Day. That’s what I remembered. The Average Dude had to rewatch it with the missus prior to heading to my local moviehaus.

Strike one

The point there is that Den of Thieves 2 was released in mid January. For those who don’t yet know, Jan-Feb and August are the cinematic equivalent of giving your kid a time-out. Not quite bad enought to be banished to their room and not be seen by the guests, but bad enough to be removed from the party. That’s strike one.

Strike two

Den of Thieves 2 was also released 7 years after the first installment. That’s nowhere near the all-time record, which is dubiously held by Mary Poppins Returns (with a different actress in the title role so I am not really counting it). And to be fair, we waited 36 years for Top Gun Maverick, and that turned out fabulously. But then, there’s also Beetljuice Beetlejuice (also 36 years), which turned out very NOT fabulously. I digress… Just sayin’ that’s a long time for folks to forget a fairly forgetable movie to begin with. Strike two.

But then…a curve ball

Den of Thieves 2 was not just a carbon copy of the first. As the trailer showed, Nick (Butler) has become disenchanted with the burdens of cop life and is tracking down Donnie (Jackson) to see how the other half lives. He follows Donnie to the World Diamond Exchange and Scooby-Doo’s that he is planning a huge score. And Nick wants in. It’s not altogether unbelievable that Nick would cross that line, given that his character would often dance over that line and jump back again.

That’s the basic premise of Den of Thieves 2. Butler plays the brash, alpha-among-alphas persona to a tee. The real appeal of Nick is that we never knew whether to love the guy or hate him. When you’re looking for that character, Butler is a solid go-to.

Bad choice. Done poorly.

As for the rest of the cast, they’re pretty much unremarkable. O’Shea Jackson has the emotional range of a catcher’s mitt. Whether the scene calls for anger, fear or excitement, he only seems to be able to weakly muster the stone-cold killa look. Vacant stares. Like un-lifing someone and choosing what brand of butter to buy carry the same emotional weight for him. Not only does Jackson not feel all that threatening, but the very choice is so cliche it’s boring. To paraphrase the legendary Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, ‘Just don’t make it ordinary.’ Or boring.

With that said, I’m giving Den of Thieves 2 Pantera a marginal 2.6/5 on the always entertaining Gerard Butler. Call this movie an infield single on a cold, wet field. Against a bad opponent. In a Cactus League game. The result is just okay but you’re not really that excited about it. And in the end, it didn’t make your season any better or worse.

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Wolf Man wasn’t a big hairy deal

As I’ve said before, the Average Dude is not much of a fan of this generation’s idea of the ‘horror movie’ genre. I’ll go into more of an explanation on why that is later in this column. Having said that, I am a fan of the classic horror films. Frankenstein, the Mummy, King Kong, all were terrifying in their day. And maybe my favorite – the Wolf Man. Lon Cheney Jr. Bela Lugosi. Classic horror icons.

Because we have run out of original movie ideas

Fast forward: Universal Studios attempted to reboot The Wolf Man in 2010, starring Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro. I didn’t hate this reboot, but I didn’t love it, either. It was a pretty lukewarm movie that should have been better, given the star power involved, but okay. It was supposed to be one of the tent-pole movies of Universal’s new ‘Dark Universe’. I thought that was a fantastic idea and am a little perplexed why they gave up on it so quickly. I think I get why both of those flicks underperformed expectations. And again, I’ll get to that.

A Wolf Man for a new millenium

The latest iteration of Wolf Man stars Julia Garner (Ozark) as Charlotte, a city-dwelling journalist and work-distanced mother. Her stay-at-home husband Blake (Christopher Abbott) takes his family ‘home’ to finally put to rest his father’s back country estate after he was declared legally deceased. You can easily guess the rest of this plot, I reckon. I mean, not a lot you can really do with it that hasn’t already been done. Like a Godzilla movie, you kind of know what’s coming.

What sets Wolf Man (in any era) apart from other monster movies like Frankenstein and Dracula is the inner struggle of the creature itself. The villain is also the victim, so the audience has an emotional tug of war going on. More than any other classic horror movie, developing the characters as relatable and believable is key. And that’s the biggest problem I have with Wolf Man.

Stick to what you know, I guess

Wolf Man was written and directed by Leigh Whannell, who has a string of very successful horror movies to his IMDB credit (the Saw series, the Insidious series). I will admit, I have never watched so much as 5 minutes of those movies. Going to see Wolf Man was sort of a hail marry to see if there was any actual classic movie horror left in Hollywood. If Wolf Man is any indication, there isn’t.

That Whannell is a titan of the modern idea of horror is indesputable. His writing has spawned eleven Saw movies, plus prequel Spiral. Insidious inspired 5 movies to date. The dude is super-popular. Wolf Man is his 4th directing credit. I could name them but what’s the point? I’ve seen one of them and it was not memorable. My point here is this: Whannell might be able to write about what society wants in their horror films, but directing it on screen is a different animal altogether.

Claws and effect

Where Wolf Man excelled is showing the de-evolution of Blake into the man-beast. It wasn’t a complete, full moon transformation. It was a progression that didnt reverse itself with the coming of the sun. That metamorphosis was done well and absolutely evoked a sympathy from the audience.

Where Wannell’s directing failed, it failed hard. Phantasically and utterly. Julia Garner is no slouch as an actress. I’ve seen her in Ozark.. She’s part of the new Fantastic Four movie. She’s got skills and a quirky likeability in the looks department. And I think she did the most she was allowed to do with the horrible, unrealistic dialog that was given to her. There are tense situations where a brooding silence would be an appropriate response. I’m going to go on record as saying that watching a your husband, who has morphed into a clawed, slavering feral thing would not be one of them.

Think of the children!

And for the love of Aunt Bea, there is no 8 year old child on planet earth that would not be losing their sh!te over seeing their beloved dad turn into a hairy, fanged, rabid killer. None. Zero is the number. Yet, at Whannells direction, that’s exactly what the young daugher of Blake and Charlotte did. For me, that was the stake in the heart of this movie. If Wolf Man had been top shelf in all other areas, that performance itself would wreck this movie. There. I said what I said.

Which brings me to my first point

Though it saddens me, I get that times have changed. What our parents ones thought of as the apex of movie horror doesn’t even register in people today. Modern horror is about jump scares and how to dismember a person’s body and psyche in the most dehumanizing ways. Sorry if I injure you by saying so, it’s about depravity and the loss of humanity. Each movie has to be even more creatively soulless than the last. Simply put, the reality of a soulless human is more terrifying than any walking corpse or mutated beast-dude.

And worth a thought…anyone who thinks that they aren’t being damaged by watching modern horror…well, I would just urge them to consider the possibility that I’m right.

SO…while Wolf Man isn’t a horror film in the vein of Whannell’s other successes, it most certainly isn’t a throwback to the really old-school b&w flicks. And if you can’t get hooked by those, then I suggest a Silence of the Lambs. Or American Werewolf in London (the 80’s version, please). As for Wolf Man 2025, I’m giving it a tepid 2.5/5 on the strength of the actual wolf-changing element. Other than that, this movie just has no bite to it at all.

If you want a TRULY different Wolf Man…

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