Patrick

Max Payne Recap

Jamie

Max Payne is a detective with pain deep in his heart due to the pain caused by the painful deaths of his wife and baby. Forever searching for those responsible, can he track down their killers before it’s too late? Find out in… Max Payne.

How?! We are introduced to our titular character May Payne, an unstable detective broken by the murder of his wife and child and relegated to the cold case squad. Convinced that drug addicts were responsible for their deaths he spends his free time kicking ass and taking names of those on the periphery of the drug trade. One night he’s introduced to Natasha, sister of a Russian mobster who is involved in a new street drug Max is investigating. After she leaves his apartment she is brutally murdered, throwing suspicion on Max. Max don’t give a shit because he’s a crazy person and only cares about two things: solving crimes and chewing gum and guess what? Gum doesn’t exist in Max Payne (neither does sunshine and laughter apparently, this film is grim). But when his ex-partner is also killed for investigating Natasha’s murder, he suspects he’s getting close to something explosive. After finding that some work documents of his wife’s have been stolen he tortures one of her coworkers and finds out she was involved in the development of a military drug. Tracing this all back to a homicidal maniac named Lupino, Max confront him and is nearly killed, only to be saved by the real killer of his wife: his good friend BB. BB throws Max into the frozen Hudson River but Max survives by consuming some of the drug. Transformed into a super soldier he goes after BB and kills him… now read all that back and see if it makes any sense. I actually had to rewatch parts of this film because I couldn’t piece together the film’s plot. It’s nonsense. THE END.

Why?! Max Payne mostly just wants to chew bubblegum in peace, but since that doesn’t exist he is obsessed with solving the murders of his wife and child. Pretty boring and straightforward. The bad guy on the other hand is much more interesting. He used to be a police officer, but took over security at the pharmaceutical company Max’s wife worked at. After the failure of the trials of the super soldier drug he started dealing it on the streetz for profit. Max’s wife got wind of it so she had to go. Weirdly the police don’t seem suspicious that a bunch of super soldier drug is being sold. You even see the logo of the pharma company on the vials… now that I think about it Max Payne is a really bad cop. Should have been obvious.

What?! Mila Kunis certainly liked her Maserati in the film, but my favorite by far is from the post credit sequence (setting up a sequel that never came to fruition… yet). In it Max meets up with Mila Kunis’ character at a bar to discuss things. He goes to the bartender and grabs two nice cold refreshing bud lights. Hardly any product placement in the entire film and then this shows up at the end. I’m convinced Wahlberg must have something in his contract requiring it. Seeing how Bud Light will be incorporated into the plot is the best part of his Transformers films.

Who?! Apparently the voice actor for Max Payne appears uncredited as a background actor in a scene… but that’s not confirmed by imdb. Better than that is while scrolling through the cast list I saw that Nelly Furtado, famous singer and bird enthusiast, appears as the wife of Max Payne’s former partner. She appears for one second, says a line, and isn’t visually recognizable for me to have noticed until now. Weird and wild stuff.

Where?! NYC Babbbbyyyyyy! At first I thought maybe we were in Generic Big City, but then the police cars all had NYPD on them and the game is explicitly set there so why wouldn’t they. Pretty obvious but not essential. B-.

When?! Secret Holiday Film Alert! Everything is bleak, cold, and snowy in the film so my setting sense was a-tingling. Could we be looking at an Xmas film. Unfortunately no. But this seems to end on New Years Eve. Right in the beginning we are told that the events of the final showdown occur a week before the start of the film. At some point in the beginning of the film Max’s buddy is reviewing a case file which is listed as being transferred to him on 12/28/2008. This would seem to indicate almost exactly that the we are being treated to a super secret New Year’s Eve film. A wonder we didn’t see Max watch the ball drop after totally murdering a bunch of people. That’s a pretty nice B.

This film is nonsense which seemed to aim squarely at style rather than substance (and succeeded at having almost no substance at all). Felt a little Zach Snyder-ish, with parts that looked good but when you drill down there is just fluff there. In reality if you think about it this film is not too different than Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li other than it looks a lot better. The plot is just as hilariously bad. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Max Payne was what you’ll be in if you watch this movie, aaaaayyyyyyyyyoooooooooo, hit it Jamie! Ah, but I should probably talk about the movie a bit … fine, let’s get into it.

The Good (Sequel, Prequel, Remake) – I like Mark Wahlberg, I can’t help it. I barely even know why at this point given how he has betrayed me with the Transformers franchise. The film kind of looked cool at times. The story was kind of interesting at times. I even kind of liked it at times. Those times were just too few and far between. Obviously I would want a Remake. Video game films are having a moment. People are trying all kind of new things with them. Young directors. Serious stories. Higher budgets. Nothing seems to help, they still kind of suck. I think, and this might be an unpopular opinion, part of the problem is fanservice. With comic books you have limitless material to draw on, thousands upon thousands of pages of Batman has slowly made his character beloved and authentic feeling stories are fairly simple to develop out of the archetype. Max Payne though? You have a few games, and honestly, the stories in video games are rarely good. Just make this a revenge cop drama. Don’t worry about the fanservice. If you make it good the fans will come back to it and it will become Max Payne (not the other way around). Maybe it works, maybe people slam it for not being an “adaptation” as they expect it. But it is better than having stupid goat transformation scenes in Warcraft, I’m telling you that much. Rant over.

The Bad (Sklognalogy) – This film is a little too stylized. The story is very generic, so much so that you sit there and think “well obviously that guy is the bad guy! Haven’t I seen this somewhere else?”. It also, and I’ll get into this a little below, kind of betrays the game it is adapted from. It is kind of fun, but mostly it is drab, dreary, and sad. The Sklognalogy I think has to be Sucker Punch in a way. I feel like it and Sin City 2 and 300 2 (I haven’t seen either of those) all suffer from the same thing: it missed the boat on a style, but went ahead and did it anyways. The style gets boring though after you’ve seen it once or twice. You might think making a Matrix knock-off would be cool, but it probably would just look stupid these days and make people think “ugh, this is a knock off of the Matrix”. Same thing here.

The BMT (Legacy / StreetCreditReport.com) – I do think Max Payne has a legacy, mostly in an unyielding march towards watching all video game adaptations (almost all of them qualify after all). This isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it came out at a time when people were sure video game adaptations were going to happen. They didn’t. The same people are sure this year is the year as well … welp, the new Lara Croft trailer doesn’t look so good to me, but we’ll see. They’ll figure it out someday. There isn’t much for being the worst of 2008, but it fourth on a list of worst Mark Wahlberg films by Rolling Stone. And made a list of the 15 worst video game films by Screen Rant. Pretty solid.

I’ll keep the adaptation analysis short because I haven’t played the game. But, based on the outcry by the developers themselves it is clear that the hallucinations that Mark Wahlberg sees, a major plot point in the movie, either play very little or no part in the film. I wish I had the time to play through the game to give a better analysis, and someday I’m sure I will, but that day is not today. This seems to be mid-level though as far as staying true to the game itself, so let’s give it a C with an option for extra credit later to bump up that grade.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hall of Fame Speech #7: Strange Wilderness

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a second class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly seven years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the five weeks leading up to the fifth (seventh?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the second, for the catastrophic Happy Madison stoner comedy Strange Wilderness. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for Strange Wilderness

Remember when you were in college, a bit drunk, and you came back from a party, not ready to let that party die? So you pop on the television and find that well … the only thing on is a nature documentary. So you start watching and riffing a bit. Man it is hilarious! Everyone’s cracking jokes. It. Is. So. Funny. Now imagine you recorded that, wouldn’t that be so funny?! Nope. It isn’t. Because you were drunk and everything you said was stupid. You would watch it with shame the next day. Luckily you didn’t record it and everyone can forget about embarrassing themselves trying to be funny while watching some lions have sex. Unlucky for those involved with Strange Wilderness they did record it, and it is the worst. Let’s get into what I remembered before I rewatched this travesty:

Jamie HATED this film. With a passion. I remember being somewhat ambivalent to the entire thing. Seemed kind of dumb and boring, but whatever. But throughout the years (over five years now) he has insisted it is one of the worst BMT films we’ve ever watched.
There was at least one segment involving a shark where they just dubbed a stupid laugh over it for several minutes.
They murder bigfoot in the end, and that is just … kind of the ending to the film.
Jonah Hill plays just the most worthless character. He kind of just has a weird voice and is dumb. But something about him made it clear it was just the laziest choices all strung together. His character is grating and kind of epitomizes the terribleness of the entire thing.

The first and last are the most important thing when considering the Hall of Fame. One thing that should be pointed out is this movie was a borderline Hall of Famer in the first place. We almost considered only inducting four movies after being unable to reach a true consensus. Harkening back to when we watched the film originally I recalled the passion with which Jamie insisted this movie was one of the worst things he’d ever seen. And thus we threw a flier out on this borderline case. A movie that just annoys you to no end. Almost inexplicably. A movie that is mostly forgotten, might have a weird cult followed (that cult consisting exclusively of thirteen-year-old boys, I think), but is just dick and sex jokes from scene to scene. We’ve done a number of stoner comedies in our time, so it seems fitting that what is probably the worst of the bunch maybe finds a home in the Hall of Fame.

As far as Jonah Hill’s character is concerned it was nothing against him (per se). It was … more that he represents something kind of special in retrospect. The Three Musketeers is hailed as a landmark movie in BMT history by producing the idea of a Planchet. That character whose sole purpose in the movie it to get ripped on as comic relief. In this case Jonah Hill is almost an anti-Planchet. A guy whose sole purpose to the movie is entirely unknown. Who in every estimation makes the movie worse. Who is so grating and annoying he exposed the seams of the movie and forces you to totally reject everything in the film. It isn’t Jonah Hill’s fault. All of the characters are garbage in their own special way. But the laziness with which the character of Cooker is conceived and executed is just … I do think it might be the worst in BMT history. The Anti-Planchet.

So how did the rewatch go as a whole though? This movie is trash. I have to bust out a little Sklog-cabulary Quiz to explain a bit about how this “plot” is constructed:

Memoryless Markov Plot (n.) – a plot structure comprised of a sequence of events in which the transition from one event to the other is entirely dependent on the current state of the movie without a sense of history or in pursuit of a coherent goal.

This is a quintessential example of such a plot. It is similar to when we describe a movie as being comprised of vignettes instead of actual acts. This is somewhat different in that it kind of describes how the story moves along from one place to another. (1) They need to save their company, so they need a big splash. (2) Their friend comes from out of nowhere with a map to Bigfoot to save the day. (3) They stop on the way to getting the map and their friend is attacked by a shark. (4) They are waiting at the hospital and get into a fight that requires dental surgery. (5) They need money and one guy conveniently steals a bunch of nitrous from the dentist’s office that they can sell. (6) They instead inhale all of the nitrous before they get to the cabin with the map … like none of the stuff in the middle needed to happen. The only actual consequence of that entire sequence of events is that they have one less person on their crew … that is it! They gained and lost nothing else! And where does it go from there? Obviously, the main character goes into the forest to go to the bathroom and a turkey bites his dick and they go back to the hospital! Obviously … obviously. It is just so insane.

Add to this that the characters are all either the worst people, or like caricatures written by a high school improv troupe. Like the hot girl who just wants the be one of the guys, she’s cool! She lewdly refers to having sex with the guys and dresses ridiculously, and is basically just there to be ogled by Steve Zahn and Allen Covert. “I don’t want to be that downer woman on the trip” written by a man for a woman to speak to the weird stereotypes held by teenagers. Just, kind of gross is all I’m saying.

Overall, I think this ended up being a great example of something like Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star and other second-tier Happy Madison productions. Basically, a starless comedy which is laughless, directionless, and totally devoid of any mature ideas or jokes. I applaud Jamie for recognizing it’s potential at a point in our young bad movie lives where a movie like this might not have stood out for what it is: just the worst example of what a stoner comedy can be. Period. I am proud to have it in the Hall of Fame.

Strange Wilderness Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the second in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Strange Wilderness (2008) – BMeTric: 48.8

StrangeWilderness_BMeT

StrangeWilderness_RV

(So I’m going to dub this trajectory the Teenage Boy Arc. Basically I think what happens is that the only people who want to watch this film when it is difficult to get are people who like this brand of terrible humor. Then once people can watch the film and it is featured on rental sites it drops. And now the only people who watch the film are, again, teenage boys who watch stoner comedies unironically. Not to shit on an entire class of people, but I was a teenage boy, and I had terrible taste in comedy. Just terrible.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Painfully unfunny farce about producers of a ratings-challenged wildlife TV series who desperately seek Bigfoot in the wilds of Ecuador. You can’t help feeling embarrassed or Zahn, as the clueless host, when a wild turkey chomps on his private parts and won’t let go. Shelved for nearly two years before a fleeting theatrical run.

(I forgot it was shelved for years before it was released. The rumor is that Paramount stripped their name off of the film entirely. After watching the movie again the turkey scene is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, so if you are reading this preview before watching the film … enjoy.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyowLXH8sk

(Yeah, seems about right. That trailer has more of a direction and storyline than the actual film by the way. It is far far less coherent when they try to stretch this out to 90 minutes.)

Directors – Fred Wolf – (Known For: The House Bunny; BMT: Strange Wilderness; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Grown Ups 2 in 2014; Notes: Both of the movies he directed came out in 2008 and he has been doing straight-to-video and shorts since. He is slated to have an Alec Baldwin film, Drunk Parents, out next year though.)

Writers – Peter Gaulke (written by) – (Known For: Ice Age 2: The Meltdown; Future BMT: Black Knight; The Babymakers; BMT: Say It Isn’t So; Strange Wilderness; Notes: I wouldn’t call him the writing partner of Wolf necessarily, but he was a staff writer on SNL at the same time as Wolf and is writing Drunk Parents with Wolf slated for later this year.)

Fred Wolf (written by) – (Known For: I Want Candy; Future BMT: Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star; Joe Dirt; Without a Paddle; Black Sheep; Dirty Work; BMT: Grown Ups 2; Strange Wilderness; Grown Ups; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Grown Ups 2 in 2014; Notes: He was a staff writer for SNL during Sandler’s stint which was his big break. After all of those guys got fired he was asked back to be the head writer and featured player. I can only find one clip with him in it though, a short Weekend Update piece.)

Actors – Steve Zahn – (Known For: War for the Planet of the Apes; Captain Fantastic; Dallas Buyers Club; Diary of a Wimpy Kid; You’ve Got Mail; The Good Dinosaur; That Thing You Do!; Out of Sight; Lean on Pete; Roadkill; Stuart Little; Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days; Rescue Dawn; A Perfect Getaway; Crimson Tide; Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules; Bandidas; Reality Bites; Knights of Badassdom; Stuart Little 2; Future BMT: Daddy Day Care; National Security; Chicken Little; Saving Silverman; Sahara; Race the Sun; Chelsea Walls; Employee of the Month; BMT: The Ridiculous 6; Strange Wilderness; Escape from Planet Earth; Notes: Was born and raised in Minnesota, and trained for stage acting in Boston. He met his wife while they were touring with a production of Bye Bye Birdie. Cool life story.)

Allen Covert – (Known For: Hotel Transylvania 2; Happy Gilmore; 50 First Dates; Big Daddy; Hotel Transylvania; The Wedding Singer; The House Bunny; Never Been Kissed; Anger Management; Future BMT: Little Nicky; Eight Crazy Nights; Sandy Wexler; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Mr. Deeds; Bulletproof; The Waterboy; Bedtime Stories; Airheads; The Longest Yard; Heavy Weights; Grandma’s Boy; BMT: Jack and Jill; Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star; Paul Blart: Mall Cop; Grown Ups 2; Strange Wilderness; Pixels; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Just Go with It; Blended; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star in 2012; Notes: Often vaguely seen as a sidekick to Adam Sandler’s characters in his various films. He had a string of writing credits which appears to have ended with Bucky Larson and Jack and Jill.)

Justin Long – (Known For: Jeepers Creepers; Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Idiocracy; Die Hard 4.0; He’s Just Not That Into You; 10 Years; Galaxy Quest; Tusk; Zack and Miri Make a Porno; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; Drag Me to Hell; Veronica Mars; Herbie Fully Loaded; Funny People; Youth in Revolt; Comet; Going the Distance; Frank & Lola; The Conspirator; For a Good Time, Call…; Future BMT: Crossroads; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; Alvin and the Chipmunks; Yoga Hosers; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip; Jeepers Creepers II; Walking with Dinosaurs 3D; Alpha and Omega; The Break-Up; Serious Moonlight; Planet 51; Trauma; Ghost Team; Accepted; The Lookalike; Best Man Down; Literally, Right Before Aaron; Waiting…; BMT: Movie 43; Old Dogs; Strange Wilderness; Notes: Pretty famous comedic actor, who might still be most well known as the Mac Guy from the Apple ads featuring John Hodgman. His BMT filmography is … formidable.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $6,575,282 (Worldwide: $6,964,734)

(Just no money. Like nothing. An absolute catastrophe. No wonder the director couldn’t really get anything done for a while.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 2% (1/45): Strange Wilderness is a laugh-free comedy that’s both aimless and overly crass.

(Laugh free. Aimless. Overly crass. Yeah, that is just about how I remember this film. One of the worst reviewed films ever made. Excellent.)

Poster – Sklog Wilderness (C-)

strange_wilderness

(So the poster is a hard-F. Like unforgivably ugly … but the boldness of the color choice is almost interesting in itself. And then the font on the title is actually quite good. Like the silhouette. Something about it gets it close to average I think.)

Tagline(s) – This ain’t March of the Penguins. (B)

(Like it actually. Pretty descriptive idea. Bump it down because it is aging quite poorly and will only get worse as time goes on.)

Keyword(s) – bigfoot; Top Ten by BMeTric: 55.3 Eegah (1962); 48.8 Strange Wilderness (2008); 44.5 Willow Creek (2013); 43.3 The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II (1984); 39.1 Exists (2014); 36.2 Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (2011); 32.6 Harry and the Hendersons (1987); 31.3 Abominable (2006); 29.9 Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012); 27.4 The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972);

(Huh, some of those are pretty big! I didn’t realize it until now, but Harry and the Hendersons was originally released as Bigfoot and the Hendersons in the UK.)

Notes – During the clip of the zebra being eaten by the vultures, the zebra “responds” to the birds with “oh my god, oh my god…” is actually a clip taken from the movie “Super Troopers”. It is Paul Soter when his character is “flashing” Marisa Coughlan outside of the police station while on the phone with her. (I think I actually caught that)

“Strange Wilderness” began its life in the 1990’s as a series of independently produced short videos by former “Saturday Night Live” writers Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke. “They started out as little parodies of wildlife shows,” explains writer and producer Gaulke. “Fred and I went out and shot them with the help of John Burrud, who actually has a real-life wildlife show. His father Bill used to host ‘Animal World’ and other travel and nature shows back in the ’60s. So John helped us produce these little shorts which we eventually got onto Comedy Central.” (Ugh, that’s embarrassing. Reminds me of how Friedberg and Seltzer kind of got their start because Rick Friedberg made a cheesy golf instructional video with Leslie Nielsen)

The two main characters are named after the film’s screenwriters.

Some of the clips used when the TV executive proves that Strange Wilderness is too inappropriate are clips from the Faces of Death series. For example, Man on fire with Jesus music, Man being attacked by an alligator, and Pygmy footage) (I didn’t know this was a thing and I don’t really like that I now know that is a thing … but maybe I’m somehow better because I know this thing? It is a confusing time for me)

Max Payne Preview

Alright so we’ve covered an adaptation of a tech product and a TV show. Time to get down to real business because this week for our Action entry is the always reliable video game adaptation. There have been numerous adaptations over the years and none (NONE!) have actually achieved a fresh RT score. In fact, it’s incredibly rare for a video game adaptation to escape qualification for BMT (Angry Birds being the most recent). So we had a lot to choose from and went for a film that’s been on our BMT radar for years. That’s right! We’re nabbing the Mark Wahlberg classic Max Payne. There was a moment in time where it looked like Wahlberg’s career might be headed to a dark place. Just two years after getting an Oscar nomination for The Departed he did The Happening and Max Payne in the same year! Incredible. Of course he rallied and is now one of the biggest movie stars on the planet so good for him. Keep making those Transformers for us. Let’s go!

Max Payne (2008) – BMeTric: 54.5

MaxPayne_BMeT

MaxPayne_RV

(Always a good sign when the rating is unchanged for years on end effectively. And that’s a lotta votes. Definitely a popular below average rated film if I’ve ever seen one.)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – A Dirty Harry-like homicide cop (Wahlberg) seeks revenge against the killers of his loved ones. Good-looking film falls flat dramatically. There’s plenty of gore, though it’s not graphic enough to earn this an R rating. Based on a popular video game.

(Loving the hyphen game as usual from Leonard. The visual style certainly looks unique, along the lines of Sin City and 300. That can be hit or miss, and is certainly isn’t particularly popular at the moment.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2jAEoBz6RY

(Oooooof the voice over start. And jesus this could not be more stylized with the music and the visual design. I remember the visual of the guy getting pulled out of the building from when this trailer came out … I was unimpressed then. The trailer kind of makes the film look like crap.)

Directors – John Moore – (Future BMT: The Omen; I.T.; Flight of the Phoenix; Behind Enemy Lines; BMT: A Good Day to Die Hard; Max Payne; Notes: Irish. He started in commercials and got his big break after creating the launch add for the Sega Dreamcast (RIP). It was apparently “so visually impressive” that they offered him a $40 million action film. While I don’t buy that, I do love commercial directors making films.)

Writers – Beau Thorne (screenplay) – (BMT: Max Payne; Notes: What are the odds of two Beaus involved in the same movie, I wonder if him and Beau Bridges hung out. He is apparently best friends with Bryan Bertino a writer-producer of horror films.)

Sam Lake (video game by Remedy Entertainment and 3-D Realms Entertainment) – (BMT: Max Payne; Notes: Finnish, he wrote the screenplay for many Remedy Entertainment video games around that time as he is good friends with the founder Petri Järvilehto. His real name is Sami Järvi, Järvi is Finnish for Lake.)

Actors – Mark Wahlberg – (Known For: All the Money in the World; The Departed; Deepwater Horizon; Patriots Day; Ted 2; Boogie Nights; Ted; Shooter; Planet of the Apes; Lone Survivor; The Italian Job; The Other Guys; Pain & Gain; 2 Guns; The Fighter; Four Brothers; Rock Star; Date Night; Three Kings; The Basketball Diaries; Future BMT: The Truth About Charlie; Daddy’s Home; Mojave; Broken City; Fear; Renaissance Man; Daddy’s Home 2; Entourage; The Lovely Bones; BMT: The Happening; Transformers: The Last Knight; Max Payne; Transformers: Age of Extinction; Notes: Bomb, just watched him in yet another Transformers film. We need to get our hands on his fitness documentary Creating Form… Focus… Fitness, the Marky Mark Workout from 1993. That shit is def bananas.)

Mila Kunis – (Known For: Bad Moms; Black Swan; Ted; Friends with Benefits; Oz the Great and Powerful; The Book of Eli; Forgetting Sarah Marshall; Date Night; Blood Ties; Get Over It; Extract; Piranha; Future BMT: Annie; Krippendorf’s Tribe; The Angriest Man in Brooklyn; Moving McAllister; A Bad Moms Christmas; The Color of Time; Third Person; BMT: Jupiter Ascending; Max Payne; Notes: Married to Ashton Kutcher now. She had to lie about her age in order to get her big break in That 70s Show, which she started on when she was 15 (gross). In the first episode Kutcher (who was 20) was making out with a 15-year-old on camera … g-g-g-gross)

Beau Bridges – (Known For: The Mountain Between Us; Jerry Maguire; The Descendants; Charlotte’s Web; The Ballad of Jack and Rose; Hit and Run; The Tale of the Princess Kaguya; From Up on Poppy Hill; The Fabulous Baker Boys; Eden; The Hotel New Hampshire; Norma Rae; The Landlord; Heart Like a Wheel; Force of Evil; The Incident; The Runner Stumbles; For Love of Ivy; Gaily, Gaily; Hammersmith Is Out; Future BMT: Sidekicks; Village of the Giants; The Good German; The Wizard; RocketMan; Spinning Into Butter; Two-Minute Warning; Rushlights; BMT: Max Payne; Notes: The older brother of actor Jeff Bridges. He is nearly 80. Fun facts about this dude: he was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1969. He is only 5’ 10’’ but played basketball for UCLA in probably like 1959. His father is Lloyd Bridges from Airplane!)

Budget/Gross – $35 million / Domestic: $40,689,393 (Worldwide: $85,416,905)

(That isn’t great, considering it is an action film you would hope you’d get to $100 million at least. The domestic total also isn’t very impressive, especially at the time. But I also wouldn’t necessarily call it a bomb. One Bud Light ad and you’re good to go.)

#16 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

maxpayne_videogameadaptation

(During the 2000s they were trying so hard to make video game films a thing. They’ve never really done well though. Famously, there has never been a “fresh” video game adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes. We’ve seen Warcraft, Silent Hill, Silent Hill: Revelations, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Need for Speed, Hitman, Hitman: Agent 47, Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li, Doom, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Wing Commander, … YIKES.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 16% (21/134): While it boasts some stylish action, Max Payne suffers severely from an illogical plot and overdirection.

(Yiiiiiiiiiiis. Over direction and illogical plots are my jam. A very impressive critical bomb, probably among the worst of the major released in 2008. Finally getting that street cred going.)

Poster – Max Sklog (B)

Camp C Eng (Page 1)

(Give it props for bold choices, most of them good. Feels a little empty and amateurish, but maybe just because it’s different than most posters. Also never a huge fan of black as a primary color, but better than white.)

Tagline(s) – None! (F——)

(Oh fuck you, Max Payne. You too good for a tagline? Is that what it is? I’m sure you could have whipped up an OK pun on the name Payne.)

Keyword(s) – based on video game; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.1 Alone in the Dark (2005); 88.6 House of the Dead (2003); 88.5 Street Fighter (1994); 87.4 BloodRayne (2005); 86.4 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997); 85.8 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 83.9 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 79.0 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 72.6 Far Cry (2008); 69.6 Wing Commander (1999);

(Just because we refuse to do all of the Uwe Boll films, we kind of get screwed here. BTW, check out last week’s Hall of Fame inductee: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale! It is straight garbage juice.)

Notes – The game designers at 3D-Realms were apparently unimpressed by the motion picture adaptation. (literally no game design stoudio has ever been impressed with a film adaptation)

The extra scene after the end credits was supposed to set the stage for a sequel. But due to the film’s poor performance at the box-office, 20th Century Fox decided to abandon plans for a sequel.

James McCaffrey, the voice of Max Payne in the video game franchise, makes a cameo as the FBI Agent that Lieutenant Jim Bravura introduces to the “real” police officer. He also shows up near the end of the film, asking if Bravura is alright, before calling in Division One over the radio. (cool)

Due to the PG-13 rating that the studio wanted, John Moore filmed two versions of the two biggest action sequences in the film, a) The Aesir Swat Building Shoot-out, and b) Max Payne’s attack on the Aesir building starting from the parking garage scene. John Moore filmed a version with impact squibs (seen in the PG-13 cut) and one with bloody wound squibs. Moore also stated that the parking garage scene during the filming of using the blood wound squibs was “one of the bloodiest shootouts he has ever filmed”.

In the film, Valkyries are shown as male. In Norse Mythology, all Valkyries are female. They are also referred to as “Odin’s Girls” for the same reason. (What is this? A fourth grade Norse Mythology Unit?)

Early in the film, Max beats up three thugs in the Roscoe Street subway station. This fictitious station is the setting of one of the first levels in the video game, where DEA Agent Alex Balder (upon whom the film’s Detective Alex Balder is based) is murdered.

Mark Wahlberg reportedly never played the video game, as he didn’t want to become addicted, and felt the script connected him to the story enough. (We have something in common then)

Very little of the movie was actually shot on greenscreen. Instead, Director John Moore opted to shoot in Toronto during the night, in order to add extra reality to his actors’ reactions.

The name of the club is RAGLAN AND BROCK. Some of the letters are burned out and it makes the sign look like it reads RAG NA ROCK. (Cool Norse mythology shit)

Olga Kurylenko’s second movie based on a video game. The first was Hitman (2007). (Noice)

Voted online as “One of the worst movies ever made”.(Not so noice)

Max keeps most of the stuff from his old house in a shipping container at a place called Gognitti’s Self-Storage. The place is named after Mafia Lieutenant Vinnie Gognitti, one of the video game’s minor villains.

The trailer for Max Payne is seen playing on a television in the background of Ari Gold’s office in Entourage (2004) – a show produced by Mark Wahlberg. (Gross)

John Moore has said that he tried to please fan requests as much and frequently as possible. (Almost always a mistake)

In the post-credits scene, as Max Payne walks into the bar, a marquee across the street reading “Forgotten Rebels” and “The 3Tards” is visible. Visual Effects Supervisor Jeff Campbell is the guitarist for the punk band Forgotten Rebels. “The 3Tards” is a shout-out to the fellow Ontario-born punk band (both have played shows together, including during post-production of “Max Payne”). (The 3tards is one of the worst names for a band I’ve ever seen)

This is the second video game adaptation Olga Kurylenko appears in, the other being Hitman (2007). Coincidentally they both feature former Prison Break (2005) actors as antagonists. (Everyone knows I love me some Prison Break)

Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Mark Wahlberg)

CHIPS Recap

Jamie

Jon Baker and Ponch are partners on the California Highway Patrol. While Jon sees CHIPS as a way to earn back the love of his estranged wife, Ponch is actually an undercover FBI agent looking for corrupt cops involved in a series of highway robberies. Can they take down the baddies and get the girl(s) before it’s too late? FInd out in… CHIPS.

How?! FBI agent Castillo is a risk-taking super cop who don’t play by nobody’s rule (natch). In the process of breaking rules and taking names, Castillo gets in hot water and is sent undercover as ‘Ponch,’ an officer in the California Highway Patrol. Meanwhile Jon Baker is one of the worst candidates for CHP there is, but with his motorbike racing pedigree and a sob story about his estranged wife he finagles his way onto the force. As a team, they start investigating a series of highway robberies suspected of being an inside job, all the while battling Jon’s addiction to painkillers, Ponch’s addiction to masturbating, and questions about their own sexuality that seem to send them into panic. This is all very upsetting, but apparently is supposed to make me laugh… I guess because it’s funny that Ponch is a step away from being a sex criminal. Hilarious! Through a series of high speed chases Ponch and Jon eventually catch up with the ringleader’s son, who is killed. Due to all his rule-breaking, risk-taking, and name-taking Ponch is fired from the FBI. Unwilling to stop their investigation and goaded by the kidnapping of Jon’s estranged wife, Ponch and Jon confront the ringleader, a fellow CHP officer. With the help of the full CHP force they take down the corrupt cops and save the day. THE END.

Why?! Jon wants to earn back the love and respect of his estranged wife, who by all accounts is a terrible person. Ponch on the other hand seems to have no motivations other than to solve crimes and masturbate while doing so. This combination of buddy cops turns out to be weird, sad, and disturbing. Great! As for the bad guy, he’s trying to get enough money to get his son into rehab… also very sad. A total bummer of a film even without all the gay panic content.

What?! An incredible product placement movie. From the start Ponch is using Dove moisturizer to convey his pretty boy persona and Jon is washing his pain pills down with Red Bull to convey his X-treme persona. These aren’t just product placement, these product placement are being used to define characters. Add on top that throughout the film our hateable heroes are stopping at every LA-centric restaurant under the sun, from Pink’s to Tommy’s Burgers, and we’ve got something special.

Who?! A number of uncredited roles in this one, including Erik Estrada’s cameo. Stark difference from Baywatch where Hasselhoff and Pam Anderson got laughably high billing. Also Josh Duhamel and Maya Rudolph have minor roles that went uncredited. They must have jumped in for funsies.

Where?! A+ Settings Alert! CHIPS stands for California Highway Patrol and that’s enough for me. This is also an early contender for the 2018 Setting as Character Smaddies Baddie as every LA centric restaurant in the city is featured and even Dax gave an interview asserting that the real star of the film was Southern California. Boom. That’s an A+ if I’ve ever seen one.

When?! There are two spots where a date could be found. One is on Ponch’s phone in the opening scene where it seems like it says that it’s November 2nd. However, a few scenes later, when Ponch is being introduced at CHP the blackboard says that “all 415’s have to be in by September 1,” so you would think everything would take place in August or something. Maybe they just don’t erase that blackboard all that often or (hear me out) perhaps they didn’t put as much effort into the exact temporal setting as I do in trying to find it. Disappointing. D.

This film WAS… WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WAS!… AND WE LET IT OFF THE HOOK! Basically, everything that we presumed and feared from the trailer came true. This is a poorly made film rife with jokes that play mostly on sadness. It’s certainly different than Baywatch and the Jump Street films, which is a credit to the creators I guess, but Baywatch is just a better film (which is kinda crazy to say). While I would endure a Baywatch sequel, I wouldn’t even enjoy a CHIPS 2. Even on a Fifty Shades Freed, staring into the abyss kind of a way… I think I’m just realizing that I really didn’t enjoy this film. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Alright, so you’re a producer and maybe your frustration with not getting invited to the 21 Jump Street cast party made you act a bit rashly. Baywatch … was not sweet IP. But this time you definitely got some sweet IP. CHiPs! Everyone liked CHiPs. Erik Estrada and … like motorcycles. Maybe you won’t get to meet The Rock, but Dax Shepard is … pretty close. Sweet IP Money Train here I come! What could go wrong? Let’s get into it.

The Good (Sklog-cabulary Quiz) – The storyline is actually a lot more coherent and focused than you would expect. Also, I tend to enjoy it when characters who would have been incompetent if they were in a film from, say, the 90s, are now written as super competent. What’s that? It sounds like a Sklog-cabulary Quiz!

Gross Competence (n.) – Behavior that appears to be erratic and incompetent, but is nevertheless quite effective at getting a particular job done. Characters exhibiting gross competence often appear to be savants in their particular occupation.

Zac Efron in Baywatch, or Andy Samberg in Brooklyn 99 I think are at least close to this definition as well. Basically the professionals here often come across as foolish or bumbling, but ultimately, against all odds, their actions are exactly what is needed to get the job done. I like this trope in television and film. For me, rooting for a competent hero is far preferable to rooting for an incompetent one. And it was nice to see Dax Shepard’s character not come across as an idiot. Well … not a total idiot at least.

The Bad (Sklognalysis) – The film is gross. They spend a good amount of one scene talking about eating butts … yup. It is upsetting that the gay panic stuff from the trailer was such a big part of the film. And this film has way too much unneeded nudity. Comes across as exploitative. By giving up the bad guy early it makes the mystery basically worthless. And finally, all supporting characters are so undeveloped that when they do occasionally wander into a scene it just doesn’t work because their motivations and abilities are never established. So … yeah, a ton of not so great stuff here. Question for our Sklognalysis: If you lampshade blatant gay panic humor by having the main character state that he thinks someone is homophobic if they don’t want to touch dicks when hugging … does that help or hurt? Answer: neither, trick question. It is still gay panic, and it is still gross.

The BMT (Legacy / StreetCreditReport.com) – I think paired with Baywatch CHIPS could have an interesting legacy. If we further collect more television adaptations in the future we could have quite the expertise on the niche genre. The films got the cred though, number 7 on the AV Club’s worst-of list for 2017. Didn’t make an appearance in Rolling Stone’s or Variety’s lists, but it does get a few shout outs. It has the cred.

I feel a bit like we are dropping the ball on the adaptation cycle by not watching the original sources. Can’t really watch many CHiPs though, and even if I did the early season is different than late season, etc. Thinking back on Baywatch and even 21 Jump Street though I feel like these adaptations aren’t actually very “good”. They are modern action comedies fashioned out of literally the most basic plot elements from 80s television shows. I would be interested to see if/when someone decides to set a movie like this in the 80s and go for the kind of funny nostalgia of it all. Wait … did I just describe the terrible Starsky & Hutch adaptation? For now I give the adaptation a C+ with the caveat that if I ever do watch some CHiPs (I won’t) I’ll update the grade. Something like 21 Jump Street I think reaches in the B-range. Not a great adaptation, but the quality of the film makes up for it.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hall of Fame Speech #6: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a second class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly seven years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the next five weeks leading up to the fifth (seventh?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the first, for the Uwe Boll classic video game adaptation In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

For any BMT HoF film you can usually pinpoint one aspect of the film that made it a Hall of Famer. Battlefield Earth was the Icarus-like delusion of John Travolta. Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li is our introduction to our god and savior LudaChris Klein. Old Dogs is a plot so ridiculous that we cannot believe our eyes as we gaze upon its glory (oh… and also the Icarus-like delusion of John Travolta). For In the Name of the King it starts and ends with its cast. Statham (cool), Burt Reynolds (cooler), Matthew Lillard (coolest), Ray Liotta (hilarious scary mask face), and Leelee Sobieski (LEGEND). Read that list again. It’s incredible. Add on the fact that the film seems to be written by the 13-year-old Sklogs at the height of our LotR/Wheel of Time obsession and you’ve got gold.

As will be the case with all the BMT HoF films, it’s been five years since we watched this film. So let’s go through what I remember from that first viewing:

I remember this being a rare film recommended to us, rather than a pick of our own.
This is the only Uwe Boll film we’ve done. You would think he might have gotten a mention at the top, but we generally avoid directors/studios that purposefully wallow in the muck. When you have a Lillard/Liotta/Leelee starting rotation, though, you cannot be denied.
It has the single greatest ad libbed line, flubbed ad libbed response, and editing decision we’ve witnessed on film. Lillard is looking on as his minions fight and casually says, “they fight like dogs,” to the extra standing next to him. The extra seemingly panics and haltingly says, “Yes sire,” in response… and Boll kept it in. It’s like when a boom mike falls into frame in a major motion picture. No excuse for it being in the film. It’s so great that I remember the line OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD FIVE YEARS LATER.
Patrick completely predicted the ending. I did not. I blame my bad movie inexperience at the time.
Terrible practical effects that made all the bad guys look less like LotR orcs and more like putties from Power Rangers.

I guess what I was most interested in for this rewatch was getting a better sense of the film in its entirety. I remembered that line, I remembered that cast, I remembered how the film looked, but I didn’t really remember how it felt watching the film… oh boy. I’m not sure we appreciated just how horrendously bad everything about this movie is. It’s like The Room mixed with Gods and Generals mixed with Strange Wilderness. The lines are so serious, but nothing makes sense. They are sentences made up of words spoken by actors on film, but they are embarrassing 100% of the time. On top of this the film is interminably long. It’s over 2 hours of this garbage nonsense. I stared in wonder hoping and pleading with the gods (and generals) to have the film move forward. JUST MOVE! GO FASTER! So overall I would say that I didn’t remember the film being so infuriatingly horrible. Does that make it a HoFer? Not by itself.

That would be this cast. We have everything. We have Leelee deadpanning every line like we know she can. God she’s good and this is already her third (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) BMT HoF film. That’s a 30% rate of return from our girl Leelee. And she’s not even done! She has a guaranteed first-ballot HoFer in next year’s class! Makes me think we need to look into The Glass House just to make sure we don’t have a hidden gem there. On the other side we have Lillard. He is off the chainz for almost the entirety of the film. It’s impressive, so impressive that his performance overshadows Liotta’s scary mask face and random acts of screaming.

Speaking of Lillard, we do have to discuss that line. It is just as glorious as I remember. Maybe even more so. As he sits on his horse viewing the battlefield Lillard smirks and delivers the famous, “They fight like dogs.” You distinctly see the extra look startled for a moment and pause just long enough to make it awkward before mumbling, “Yes, sire.” I used to think this was a product of Lillard ad libbing and the extra being taken off guard. On the rewatch I’m flipping that assessment. This is almost certainly a written line, after which Lillard looks at the extra. I think this look is what prompted the flubbed ad lib. It seems to me that Lillard looking at the extra made him think he was supposed to say something and after wracking him mind for a second he came up with a half-hearted, “Yes, sire.” Why do I think it’s written? Earlier in the film Lillard and the King get a report from the field stating that the Krug have taken up arms. Lillard scoffs at this saying that this report would be as if they were told that dogs had taken up arms, to which the soldier responds, “They fight like men.” When I heard that my monocle fell out of my eye and straight into the pâté I was eating, spilling my large glass of Pinot Noir. It is the moon to the “They fight like dogs” sun.

This film straddles the line for a bad film and a BMT film. It’s got the cast and looks of a film that exemplifies what we strive for in BMT, but it also has the length and lines of one where you want to strangle yourself to death to escape the misery. It’s a very interesting dichotomy and one that is encountered often in the very worst of the “popular” bad films. The Room, Troll 2, and Plan 9 From Outer Space all hinge on those moments of joy that people remember, the insanity of the lines, and the moments that make you believe that the artist responsible is nothing less than insane. In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale has all that, while also having the incredible boredom of everything else. It is a classic bad movie with moments of BMT excellence and is a type of bad movie worthy of representation in the Hall of Fame.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the first in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007) – BMeTric: 85.7

IntheNameoftheKingADungeonSiegeTale_BMeT

IntheNameoftheKingADungeonSiegeTale_RV

(Wow that started low. The way this is fading makes me wonder how much actual legs this has in the end, but there is a reason this is one of the worst reviewed films on IMDb. Other than that not much else to say, classic legendary bad movie.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Reluctant warrior Statham joins forces with a brave king (Reynolds) to battle a treacherous usurper (Lillard) and a wicked wizard (Liotta). Another video-game-inspired fiasco from the unfortunately prolific Boll. Even with a bigger budget and better actors than usual, this is a plodding patchwork of haphazardly edited action sequences. Alternate version runs 162 min.

(I will likely try and watch the (gulp) three hour cut. Jamie owns it, although on Blu-Ray I think. Regardless that cut it likely happening and I will not enjoy. Deep burn on Uwe, but that is expected since Uwe is a terrible filmmaker who has been openly ridiculed by critics for years.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Um98FZei8

(You can kind of see the ridiculousness of the fight scenes in this film from the trailer. And you can kind of see how ridiculous everyone’s costumes are. But they keep this generic-fantasy for now. Smart.)

Directors – Uwe Boll – (Future BMT: Alone in the Dark; House of the Dead; BloodRayne; Postal; Blackwoods; Bailout: The Age of Greed; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Director in 2009 for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Postal, and Tunnel Rats; Nominated for Worst Director in 2006 for Alone in the Dark; and in 2007 for BloodRayne; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Postal in 2009; Notes: Well known for spitting out tons of schlock. Was a critic in the 80s and seems to revel in bad reviews. He challenged a number of critics to a boxing match and won all of the matches as chronicled in Raging Boll)

Writers – Doug Taylor (screenplay & story) – (Known For: Splice; A Christmas Horror Story; They Wait; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in 2009; Notes: Canadian. He had a few interesting articles written about how he still lived in Montreal, even while working on promoting a big project like Splice. I don’t know what he’s precisely up to know, but it is an interesting glimpse into a screenwriters world. The number of projects he was working on was noted as “head-spinning” and yet he only has had four credited screenwriting jobs result in a theater release. It sounds nuts.)

Jason Rappaport and Dan Stroncak (story) – (BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: I don’t think these guys are necessarily writing partners, but there is no info on them. I think they probably work for Uwe Boll’s production company? Would make sense to have Taylor write the script, and then have some of your own guys help with whatever Uwe wants in there.)

Chris Taylor (video game “Dungeon Siege”) – (BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: Just the video game guy. Was named the 30th most influential developer of all time in 2002. Left his company in 2016 to work on indie games)

Actors – Jason Statham – (Known For: Fast & Furious 8; Fast & Furious 7; Snatch; Spy; Furious 6; The Italian Job; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Collateral; The Expendables; The Expendables 2; Parker; Homefront; The Mechanic; The Transporter; Death Race; The Bank Job; Hummingbird; Transporter 2; Future BMT: The Pink Panther; Wild Card; The One; Transporter 3; 13; Turn It Up; Killer Elite; Revolver; Mean Machine; London; BMT: Crank; Crank: High Voltage; In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Ghosts of Mars; Mechanic: Resurrection; The Expendables 3; Notes: An all-star of BMT naturally. I’ve also heard great things about him over the years. Mainly that he’s hilarious and has a magnetic personality. Makes sense.)

Ron Perlman – (Known For: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; Pacific Rim; Drive; Hellboy; The Bleeder; Tangled; Alien Resurrection; Blade II; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; Enemy at the Gates; The Book of Life; The Spiderwick Chronicles; The Name of the Rose; Looney Tunes: Back in Action; Titan A.E.; The City of Lost Children; Kid Cannabis; Poker Night; La guerre du feu; Future BMT: Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; The Island of Dr. Moreau; Conan the Barbarian; Mutant Chronicles; Sleepwalkers; Bad Ass; Down; The Ice Pirates; Stonewall; Skin Trade; Outlander; Bunraku; Star Trek: Nemesis; Crave; Romeo Is Bleeding; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Season of the Witch; Notes: We should watch Ice Pirates. Ron Perlman is probably most well known now for either Sons of Anarchy or Hellboy, but he’s been in a bunch of stuff obviously. Was in Del Toro’s debut Chronos in 1993 which lead to a life-long friendship.)

Ray Liotta – (Known For: Goodfellas; The Place Beyond the Pines; Blow; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; Identity; Killing Them Softly; Bee Movie; Date Night; The Iceman; Field of Dreams; Cop Land; Kill the Messenger; Heartbreakers; Youth in Revolt; Muppets Most Wanted; Narc; Something Wild; Unlawful Entry; Battle in Seattle; Observe and Report; Future BMT: Turbulence; The Son of No One; Operation Dumbo Drop; Crazy on the Outside; Revenge of the Green Dragons; The Identical; Forever Mine; Even Money; Powder Blue; Revolver; Better Living Through Chemistry; The Lonely Lady; The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud; Unforgettable; Slow Burn; Smokin’ Aces; Corrina, Corrina; Hannibal; Crossing Over; Pilgrim; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Wild Hogs; Notes: He is most well known for looking like he is wearing a Halloween mask of himself. Joking, but this is the first movie I watched where I was like Liotta looks a little odd these days. Hugely famous, mainly for Goodfellas, he still gets decent enough jobs. Definitely an interesting career.)

Budget/Gross – $60,000,000 / Domestic: $4,775,656 (Worldwide: $13,097,915)

(So, Uwe Boll had a decent racket going for a while. The way it works is detailed here, but here’s the short version: if you are a German citizen looking for a tax shelter you can set up a shell company, “finance a film” for millions of euros (immediately tax deductible), and then lease back the rights to a Hollywood studio for almost the entire amount saving millions in taxes. The key is having a German director to direct … wait a minute I know a German director by the name of Uwe! I think they closed that loophole, it is the only explanation as to why Uwe isn’t still churning out trash. This is also the definition of “sweet IP”: video games no one else wanted to make into movies … so sell it to Uwe.)

#106 for the Fantasy – Live Action genre

inthenameoftheking_liveactionfantasy

(A genre of the 2000s. Just about at the nadir of the genre though. Below Troll from 1986, and paired up with Seeker the Dark of Rising (twin film) for bringing down the gross for a time. Has held mostly steady since, but the new Harry Potters could help it along the way.)

#32 for the Sword and Sorcery genre

inthenameoftheking_swordandsorcery

(Literally the lowest grossing example released to more than 4 theaters! There isn’t much to the graphic except that it is small and kind of consistently made over the years. Hopefully the disaster that was Warcraft doesn’t handicap the genre too much going forward.)

#34 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

inthenameoftheking_videogameadaptation

(This guy basically sits … well around other Uwe films. Not that many video game adaptation are super successful. They are coming hot and quick now though, so we’ll see if they can cross that $100 million threshold consistently.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 4% (2/50): Featuring mostly wooden performances, laughable dialogue, and shoddy production values, In the Name of the King fulfills all expectations of an Uwe Boll film.

(Sick burns … although true. The film looks like a few episodes of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers strung together. Considering it is through and through a German production … that might actually not be a bad analogy.)

Poster – In the Name of the Sklog: A Dungeon Sklog Tale (C+)

in_the_name_of_the_king_a_dungeon_siege_tale_ver3

(I like the color, but not much else. I can kind of give it credit for being in that high-fantasy mold. It is shockingly similar to some of the artwork for Lord of the Rings. But too much going on and not enough done with the font. I’m giving it a C+ for at least being derivative of something good, but most of the deduction is for being cheap looking to boot.)

Tagline(s) – Rise and fight (C+)

(I’ll give it credit for being short and sweet and fantasy-epic-esque. Doesn’t tell you anything, and is boring though, so I mark most of the credit off. Sorry Uwe.)

Keyword(s) – farmer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.7 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 84.1 Piranha 3DD (2012); 69.8 Year One (2009); 58.0 Monsters: Dark Continent (2014); 57.7 The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007); 49.3 Seventh Son (I) (2014); 45.0 Jeepers Creepers II (2003); 43.8 The Watch (I) (2012); 43.7 The Giant Spider Invasion (1975); 43.7 Priest (2011);

(We will never watch Piranha 3DD, but Priest is going to happen. Farmer is prooooobably pushing it, although The Seeker and Seventh Son did genuinely have farmers in it … and the main character of this is literally “Farmer”.)

Notes – Kevin Smith and Juliette Lewis were filming Catch and Release (2006) on an adjoining set, and came to visit this set. Burt Reynolds saw them steal two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. (I believe it, but Burt Reynolds throughout these notes sounds ridiculous).

Script development took over a year. In the end, Doug Taylor re-wrote eighty percent of the script, because the original story was considered too reminiscent of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. (Amazing, what could the storyline have even been?)

Production of the computer graphics imagery in the movie was convoluted and problematic. Uwe Boll claims he had to fire several different CGI providers, who outsourced their jobs to lower-quality providers, who worked for less money. (Yup, this is why graphics in movies causes so much trouble, bullshit like this)

The “medicine” Merick gives Farmer was actually tea mixed with ketchup. Uwe Boll purposely concocted the mixture to get a disgusted reaction from Jason Statham.

During production, Uwe Boll sponsored a charity visit to the set. Guests got to see behind-the-scenes work, and proceeds were donated to a children’s hospital. Reportedly, Ray Liotta was extremely upset by it. In future interviews, he talked about how “crazy” Boll was for allowing so many spectators onto the set.

Siu-Tung Ching’s salary was higher than Uwe Boll’s. (HA!)

Jason Statham filmed many of his action scenes while nursing an injured tendon in his foot. He is noticeably impaired while running.

John Gajdecki had trouble filming many visual effects shots, especially scenes with outdoor “greenscreens”. Jan Kruse left the project, due to conflict with Gajdecki, who was eventually fired, and replaced by Doug Oddy. (These notes are ridiculous)

Some of the Krug costumes cost over ten thousand dollars each to produce. (Not a great idea)

Uwe Boll considered releasing the original cut of the film in two installments because of its length. Instead, it was edited into a theatrical release, and the Director’s Cut was released on DVD. (Smart …)

While filming an outdoor fight scene, Burt Reynolds grew overheated in his armored costume, became unconscious, and fell from the platform, on which the duel was being filmed. Reynolds claims this was the only time in his career that he had to miss a day of filming, due to sickness or injury.

Kevin Costner was offered the lead role. Uwe Boll claims Costner wasn’t interested in filming a large-scale action film, and instead offered Boll the opportunity to direct the project he was working on at the time, Mr. Brooks (2007). Boll turned it down. (WHAT, why would anyone offer Boll to director anyone?)

Claire Forlani was the last major performer to be cast. Her role had been previously offered to Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel. (Who probably just laughed into the phone for half a minute)

Though Siu-Tung Ching was the action Director, Uwe Boll personally choreographed the scene featuring Jason Statham and Ron Perlman fighting the Krug in the barn. (The one where it literally looks like Puttys from Power Rangers I think)

A day of filming was lost due to heavy fog. Some of the forest terrain and mountaintops could only be accessed via helicopter, and on a particular foggy day, Uwe Boll and part of his crew were literally stranded on a mountain for over two hours, because the helicopter wouldn’t take off.

Burt Reynolds extensively re-wrote and edited the dialogue for his death scene, creating friction with Script Supervisor Ingrid Kenning. Reynolds had never played a character who died in a film, and was adamant that the scene be something special.

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Uwe Boll)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Leelee Sobieski)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Burt Reynolds)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Doug Taylor)

CHIPS Preview

As we officially enter the first cycle of 2018 we will still collect several of the major BMT releases of 2017 that we missed along the way. With that in mind the comedy entry for the cycle was notable for two reasons: it was somehow not the only tongue-in-cheek adaptation of a classic television show released in 2017 (Baywatch being the other) and it had our least favorite trailer of the entire year. That’s right! We’re finally watching CHIPS, based on the television CHiPs, about a couple of bumbling highway cops taking down some baddies while also panicking about their own sexuality. At least that’s what I gathered from the trailer. I’m not looking forward to this. Let’s go!

CHIPS (2017) – BMeTric: 29.5

(Perfect theater-VOD sequence there, complete with matching regression to the mean. Looks like the rating has settled though. 6.0 seems high to me, but what do I know?)

RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – The action comedy “CHiPS” is a buddy film about overcompensating characters that seems to have also been made by overcompensating comedians, often devolving into the same chauvinism and homophobia that star/writer/director Dax Shepard half-heartedly mocks.

(Oh yeah. Wait until you see the trailer. There hasn’t been this much gay panic since we watched The Medallion. There is a fine line between making light of things and reinforcing things. You have to be quite good to pull it off these days.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IfqqUTW-i4

(Oh boy. Just as I remember it. Not one, but TWO different gay panic scenes where Peña’s character cannot handle the thought of getting close to Dax in his underwear. And how did they both end up up the trailer? You’re trying to put your best foot forward… for the love of God tell me this isn’t your best foot. I might have to shut this whole thing down if your other foot is worse.)

Directors – Dax Shepard – (Known For: Hit and Run; BMT: CHIPS; Notes: Mainly an actor, he started doing smaller directing roles more recently, including an episode of Parenthood which he starred in.)

Writers – Rick Rosner (based on the television series created by) – (BMT: CHIPS; Notes: One of the creators of the original television series. Not much about him. Doesn’t help that he shares a name with another Rick Rosner who is … kind of a lunatic. I haven’t listened to the podcast, but the synopsis gives a decent argument for his lunacy.)

Dax Shepard (written by) – (Known For: Hit and Run; BMT: CHIPS; Notes: He is writing a … reboot (?) of the Scooby-Doo movies set to 2020. Also set to direct it would seem. Not sure how the performance of this film affects that.)

Actors – Michael Peña – (Known For: The LEGO Ninjago Movie; Fury; The Martian; Ant-Man; End of Watch; American Hustle; My Little Pony: The Movie; Million Dollar Baby; Shooter; Crash; Babel; Turbo; War on Everyone; Tower Heist; The Lincoln Lawyer; Everything Must Go; 30 Minutes or Less; Observe and Report; The Good Doctor; World Trade Center; Future BMT: The Vatican Tapes; Vacation; Lions for Lambs; The Calcium Kid; Gone in Sixty Seconds; Gangster Squad; Collateral Beauty; BMT: Battle Los Angeles; CHIPS; Notes: He’s struck it big recently with Ant-Man and American Hustle, but he’s been around since the mid-90s doing television work. One of his first gigs was on Homicide, the show that is a kind of precursor to The Wire and introduced the world to John Munch (played by Richard Belzer) who has apparently appeared in 10 different shows!)

Dax Shepard – (Known For: Zathura: A Space Adventure; Idiocracy; This Is Where I Leave You; The Judge; Veronica Mars; Hit and Run; Baby Mama; The Freebie; Future BMT: The Comebacks; The Boss; Employee of the Month; Without a Paddle; Smother; Let’s Go to Prison; BMT: Old Dogs; When in Rome; Cheaper by the Dozen; CHIPS; Notes: Trained with The Groundlings and after 8 years of auditioning got his first paid role on Punk’d.)

Vincent D’Onofrio – (Known For: Jurassic World; The Magnificent Seven; Full Metal Jacket; Men in Black; Escape Plan; Adventures in Babysitting; Sinister; The Cell; Mystic Pizza; The Judge; Ed Wood; Strange Days; JFK; Run All Night; Chained; The Player; Brooklyn’s Finest; Cadillac Records; Kill the Irishman; The Salton Sea; Future BMT: The Break-Up; Feeling Minnesota; Fire with Fire; Ass Backwards; Dying Young; Pawn Shop Chronicles; Impostor; Chelsea Walls; Don’t Go in the Woods; Little New York; The Velocity of Gary; Charlie Countryman; Broken Horses; The Winner; The Blood of Heroes; In Dubious Battle; BMT: Rings; CHIPS; Stuart Saves His Family; Notes: Probably, weirdly, most famous for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the third best Law & Order series. Well known for being rather intensely method. Plays Wilson Fisk in Daredevil as well.)

Budget/Gross – $25 million / Domestic: $18,600,152 (Worldwide: $26,800,152)

(Wow, colossal bomb. Not surprising. Have to be honest, not too worried about 80s TV remakes being abandoned. Some can be fun, but most just seem to be … sad.)

#68 for the Action – Buddy Comedy genre

(Oooooooo do these come in waves. Tango & Cash, Another 48 Hrs., The Tuxedo, RIPD, among many many others. The respite was brief it seems with CHIPS, Baywatch and The Hitman’s Bodyguard all coming out this year.)

#74 for the TV Adaptation (Live Action) genre

(This movie ended up near Flipper … Flipper! Joins Beverly Hillbillies, Baywatch, and The Avengers are least among BMT films. The genre had its heyday in the 90s, but still, against all odds, is super strong throughout this century. Seems like this might reverse though with the recent strong tv trend, a good movie ends up building its universe out on the small screen with a television adaptation. A Lord of the Rings adaptation is already in the works.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 17% (18/103): CHiPS abandons the endearing innocence of its source material, using the titular cop show’s premise as a setup for aggressively lowbrow gags that prove only mildly arresting at best.

(Alright … People need to decide how CHiPs is spelled. I feel like it is spelled like the show, but the poster clearly writes the entire title with capital letters, and RogerEbert.com and many critics leave the S capitalized? Oh the consensus, yeah, this seems unpleasantly low-brow.)

Poster – SKLOGS (B)

(Have to give some props to that font. My God, it’s beautiful. Symmetry is good and color just barely adequate. Other than that there is way too much going on. Tough on the eyes. This could have been amazing if you just kept it simple, CHIPS.)

Tagline(s) – Chip Happens (F-)

(This is actually making me feel a little sick… what did I do to deserve this CHIPS? It’s like they knew I would have to look at it and wanted to hurt me. Well whatever it is I did, I’m sorry. OK? Sorry for all of us.)

Keyword(s) – male frontal nudity; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.3 Fifty Shades of Grey (2015); 76.4 Fifty Shades Darker (2017); 65.2 Rape Me (2000); 64.2 The Canyons (2013); 64.1 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 60.1 Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005); 59.5 9 Songs (2004); 58.8 Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015); 58.0 Srpski film (2010); 57.4 Boxing Helena (1993);

(Dr. T & the Women doesn’t actually qualify. We’ve also weirdly seen Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and The Canyons. We used to watch a lot more bad movies in our free time … I don’t think either deserves a rewatch to be honest.)

Notes – Dax Shepard did most of his own stunts, including the stoppie during the training test.

After the trailer debuted, a rumor stated that Erik Estrada, star of the original CHiPs (1977), blasted the trailer as “pure trash”. Estrada later tweeted he never said that, and said, “Just watched the CHIPS trailer and laughed. Dax Shepard and Michael Peña are great. Cool stunts too.” (Ugh. With something like this the former stars saying it is good or bad isn’t really saying anything. Like … he’s in the movie! Why would he shit on it?)

Dax Shepard originally envisioned the film to be a big budget take with a PG-13 rating but due to budget cuts after signing on, he chose to make the film with an R-rating. (So … cheap nudity and cursing?)

Dax Shepard initially wanted Brad Pitt to play the villain. (I originally wanted Daniel Day Lewis to be the other Bad Movie Twin, couldn’t make it work)

In real life, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are married with kids. (Duh. We all know and love their Samsung commercials, obvs.)

On the second day of filming, Dax Shepard performed his nude scene, when Ponch throws him in the bathtub (his genitalia was censored). (Second day seems a bit early)

Erik Estrada: The actor who played Ponch in the TV show appears here as the paramedic who treats Ponch and Jon in the final scene.

The Emoji Movie Recap

Patrick

There is a world within your phone where emoji’s live and work. Each emoji has a job to do and must never deviate. No so for Gene, a ‘meh’ who feels all kinds of complex things. When Gene ruins an important text for his user he runs away trying to find a way to fix his defect. Can he fix the trouble he’s caused before it’s too late? Find out in… The Emoji Movie.

How!? Remember all those other animated films about secret communities of things that us humans think are inanimate objects. Toy Story? Lego Movie? Inside Out? Yup, this is exactly the same except the corporate sellout version of it. Gene is a ‘meh’ emoji. He really wants to start work making emoji magic in Textopolis, but on his very first day he ends up ruining a very important text for his owner Alex! Oh no! He is sentenced to die because he’s defective (naturally) so he runs away with the help of the thumbs up emoji in search of Jailbreak, who knows how to hack the cloud and fix Gene’s defect. Fearing the consequences of his defect the denizens of Textopolis send killer bots in pursuit. At the same time Alex decides he’s going to get his phone wiped and rebooted in order to fix the problem. After finding Jailbreak, Gene and his gang of misfits run through Just Dance, Candy Crush, Instagram, and Spotify in search of the Dropbox app (it actually hurts me to write that sentence) while overcoming some difficulties or whatever. When they get there Gene and Jailbreak decide that they like him just the way he is, but just then Gene is captured by the killer bots. Thumbs up and Jailbreak hop on a Twitter bird (ugh) and race to save him. At the very last moment before the phone is erased Gene uses his special ability to mimic complex feelings to send a unique emoji to Alex’s crush. Thrilled that his phone might lead to him getting paid and laid, Alex stops the phone wipe and Gene becomes a hero. THE END.

Why?! Why did we watch this garbage? Because we had to. Why does anything else happen in the movie? Mostly because Gene feels like an outsider. Everyone in Textopolis is content doing their job and only their job, while Gene likes to smile or cry or laugh and all that jazz. Think the exact same motivations as Lego Movie… and the same characters really. In fact it’s pretty much just the Lego Movie remix… if it was remixed with dog poo.

What?! Not since our last Adam Sandler film did we get so much product placement in a film. And at least in the Sandler film it’s him sitting around a Hooters wearing a Dick’s Sporting Goods shirt and you can laugh at the absurdity. Here it just felt sad. Popping into Instagram and Spotify for a little adventure without the shame to call it InstaPost or MusicSpot to keep it imaginary garbage. When they entered Dropbox as if it was literally fucking heaven I think this officially took the cake for the worst product placement in the history of BMT.

Who?! We had a couple cameos here with singer Christina Aguilera making an appearance along with celebrity chef Rachael Ray. There is also a special thanks credit to Constance Buccafurri. She seems to be an artist but also runs a big data film analytics company… so I wonder if she got her thanks for work in that arena. She has a pretty crazy list of blockbusters on which she got a special thanks credit so I would be interested to know what exactly she does for all of them.

Where?! Textopolis, duh. 95% of the film takes place in a phone, so that’s pretty much the best we can do. Makes me wonder how many fictional settings we’ve encountered in BMT. Ehb in In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Alagaesia in Eragon, Izmir in Dungeons & Dragons, etc. It’s in good company. Good company of getting an Incomplete. “Keep your head out of the clouds and in the real world,” writes Mr. Sklog.

When?! Textopolis obviously has no sense of time. They gotta be popping night and day, 24/7/365. So… F, I guess. You’re in my world now, Emoji Movie. My world is one of pain and ultimate grade deflation. Enjoy your F.

This movie sucks and kinda made me sad watching it. It starts out as a ripoff of Lego Movie and then proceeds into a series of commercials for apps. At least with the Lego Movie you had the idea that Legos help children be creative. This basically had the message that emoji are not good and in fact have to be different in order to better convey the emotions of the user. Only when Gene can do things that no emoji can actually do does Alex successfully talk to the girl he likes… maybe don’t use emojis then dope. In terms of where this places in the world of adaptations (a true BMT favorite), The Emoji Movie is kind of alone in the wilderness here. In fact if we started to see more of these we might have to shut down Hollywood. Imagine if we looked to 2018 and saw The Great SpaceX Adventure or Lyft Life on the schedule… would almost be as terrifying as seeing Fifty Shades Freer. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! It is super tempting to fill this space with a bunch of emojis or whatever, but my emoji game is not great. Not rusty, because that would suggest it was good at some point. My emoji game has always been weak … Anyways, let’s get into it!

The Good (Sklognalogy) – Honestly, the only really good thing I can say about it is that it is mostly an innocuous kids’ movie. It sends a decent message (be yourself!), it gives a decent message to the girls (you can do computer things!), and it looks … fine. The Sklognalogy? I’m sending out a flier: The Wizard of Oz. That’s right. The basic storylines are the same. The protagonist needs something that can only be obtained from a powerful entity, so he/she sets out on the road collecting a rag-tag team of misfits. Travelling through a series of magical places, combating the minions of an evil witch, the team comes together, learns lessons, and realizes what they needed was actually inside them the whole time. Ah, perfection … except for the part where this is a derivative piece of garbage.

The Bad (Sklog-cabulary Quiz) – Too long, unfunny, boring, ugly, you name it it has it. It sets a record for product placements which made me feel a bit ill while watching it … corporate propaganda amirite? The movie is very lazy. I am kind of convinced it is a new paradigm for cheap animated films. Basically the idea is: here are three characters. They will travel from A to B. But to get from A to B they have to go through little areas. These areas are totally independent of one another. The key? Parallelization:

Parallel Plotting (n.) – A plot which can be filmed / produced a piece at a time by many different teams, and then combined together again at the end to get the correct result.

This seems trivial maybe, but while most (all?) movies achieve this to a degree, a film like The Emoji Movie takes it to the next level. They could give a single idea to a animation team: The three protagonists are in Candy Crush. The three protagonists are in Just Dance. Etc. And after each you return to the same place you were before (the wallpaper) with no obvious side effects (they don’t even discuss where they were before!). No wonder it set records for speed in its production.

The BMT (Legacy / StreetCreditReport.com) – I don’t think it has the legacy. It isn’t a shoddily made animated film, not like FoodFight! or Doogal. It is more like … a condemnation of culture in general. But that ain’t our business now is it? I have watched over 400 terrible movies in 7 years, so, that tells you everything you need to know about how I lead my life. Street cred up the wazoo though. It will get countless Razzie nominations this year (it is known). It is number 3 on the AV Club worst of list. It is number 2 on the Variety worst of list. And it is number 10 on the Rolling Stone list. I imagine it will easily get Worst Picture.

Given we are in the adaptations cycle I might as well make a brief note about whether this was a good / bad adaptation. This was a bad one. I think. The only analogue is You’ve Got Mail, but in that case it painted AOL (and the attached messenger / email features) in a charming, even romantic, light. It brought two people together. Emojis … I get them, but I still don’t really get them you know? I don’t think the movie gives a good case for emojis in general is what I’m saying … doesn’t help that the movie is garbage. D+ adaptation.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Emoji Movie Preview

Gotta end 2017 with a bang and there isn’t any BMT film bigger than the one tapped for the transition to 2018’s first cycle. It came into the year as one of the most anticipated BMT releases (along with Geostorm and Fifty Shades) and only escaped the BMT Live! treatment because we had already watched Fifty Shades and The Mummy by the time it came out. Better late than never. That’s right! We’re finally watching The Emoji Movie. This movie looked like absolute trash from the get go and now we get to see if it lived up to the hype as one of the few sub-10% films of the year (standing at 9% RT). As for the transition, we are starting 2018 off with a cycle of adaptations. Like a lot of cycles we are going to try to do nine different adaptations so not just books, but TV shows, comic books, theme park rides, etc. That’s where The Emoji Movie fits in. It is one of the few cases where technology in general has been adapted into film (the only one that came to mind for us was You’ve Got Mail… great example). What a start! Let’s go!

The Emoji Movie (2017) – BMeTric: 86.9

TheEmojiMovie_BMeT

TheEmojiMovie_RV

(Steadily rising, but it won’t get much higher that the mid-3’s I don’t think. People obviously pile on at first, but even early reviewers were giving it reviews in the 2-3 range, so it’ll settle at a more reasonable 3-4 over time I would think.)

RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – The failure of imagination in “The Emoji Movie” is not limited to its depiction of the app world. This is a film that has literally nothing to offer viewers—there are no moments of humor, excitement or insight regarding a culture that considers emojis to be the pinnacle of contemporary communication. The actors go through their lines with such a lack of enthusiasm that they make Krusty the Klown seem focused and committed by comparison.

(If you read the rest of this preview you’ll learn this is one of the fastest produced computer animated films ever made. So it isn’t that surprising that the voice work is sub-par. The rest of the review doesn’t give much else besides suggesting it is just cynically made, and that he like other obviously superior animated films more.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nfdzMhmrA

(Yeah … so, that trailer is not great. It doesn’t really present any major plot and really is just a mishmash of a bunch of different apps I guess. It manages to just look really really dumb. But I am not 10 years old so what do I know?)

Directors – Tony Leondis – (Future BMT: Igor; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Notes: Been involved with another animated film B.O.O. about ghost secret agents. Lots of actors attached but seems like Igor and The Emoji Movie might have put it on permanent hold.)

Writers – Tony Leondis (screenplay by & story by) – (Future BMT: Igor; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Notes: Cut his teeth as a story artist. Most notably on The Prince of Egypt.)

Eric Siegel (screenplay by & story by) – (BMT: The Emoji Movie; Notes: Husband of longtime CSI: NY actress Anna Belknap.)

Mike White (screenplay by) – (Known For: School of Rock; Brad’s Status; Nacho Libre; Beatriz at Dinner; The Good Girl; Year of the Dog; Chuck & Buck; Future BMT: Dead Man on Campus; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Notes: Probably best known for School of Rock, IMDb also says he wrote nine episodes of Dawson’s Creek. Coolio.)

John Hoffman (additional screenplay material) – (Known For: Good Boy!; Future BMT: Igor; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Notes: Must have known Tony Leondis from Igor. He’s also one of the executive producers of Grace and Frankie.)

Actors – T.J. Miller – (Known For: Office Christmas Party; Deadpool; Big Hero 6; She’s Out of My League; How to Train Your Dragon; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Rock of Ages; Cloverfield; Goon: Last of the Enforcers; Get Him to the Greek; Seeking a Friend for the End of the World; Extract; Our Idiot Brother; Future BMT: Gulliver’s Travels; The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard; Search Party; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Transformers: Age of Extinction; Notes: There is a fair chance he is a terrible person as he has been accused of doing terrible things.)

James Corden – (Known For: Trolls; Into the Woods; Begin Again; The Lady in the Van; Starter for 10; The History Boys; One Chance; All or Nothing; Pierrepoint; Telstar: The Joe Meek Story; Heartlands; Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?; Future BMT: Gulliver’s Travels; Norm of the North; Lesbian Vampire Killers; Konferenz der Tiere; Planet 51; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; Kill Your Friends; BMT: The Emoji Movie; The Three Musketeers; Notes: Our very own Planchet. Obviously now a major talk show host.)

Anna Faris – (Known For: Brokeback Mountain; Just Friends; Lost in Translation; The Dictator; Scary Movie; The House Bunny; 22 Jump Street; Keanu; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2; I Give It a Year; Observe and Report; My Super Ex-Girlfriend; May; Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel; Smiley Face; Future BMT: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; Scary Movie 4; Scary Movie 2; Scary Movie 3; The Hot Chick; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip; Mama’s Boy; What’s Your Number?; Take Me Home Tonight; Waiting…; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Movie 43; Notes: Been in the news since she and Chris Pratt broke up in what was probably 2017’s biggest celeb split.)

Budget/Gross – $50 million / Domestic: $86,089,513 (Worldwide: $216,970,871)

(That is a lot of money. I hope they don’t make a sequel though. Not because people shouldn’t go get their money. I just don’t want to watch another Emoji Movie.)

#105 for the Animation genre

theemojimovie_animation

(Animation has apparently held steady over the years as far as gross is concerned. The big jumps are likely technologically related. Late-90s was the advent of computer animated films. Mid 2000s is when that process became cheaper than traditional animation. And the big jump around now is likely concerning the ability for a single studio to produce a full-length feature in roughly the same amount of time as live-action production (something like that, i.e. the ability for a film like this to be made and profitable).)

#86 for the Animation – Computer genre

theemojimovie_computeranimation

(Tells the same story as above, basically confirming the mid-2000s jump was computer animation supplanting traditional animation. It makes sense with the above as well actually. The mid-2010s probably marks when animation because easy and cheap enough to produce television shows and made “kids films” almost entirely computer animated.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (10/108): 🚫

(Sub-10% means we kind of have to do the film at some point. It is kind of the crown jewel of any BMT year. The consensus here though is an embarrassment and Rotten Tomatoes should be embarrassed. It is an emoji if you can’t tell … I thought my email generator program was broken at first.)

Poster – The Sklogmoji Movie (D)

emoji_movie_ver12

(Not into it. This is essentially a slightly better version of the Father Figures poster. Slightly better because… well how couldn’t it be better than that disaster? But only marginally. That font is embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for you, poster.)

Tagline(s) – An adventure beyond words (A+)

(Oh shit… that’s actually pretty clever. Oh man. I’m starting to really like it. I better grade this before I give it an A+ because I take pride in how tough my grading is. Too late. That’s an A+ if I’ve ever seen one. Short, sweet, and clever. Gives a hint at the plot and works as an effective advertisement for emojis to boot. Daaannnnggggggg.)

Keyword(s) – food; Top Ten by BMeTric: 86.9 The Emoji Movie (2017); 85.8 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 85.4 Troll 2 (1990); 84.1 Home Alone 3 (1997); 75.7 In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011); 71.7 The Flintstones (1994); 64.8 10,000 BC (2008); 64.0 Leprechaun (1993); 63.1 North (1994); 61.2 Foodfight! (2012);

(Ah yes. In the Name of the King a Dungeon Siege Tale and … food. Two peas in a pod. Amazingly there appears to be no … food in Batman & Robin. A strange mix of films here which nearly pushes an actual food movie (Foodfight!) off of the list. Foodfight will be done as part of a Worst Movie Ever series I assume, it is apparently quite the experience.)

Notes – John Douglass, owner of the “jacksfilms” YouTube account, was invited to the world premiere of this movie by Sony because he praised it sarcastically since its announcement. (So getting early fake good reviews is actually a thing huh?)

Sony promoted the latter release of the trailer by hosting a press conference in Cannes, the day before the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, which featured T.J. Miller parasailing in. Variety called the event “slightly awkward” and The Hollywood Reporter described it as “promotional ridiculousness.” (That doesn’t sound fun or funny, good job Emoji Film PR team)

According to T.J. Miller, this is the fastest produced animated film in history. (I’m loving this fact for some reason)

Tony Leondis, the director of the movie, does not take emoji’s seriously. He sees them as “the toys of the 21st century” and said he needed to rush the movie because “who even knows if people are going to like emoji’s in [six years]”.

The film was shown alongside Puppy, a short film based on the Hotel Transylvania films.

The original title was Emoji Movie: Express Yourself. (Would have joined The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle on the list of 2017 films that inexplicably used a random song title as the subtitle to a film. Not loving that trend)

In the Latin American Spanish version, the name of Jailbreak was changed with the name of “Lady Hacker”.

A week before the film was released, Sony tweeted a controversial promotional picture parodying the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale (2017). It was immediately met with criticism for being tasteless, considering the content and themes of the Hulu series. Following the backlash, the tweet was deleted. (Haaaaaaa)

The official artwork of the main trio bears a strong resemblance to the final poster for Free Birds (2013). (So artwork in posters follows a kind of wave-like pattern. Father Figures, which just came out, has a very similar poster to Emoji Movie among a few others actually. I do not like the seven-faced-shoved-together look though)

The opera music being played when the trash is being emptied translates to “If Sarastro does not through you feel the pain of death” (weird)

NOTE: Most of the other notes are just saying how many animated film each of the ten or so main cast members were in prior to the Emoji Movie. I’m genuinely shocked at how few notes there are, I would think a ton of gross set stories would have come out once everyone realized this was going to be critically panned.