Action – Page 17 – Bad Movie Twins

The Gunman Preview

Alright, so this week we continue our wait on Fantastic Four. You may be asking “But Jamie, didn’t you say that Fantastic Four would be out around now? What’s going on? This isn’t some elaborate ruse like the 8th episode recap of the Vineyard where you continually claim that Fantastic Four is up next, but it never actually happens, right? We can only take so much. I still don’t know what happened to Meathead and Small Fry! Did they find love?! Did Other Girl ever actually have a relevant plot?!” Don’t worry guys, we swear it’s coming. It’s just that with the complex VOD release schedules it’s hard to tell when things are coming out for streaming purchase vs. rental or if they come out on disc before that or several weeks after. I guarantee, though, that it’ll be done by Christmas. It will be disappointing if I have to purchase Fantastic Four on Vudu as a Christmas present for my bro all in the name of watching the film for BMT… but if it must be done, it must be done. For now we’re just collecting the best of the best (READ: worst of the worst) to try to make sure we cover some of the more plausible BMT releases of the year prior to Razzie nomination season. This week we are hitting up The Gunman starring Sean Penn. Because when Taken came out who didn’t think, ‘Yeah, it’s OK… but what if it starred Sean Penn?’ Let’s go!

The Gunman (2015) – BMeTric: 28.0 (at the time), 28.6 (February 20, 2016)

(It seems, given the new Jan/Feb data points, like the BMeTric has settled into a more expected trajectory. Probably plateauing just a shade under 30, but above average nonetheless. The Gunman being a stalwart in the Netflix streaming library is probably helping to keep the votes rolling in.)

RogerEbert.com – 2 stars – It lurches from one banal scene after another before settling into a third act that forces Penn to appear in some of the silliest scenes of his career —and when I say that, bear in mind that I once paid cash to see “Shanghai Surprise” during its brief theatrical release.

(Huh, that synopsis doesn’t sound much like a 2 star film. Seems like he didn’t want to go too hard on Penn. Don’t have much more to say about this.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zww7VgaUhyk

(Besides the inherent ridiculousness of Sean Penn as an action star (given his acting history) I kinda dug this. All-star cast. The thing I would fear is that it is crazy confusing.)

Director(s) – Pierre Morel – (Known For: Taken; District B13. BMT: From Paris with Love; The Gunman; Notes: Known as a cinematographer for The Transporter. He was attached as a director of a new Dune adaptation before the project was scrapped.)

Writer(s) – Don MacPherson (screenplay) – (Known For: Absolute Beginners. BMT: The Avengers; The Gunman; Crossing the Line. Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, The Avengers (1998))

Pete Travis (screenplay) – (BMT: The Gunman. Notes: Mostly known as a director. Directed potential BMT film Vantage Point.)

Sean Penn (screenplay) – (Known For: Into the Wild; The Indian Runner; The Crossing Guard. BMT: The Gunman. Notes: Now I think I understand why this film exists and why Sean Penn is in it. I bet he really, really liked the novel (old, French, existentialist crime fiction… that sounds right up Sean Penn’s alley) and signed on to the film and just looovvved doing some rewrites on it and stuff.)

Jean-Patrick Manchette wrote the novel “The Prone Gunman” that this is based on.

Actors – Sean Penn – (Known For: Mystic River; 21 Grams; Milk; The Game; Carlito’s Way; The Tree of Life; The Interpreter; Dead Man Walking; The Thin Red Line; Sweet and Lowdown; The Assassination of Richard Nixon; Fair Game; Casualties of War; State of Grace; Bad Boys; At Close Range; Colors; The Falcon and the Snowman; Before Night Falls; Taps; U-Turn; The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty; Fast Times At Ridgemont High. BMT: I Am Sam; Gangster Squad; The Gunman; The Weight of Water; Shanghai Surprise; All The King’s Men. Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor, Shanghai Surprise (1986). Won Oscars for Milk and Mystic River. Nominated for Oscars for Sweet and Lowdown, I Am Sam, and Dead Man Walking.)

also stars Idris Elba and Jasmine Trinca

Budget/Gross: $40 million / $10,664,749 ($10,664,749 Worldwide)

(Egad, you read that right. Second week in a row with a massive bomb. This opened as the 37th worst 2500+ release, just 5 spots back from Unfinished Business. Funny that it didn’t get a foreign release at all since this was actually a France-U.S. joint production)

Rotten Tomatoes: 16% (24/149), With an uninspired plot and rote set pieces that are overshadowed by its star’s physique, The Gunman proves a muddled misfire in the rapidly aging Over-50 Action Hero genre.

(“… overshadowed by its star’s physique.” Ha! This can be taken in two totally different ways. How I originally read it was that Sean Penn’s dad bod was so dad bod that you couldn’t tear your eyes away from its dad bodishness. However a picture like this from the set:

make me think that the implication is that his sleek physique was so on fleek (God, I’m the worst) that you didn’t even care about the boring plot or set pieces. Either way is good for BMT.)

Poster – Sean Badass (B+)

(I actually really dig this poster. I like the dark theme to it contrasting with the scarlet red. Original font. Nice symmetry. Not sure I would like it as much if there was a different main actor. I think Sean Penn’s “natural” neon orange skin tone really pops here and completes the poster.)

Tagline – Armed with the truth (C)

(This is pretty mediocre. Gives me just enough hint at the plot. Gives me just enough cleverness. Gives me just enough brevity. But nothing is actually good in any regard.)

Notes – Although the film was produced by veteran action producer Joel Silver, Silver was removed from the editing room after one visit and the final cut of the film was supervised by actor Sean Penn and director Pierre Morel. (Odd note. He’s a producer… does he generally do editing on the films he produces? I would love it if there ended up being a Silver Cut of the film released to DVD.)

Javier Bardem was reportedly paid US $5 million dollars for his supporting role in the film. (These are the facts we love to get here at BMT HQ. Interesting.)

Based on the novel The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette. (Yeah it is. Unfortunately neither me nor Patrick will get around to reading it before recapping. Rats.)

Into the Storm Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Into the Storm? More like … Merely Lukewarm? Not many good rhymes there, plus I hate hate hated this movie (to quote Roger Ebert). I think Jamie was more okay with it and I should get one thing out front: I think it was supposed to be a comedy a bit. A poor bit of comedy, but a comedy … but I’m going to ignore that and eviscerate this thing. Get ready to get slammed, Into the Storm:

I wasn’t straight up dog poo in my face (a phrase reserved for, really, only the best of the worst), but it was maybe the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen.
The found-footage part of it was not only done poorly (in that they were recovering footage that was literally unrecoverable and thus admitting that it was really just a real movie, just shot in POV), but also unnecessary. The movie would have been better as the spiritual successor to Twister instead of an excuse to get bad actors jobs (I feel bad about this burn, but beyond Armitage it was a who’s who of TV and bad young actors).
The story was nonsense: Two of the main characters are just stuck in a smashed building and shown maybe three times before getting rescued. Dumb.
There’s a side story with two hillbillies (who Jamie loooooved, or so I’m assuming) which is not only pointless, but also just the cherry-on-top to the ridiculousness when they survive getting sucked up into a category 5 tornado.
The entire movie is just people running from set to set culminating in the good guys hiding in a “storm drain” aka a wind tunnel built as the only expensive set piece for the production.
Now it wasn’t all bad. At times the CGI looked okay (although in 5 years that will not be the case). If you’re into disaster porn it will sate your disaster lust (gross). And the storm chaser story, while a little preachy, did provide interest at times. Plus I will always support TV and film that gives former Prison Break actors work (get yo’ money Dr. Tancredi).
I think you go Sequel here. Jamie had his own idea (about a tornado named Pete wreaking havoc in … Japan I think, can’t remember), but mine is Into the Storm: London Eye. In the movie they mention that global warming will lead to tornadoes in new and unprepared places (LA, London, etc.). Well, I live in London! It’s 2040, and a British child has to make a hologram diary for his school graduation (ooof, bad start). But what is this? A tornado in London?! … That’s it … that’s all I got. I feel like this writes itself since it is going to be shot found footage style. I can lead production here in London if Netflix wants to add this to their slate of original programming.

Alright, I’ll leave it there.

Jamie

Wait, are you telling me that the “That thing got a hemi?” guy wasn’t your favorite character?

I was waiting for him to say the catchphrase. Or maybe see a mack truck sucked into a tornado and scream “that thing got a semi!” and look directly into the camera and then everyone involved kill themselves.

Moving on. Hoo wee, I just watched Into the Storm and boy did that storm blow… hard. (thank you, thank you). In seriousness I have to recap the movie with a bit of a qualifier: I actually thought the concept was fun. It’s a weather disaster film. Lots of tornadoes coming out of nowhere and chasing people and shit. And if I went to the theater looking to see some tornadoes, I would have been pretty satisfied. I thought the storms themselves looked good and when the “characters” (if you could call them that) were in the middle of the storms I was on the edge of my seat. This movie though had a major flaw and destroyed the experience for me.

WHY IS THIS A FOUND FOOTAGE FILM?! This has hands down the worst conceit for a found footage film I have ever seen. Usually these films start with a character filming some big change in their lives (“honey, we just got married. Let’s document our lives for our children and junk.”) with some bullshit background about how the character used to do this all the time, but hadn’t done it in years (I think this is to make the directing and editing skills of our otherwise unskilled and incompetent character believable) which then gets ramped up into obsession when they realize they caught some weird stuff on film (here the genre generally fails as we usually see footage of the character editing his film… why would they film themselves editing film?). What I’m driving at is that there is usually a lot of time spent creating a situation where filming all this stuff makes a modicum of sense. Into the Storm? They seemed to just say “Fuck that, let’s not address it,” and continued on their merry way. The number of random overhead shots is startling (where is that footage from? A totally random weather helicopter from which an anonymous editor decided to take footage for B-roll?), the intersection of four independent sets of characters all religiously documenting everything before the storms even hit is ridiculous, and the fact that all this happens in the middle of a disaster area makes it impossibly unlikely that any of the film would be recovered (there is literally a scene where we see from a camera point of view a character sucked up into a fire tornado… how did they recover the footage from that camera?). It’s awful. Just make it a regular film. It would have been good. I would have liked it. Instead you made it ridiculous. The only explanation for why the film is found footage is that they wanted to make the film on the cheap and had a week to write the script so they needed characters to explain things directly into the camera. The whole genre has to go. We’re nearing rock bottom here, where a perfectly good concept is ruined by making it found footage. The only thing I ask before they finish up and kill the genre is to make a found footage rom com. I don’t know why, but I would like for that to happen and be a complete disaster.

Dipping back into MonoSklog for the game this week. Into the Storm probably broke the record for the most number of MonoSklogs ever because the script had characters speak at length directly into the camera just to keep everything rolling along. So while I had four or five to choose from I think the MonoSklog by the main character (if you could call him that) as he believes he’s about to die is the best. I call it Mis Ojos Aguados. [Editor’s Note: In order to make sure our website if legally kosher in our analyses we’ve removed links to the monosklogs from the online record. We apologize, but do encourage readers to watch and revel in the described monologues for they are glorious]. God, that’s even better than I remember. That’s a solid 2 minutes of face-to-camera found footage bullshit action.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Into the Storm Preview

This week we move onto our Action film in the cycle and were really fortunate to have a recent film come out that took place in one of our remaining states. That would be Into the Storm, a found footage (ugh) disaster film set in the town of Silverton, Oklahoma. We had always planned on watching it and I was delighted to find that it worked so well for mapl.de.map. Rest assured, we’re almost there! Let’s go!

Into The Storm (2014) – BMeTric: 34.3 (November 18, 2016)

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(Ah, classic. Look at that VOD release bump. I think maybe a good thing to look at in the future is the size of the VOD bump relative to theatrical and see how consistent that is. I’ve seen movies with bumps around four times the original theatrical run. This looks to be three times the original. Perhaps it is related to genre? Commentary and plots generated on November 18, 2016)

RogerEbert.com – 2 stars – Given our national interest in all things weather-related, “Into the Storm” feels like an inevitability, almost a cinematic obligation to the country’s latest obsession, and it’s about as creatively inspired as that description makes it out to be.

(So you’re basically saying it’s boring? Are you though? I can’t tell. If you read the rest of the review it goes on to say how poor the character development was and how they wanted some deep characters. I just hate this bullshit. Reviewers pick and choose when to care about character development and plots when they want to hate a movie or not. So the non-characters of Jurassic World (3 stars) are OK, but we couldn’t possibly watch a tornado rip a town apart without feeling a deep connection to the characters involved? Sorry, just breaking in the new saddle on my high horse.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBH25XxM-7g

(I don’t think I have to see the rest of the film. I believe I just watched the entire thing. I will admit, although I didn’t like the tone of the RogerEbert.com review, they may be on to something. The characters and events look very poorly thought out in this one. Almost as if I’m only supposed to be interested in watching a giant fucking tornado… wait.)

Director(s) – Steven Quale – (Known For: Final Destination 5; Aliens of the Deep; The Hundred-Foot Journey. BMT: Into The Storm. Notes: He did Final Destination 5 (the finalest of all the destinations)! I heard that one was supposed to actually be pretty good… now I’m intrigued.)

Writer(s) – John Swetnam – (Known For: The Hundred-Foot Journey. Step Up: All In. BMT: Evidence; Into The Storm. Notes: Currently directing/writing an upcoming found footage dance film called Breaking Through. A found footage dance film?! That’s amazing. I CANNOT WAIT).)

Actors – Richard Armitage – (Known For: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; Captain America: The First Avenger; No End in Sight; Last Days in Vietnam. BMT: Into The Storm. Notes: Only bad film on the resume, though I’ve never heard of him. Does audiobooks and won the 2014 Best Audiobook of the Year from Audible for Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel.)

also stars Sarah Wayne Callies and Matt Walsh

Budget/Gross: $50 million / $47,602,194 ($160,602,194 Worldwide)

(Despite doing reasonably well at the box office it was still labeled a flop. Actually had the 188th worst opening ever for a super saturated (3000+ theaters) release. Right above previous BMT film This Means War.)

#26 for the Disaster genre

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(Pretty rough, right around the cinematic classic Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones. This is a rarity: a terrible movie coming out at the peak of a genre’s popularity and financial prowess. Since then the disaster genre has collapsed. I think this might follow the zombie-spaceship-wasteland paradigm. Where disaster films make way for alien attack makes way for etc. etc. But hard to prove. That big peak maybe came from Apollo 13 and/or Twister … or maybe just Titanic doing crazy business in 1997. Sleep well disaster genre.)

#11 for the Found Footage genre

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(Right around BMT Classic The Devil Inside. The found footage genre page is clearly incomplete (and in no way does this make me trust boxofficemojo as a source …) because Blair Witch 2 is missing (unless that wasn’t found footage). The little bump down in gross I think was the ushering in of the Blumhouse style of production: low budget, high volume, large profits. By all accounts the production style is working and is being looked at as a possible way forward for independent movie development. I don’t necessarily think it is a bad thing, it just means a bunch of barely movies get released to theaters. Good for us I guess … I guess.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 21% (30/140), Critics Consensus: Clumsily scripted and populated with forgettable characters, Into the Storm has little to offer beyond its admittedly thrilling special effects.

(Gah! Why am I going to this movie? Am I looking to engage with the characters as they run screaming from a tornado? “But you need to identify with them so you care about them.” They are still in danger from a giant fucking tornado that apparently looks awesome, right? That being said, I do not doubt that this script is clumsier than Paul Blart on a bender (relevant!).)

Poster – Into the Sklog (D)

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(I guess it’s got the color scheme going for it… at least consistent. But it’s a bit cheap looking and the font is shit.)

Tagline(s) – Prepare to go (F)

(Welp, that’s a shame. I’m about done defending this one. I do understand that it is meant to be paired with the title (prepare to go… into the storm) but that is still awful. Just awful.)

Keyword(s) – storm; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.5 The Avengers (1998); 72.2 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 68.5 Psycho (1998); 64.3 Gulliver’s Travels (2010); 63.6 Swept Away (2002); 57.7 Virus (1999); 57.3 Darkness Falls (2003); 57.0 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 56.9 Godzilla (I) (1998); 53.0 An American Haunting (2005);

(Hell yeah The Avengers has a horrible CGI storm. This list is quite nice. Looks like a ton of garbage movies like to use weather in their plotlines. And for that I say thank you!)

Notes – In a clear homage to Twister (1996) , a statue of a cow is blown off a building and across the screen in one scene.

Seventh Son Preview

Alright, so this week is our SciFi/Fantasy. Super excited for this one as one of the worst films released this year happened to be a Fantasy film based on a book. That is of course Seventh Son. It’s based on a children’s series out of England, which is good cause that means the books are super short. I believe the movie is either set in a made-up kingdom or England (a bit redundant there… slammed), so not adding to the map. For those interested, this weeks BMT hashtag is #SeventhSonDayFunDay (pretty proud of that one). Let’s go!

Seventh Son (2015) – 50.1 (generated on June 1, 2017)

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(The drop feels like it is quite common for film based on written material with fans who will give the film a good review regardless. Fun that it hasn’t moved at all in the past 3 years, suggests it has sustained its level of terribleness and will have a long BMT shelf life. Generated on June 1, 2017.)

Netflix Synopsis – In the 18th century, apprentice exorcist Tom Ward is the lynchpin in a battle between good and evil when imprisoned witch Mother Malkin escapes. This chilling tale is based on the first installment in Joseph Delaney’s “Wardstone Chronicles” trilogy.

(No Leonard Maltin review so I trotted out an oldie but a goodie with the Netflix synopsis. I particularly like this one because of two things: 1. “chilling tale”? This is based on a book series for 10-year-olds. I doubt it’s all that chilling. 2. the book series is not a trilogy. There are 12 of them (they come cheaper by the dozen, you know. Thank you. Thank you). Classic, Netflix. Getting the facts wrong right off the bat.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiNkOjM7oM

(I was going to praise the trailer for not making it look too ridiculous, until the second half went bonkers insane. This honestly looks like garbage. I’m getting a real Dungeons & Dragons/In the Name of the King/Season of the Witch vibe here (god, we watched a lot of those types of movies))

Director(s) – Sergey Bodrov– (Known For: Prisoner of the Mountains; Mongol; East/West. BMT: Seventh Son; Running Free; Nomad. Notes: He actually has a whole mess more movies, but most of them are in Russian. His son was an actor and directed a film before being tragically killed in an avalanche while directing his second film in Russia.)

Writer(s) – Matt Greenberg(screen story) – (Known For: 1408; Reign of Fire; Halloween H2.; BMT: Seventh Son; The Prophecy II. Notes: Almost exclusively a horror writer. Connected to a remake of Pet Semetary and a Beowulf television series.)

Charles Leavitt (screenplay) – (Known For: Blood Diamond; K-PAX; The Express; The Mighty; BMT: Seventh Son; The Sunchaser; Notes: His debut was Sunchaser which has one of the funniest posters I’ve ever seen. Look at that tagline too!)

Steven Knight (screenplay) – (Known For: Eastern Promises; Locke; The Hundred-Foot Journey; Dirty Pretty Things; Amazing Grace; Closed Circuit; Pawn Sacrifice; World War Z; Redemption. BMT: Seventh Son. Notes: Nominated for an Oscar for Dirty Pretty Things. Crazy that he’s even connected with this film.)

Actors – Ben Barnes– (Known For: Dorian Gray; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; Stardust. BMT: Seventh Son; The Words; The Big Wedding (BMT) Notes: Was in the short-lived boy band Hyrise which performed at Eurovision:

Bwahahahaha. I actually kinda liked it.)

Jeff Bridges – (Known For: The Big Lebowski; Iron Man; True Grit; TRON; K-PAX; Arlington Road; Crazy Heart; The Men Who Stare at Goats; Starman; The Fisher King; Seabiscuit; Surf’s Up; King Kong; The Vanishing; White Squall; The Fabulous Baker Boys; Fearless; The Last Picture Show; The Door in the Floor; Tucker: The Man and His Dream; Against All Odds; Thunderbolt and Lightfoot; The Contender; Cutter’s Way; Heaven’s Gate; Tron Legacy. BMT: The Giver; R.I.P.D. (BMT); Seventh Son; Wild Bill; Blown Away; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; Stick It; Tideland; The Open Road. Notes: And that’s just a portion of his filmography. Nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for Crazy Horse. Son of famous actor Lloyd Bridges.)

Also stars Julianne Moore

Budget/Gross: $95 million / $17,223,265 ($110,623,265 Worldwide)

(Not a case where the worldwide makes up for the domestic run. That is atrocious. 113th worst opening for a 2500+ theater release. Right next to BMT films The Marine, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and Winter’s Tale. Good company.)

#80 for the Live Action (Fantasy) genre

seventhson_liveactionfantasy

(Oooooo, right when 2000 hit everyone was like, hey, we have lots of cheap CGI … so want to make something that looks ridiculous? This comes in right above Krull. You heard that right, Krull. So … yeah not great. The genre is a booming, and this movie marked the start of the most recent gold rush. Go get your money movie producers.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 12% (13/106), Critics Consensus: Seventh Son squanders an excellent cast and some strange storyline ingredients, leaving audiences with one disappointingly dull fantasy adventure.

(Disappointingly dull? I hear that about this email every week (burned, me). Also, not sure when “strange storyline ingredients” became something that you could squander. I feel like that could go both ways. Like is it Jupiter Ascending strange storyline ingredients? Or Being John Malkovich strange storyline ingredients?)

Poster – Seventh Sklog (C-)

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(What a strange poster. I’m not sure what I’m even looking at. A big ol’ red moon looking like Mars with a skull on it. Strange, jarring colors too. I gotta give it some props for being so unique, but still not great and it makes Julianne Moore look like one of the heroes.)

Tagline(s) – When darkness falls, the son will rise (Is there something higher than an A+?)

(Finally, a movie gets it. Puns on puns in tight packages. This tagline is ridiculous, but I love it.)

Keyword(s) – witch; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.8 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997); 84.8 Troll 2 (1990); 80.9 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000); 75.7 Paranormal Activity 4 (2012); 71.6 Bewitched (2005); 67.8 Supergirl (1984); 65.4 10,000 BC (2008); 62.4 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008); 62.4 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014); 61.3 Conan the Barbarian (2011);

(Shocked we have seen so few. Not even a little Last Witch Hunter? I guess since we generally avoid hitting up too many terrible horror films we tend to avoid most Witch films.)

Notes – Based on book one of Joseph Delany’ ” The Wardstone chronicles” series, “The Spook’s Apprentice.”

Dianna Agron, Imogen Poots and Felicity Jones tested for the lead role after Jennifer Lawrence dropped out (wait… let’s go back to when Jennifer Lawrence was in this movie).

Initially set to be released in theaters in January of 2014 but due to production delays the film was pushed back to 2015 (the full story is that the company in charge of CGI went bankrupt before completing work on the film. The production company had to float them $5 million just to keep them open long enough to finish the work on the film.)

After Alex Pettyfer bowed out from the project, Shiloh Fernandez, Sam Claflin, Caleb Landry Jones and James Frecheville tested for the lead role. (wait… let’s go back to when my boy Alex Pettyfer was in this movie).