The Good The Bad The BMT – Page 22

Behind Enemy Lines Recap

Jamie

A disillusioned navy pilot crashes behind enemy lines in Bosnia and has to survive long enough to report the atrocities he has evidence of. Can he evade capture and rediscover his love for the good ol’ U-S-of-A before it’s too late? Find out in… Behind Enemy Lines.

What?! Lt. Chris Burnett is fed up. He’s fed up with just sitting around while peace is negotiated in the Bosnian War, he’s fed up with his asshole boss Admiral Reigart, and he’s goddamn fed up with flying pointless reconnaissance missions on Christmas Day! That’s why he’s put in his resignation letter and, phew, just a couple more days and he won’t have to deal with it anymore. What could go wrong? Well shortly thereafter his plane goes off course (not his fault), inadvertently takes some pictures of some war crimes (oops), gets blown out of the sky (boy howdy, talk about a rough day), and his co-pilot is killed by Serbian soldiers (that got dark). Now he’s stuck behind enemy lines and America, handcuffed by bullshit peace or whatever, can’t go in and roast some dudes in lethal combat in order to save him (woooooooo, war!). What follows is a long footrace across the mountains of Bosnia with Serbians in hot pursuit. He has some zany adventures falling into mass graves, getting shot at by a sniper, and eventually joining up with some Coca-Cola toting, hip hop spouting Bosnian insurgents who help him to his destination. Finally, just when Burnett retrieves some valuable evidence of war crimes, he is rescued personally by Reigart who is all like “Bet you love America now. How about we just forget about all that resignation shit.” And they laugh and laugh and laugh (mostly so they don’t cry over all the human beings that have killed in the process of the film). THE END.

Why?! To live. In some ways it’s the motivation underlying every movie we watch (that’s deep, Jamie). Thank you. But seriously, Burnett kinda sucks but has to put all that whiny bullshit aside in order to survive and deliver justice for the war crimes he witnessed. The Serbians want to cover up all those war crimes, which is why they desperately want to snuff out Burnett. It’s a real cat and mouse game here.

What?! This has one of the greatest and most unexpected gratuitous product placements in BMT history. We get Owen Wilson, dehydrated and exhausted, picked up by a truck filled with Bosnian fighters. He begs for some water, but they don’t have any. All they have is some delicious Coca-Cola. He takes a sip and smiles, “it’s good,” he says. Oh, it’s good all right.

Who?! We get a “special thanks” credit for Phil Strub. Who’s that? Why he’s the entertainment liaison for the Department of Defense and by all accounts controls Hollywood’s access to anything military. The article suggests that this dude actually has some influence on the portrayal of the military in film to the point of requesting and getting script changes. Sounds like an amazing job, when do I start?

Where?! Just misses the coveted A+. If only it were called Behind Bosnian Lines. While a terrible title, they would have had the satisfaction of getting the top grade on our website, which is read by tens of people (probably… I don’t know. Might be single digits). A.

When?! Secret Holiday Film Alert! Tis the season to be jolly, because we got Xmas in May up in here. Just when Burnett is heading off for his mission he is lamenting the fact that they are the only crew flying on Christmas Day. The mission is an act of revenge to punish his bad ‘tude. I’m gonna go ahead and give it an A. Not in the title, but vital to the plot in an unexpected way.

We’ve been watching a number of 30-40% RT films lately and I have appreciated seeing what makes them different from the <30% dregs that we are usually watching. The direction, editing, music, and general pro-war stance should have pulled this film lower… and yet it didn’t. Why? I think it was because it was eminently watchable. It was like a Michael Bay film except not 5 hours long and I genuinely enjoyed myself. Maybe that’s what buoyed it up to the the higher edge of BMT. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! What happens when you decide to construct a film entirely out of military stock footage, slow motion shots of Owen Wilson running, and explosions? Let’s go!

The Good – This movie is not that bad, which I guess shouldn’t be that surprising since the Rotten Tomatoes score isn’t that bad. It flies along at a decent pace, Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman are serviceable to solid throughout, and the story is at least pretty interesting (if ludicrous). It is a bad military film, but it is a fine action film, which is a compliment … I think.

P’s View on the Preview – All of my bad movie hopes and bad movie dreams were tied up in the direction of this film. Everything I read basically suggested two reasons for the bad reviews. The first was just the jingoistic nature of the whole affair, which is often unpalatable to critics. The second though was the frenetic direction which often seemed to go from quick cut incomprehensibility to just multiple versions of Owen Wilson running in slow motion. So mainly I hoped that the direction was so bonkers that it pulled this film from a boring not-great war film to something special.

The Bad – And it kind of did, the direction and soundtrack very obviously sunk the film. Reflecting on the more recent 30-40% Rotten Tomatoes the films tend to be much more tolerable that the truly dire films below 30%. Monte Carlo is a decent example, it is of a cloying teen romantic comedy, but that is kind of the only thing that makes it bad. Here the direction is quite distracting and the soundtrack is just insane. As I said this makes for a shitty military movie, but a tolerable action movie. It does one or two things right, one or two things wrong, let’s call it a draw.

Get Yo Rant On – Was there a point in time when having the bad guys in film be the international peacekeepers was in fashion? The feckless international commander (who they only heavily implied had some shadowy agreement to hide genocide) was from France, and could not have been more in the way. I cannot help but think it has at least something to do with the tacit agreement the film crew and the military struck to get those sweet aircraft carrier shots. Blatant jingoism is as American as, well … military movies I suppose. Little did the director know that Michael Bay had already perfected the art of bending over backwards for sweet military shots with his smash critical hit Pearl Harbor the same year. Rant over.

The BMT – Unfortunately no. But it was interesting to see what is considered to be a late-90s / early 00s bad war film. War films, if they aren’t Sci-Fi (*cough* Battleship *cough*) seem to rarely be very very bad. So it fills a niche there for sure.

Welcome to Earf – Easy one this week. Behind Enemy Lines stars Owen Wilson who was in I Spy with Eddie Murphy who was in Norbit with Terry Crews who was in Blended with Adam Sandler who was in Jack and Jill with Al Pacino who was in 88 Minutes with Leelee Sobieski who was in Here on Earth. Welcome to Earf! There probably is an alternative non-I-Spy path to take, but I couldn’t find it organically.

StreetCreditReport.com – Nope. None. It wasn’t even close to making lists for 2001, but also I couldn’t find a single example in specifically lists concerning war films. Turns out the hatred for The Patriot, Pearl Harbor, and Revolution (you remember Revolution … starring Al Pacino … yeah me neither) is strooooong. Such is life, sometimes you just have to check those boxes.

No homework again, but soon, I can feel it. Soon I’ll be reading some terrible book for BMT.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Meet the Spartans Recap

Jamie

A small army of Spartans battle the fearsome Persians while also waxing poetic about the many short lived cultural touchstones of the mid-2000s that in no way grow old and stale by the minute. Can they manage to shove a whole bunch of dog poo in your face, and I guess also defeat the Persians, before it’s too late? Find out in… Meet the Spartans.

What?! You ever watch 300 and think to yourself that you needed more references to Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, the entire (and now defunct) judges panel from American Idol, Paris Hilton, Shrek, Ghost Rider, Tyra Banks, Happy Feet, Ugly Betty, and some terrible singer named Sanjaya (I don’t even know who that is)? Well boy howdy do I have a film for you. It’s just like 300 in that Leonidus takes a small army to defend Sparta from a large invading force of Persians, but… like… not that anymore because it spends the entire time dropping cultural references, hawking explicit product placements, panicking about being gay, and shoving dog poo in your face. It is… obviously amazing and I loved it. JK, lolz. It’s terrible. Whatever, it’s not even worth talking about the plot. It’s 300… just think of 300.

Why?! Ha! Why? To save Sparta I guess. Otherwise this film serves no purpose other than to exist in the moment. Every joke has a six month half-life maximum, to the point where the funniest aspect of the film is to marvel at just how quickly everything in the film became outdated. Less than a decade later and almost every joke has no meaning today. Do people even know what Ugly Betty is anymore? I hadn’t thought of that TV show in years and yet there she is as the Oracle! A major scene in the film! The only stuff that was disconnected from such references was all the humor derived solely from the idea that the Spartans are secretly gay… which is dated in a different way.

What?! I think I became immune to product placement as a result of the this film. Some are parts of actual jokes, like a Budweiser commercial hilariously claiming that the Spartans are… wait for it… closeted homosexuals. How funny. Others are just our main character munching on a Subway sandwich and exclaiming his distaste for mayonnaise… which I guess is a joke. I’m not sure anymore. In fact, I know longer know what laughter and humor is.

Who?! 100% of the spoofs of celebrity impressions are done by about three actors. The only significant cameo is Method Man, who plays a Persian warrior that gives our “heroes” a run for their money in a dance-off. Nice.

Where?! It’s in the title. While I hate to admit that something could replace my beloved Legend of Hercules on the world mapl.de.map I have to give credit where credit is due: this is a truly terrible film that deserves the spot. A+

When?! Considering Sanjaya was eliminated from American Idol on April 18, 2007 I’m tempted to say that this film takes place about 15 minutes after that. But since the film (kinda) depicts the Battle of Thermopylae I guess it actually takes place in August/September 480 BC. Whatever. D.

The more I type about this film the more I hate it so I’m just going to stop. It is terrible… and yet somehow slightly better than Epic Movie. How is that possible? Well at least there are some jokes (like that the Spartans skip everywhere they go) that at least still are jokes and haven’t crumbled away into insignificant dog poo dust. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone? You ever sit quietly and wistfully think of those moments in life where someone pushed dog poo in your face? You don’t? Huh … seems like we just keep on doing it, I was wondering what I was missing. We watched Meet the Spartans which was … let’s get into it!

The Good – Uuuuuh. I think this movie is better than Epic Movie. Only because it has a storyline (the plot of 300) it is trying to faithfully (more or less) follow. The jokes, I think, are worse in many ways, but the structure is more reminiscent of Airplane! and other successful examples from the past, so I think ultimately it works slightly better. It is also, no joke, 60 minutes long. The credits and bloopies are easily 15 minutes of the 87 minute runtime.

P’s View on the Preview – I was mainly interested to see who was in this film, because that is kind of all there is to these types of films. Unless you make a complete mess (Movie 43) the quality is entirely based on the comedic chops available. I basically didn’t recognize anyone in this case, although I vaguely recognized television’s Hercules. It is totally unsurprising that more than a few impressions were done by MadTv alums. Don’t shoot the messenger, but MadTv was terrible.

The Bad – Yeah, bad comedies can often fall into the category of “an extended SNL sketch”, see Deuce Bigelow. This? This is an extended MadTv sketch (heeeeyoooooo). The movie is the story of 300 … with an inordinate number of gay sex, puke, fart, and shit jokes. I laughed zero times. As a matter of fact, this movie sucked some of my joy and laughter from previous films back inside of me, that is how bad and soul destroying it is.

Get Yo Rant On – Many people chose to take exception at the sheer amount of product placement in the film. But me? I’m mostly insulted by the fact that the film barely makes fun of films. At least Epic movie tried to make fun of Lion Witch & the Wardrobe, Superman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. Here? Reality show spoofs as far as the eye can see. Dancing competitions, American Idol judges, Paris Hilton, etc. Cheap, tired, and now out of date jokes that tear the movie down. There is, I think, a spoof of some American Idol contestant I didn’t even recognize. Just … trash. Pure and simply. Stay in your lane, and leave the reality show spoofs to television shows where they belong. Rant over.

The BMT – Just checkin’ boxes over here, nothing to see. It is the second highest BMeTric likely, so there is cred there. We’ll finish the Friedberg and Seltzer films, it just might take us 10 years.

Welcome to Earf: Meet the Spartans stars Diedrich Bader, who was in The Beverly Hillbillies with Rob Schneider, who was in Grown Ups with Adam Sandler, who was in Jack and Jill with Al Pacino, who was in 88 Minutes with Leelee Sobieski, who was in Here on Earf. Welcome to Earf!

StreetCreditReport.com – A lot of places don’t consider this a film. Not joking, one place said: “This list would most definitely be topped by ‘Meet The Spartans’, ‘Superhero Movie’ and ‘Disaster Movie’ but techniclly [sic] these aren’t films.” It does seem to be covered a bit by Disaster Movie which for whatever reason garners a lot more hatred and, somehow, came out in the same year.

And no homework, thank god, so I’ll leave it there.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Assassin’s Creed Recap

Jamie

Cal is a killer given a new lease on life by a company claiming to look for a cure for violence. Through the use of technology his consciousness is transported into the mind of his ancestor in order to find the powerful Apple of Eden. Can he prevent the Apple from falling into the wrong hands before it’s too late? Find out in… Assassin’s Creed.

What?! The Assassin’s Brotherhood is a group sworn to protect the world from the Templars. During the Spanish Inquisition this entails preventing them from recovering what is known as the Apple of Eden, a MacGuffin… I mean, sphere that contains the key to destroying free will and thus subjugating the human race (rad, right?). Cal is descended from these assassins and is rescued from execution by a group called Abstergo in order to find the Apple (extra cool beans). They hook him up to the Animus machine that taps into his assassin genes and relive scenes from his ancestors past (real cool stuff, believe you me). While he struggles with whether to help his captors for the promise of freedom, knowing that they might be evil, he eventually succumbs when it’s revealed that his father, who he witnessed kill his mother, is also held by Abstergo and is an assassin. He’s like “I learned it from you, dad!” and out of spite helps Abstergo discover that the Apple was hidden by none other than Christopher Columbus (badass). They then get the apple and Cal is like “oops, my bad” and quickly turns around and kills the main bad guy and recovers the apple like no big deal (cause he’s a rad, cool, badass assassin destined for several sequels). We then have 15 minutes of credits… not joking, they are actually 15 minutes long. THE END.

Why?! Cal witnessed the murder of his mother by his father as a child and grew up to be a killer himself. So his motivation for much of the movie is to be free so that he might escape what he perceives as cursed genes. This freedom will be granted only if he can deliver the Apple of Eden to Abstergo Industries, so that is what he does. Eventually when he realizes that the Apple of Eden is a MacGuffin that will allow for the Templars to control the world he changes his tune and works against them. That’s the beauty of a MacGuffin. EVERYONE must have it. NO ONE can resist.

What?! This is a truly primo MacGuffin with the Apple of Eden. I mean, it is a total mystery as to what it is, but we do know that the most powerful organization in the world would do anything to get their hands on. To me it sounded like it contained the key to discovering the genetic source to violence in humans (which also is genetically what gives us free will). However, in the video game it sounds more like a piece of the Garden of Eden, which… like… zombifies humans because of the power it holds… or something. It’s hard to explain.

Who?! We get an In Memory Of to Eli Richbourg. He was the VP of Film Development for UbiSoft and was involved in the Assassin’s Creed development. Interestingly he died in 2013 of a brain aneurysm, which gives you a sense of how long the film was in development at UbiSoft.

Where?! It is a very nice Spain movie with settings in both Madrid and Granada. Kinda jumps through hoops to make sure you understand that’s where they are in both the present and past when they very easily could have just obscured it in the beginning. Nope. Very clear and vital to much of the plot. A.

When?! We get an exact date announced for Cal’s date of execution: October 21st, 2016. While this date is not particularly important for the main storyline, the year in the past is 1492. Bet you can’t tell who plays a prominent role in the finale… spoiler alert he directed Home Alone. I say this combines to form a solid A-.

When I started this film I was getting real Transformers vibes. Not the later ones, but the first one and I had a moment where I thought, “wait, could I actually like this?” And then that all fell apart and the movie was straight garbage. It spends way too much time in the present and not enough time in the past and even when they would show you the past you knew it was useless because they more or less told you that Cal couldn’t change anything of the events. So it was like watching someone else watch a movie… cool. This all led to a ridiculously anticlimactic finale that might as well have just had Cal stand in front of the screen and say “I know this is lame, but just you wait for the sequel.” It was terrible… like really, really bad. Although it was pretty at times. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Assassin’s Creed? More like Assassin’s Crud amirite? Ubisoft thought they could make a movie (how hard could it be?) … turns out they were wrong. Let’s get into it!

The Good – The acting. Fassbender, Cotillard, and Irons all did a great job all things considered. There is something to the underlying story, although it is definitely a video game story through and through, but it is interesting in its own way. I could be beautiful at times, in the same way Warcraft was beautiful at times, although not as much as they seemed to think.

P’s View on the Preview – This film felt like it was going to be much better than the critics gave it credit for. I was convinced that I would watch it and think to myself “I guess at the time people just weren’t ready to give a silly movie a chance like they do comic book movies”. Compared to more recent mediocre responses to such films (Tomb Raider, and Rampage) this was completely destroyed in terms of reviews, and it seemed so unlikely that it was actually that bad.

The Bad – But it was. From the word go the direction was really just not where it needed to be. The story is silly, the acting is very serious, and the direction had to be able to tie those two pieces together … but instead we received bad looking crane shots with CGI dust inserted to obscure the vistas (I need me some goddamn vistas). The scenes in the past were mostly worthless as well. Oh and let’s go ahead an glorify Christopher Columbus, expert genocider and colossal garbage human to end the film … great idea.

Get Yo Rant On – I feel like I’m slowly honing on in my structure much like how Jamie ended up with the 6Ws. Here I think the sklogcabulary quiz, sklogification, sklognalysis will kind of live under the guise of me getting my rant on. We all got to vent. We know that because Bud Light told us so via the 8th wonder of the modern world: the vented beer can. Ahem … You know what I can live with? A terribly contrived and rushed plotline that seems to occur in say … three days. But there is one thing I don’t abide … fake anti-heros (coining it now as the Semi-Hero, Sklogcabulary Quiz mid-rant). Have some balls and make a real anti-hero. Cal is a murderer, great start. But wait! He killed a pimp. Aw guys, it was just a pimp. Wait a tick … why does that matter? Are we supposed to think you are some vigilante hero because you killed a pimp? Give me a break. He has the blood of assassins, he doesn’t need to have some heart of gold so we can root for him. It’s called an anti-hero, not an anti-but-depending-on-how-you-feel-about-vigilante-justice-maybe-a-regular-hero, rant over!

The BMT – Lump it in with Warcraft as a failed video game adaptation of 2016 prior to what has become a kind of rise for the genre in 2018. Sure, Rampage is barely clinging to the somewhat embarrassing distinction of being the first video game film to ever get a 50% or above on Rotten Tomatoes (currently 98-98, exactly 50%), but that is much better than those the came before. Really depends on the director I think … and maybe whether Assassin’s Creed can hold onto that Map Street’s Map Alright! Spain spot.

Welcome to Earf: Assassin’s Creed stars Jeremy Irons who was in Dungeons & Dragons with Marlon Wayans who was in White Chicks with Terry Crews, who was in Blended with Adam Sandler, who was in Jack and Jill with Al Pacino, who was in 88 Minutes with Leelee Sobieski, who was in Here on Earf. Welcome to Earf!

StreetCreditReport.com – Here the film is hidden by two factors. First, it came out on Christmas day of 2016 which means it is somewhat unlikely to make worst of 2016 or 2017 lists, and thus kind of misses out. Second, it tends to be passed over by Warcraft which came out the same year. Critics seemed to not want to throw two video game adaptations in the mix. I don’t think it’ll ever get play though, eventually I think Assassin’s Creed will end up with the (somewhat undeserved) distinction of ushering in a close-and-faithful “realistic” video game film, and could be a pre-Tomb Raider footnote … just feels like it.

I have never played any of these games, but maybe now I will. After a crazy April I’m going to start taking stock of the upcoming movies so I can start doing more of the homework. It feels like I’m letting people down here.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs