Spring 2024 Movie Roundup

It’s time for my spring movie review roundup for 2024!

As usual, everything is sorted from least liked to most liked. My opinions are in no way objective or qualified and are based solely on my own tastes and whether or not liked something.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (2010)

This is one of the very rare movies I didn’t finish. It was just too stupid. Like, sometimes if I don’t like a movie I’ll start playing Starfield or Skyrim something with the movie playing in the background, but HOT TUB TIME MACHINE was too stupid to merit even that treatment.

I don’t object to crude humor – indeed, much of the absurdity of the human condition comes from the various indignities to which human bodies are inherently subjected. There’s something both hilarious and egalitarian in the fact that an emperor and a peasant have to relieve themselves in the same way, and many jokes have made use of that truth.

You can get away with a lot of crudity if you’re actually funny, but the HOT TUB TIME MACHINE just threw crudeness on the screen in lieu of attempting humor. Besides, crude humor ultimately is to storytelling as garlic salt is to cooking – best used sparingly.

Anyway, the protagonists were all unlikeable, and I simply got annoyed enough with the movie that I gave up about forty minutes into it.

Overall grade: F

WISH (2023)

I liked the animation and the voice acting was good, but the movie just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Like, there’s this wizard-king, and people give him their wishes, but then they forget about what they wished for? And he does this to prevent civil unrest, or so he says. The protagonist gets made that the wizard-king isn’t handing out free stuff in a way that she likes, so she wishes really hard and then a magic star falls from the sky to help her. This upsets the wizard-king, so he switches from using Good Magic (which is apparently blue and sparkly) to Evil Magic, which is green and sparkly. Then everyone in the kingdom sings at the wizard-king until he turns into a mirror.

I have to admit that made even less sense as I typed it out. There are movies that don’t make a lot of sense but work because it’s like a dream or a magic trick, since the movie suspends the viewers’ disbelief during the tale, and it’s only afterward that you realize it didn’t make much sense, but it doesn’t matter because you were entertained.

Unfortunately, WISH doesn’t even make sense while you’re watching it.

And a malevolent wizard-king who hoards wishes sounds a lot like the Disney corporation. It would be hilarious if Disney made WISH as a parody of themselves, but I think that interpretation happened by accident.

Overall grade: C-, maybe D+

GREEN LANTERN (2011)

This turned up free on Tubi, so I gave it a watch.

It was interesting because all the pieces were there to make it a great movie – a strong cast with good performances, reasonable CG for 2011, and a potentially compelling plot. However, it didn’t really gel. I suspect Ryan Reynolds works better as a comic actor than a dramatic one. Additionally, the movie relied way to heavily on a lot of ponderous infodumping to explain the elaborate mythology of the Green Lantern Corps. The classic axiom of writing fiction is “show, don’t tell”, and since movies are a visual medium, it’s especially true for them. The problem was GREEN LANTERN spent a lot of its run time telling, but I suspect the studio didn’t want to take a lot of risks with a movie that cost $200 million to make. Additionally, it leaned a little too heavily into the CG.

Overall grade: C-

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022)

The Avatar films are visually beautiful, but they’re also profoundly misanthropic, with the sort of “it would be better if humans were all dead” strain of environmentalism. It’s also unfortunate how “living in harmony with nature” is presented as morally upright, because in Real Life, living with nature means dying before the age of thirty of sepsis, dysentery, various contagious diseases, endemic local warfare, and starvation, often all at the same time. Basically the history of civilization is five and a half thousand years of humanity trying to find ways to get screwed less by nature. Of course, then we’re getting into profound philosophical questions – do you believe humanity is made in in the image of God with a soul, or is humanity simply a particularly clever breed of destructive chimpanzee? One’s worldview will diverge profoundly based on the answer to that question.

Which, let’s be honest, is a rather deep philosophical/religious discussion for a movie about Blue Space Elves made by the director of TERMINATOR.

On the other hand, perhaps I’m overthinking it, and in the world of Avatar the Na’vi are Blue Space Elves and the humans are just Space Orcs.

Anyway! Philosophical questions aside, the movie is visually stunning, the apex of computer graphics. It’s what you get with a $400 million budget overseen by a perfectionist director who directed three of the top-four grossing movies of all time. The plot is a straight continuation of the previous movie – the humans have returned to reconquer Pandora, including a clone of the charismatic Colonel Quaritch from the first movie. It’s up to Jake Sully and his family to untie the squabbling Na’vi forest and water clans to fight off the invaders. Unlike the first movie, WAY OF WATER is not a self-contained story, but helps tee up the third movie, which is definitely happening since this one made like two and a half billion dollars.

I also admire James Cameron’s unswerving devotion to the Papyrus font even after two Saturday Night Live sketches about it.

Overall grade: B

THE CUTTING EDGE (1992)

I was told this is considered a classic in some corners, and since it was also free on Tubi, I decided to give it a watch.

It’s basically the ideal form of the very popular Enemies-To-Lovers Romance story trope. Olympic hockey player Doug suffers a head injury that damages his peripheral vision, which means he can’t play hockey any longer. Meanwhile, Kate is a spoiled and demanding figure skater who alienates every single potential partner, thereby ruining her chances of winning Olympic gold. Kate’s coach Anton, seeking out a partner willing to put up with Kate’s difficult personality, tracks down the desperate Doug and convinces him to give figure skating a try.

As you might expect, sparks and conflicts immediately fly when Doug and Kate meet, and they must learn to overcome their initial mutual dislike (and their obvious mutual attraction) to win the Olympics.

“Enemies To Lovers” romance tends to follow a specific story structure, and the movie nails it precisely. The actors all did a good job with their parts.

Fun fact: Anton was played by Roy Dotrice, who narrated the A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE audiobooks.

Even more fun fact: the movie was written by Tony Gilroy, who also wrote several of the Jason Bourne movies and created STAR WARS: ANDOR, which are about as tonally different from CUTTING EDGE as you can get.

Overall grade: B

GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE (2021)

After the 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS reboot didn’t work for a variety of reasons, it seems that Sony settled on a different tactic and instead decided to continue the original continuity with the new movies, which in my opinion was a smarter choice.

Single mom Callie is having a rough time with her teenage children Trevor and Phoebe. Callie is out of options when her estranged father dies and leaves her a farm on the outskirts of Summerville, Oklahoma. With no better options, Callie and the kids pick up and move to Summerville, and the bored Trevor and Phoebe begin poking into the relics of their grandfather’s life. However, it turns out that their grandfather was Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters, and he had moved to Summerville to keep an eye on a dangerous supernatural threat. With Egon dead, that threat is waking up once more, and it’s up to Phoebe and Trevor to finish their grandfather’s work and save the world.

This was a very well-constructed comedy/horror action thriller. Admittedly, it starts a bit slow in the same style as the original GHOSTBUSTERS movie from 1984, but overall it works – there’s a gradual sense that something is increasingly wrong in Summerville. Unlike GREEN LANTERN, this movie doesn’t do a lot of infodumping, but instead uses the much better storytelling technique of gradually revealing the worldbuilding as the kids start to investigate the mysteries around their family and their new town. Phoebe and Trevor had the right combination of teenage brat/curiosity, and Callie was believable as a single mom who had made some questionable life choices and was trying to hang on as best she could. Paul Rudd was also good as an incompetent summer school teacher/seismologist who has nonetheless figured out that something strange is happening in Summerville.

The movie leaned a little too hard into the nostalgia, but I liked it.

Overall grade: B+

THE SIGN OF FOUR (1987)

I finally had a chance to watch the Jeremy Brett version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure THE SIGN OF FOUR. Brett was, in my opinion, the best Sherlock Holmes actor of all the actors who have played versions of the character. Amusingly, I think he would have made a good Grand Admiral Thrawn, which is funny because one of the inspirations for Thrawn was of course Sherlock Holmes, but unfortunately Brett died two or three years before HEIR TO THE EMPIRE was even written.

Anyway, back to the main point. In THE SIGN OF FOUR, Miss Mary Morstan calls upon Holmes and Watson, asking for Holmes’s help in unraveling a strange mystery. Her father disappeared soon after returning to England from India, and once a year since then, she has received an extremely valuable pearl in the mail. Her mysterious benefactor wishes to meet her at last, and Morstan wants Holmes’s advice as to what she should do. Naturally, there’s quite a bit more going on beneath the surface, and Holmes soon finds himself investigating a case involving a pair of eccentric brothers, a one-legged man, a deadly assassin, and a treasure that seems cursed to bring misfortune to whoever obtains it.

All the performances were excellent, though given the state of 1980s sound technology, it’s definitely a good idea to watch it with the captions on. The only thing I didn’t like was that the adaptation removed the fact that Morstan and Watson get engaged at the end, but given that the actors wanted to deemphasize Holmes’s cocaine use (the original story has the famous line “for me, there still remains the cocaine bottle”) that’s probably why it was cut.

Overall grade: A-

And now for my favorite things from Spring 2023.

It came out to a three-way tie.

FALL GUY (2024)

I didn’t intend to go see this initially, but then I saw the hilarious Saturday Night Live opening Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling did together, and I decided to give it a shot.

This is a romantic comedy action thriller, and it nails all of those genres excellently.

The protagonist is a highly regarded film stuntman named Colt in love with an assistant director named Jody, but is seriously injured in an accident. In the aftermath of the accident, Colt abandons his career and breaks up with Jody. Eighteen months later, the producer of a big-budget scifi epic contacts Colt. It turns out that his ex is directing the movie and her career is riding on its success, so he goes to do the stunts for the movie. However, things soon take a turn for the worse when the movie’s egotistical lead actor disappears, and if Colt can’t find him in 48 hours, the studio will shut down the movie and destroy Jody’s career.

What follows is a romantic comedy that remains funny and turns into a pretty good thriller movie. The running joke about “seeing the unicorn” was great, and there’s a bit with Colt crying in his truck that becomes absolutely hilarious. Definitely recommended. It’s very regrettable that it apparently didn’t do well in theatres, but I predict it will have a long and vibrant life on streaming.

Overall grade: A

CLARKSON’S FARM SEASON 3

This show stumbled into a genius formula – display the extreme difficulties of modern farmer through the lens of an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist.

Like, Jeremy Clarkson is not a terribly sympathetic figure – he’s rich and unquestionably prone to quarreling. But by having him run his own farm and deal with all the many, many headaches of farming, he becomes a sympathetic figure because he suffers through the same things as every other farmer – failed crops, bad weather, badger-spread diseases, government red tape, and so on. And it also demonstrates how hard farming is – if Clarkson’s farm loses a lot of money, it doesn’t really matter to him because he can rely on his media career. But that isn’t true for most farmers, and Clarkson and the show go out of their way to point out this fact.

Anyway, if you’re not familiar with the show, in 2019 Jeremy Clarkson decided to run his farm himself rather than hiring a professional manager, and since he was under contract to produce a show for Amazon, he figured he could make a documentary and get paid for working on his farm. In the first season, Clarkson was shocked when his farm only brought in a profit of about $150 for the year, and in the second season, he battled local government to open a restaurant on his farm. In the third season, the theme continues – Clarkson attempts to raise pigs and find new ways of making revenue from the farm.

The show manages to be both entertaining and educational about the difficulties of farming at the same time. Definitely worth a watch!

Overall grade: A

DUNE: PART 2 (2024)

As a writer, I really, really hate to admit it, but I think DUNE Part 2 improves somewhat on the original book. This is rare, but it does happen – GOLDFINGER the movie is better than GOLDFINGER the book, since Auric Goldfinger’s plan makes much more sense in the movie than it does in the book, and the movie also adds James Bond’s climactic showdown with the deadly Oddjob. The GODFATHER movie is pretty close to the GODFATHER novel, but it does omit some needless subplots and is therefore tighter.

As a writer of novels, it pains me to admit it, but I think some of the changes to DUNE Part 2 are an improvement on the book. A bit tighter and less deux ex machina.

The novel DUNE, beyond all doubt, is a very weird book. It’s also very dense, with multiple interlocking themes. You can honestly say that DUNE is about ecology, religion, politics, declining empires, the cyclical nature of history, oil-based politics, social dynamics, and, of course, enormous quantities of mind-altering drugs. Any movie adaptation would probably have to take just one of those themes and lean hard into them, since there wouldn’t be enough time to address them all, and Denis Villeneuve chose to go with the mostly political themes.

Anyway, I think DUNE Parts 1 & 2 combined are probably the best possible adaptation that could be made of this seminal (but still very weird) science fiction book. Various parts from the novel have been omitted, altered, or emphasized, but that’s necessary in an adaptation. The trick is to do it in a way that preserves the spirit of the original work, and I think DUNE Parts 1 & 2 have done it well.

I think part of the problem with the 1984 version of DUNE was that the ending totally subverted the message of the book, which Frank Herbert himself said several times was “beware charismatic leaders.” DUNE Part 2 most definitely does not subvert the message of the book – indeed, Paul Atreides’s final line in the movie is downright chilling.

Part 2 picks up in the second half of the story, when Paul joins the Fremen, and embarks on his gradual transformation (or perhaps descent) from the son of a destroyed noble house to the blood-drenched warrior-prophet Muad’Dib. All the performances are good, the effects are excellent, the desert shots are sweeping, and you could tell Hans Zimmer and his team enjoyed cutting loose with the soundtrack.

Overall, I think DUNE parts 1 & 2 is probably the best possible adaptation of DUNE in movie form. Which was probably the other problem with DUNE 1984, since it was just one movie and DUNE Parts 1 & 2 required over five hours of very expensive big-budget movie to tell even an condensed adaptation of the complicated original book.

Overall grade: A

-JM