BREAKING IN REVIEW

At one point in the movie Breaking In, a clip is shown of an old Woody Woodpecker cartoon.  It is the gag in which the guy is trying to saw down the tree that Woody is in, but Woody bends his saw around and he ends up sawing off his own ladder.  It is ironic that this was the clip the filmmakers chose to show. 

Breaking In stars Gabrielle Union as Shaun Russell, a mother of two who is returning to her childhood home to deal with her estranged fathers estate upon his death.  It becomes clear very quickly that her father was involved in some shady business.  It shouldn't come as too big of a shock then when a group of men show up to steal some money that is hidden inside the house. 

The movie appears to want to be taken seriously as an intense home invasion thriller.  However, the group of villains it features are so zany that it may as well have been Harry and Marv from Home Alone.  It is amazing how much has to go wrong to make this plot even begin to feel plausible.  The bad guys are quickly reduced to a generic group of bumbling idiots that wouldn't be capable of successfully robbing a liquor store.  At a key point in the film something so ridiculous happens that the movie's title should have been changed from Breaking In to Walking In.  I would like to say more about that, but in the interest of staying spoiler-free I won't.

Gabrielle Union's performance is pretty good.  That may have been as close to a high spot as this movie has.  The problem is that the dialogue is so bad that it really doesn't matter. Billy Burke plays the main villain, the only one that appears as though he may possibly be at least somewhat competent.  His one note performance becomes annoying really fast and the dialogue didn't do him any favors either.  At certain points he seems to be narrating the movie more than starring in it with all the pointless exposition he was having to deliver. 

The film is beyond the pale when it comes to believability, or lack there of.  I get that it is a movie and some suspension of disbelief is perfectly acceptable.  That being said, this film goes way beyond that point.  Apparently if you are a mom you can just instantly become John McClain.  I wasn't aware of that phenomenon.  The movie could have at least tried to explain how Shaun was able to do some of these incredible things under such duress, but it doesn't even try to do that. 

At one point, the main characters make a decision that is actually pretty smart and the movie almost becomes something like a cheap knockoff of Panic Room, which would have been a vast improvement.  However, they went through that part too fast, instead of trying to build any real tension, racing to an ending that was, much like the rest of the film, totally ridiculous. 

We all know what this movie is.  It is a blatant political statement.  I normally wouldn't even bother to address this type of thing but I feel like I have to here.  The whole point of the film was to show how worthless men are and how inversely awesome women are.  Now, nobody has more respect for women than me, but by making this thing so over the top and silly, the movie defeats it's own purpose.  Or, shall we say, it cuts off it's own ladder.  Bottom line; Breaking In is trash.  It is the worst kind of trash in my opinion and the fact that it exists puts a blight on the entire film industry.  THE MOVIE MAN GIVES IT 0 OUT OF 5 STARS. 

BLOCKERS REVIEW

American Pie with girls.  That's pretty much what Blockers is.  Except this time we are bringing the parents along for the ride too as they attempt to stop their teenage daughters from doing what they are planning to do and, as we all know, that never ends well.  This film is definitely not breaking any new ground, but that's ok as long as it is executed well and gives us a few good laughs. 

I have to commend the cast of this film.  I mean the entire cast.  The acting was so good from top to bottom that I didn't even notice it while I was watching the movie.  It didn't feel like I was watching actors.  Everybody had such great chemistry with each other that they made the characters feel like real life people.  That is impressive, especially in a film like this that puts the characters in so many ridiculous scenarios.  John Cena was the worst actor in this movie.  That's not to say he was bad.  In fact, I thought the role of the overprotective dad was perfect for him and he was quiet adequate to say the least.  Leslie Mann is a national treasure as far as I'm concerned.  She never gets a lot of credit; never is considered the star of the film.  She is just an actress who is consistently good at her job no matter what she is asked to do.  This performance is no different.  The standout here is Ike Barinholtz (Suicide Squad, The Mindy Project).  All of his jokes hit and his character was the only one in the movie that actually had any kind of an arc.  The three young actresses, Kathryn Newton (Lady Bird), Gideon Adlon, and Geraldine Viswanathan (EMO the Musical), all did a really good job in the film.  I wasn't familiar with any of them but I think they could all have a pretty bright future. 

The problem I had with the movie is that there are several scenes that seemed really out of place.  There are some ridiculous jokes that don't seem to fit with the tone they were going for.  If they wanted to go all out ridiculous goofy comedy they should have gone that direction and had less of the real-life, grounded drama.  They needed to commit one way or the other.  Pick a lane.  As it was, I was confused a lot of the time about what type of movie I was watching.  All the scenes and jokes that felt out of place kept me from getting as invested in the characters as I should have been. 

If you're looking for pure laughs, this movie is going to work for you I believe.  It seemed that the first act was a little slow with some of the jokes not really working all that well.  However, when the second act begins the movie really picks up and there is some very funny and genuine humor from there on out.  As I said before, some of the jokes were too ridiculous for my taste but, even so, were well executed and it was hard not to laugh. 

Blockers is not the next ground breaking comedy of our time or anything, but it is far from a terrible movie.  I certainly had an enjoyable experience watching this film and the more I think about it, the more I think I liked it.  It has a few problems but the acting was all really good and most of the jokes were funny.  That's about the best I could have asked for out of this.  THE MOVIE MAN GIVES IT 2.5 OUT OF 5 STARS.

TRUTH OR DARE REVIEW

There are some movies that you go into and you just kind of know what you are going to get from it.  I don't like to have a lot of expectations going into a film, good or bad, but experience and human nature sometimes leaves me no choice.  Such was the case with Truth or Dare.  I didn't expect a lot, obviously, but what I hoped I would get from this was a decent and fun guilty pleasure type of film.

 

Truth or dare is pretty much your typical college student horror movie fare.  A group of friends get drunk.  They play truth or dare.  The game turns out to be cursed.  You know the drill. 

This movie turned out to be pretty entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons.  It is the finest example of unintentional hilarity that I have seen in quite some time.  The jump scares come early and often.  You know they are going to be part of a movie like this going into it.  They get them out of the way for the most part, then you are free to laugh hysterically at the rest of the movie, which I did. 

The first thing I have to address is the face,  You know what face I'm talking about if you have seen any trailers for this movie.  I don't know who thought that was going to be scary but they missed on that one.  I would call the curse in this film the Joker curse because it makes the characters make that Joker face.  All through the movie I anticipated the next person to get hit by the Joker curse because IT WAS SO FUNNY.  The curse never let me down.  It seemed to get funnier and more bizarre as the movie went on. 

One thing that was annoying (but also funny) in this film was the way the rules of the curse kept changing.  It was honestly like the writers realized what they were doing wasn't going to work for some reason or another so they just decided to abruptly change it.  It was very unapologetic too, like the characters would actually just come out and say something like, "Oh yeah, the rules are such-and-such now.  It was absurd. 

One thing I hate about these type of movies, and this one was probably the worst I have seen, is the very lazy way they have of using Google to get all the exposition across to the audience.  I can't think of a more boring way to divulge important plot elements than to watch it come up on somebody's computer screen.  Also, they always come across the exact right thing so easy.  The characters will just type in two or three words and the very first story will be the one that pertains to their situation.  Google has never been that easy for me. 

None of this movie made a lot of sense, but the ending was on another level.  It was such a convoluted mess that I had no idea what was going on and I don't think the filmmakers or actors did either.  Then, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, they straight up ripped off the ending of The Ring. 

Truth or Dare is the perfect example of what I mean when I say that just because a movie is entertaining doesn't necessarily mean it was good.  I had a lot of fun watching this and I half way would recommend it, but none of that is for any of the reasons the filmmakers intended.   Truth or Dare is a bad movie.  It's a fun bad movie, but a bad movie all the same.  THE MOVIE MAN GIVES IT 1.5 OUT OF 5 STARS.