Movie Review - Spy

Spy (2015)

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, and Jude Law

Directed by Paul Feig

Lately, Melissa McCarthy's comedic ventures have been weak, attempting to recapture the brash persona that brought her an Oscar nomination for Bridesmaids, but only feeling like cheap carbon copies.  Fortunately, Spy changes things around a little bit as McCarthy stars as Susan Cooper, a rather humble CIA agent who spends her day behind a desk helping the dashing and debonair field agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law).  During a mission in which Fine is raiding the home of Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), a nasty criminal who perhaps knows the location of a nuclear bomb, Rayna shoots Fine dead, but not before stating that she knows the names and identities of many CIA field agents and will kill them just like she did Fine if they try and hunt her down.  With the knowledge that many of their agents may now be compromised, CIA director Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney) agrees to send Susan undercover to try and get information about Rayna and the location of the nuke.  Needless to say, the somewhat timid Susan finds herself needing to showcase her strength and machismo as she tries to take down Rayna.

McCarthy is certainly more of an actress than just her admittedly hilarious Bridesmaids character and I am more than pleased that the comedienne is able to show a different set of comedic chops in Spy.  Here, she's absolutely charming to watch onscreen and more than holds the audience's attention.  I can only hope that this type of character finds her more in the future.  Pairing McCarthy with the hardened Jason Statham as a CIA agent angered that Cooper is out in the field provides many a humorous moment as does McCarthy's repartee with the evilly snarky Rose Byrne who continues to showcase her talent in the comedy world.

I laughed out loud quite a bit during Spy, but the film doesn't quite find the balance in terms of teaming comedy with action.  I enjoyed the flick, but there are certainly more than a few dull moments that do little to move the story forward or provide laughs or excitement.  I'd certainly be game for another go-around with the characters in the film so there's definitely something to be said for that.  With a bit more editing (as is needed in nearly all comedies that come out of today's cinematic landscape), Spy would've been the tauter flick it needed to be to really succeed.  As it stands now, it's a solid vehicle for Melissa McCarthy who's finally given a chance to shine after several years of shoddy films.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Homefront

Homefront (2013)

Starring Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, Rachelle Lefevre, and Izabella Vidovic

Directed by Gary Fleder

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I have no idea why I wanted to see Homefront upon its release last Thanksgiving, but for some reason of another, the trailer looked like it was for a film that may have recognized its cheesiness and played it up to provide a laughably humorous over-the-top revenge flick.  That wasn't the case at all.

I should've known to stop as soon as "Written by Sylvester Stallone" came up on the screen, but I trudged on despite my better judgment.  Jason Statham plays one of his interchangeable tough guys here -- this time he's Phil Broker, a former undercover cop who moves to a new town after his cover is blown following a successful drug bust in Shreveport, Louisiana.  During that drug bust, the son of the ringleader of the gang Phil was infiltrating is killed, setting the story up for REVENGE.  Jump to a few years later and Phil's daughter Maddy (Izabella Vidovic) gets into a fight on the school playground with a classmate.  Because only uncivilized hicks live in down south, this classmate's mother is a drug-addicted basket case named Cassie (Kate Bosworth) who wants Phil to pay for Maddy's indiscretions.  Phil and Maddy end up apologizing and assuaging the situation, but not before Cassie tells her brother Morgan (James Franco) to teach Phil a lesson.  Morgan (AKA "Gator" -- because...of course his nickname is Gator) sneaks into Phil's house and discovers that he was a former undercover cop.  It just so happens that Gator's girlfriend Sheryl (Winona Ryder) was good friends with the leader of that aforementioned drug deal gone bad.  Gator and Sheryl see this as an opportunity to help their burgeoning crystal meth business -- they'll reveal Phil's location to the drug clan leader in exchange for having full distribution rights for their crystal meth for their locale.

Of course, Phil being played by Jason Statham lets you know right away that Gator and his clan aren't going to win out, but, with this being a commercial film I wouldn't really expect anything less.  However, I did expect James Franco's Gator to at least be a bit more maniacal and enjoyable to watch.  Instead, we get a rather straightforward performance from a role that simply screams for overacting.  Sure, Winona Ryder and Kate Bosworth pick up the slack in that department -- and I say that without any criticism at all seeing how their roles called for it -- but Franco could've done so much more.  Jason Statham is like he is in every movie -- perfectly reliable and capable, but he's not given anything above and beyond what we've seen from him before.  Perhaps the biggest surprise in the acting department comes from young Izabella Vidovic (who is listed in the film's credits as this being her first big screen role, but she'd already had a feature credit to her name so...).  Much like everyone else in the film, Vidovic isn't given much to do, but she definitely held her own amidst the more seasoned actors with whom she shares the screen.

Ultimately, the fault of the film comes down to the script and the direction.  Stallone's dialogue, story, and character development are pretty awful -- Maddy's teacher (Rachelle Lefevre) is introduced as a potential love interest for Phil in the film's first half and then never makes another appearance.  Why throw that into the mix if you're not going to do anything with it?  Of course, Stallone may very well have written something and director Gary Fleder may have left it on the cutting room floor.  I'd have almost let that slide if Fleder had upped the "corny" factor several notches.  This film was screaming out for a director who realized the absurd humor in the story and Fleder does not bring that aspect to the table.  Instead, Homefront is played straightforward which lets its flaws shine right through.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - The Mechanic

The Mechanic (2011)

Starring Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Tony Goldwyn, and Donald Sutherland

Directed by Simon West

No one's ever going to say that The Mechanic is original (heck...it's a remake of a 1970s Charles Brosnan movie for starters), but I've got to say that this little flick is a solid one that, at under 90 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome, moves along at an incredibly brisk pace, and has some intense action sequences. 

The biggest problem with director Simon West's action flick is that he doesn't have much to work with from the screenplay.  We've essentially got the tale of hit man Arthur (Jason Statham playing the same tough guy role he always plays but somehow manages to not bore you regardless) who is told to murder his mentor Harry (Donald Sutherland) by his employer (Tony Goldwyn).  Although I won't spoil anything, you'd be crazy to not know what's going on here in terms of who the bad guy really is and, unfortunately, the screenplay doesn't do a good job of creating red herrings.  Needless to say (and this is perhaps a moderate spoiler, although it's revealed in the trailer), Arthur's mentor ends up dead and the tough guy finds himself becoming the teacher to Harry's son Steve (Ben Foster) who finds himself wanting to latch on to his father's line of work.  Together the duo continue to go from hit to hit eventually uncovering the truth behind Harry's murder, attempting to seek revenge on those who ordered it.

While the dry Jason Statham and the kooky Ben Foster and both fine and play quite well off of each other, the fact of the matter is that despite the short running time, there's very little story to latch onto in The Mechanic.  It's just hit after hit, target after target, and when you look at the grand scheme of things, none of it really matters.  These assassinations are just set-ups for some admittedly really great and exciting action scenes.  Still, despite the lack of story, somehow I was kind of blind to that in the midst of the film.  Only looking back on it now do I realize that the middle forty-five minutes of The Mechanic don't really matter in the slightest.  I guess that's a credit to the filmmakers and actors in that they really managed to dupe me into enjoying something I'm not sure I should have.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Gnomeo and Juliet

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

Featuring the voice talent of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, and Patrick Stewart 

Directed by Kelly Asbury

Romeo and Juliet is a story that has been told many times, and while it may never have been told through the eyes of stone garden gnomes, it certainly wasn't begging to be depicted in that capacity.  Gnomeo and Juliet is a film that simply doesn't work from a story perspective and it's pretty obvious why this flick which was formerly under the "Disney" banner went out under the company's "Touchstone" banner.  The animation folks at Disney knew it just didn't succeed.  [Of course, Disney released Mars Needs Moms under the Disney banner and that was an utter failure at the box office, so maybe they need to re-evaluate things in general.]

Saying that Gnomeo and Juliet doesn't work as a story isn't a knock against the source material.  At its core, the tale of star-crossed lovers pulled apart by their feuding families is successful.  However, taking this very adult story and trying to shoehorn it into a cutesy plot about garden gnomes for kids just doesn't fit.  When you take the family infighting of the Montagues and Capulets and simply turn things into Red Gnomes thinking they have a better garden than the Blue Gnomes, this becomes an animated film that may work fine for kids, but doesn't translate well in the least to adults.

The voice acting is lukewarm at best.  Although everyone was serviceable, James McAvoy and Emily Blunt didn't bring anything exciting or invigorating to the two title characters.  They were simply "Generic British Voices" thrust into the film.

The animation is fairly poor.  While a movie like Toy Story amazingly gave plasticized items a heart and soul, Gnomeo and Juliet doesn't even come close to creating life behind the stony eyes of its characters.  Sure, there were some cute moments, but nothing was really great to look at from a visual level.

When the best part of your film is trying to pick out what Elton John song variation is playing on the film's score ("Oooh, is that a bit of 'The Bitch Is Back?'"  "Hey, isn't that "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word?'"), you know your film's in trouble.  For some reason, Gnomeo and Juliet was a fairly successful venture in theaters, but it's quite a disappointment for anyone over the age of twelve.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - The Expendables

The Expendables (2010)

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Charisma Carpenter, and Mickey Rourke

Directed by Sylvester Stallone 

As a guy, it's probably sacrilege for me to say this, but The Expendables is awful.  Starring, directed, and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, there is not a decently shot, written, or acted scene in this dreadful muck.  Action movies should be fun.  This one, about a group of men ranging from middle age to old geezer who are sent forth on a mission to bring down some evil Latin American government, is a bore filled with excessive gore which, in and of itself, would be perfectly acceptable if the violence actually looked good as opposed to looking like it came from the designers of the latest SyFy movie.  There's nothing wrong with a good decapitation here or there, but make it look realistic.  Is that too much to ask?

Of course it's also too much to ask for these "big name action stars" to have any semblance of acting chops.  Stallone is awful.  Jet Li is one-note.  Dolph Lundgren is painful to listen to.  Mickey Rourke proves that his stellar turn in The Wrestler was just a fluke...I could go on and on.  Jason Statham is the only one who comes off as bringing anything to his character beyond the simple task of reading the horrible dialog.  And even he is saddled with a completely unnecessary subplot involving some chick who won't reciprocate his love.  When a cameo two-minute walk-on role from Bruce Willis is the best part of your movie, you know you're in trouble.

Honestly, there's nothing remotely recommendable in this movie.  It was really awful and well-deserved of its Razzie nominations.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Crank: High Voltage (2009)

***Updated the rating 1:00 4/17/09 and again on 9/16/09***

Starring Jason Statham and Amy Smart

Written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

"I'm gonna go floss my teeth with some pubes."

Seriously...that's a line from this flick. One would think that with a line like that, there's no way I could possibly like it. And you'd be right. Crank: High Voltage is a really awful movie. But it's also a movie that doesn't take itself the least bit seriously and is completely in on the joke. And because of that, it succeeds at simply being entertaining.

The story picks up immediately where the first Crank left off. Hit man Chev Chelios has fallen out of a helicopter, landed on a car, and survived. Immediately after landing, he is literally scraped off the ground with a shovel and taken to some Asian gang's headquarters where they remove his heart and replace it with an artificial one...for, you see, since Chev's heart could survive that fall, this Asian gang wants to place the heart in their 100 year-old leader. Well, Chev ain't too happy about this. He wants his heart back, but the problem is that the artificial heart only has enough battery power to last for an hour, so he needs to do whatever he can to give himself a shock and pump electricity into his body...whether that be tasering himself, grabbing high voltage wires, or having sex in public (you know, fornication is a haven for static electricity, of course). [Side Note: Why they needed this public sex scene is completely unknown to me. They do the exact same thing in the first movie...and the scene in this one literally feels like it goes on forever. Easily my least favorite scene in the movie because the writers definitely copped out by repeating something that was humorous the first time, but overkill the second.]

Now, if one were black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, or a woman, one would probably find this movie incredibly offensive...and I can't say they'd be wrong. Not falling into any of those categories, I couldn't help but laugh at every single thing onscreen. At first, you think, "Man, this movie is awful," but then about 30 minutes in, you realize that this movie wants to make you laugh. It's purpose is to be as ridiculous as possible (hence the fight scene where Chev and some other guy literally turn from humans into oversized, giant puppets and fight by picking up electrical towers and going Godzilla on each other).

It's like an 80-minute long Cartoon Network Adult Swim show. Super-crazy, making no sense whatsoever, but for some unknown reason, incredibly entertaining.

Is Crank: High Voltage a good movie? Not in the slightest. But I can't help but like it (at least, I think I can't help but like it).

The RyMickey Rating: B or D

(...Depending how I feel at the moment...I keep reading reviews and they describe scenes and I think, "Wow, that scene was awful.")

UPDATED RATING (9/16/09): B+