Kin falls short of matching its ambitions

Myles Truitt in Kin. Image courtesy Lionsgate.

Kin has a scattered mind. The movie has a lot of ideas skittering around, topics it addresses fleetingly or inconsistently. There are plots and themes aplenty, but no vision for how to tell the story, nor a simple direction for the plot to go. That's the problem with a scattered mind; it goes all over the place without completing a single thought.

Kin has a lot it could be about. It's about a 14-year-old outcast named Eli (Myles Truitt) who stumbles upon alien technology. It's about his older brother and ex-con Jimmy (Jack Reynor) doing his best to evade the consequences of his action. It's about a single father (Dennis Quaid) doing the best he can to raise his sons. It's about the roaming exotic dancer Milly (Zoë Kravitz) learning to trust again. It's about psychotic gangster Taylor (James Franco) hellbent on revenge for his own fallen kin. It's about the destruction of a city. It's about bonding with family on the road. It's about the lies we tell to keep going in life. It's about bonding on the road. It's about doing the right thing when the opportunity arises to do it. It's about protecting one's family from their own worst habits. It's about getting lost in youth and growing up. It’s about how time on the road can bring people closer together. But Kin feels incomplete despite touching on so many themes. Because the movie can't commit to any of these stories and themes to tell a clean, coherent story or have a consistent narrative thread. It's shotgun art, the paint shot against the wall to create something resembling art, but instead coming out as splattered gunk in which brilliance is seen with the head tilted at the right angle and the eyes squinted just enough.

The fault lies with filmmakers Jonathan and Josh Baker, who adapted their short film Bag Man into this feature length flick. From watching the short, it's clear the Bakers couldn't come up with a clean method to translate a simple, direct 12-minute film into the 102 minute mess they came up with. The problem goes beyond the push to incorporate as many ideas as possible into the film to include the simple execution of their stories. Kin has one of the most egregious idiot plots in recent film history, in which a 14-year-old boy is duped into believing a whopper of a lie without questioning the motivation. Despite the circumstances that incite the lie, Eli's clear understanding of the people around him, and the illogical nature of sudden road trips, Eli never digs into Jimmy why they’re going on their trip. The reveal for Eli comes through in a clunky, awkward fashion that reinforces just how gullible Eli has been for almost two-thirds of the movie. There's no good reason for why the Bakers opted to make their central character so remarkably dim, but it ends up making him an uninteresting character, and it gives Truitt almost nothing to work with to build his character.

Then again, few characters in this film are allowed moments of depth or interest. Milly exists because the Bakers needed a woman in the narrative; she's not allowed to do anything noteworthy. Jimmy is selfish and stupid, hiding information from his brother for reasons that never make a lot of sense. Franco's character is designed to be weird and uncomfortable, a role he has succeeded at in the past. Yet Franco doesn't go far enough with the material he has, restraining himself from dipping into the madness the character justly deserves, and giving the movie the cartoonish villain it drastically needs to stave off the encroaching sense of boredom that hits after the first act.

By default some of this has to work. The first few moments of Eli navigating through a broken Detroit alone is graceful, and there are elements of the road trip between Eli and Jimmy that have a quiet charm to them. Kin does a decent enough job using montages to show the relationship between the strained siblings growing, eliding over unnecessary dialog. At least, it does with this story, because there is still plenty of fat dialog spreading all over the place, especially in the big, useless twist at the end telegraphed poorly by the Bakers. Kin offered the Bakers a chance to build a nice little universe, but they just don’t know how to use their space efficiently.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 102 minutes

Genre: Sci-Fi

tl;dr

What Worked: The small moments on the road, the first shots of Eli

What Fell Short: The story, acting, premise, and James Franco

What To Watch As Well: Attack the Block, Chronicle, Spring Breakers

The Meg is boldly stupid

A giant shark cruises through the buffet in The Meg. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The Meg is big, brash, and tremendously inane. It’s uninterested in the nuances of good storytelling or concepts of logic in its plot, and it shows a blatant disregard for character development. This movie is audacious in its stupidity, and comes pretty close to being outstanding because of it.

 

The concept driving The Meg is pretty simple. It's an enormous shark (the eponymous Megalodon) trying to eat Jason Statham, as Jason Statham tries not to be eaten. That Jason Statham is not eaten immediately is impressive considering how often he offers himself up as a snack, but he does put up a valiant fight against the Meg. Fortunately for the shark, Statham has a lot of friends (Bingbing Li, Sophia Cai, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Masi Oka) to nibble on as it chases after Statham; some are munched, while others watch their friends get chomped. It all builds up to a climax where Statham tries to go Ahab on the shark, which is very much as nature plans when it introduces a giant shark and Jason Statham to each other.

Technically there is more to the plot than Statham vs. enormous eating machine, but it's clear The Meg doesn't care how the man fought the shark. How the shark came to be in the first place is an example of science as magic, because throwing a chart on a computer and saying a shark escaped is just enough to keep the story going. Statham has a dark past with the shark, for reasons that don't make sense even in the film's universe. The romantic subplot between Statham and Li exists because it apparently needs to exist, even though the movie tosses in an ex-wife subplot with McNamee that ultimately means nothing to the plot. Rose’s character is a master of technology and hacking, which is easy to tell because her name is Jaxx. Wilson is a billionaire who makes terrible decisions, because it apparently takes a special kind of dumb to become that rich.

 

What all of these components have in common is a lack of originality. The Meg leans so heavily on numerous tropes it almost breaks the crutch. Point after point after point after point has been done in a far better fashion before. Even the film's shocks and scares have been done so often there's little surprise when the shark just pops out and starts nibbling on people. The filmmakers play it up a lot, showing characters tempting fate more and more and building up to the point when, finally, the shark comes around to start eating some fools. Director Jon Turteltaub is no Spielberg when it comes to building drama and emphasizing fear; if there is an occasion for the shark to come around, it will come around to bite a person or two in half as quickly as possible.

That would be a demerit for almost every other movie, yet it works for The Meg. Because The Meg is first and foremost about the shark, and investing too much time into things unrelated to the shark is inefficient and reduces the shark to screen ratio. There is a point to having an otherwise uninteresting movie, which is to showcase the eponymous prehistoric creature and watch as it invades a popular beach, gobbling up everyone in sight. And it's the simplicity of the delivery that makes the movie fun. There are no lessons to be learned from this movie, no great speeches to be had nor points about society and nature worth learning. Audiences want to see a giant shark attack Jason Statham, and the audience sees a giant shark attack Jason Statham. Where this movie fails as cinema it succeeds at spectacle and economics. 

 

Because of that, The Meg plays a dangerous game. The line between good dumb fun and bad dumb fun is super thin and easy to cross, a fate that has befallen similar movies like Snakes on a Plane and Sharknado. There are certain slower points, when the focus on the shark starts drifting away, where the film's numerous flaws become an actual problem. The movie ultimately rights itself though, reverting the viewer's attention back to Statham as he fights against the shark again. Watching Jason Statham fight a shark is not good cinema, but it makes for a fun enough matinee trip.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

 

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 113 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: The giant shark, Jason Statham

What Fell Short: Less than spectacular special effects, basic filmmaking

What To Watch As Well: Deep Blue Sea, Orca, Piranha

Christopher Robin short on plot, long on feels

Piglet, Pooh, Rabbit, Roo, Kanga, Tigger, and Eeyore in Christopher Robin. Image courtesy Disney

Christopher Robin never gets around to justifying its existence. From the outset, there was not a notable or interesting reason to revisit the titular boy after his adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh and friends concluded. He is defined by the innocence of his childhood and the curiosity that comes with it, as shown through his admittedly odd collection of anthropomorphic friends, and an adult version removes the childhood wonderment. As a result, the movie is pretty unexceptional, a term that is part insult and part compliment for a franchise in which the greatest adventures lie in the quotidian Ultimately, the disappointments of the movie's story are more than compensated for by the tale of friendship and the congenial tone that results in many smiles upon one's face.

Ewan McGregor stars as the eponymous character, now somewhere in his 30s and working as a bean counter at a luxury luggage company. He's dedicated to his job, much to the chagrin of his loyal wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). His plans for a weekend of rest and relaxation with his family are interrupted by a last-minute request by his boss Giles (Mark Gatiss) to shave 20 percent from the company's budget at the threat of losing his job. At the same time, Winnie-the-Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) has lost his friends Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo), Roo (Sara Sheen), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Owl (Toby Jones) and Rabbit (Peter Capaldi) somewhere in the Hundred Acre Wood. A cinematic act of fate brings Pooh and Christopher Robin together again, each the only one who can help the other find what they are looking for.

Christopher Robin quite often evokes the best of the Winnie the Pooh franchise. Aside from Tigger's hyperactivity, the film's tone is calm and genial, focused on small moments and the profundity found within them. A simple party is a treasure, an event to be luxuriated in because of the company you're with and the memories that stay thereafter. There are few moments in life as pleasant as spending time with some very good friends, even if the occasion is a long goodbye. The themes of friendship in Christopher Robin ring very true. There's little to no sappiness or faux endearment in this movie; the fondness the characters have for one another are genuine and sweet. The room gets a little dusty when Pooh holds Piglet's hand, reassuring the scared creature that he is always needed. And even after 90-plus years of existence, Christopher Robin's friends remain as charming as ever. Piglet, Pooh, Eeyore (the film's MVP), Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Rabbit are a great collection of characters, quirky enough to have unique personalities but with an underlying love for one another despite their differences. Tigger can be a bit much, but the film holds his appearances back to reduce the scenery chewing inherent to his character. Christopher Robin makes it simple to see why it would be so difficult for the eponymous character to have to say goodbye, and how happy he would be to say hello again when they re-enter his life. 

 

The tremendously shallow story is Christopher Robin undoing. A grown up Christopher Robin forgoing his love of doing nothing is a trite narrative, compounded by the work-obsessed father forgoing his child plot. Hook did this more than 20 years ago now, as have pretty much every movie in which a character tries to recapture their childhood. The cliché would work if the movie had something interesting to say about the situation, but the film follows the tropes without expanding on them, using them as a crutch instead of a launching pad to something interesting. The pacing doesn't help this as well; the film spends so much time establishing Christopher Robin as a numbers-obsessed workaholic the inevitable dive back into pleasant times is rushed and unfulfilling.

That Christopher Robin focuses on Christopher Robin is to be expected. That the female characters are relegated as plot devices instead of people is disappointing. Despite her best efforts, Atwell's entire purpose in this movie is to chastise Christopher Robin for losing his laughter and lust for life, and there is little an actress can do with such a limited role. Carmichael's Madeline should at least serve as a mirror for Christopher Robin, but the film can only hint at the parallel without going into it because it allocates most of its time to Christopher Robin’s self discovery. Madeline is the great lost opportunity for this movie, the character who very well should be in the spotlight as much as Christopher Robin, if not more so.

There really isn't a great reason to see what happens to Christopher Robin as an adult. Christopher Robin doesn't provide the narrative justification for jumping ahead 30-odd years in his life, and the adventures Pooh and his friends have in this film does nothing to advance them as characters. Yet the film’s charm and goodwill override the lack of necessity. Sometimes, it's just nice to see some old, dear friends again.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG

Run time: 104 minutes

Genre: Family

tl;dr

What Worked: Brad Garrett as Eeyore, Jim Cummings as Pooh, the genial tone

What Fell Short: Narrative laziness, tropes

What To Watch As Well: Pete's Dragon, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Absurdity rules in Teen Titans Go! movie

Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Starfire, and Raven in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Everything about Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a lark. Almost nothing is designed to be taken seriously, especially the titular collection of lackluster, premature superheroes whose fascination with waffles greatly outweighs their ability to fight crime. They are ridiculous, and their hero’s journey ends with them embracing their ridiculousness. Yet a serious movie about their adventures would be a little too in line with the current D.C. Universe ethos; to be interesting and unique in a franchise overrun by dour heroes, it takes a little madness and a whole lot of disinterest in following the established playbook. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies may be a lark, but it's a necessary and surprisingly fun lark.

 

It's wholly appropriate for this movie to kick off with Daffy Duck going bonkers ahead of the title screen. The film, like the show that inspired it, thrives on absurd lunacy. It's an odd movie, littered with fart jokes, butt jokes, deep cut comic references, and asides that lead to asides that ultimately go nowhere. The eponymous Teen Titans, Robin (Scott Menville), Raven (Tara Strong), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Starfire (Hynden Walch) and Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), are heroic infrequently, yet take great pride in their ability to thwart crime in spite of themselves. They spend the lion share of the movie trying to get director Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell) to make a movie about them, because a movie would solidify their status as heroes, and because the medium is the message. Their sole motivation for acquiring a nemesis, the hypnotic Slade (Will Arnett), is to land a film contract. The entire plot of this movie hinges on making a movie, which is supremely meta. 

 

Then again, given the source material, the decision makes a fair amount of sense. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies has a lot of fun with its premise, lacing joke after joke making fun of D.C., Marvel, Stan Lee, and every other superhero related topic under the sun. The fart jokes, random references to waffles, and extended dance scenes round out the humor for the target young audience, but the soul of this movie belongs to parody and chaos and nerdiness. No superhero topic is out of bounds to go after, no Deadpool vs. Deathstroke argument too obscure to elaborate and ultimately argue about. The movie veers for the sake of veering, dipping through topic after topic, and musical number after musical number, as it runs through the tiny amount of plot it has designed for itself.

 

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies both benefits from and is diminished a wandering plot. Having little story to work from results in some occasionally inspired lunacy, including peculiar but well done homages to Disney franchises and other popular animated programs, as well as a whole time travel subplot that ultimately makes zero difference to the story. In most movies, time travel is a central focus of the plot. In this movie it's a method for some joke delivery and parody, and then immediately undone once the logical conclusion of the activity comes to fruition. It does not matter at all to the story; it happens, and then it unhappens to the point where it doesn't matter, and that's essentially the overarching joke and the sole purpose for doing it.

 

And yet, there are times when some consistent narrative thread would be of use. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies has a shaggy vibe, influenced heavily by the 11-minute episodes that came before. The need to pad out the run time (which hovers around the 90-minute mark) results in some serious drag. The movie never veers into boring, but it loses energy as it enters the third act and the wackiness is invaded by unfortunate clichés. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies could be more effective with 60 minutes of material instead of pushing to 90.

 

Less would be better than more for Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, but what is offered on screen is still pretty fun. It has a sly smile hiding under the shenanigans and periodic songs revealing how silly the whole superhero thing is. What is missing in substance is made up for in silliness and a disregard for the rules. It’s a ludicrous film made by people who know exactly how ludicrous their parody is and embrace the chaos they create.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

 

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG

Run time: 93 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: The humor, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, absurdism

What Sucked: The very thin plot

Watch As Well: Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go!, The Lego Movie

Johnson's charisma can't save faulty Skyscraper

Dwayne Johnson in Skyscraper. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Being a Dwayne Johnson fan can be a painful experience. For every Moana and his regular appearances in the Fast and the Furious franchise, there’s something dreadful waiting. Walking Tall, San Andreas, Be Cool. Nary a one of those films is good, but they are at least mildly entertaining because of the well-documented charm of Dwayne Johnson, the only actor who regularly turns awful into mildly entertaining. It's as if he's on a quest to take roles in as many half-baked or completely asinine films as he can and see just how far audiences will follow him. His journey through the cinematic minefield has taken him to Skyscraper, yet another movie best described by the phrase “the Rock makes it watchable.” 

 

Skyscraper isn't the worst material Johnson has ever taken on. He stars as former FBI agent Will Sawyer, who gets wrapped up in a terrorist plot involving the billionaire owner Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) of the largest, most technologically marvelous building in the world. Ji is the target of a terrorist attack coordinated by Kores Botha (Roland Møller), and Will's wife (Neve Campbell) and children (McKenna Roberts and Noah Cottrell) are stuck in the middle of everything. Naturally, it becomes Will's job to stop the terrorists and save his family from the danger he accidentally got them into. Nothing in the aforementioned premise is overly exciting or new; this is a Die Hard rehash, transplanted from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and exchanging German terrorists for more diverse terrorists to soak in some of that sweet, sweet, foreign box office cash. Despite the tired concept, the premise has enough room for writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber to navigate a fun, nifty little action flick. 

 

The opening scene hints that Thurber has something more in mind for Skyscraper. It's a clever set up, starting with the peaceful snowfall and showing a small house in the middle of the woods before panning back to reveal a dangerous situation. Thurber does an excellent job showing the danger of the situation, emphasizing that things are not quite as they seem. It's an ambitious opening scene that results in a captivating opening sequence that, in a good movie, would link directly to the events of the rest of the film. Instead, it appears Thurber used up his best ideas for Skyscraper in the first five minutes. The nuanced storytelling shown in the opening is tossed in the very next scene, thanks to a torrent of exposition. Even the themes that could be carried from the opening are largely abandoned, revisited visually during the inevitable showdown between Will and Kores but not thematically or emotionally. An opening as good as this movie has should infect the rest of the film to provide some connection to the experience for the character, who undergoes a massive amount of emotional trauma that isn't revisited. 

 

Like the eponymous building, Skyscraper becomes big for the sake of being big, sacrificing storytelling and aesthetics so it can resemble a summer blockbuster. A boring, often incompetent blockbuster to boot. A lot of it is tied to some poor filmmaking choices from Thurber, for example his decision to explore the area outside the building instead of staying inside. What's lost is the paradoxical claustrophobia the setting should invoke, as a place as large as the eponymous building should both welcome and trap its occupants. Once Thurber ventures outside the mystique is lost, and the building is never utilized as an inescapable setting.

Skyscraper is influenced heavily by Die Hard and old school disaster movies, although the combination of the two in this movie is shockingly dull. The action scenes, often stolen from better films like Enter the Dragon are clichéd and unimaginative. An overarching sense of fun is lost because the movie plays it very straight, limiting the hints of tackiness that make the disaster movies sort of fun to watch. Even Johnson is restrained, limited in the number of little winks he gives to the audience to remind them he’s here to ensure they have a good time. The filmmaking isn't strong enough to maintain a serious tone, and a less rambunctious Dwayne Johnson is simply a waste of a movie star and his magnificent talent.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 102 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: Dwayne Johnson, the opening scene

What Sucked: The rest of the story, the dialog, the special effects

Watch Instead: Die Hard, The Poseidon Adventure, Southland Tales