One Battle After Another (2025)

At the start of One Battle After Another, the main character, Pat (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), is shown helping to free immigrants from a detention centre. He is part of a revolutionary group, The French 75, but it's soon revealed that he became part of the cause because of his love for Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). The group make a powerful enemy in Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), but the Colonel also becomes immediately infatuated with Perfidia. Things go wrong, years pass by, and Pat is now going by the name of Bob, and is now raising his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti) as a single father. He's often busy drinking or smoking weed, and he's paranoid about the past catching up with him. Being paranoid doesn't mean he's wrong though. The past soon starts catching up with him, and Lockjaw uses all of the military resources at his disposal to target Willa.

Before I get into some of the substance of the film, I'll mention all of the main cast members. DiCaprio gives another performance that taps into his talent for comedy, although it's different from the comedy he's done in other movies from the past decade. He's a burnt-out loser, but he at least had one or two shining moments in his past. Infiniti is so great in her first film role that I wouldn't hesitate to call this a star-making turn. And as for Penn, he gives what could well be his best turn in a very long time, somehow making his character buffoon-ish, but also constantly dangerous and threatening. Taylor makes a hell of an impression in her role, as powerful and majestic as she needs to be, and there's also time for brilliant work from Regina Hall and Benicio del Toro, the latter a calm and smart operator nicely juxtaposed alongside the frantic shambling of DiCaprio.

The tenth narrative feature film from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, and his second developed (loosely?) from source material written by Thomas Pynchon, One Battle After Another shows a film-maker absolutely confident in his abilities to juggle tone, explore some interesting themes in complex ways, and deliver moments of cinematic joy. This is a long film, the runtime is 161 minutes, but anyone who finds it pressing the right buttons for them won't be bothered. In fact, I was happy to spend as much time as possible revelling in this mix of madness and mayhem.

Despite taking a hell of a long time to finally get to the screen, Anderson had wanted to make this for years, this is a film that feels very much of the here and now. It shows the huge divide between the strong and the vulnerable, shows the ripple effect emanating out from acts of political violence, and also takes time to show that those with the real power and money will ultimately do their utmost to seek ideals of racial purity that would be laughable if it wasn't so deadly. While Anderson appears to plant his own flag very much in territory that would try to fend off the likes of Lockjaw and co., he has both a protagonist and an antagonist who end up as extremists due to dishonest motivations. But whatever the reasons, when you make major decisions based on either love or hate then you have to deal with the repercussions of those decisions for the rest of your life. It's not enough to be an occasional tourist in the kind of lives that we're shown. Commitment is necessary, for better or worse.

Taking time to let us know all of the main players, and the stakes, Anderson then has fun with a premise that keeps the characters constantly on the move. Accompanied by another great Johnny Greenwood score, there's an ongoing pursuit of our addled hero, gorgeous Michael Bauman cinematography and camera moves that you'd expect (although it never feels as if it is calling attention to itself), and at least one cracking car chase sequence in the third act. I've seen many rush to praise Anderson for his ability to handle action though, and I would warn potential viewers not to expect too much. But when you do get some unadulterated adrenalin-pumping moments then, oh boy, it IS good stuff indeed.

The more I think about One Battle After Another, the more I am impressed that the end result feels so completely satisfying. This is a film that features both pratfalls and a sequence showing Americans being executed by military personnel, it has horrible racists shown to be as absurd as they are deadly, and it paints a bleak picture of modern American scenarios we can see unfolding on the news daily while somehow also pointing out the characters and tactics that should give us some optimism. 

I came away from this first viewing thinking that I really REALLY liked it, but didn't think it was quite the masterpiece some were already calling it. I'm already not so sure about that, and I can see myself considering this another slice of cinematic perfection from PTA whenever I get around to a rewatch, which I could happily indulge in right now. 

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Netflix And Chill: Me Time (2022)

A slick comedy star vehicle from John Hamburg, the director of Along Came Polly, I Love You, Man, Why Him?, and a few other projects (in film and TV), you will probably already know whether or not you want to watch Me Time when you see that it stars Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Hart. I wasn't exactly rushing to see it, but I am glad I did. It's silly, it's predictable, it allows Wahlberg and Hart to feel characters that are very much within the normal range of their performances, but it's also a decent bit of fun.

Hart plays Sonny Fisher, a loving and happy husband who loves organising everything for his kids (Dashiell, played by Che Tafari, and Ava, played by Amentii Sledge) while his successful wife (Maya, played by Regina Hall) keeps developing her career. It's time for Sonny to have some "me time" though, something his wife encourages when he is asked by his old friend, Huck (Wahlberg), to join him for a massive birthday celebration trip. I am sure you can pretty much write the rest of this. Sonny joins Huck, things get messy, and there are also some attempts by Huck and Sonny to recapture glorious moments from their youth.

I'm not sure if writer-director Hamburg actually put any thought into this, or whether he instead just fed some details into a program that auto-generates modern mainstream comedies. It feels like the latter, with the amusing set-pieces, the occasional gross (but very tame) moment, and a finale that feels rushed and unearned, but maybe that makes me an even bigger sucker for laughing as often as I did. I didn't laugh all the way through it, and I often rolled my eyes at the same time as I laughed, but the film basically worked on me in the way it was intended to.

Hart does what he usually does. He gets stressed out by things and rages ineffectively against them. Wahlberg is the one able to push him into action, and he does that by playing the standard Wahlberg character, one lacking any self-awareness or worries about the possibility of anything going wrong. Tafari and Sledge are both very good in their smaller roles, and I always like to see Hall onscreen, even if she's relegated to really just being "the wife" for this film. Andrew Santino is a lot of fun, playing another family man who goes from zero to one hundred as soon as he decides to join in with the partying, and Ilia Isorelýs Paulino steals a couple of scenes as a driver who ends up involved in a very fun set-piece about halfway through the movie. Jimmy O. Yang and Shira Gross are also fairly amusing, and there's a fun celebrity cameo to enjoy, as well as very small roles for John Amos, Anna Maria Horsford, Diane Delano, and one or two others.

Although advertised as a film about someone finally getting to have some fun again, with the risks that can entail (depending on what the fun involves), it's actually your standard tale of someone misunderstanding a situation so badly that it jeopardises their relationship with loved ones, which leads to a bad situation that needs fully remedied before the end credits roll. While the stars are just lazily repeating themselves, there's still fun to be had with their interplay, the supporting cast, and the strangely comforting factor of it all being so obviously designed to "preach to the choir". I doubt I'll ever rewatch it, but I wasn't in pain while it was on (and at 101-minutes, it also gets a bonus point for not feeling unnecessarily bloated).

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Master (2022)

Sometimes it seems as if everyone is capable of crafting a feature film debut that absolutely smashes it out of the park. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way. Writer-director Mariama Diallo definitely shows that she belongs in the former camp. Master is a twisted serpent of a film, one that explores race relations, and the entire structure of modern America (although not America alone), in a way that is consistently thought-provoking and tense.

There are, basically, three different story strands here, three women living lives that intertwine with one another. There's Gail Bishop (Regina Hall), the first black master of a New England university. There's Liv Beckman (Amber Gray), a professor who is applying for tenure. Liv is a friend of Gail, but she may have a big secret in her past. And then there's Jasmine (Zoe Renee), a freshman who is having some problems with racist students, as well as a problem with Professor Beckman, who she believes has been unduly harsh in grading her work.

Full of sadly familiar interactions, micro-aggressions, and the looming shadow of the weight of a history that far too many people keep trying to maintain in the present, Master is easily as smart and sharp a horror movie with the focus on race as the superb Get Out. It's just a shame that, in terms of traditional creepiness and scares you'd expect from a horror movie, this instead keeps things much more low-key and ambiguous, although I strongly suspect that Diallo meant everything to play out that way, allowing viewers to see what some people have to deal with every day, interactions that have either a sly or obvious implication that continually proves difficult for them to address directly, because they can either be accused of "seeing something that isn't there" or just rocking the boat.

The three main leads are all very good, and I'm particularly enjoying seeing Regina Hall take on such a wider variety of roles over the past few years (or maybe I was just watching her in the movies that were more heavily promoted because of them following some standard formula). She's an excellent mix of authority and nervous lack of confidence, emphasising how unsteady her position is. Renee is the woman who is most often placed in difficult situations, whether it's being left to clean up after others or being the victim of racist abuse, and she shows the eroding effect of everything affecting her daily life, like constant dripping water eventually damaging stone. Gray is the least likeable of the three leads, but also perhaps the most complex. On the one hand she is keen to please many of her peers, on the other hand she wants to remind them that African Americans aren't just there to be meek and servile in front of white people, her character always has a feeling of fakery about her, something portrayed well by Gray, who gives a performance that veers from the benevolent to the confrontational with a constant smile that seems to belie the real meaning of the words spoken.

Strange, uncomfortable, intriguing, and always worryingly believable, Master is a film that picks at an unsightly scab and forces people to look at a wound that isn't likely to heal for a hell of a long time, even if some people try to cover it over with sticking plasters that only succeed in keeping it out of sight for a while.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Support The Girls (2018)

Some things will always seem odd to me, despite the fact that we are exposed to so much American culture here in the UK. The idea of Hooters, for example, a restaurant/bar chain with a very specific USP. I see the obvious appeal, but it just never feels like a winning mix. But what do I know? It’s even stranger when you think of those business models also being open to as wide a variety of customers as possible. A family dinner out at Hooters? Each to their own, I just cannot imagine that ever being a choice I would make.

This is all a precursor to my discussion of Support The Girls, a film based on people working in a premises that isn’t a Hooters, but is very similar to them. Regina Hall plays Lisa, a manager dealing with a variety of problems on a very busy day. Not only are there practical issues needing resolved, Lisa also tries her best to help the staff working for her. And she is struggling to keep her marriage together. It doesn’t help that her boss (Cubby, played by James Le Gros) has no consideration for the people he employs. 

Marketed as a comedy drama, there’s really not much to laugh at here in Support The Girls. I am not saying that as a criticism, it’s a great little film with a superb lead role for Hall, but I don’t want people to be disappointed by the preconceptions of a film that doesn’t play out as expected.

Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, who has an enjoyable little filmography I recommend checking out, Support The Girls is essentially about that human touch that makes the world of difference in every job role, whether in terms of customer service or the morale of the team. We are too often expected to do too much for too little, and the individuals who help us, either practically or with a generally supportive and positive attitude, are the ones who help us get through the day. This is especially true for anyone working for a large business that has a boss prizing numbers ahead of everything else.

I’ve been a fan of Hall for many years now and I cannot stress enough what a great role this is for her. She fits it so well too, with her mix of optimism, strength, and good work ethics, and this is easily one of her best performances. Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle are both very good as two employees/work colleagues, Le Gros convinces as the kind of boss who won’t be swayed by talk of his workforce being actual humans with actual lives, and Lea DeLaria stands out as a customer, Bobo, who appreciates the female servers without disrespecting or demeaning them (unlike some of the unruly male patrons who frequent the establishment).

Essentially just another “full, stressful, day at work” movie, this is smartly crafted by Bujalski to maximise various points about how workers are treated, by employers and customers. Every cast member is right for their role, no weak links here, and the ending is suitably bittersweet. I recommend this as a film that deserves your support.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Netflix And Chill: Shaft (2019)

You know the name. Shaft is the cool cat that we've been digging since he first appeared in cinemas back in the early 1970s. Richard Roundtree played the role, and memorably. A reworking of the bad mother (shut your mouth . . . but I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft) appeared in 2000, with Samuel L. Jackson taking on the main role. And now we have a film that features both of those actors playing the role, although the former isn't onscreen for long, while introducing a new member to the family (played by Jessie T. Usher).

Usher is JJ Shaft, a young man who hasn't seen his father in many years. That's because his mother (Maya, played by Regina Hall) decided to leave, in order to keep her son safe from the kind of trouble that his father would attract. But when JJ needs help to investigate the death of a good friend, he ends up tracking down his father, John Shaft (Jackson). Bones are broken, bullets fly, women start to find the danger arousing, and Shaft and Shaft Jr hurtle towards a grand finale that will require the help of someone equally capable. Grandpa AKA John Shaft, Sr (Roundtree).

Shaft is an enjoyable comedy, with some decent action beats that don't skimp on the gunfire and bloodshed, but that is something that will upset a lot of fans. It's not something that bothered me, however, mainly because the main incarnations of the character that we have seen before were rarely the butt of any jokes. Usher plays a man brought up in a very different world, and with a very different attitude, but the secret to getting things done is usually adding on a bit of that patented Shaft badassery. And it's fair enough to highlight the fact that the classic traits of the character wouldn't necessarily be as appreciated today as they have been in previous decades (although they're only really unappreciated here by other people who have not spent a decent amount of time in Shaft's world).

Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow have put together a decent script, allowing the leads to have some very entertaining moments together, and peppering many scenes with dialogue that both works for the characters and also proves amusing enough. It feels like a good pairing, with Barris having a few more movies under his belt and Barnow having a decent selection of TV shows under his.

As just mentioned, Jackson and Usher work well together. The former is his usual persona, Usher spends a lot of the movie playing catch up (although he does have one or two tricks up his sleeve, and has more skill than is immediately apparent). Roundtree still has his full serving of charisma, which makes his limited screentime all the more frustrating. The villains are decent enough, and Titus Welliver delivers a great little turn as The Man, the immediate boss to JJ who doesn't ever give him an opportunity to reach his full potential. The ladies may be sidelined for a lot of the runtime, but that doesn't stop both Hall and Alexandra Shipp (playing Sasha, a good friend to JJ) doing their best with what they're given. Both manage to stand out in a fill overflowing with testosterone, as does Luna Lauren Velez, in the role of a potential lead/criminal named Bennie Rodriguez.

Director Tim Story keeps everything moving nicely. This is a 110-minute movie that whizzes by. There's a great soundtrack (although it's missing one classic cut), some entertaining set-pieces, and a central investigation with a couple of twists and turns, despite the fact that most viewers will be able to point to at least one of the main villains within their first few scenes. And Shaft is still also very much Shaft. As is Shaft. JJ, on the other hand, well, he needs a lot of work. But he might be able to find his own Shaftiness by the time the end rolls around.

There are already mixed reviews appearing for this, and just as many advising viewers to stay away. Don't listen to The Man. Give it a watch and make your own mind up.

7/10

Get yourself a funky soundtrack here.
Americans can get a Roundtree triple-bill here.

Girls Trip (2017)

The very basic premise of Girls Trip is a group of four friends getting back together to enjoy some leisure time that will include drinking, dancing, rekindling their sex drive, and a few arguments as they grow apart before maybe coming closer together. It's nothing we haven't seen before. The main twist here is that one of the group (Ryan Pierce, played by Regina Hall) is successful and famous, which makes the waters a lot trickier to navigate when her friends - played by Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Tiffany Haddish - start to suspect there may be a bit of trouble in her seemingly perfect marriage (to Stewart, played by Mike Colter).

Despite one or two very enjoyable moments, including an absolutely hilarious sequence in which the girls try to act normally while under the influence of hallucination-inducing substances aka tripping balls, Girls Trip is quite disappointing as a comedy. The script, by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver, could have easily trimmed down one or two characters, and one more set-piece to rival the hallucinatory sequence would have been enough to push this above average. A few decent lines here and there don't do enough to make this consistently amusing.

Director Malcolm D. Lee doesn't add anything of note. His work is capable enough, following the predictable script almost to the letter (it would seem), and he tends to just have faith in his leading ladies. Which would be a wise choice if they were all on the same level.

I like Regina Hall. A lot. I always have, and think I always will. I have also been a big fan of every performance I have seen from Queen Latifah. So I enjoyed both of them in this film. And it was a bonus that Hall is actually given a few excellent, and unexpected, moments to show just how good she can act, especially in the second half of the film. Smith and Haddish, on the other hand, just don't work as well. It's not that they're terrible, and the earlier scenes with Haddish arranging her leave from work are actually very funny, but they're just nowhere near as watchable or charismatic as the other two. Colter does well in the bad man role, Larenz Tate doesn't get that much screentime as a nice guy, and Kate Walsh does a lot with her small role, playing a white woman who tries to act and speak like the rest of the group, despite other people explaining that it's not something she can really make work.

Far from terrible, it's just a shame that Girls Trip rarely has enough laughs throughout. Which is always a mark against something being sold as a comedy.

5/10

You can buy Girls Trip here.
Americans can pick it up here.

April Fools: Superhero Movie (2008)

Written and directed by Craig Mazin, it's worth noting right away that Superhero Movie is one of the few spoofs with "Movie" in the title that is actually relatively painless and enjoyable. It's nowhere near the daffy greatness of Not Another Teen Movie, but it's miles better than the likes of Date Movie.

Drake Bell stars as Rick Riker, a young man who develops superpowers after he's bitten by a radioactive dragonfly. From start to finish, this is a riff on Spider-Man, with plenty of nods to other superhero hits of the past few years. And that's about all you need to know. Christopher McDonald is great as Lou Landers, the villain of the piece, Sara Paxton is very sweet as Jill Johnson, and Leslie Nielsen and Marion Ross are Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille, respectively.

Okay, this is still an easy movie to hate if you automatically hate these kinds of movies. It's not often aiming for the cleverest comedy, but it is always aiming for laughs (unlike the horrible approach of just copying scenes with little to no changes, an unfunny approach used by some people, who shall remain nameless).

The great cast help to make up for the weaker, groan-inducing, gags. Bell and Paxton are a sweet central pair, McDonald is a great baddie (as anyone who has seen him in Happy Gilmore or Dirty Work can attest), Nielsen and Ross are good fun, and the rest of the cast includes Brent Spiner, Kevin Hart, Tracy Morgan, Robert Joy (equally amusing and tasteless as Stephen Hawking), Regina Hall, Robert Hays, Nicole Sullivan, Jeffrey Tambor, Craig Bierko and Simon Rex, among others. A bunch of big names does not a good movie make, but this lot certainly help to keep everything lively and entertaining enough.

There are still a few too many toilet humour gags, but there are a lot of jokes that target specific superheroes or superhero movie moments, and they work surprisingly well. They may be easy gags, but they work. And if enough laughs are created, then that means that a comedy movie has done its job. Even if it's far from the best out there.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Superhero-Movie-DVD-Drake-Bell/dp/B001A47G8O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391377035&sr=8-1&keywords=superhero+movie

So I put together a book, yes I did.

The UK version can be bought here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395945647&sr=1-3&keywords=movie+guide

And American folks can buy it here - http://www.amazon.com/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395945752&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=TJs+ramshackle+mov

As much as I love the rest of the world, I can't keep up with all of the different links in different territories, but trust me when I say that it should be there on your local Amazon.

Scary Movie 4 (2006)

It may not be quite as good as the preceding instalment, but Scary Movie 4 is a surprisingly good comedy, thanks mainly to the material being enjoyably childish as opposed to the irritating crudeness of the first two movies in the series.

This time around the series pokes fun at the Saw franchise, War Of The Worlds, The Grudge and The Village, among other targets. Anna Faris and Regina Hall both return as Cindy and Brenda, respectively, and Simon Rex, Charlie Sheen, Anthony Anderson and Kevin Hart briefly reprise their roles from the third movie, but this isn't overly concerned with maintaining any perfect continuity. It's just another opportunity to take characters that audiences seem to like and drop them into some outrageous situations.

The main new addition to the cast is Craig Bierko, playing Tom, the everyman hero based on the character played by Tom Cruise in War Of The Worlds (and, in some latter scenes, simply based on Tom Cruise in real life). When an alien invasion upsets everyone's day, Tom tries to protect his son and daughter while also assuring Cindy that they will find each other after they have both done what they have to do. Cindy, you see, is also busy trying to figure out why she keeps seeing the ghost of a small, Japanese boy and what exactly he may be trying to tell her.

The best thing to happen to the Scary Movie series is David Zucker taking over the directorial duties (well, that was the best thing to happen until the dire Scary Movie V) and this shows, once again, just how much fun he can wring out of potentially groan-inducing stuff. The script, by Craig Mazin, Pat Proft and Jim Abrahams, isn't exactly the sharpest or smartest, but Zucker puts together a fun cast and does well with budget. This isn't a movie that looks cheap, although it's worth noting that it doesn't make the mistake of looking too polished either.

The cast is a huge plus point, as it was in Scary Movie 3, with those involved including, but not limited to, Bill Pullman, Leslie Nielsen (reprising his role as the inept POTUS), Molly Shannon, Carmen Electra, Phil McGraw AKA Dr. Phil, Shaquille O'Neal, Michael Madsen, Chris Elliott (almost, but not quite, as annoying as he was in Scary Movie 2) and Cloris Leachman. Plus those already mentioned above.

If you've seen, and enjoyed, the other movies then there's no reason for you not to be pleased by this one. It's just a shame that the next film, released seven years later, was such a massive drop in quality. Viewers should stop at this one. In fact, I implore you to do so. For your own mental wellbeing.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scary-Movie-Collection-DVD/dp/B001ECPV6Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1377373211&sr=8-11&keywords=scary+movie

Scary Movie 3 (2003)

Written by Craig Mazin and Pat Proft, and directed by David Zucker, Scary Movie 3 tries hard to undo all of the bad work that led to the second instalment in the franchise being such a stinker. It's interesting to note that things seem considerably improved thanks to the removal from the series of anyone with the Wayans name.

The plot is absolute nonsense, blending The Ring with Signs and mixing in plenty of references to Eight Mile, The Matrix movies and The Sixth Sense. Anna Faris returns as Cindy, the nominal heroine of the franchise, and Regina Hall is Brenda Meeks once more, but this time they are joined by Simon Rex and Charlie Sheen, two actors who do much better with the comedic material than anyone named Wayans. Rex and Sheen play two brothers living on a farm, with the former wanting to make his name as a renowned rapper and the latter just wanting to be left in peace after a personal tragedy revealed during the movie.

Although I enjoy this instalment more than any other in the series, including the first movie, it still suffers from the fact that it crams in so many juvenile, lowbrow gags amongst the better moments. The Eight Mile scenes, in particular, are both amusing and absolutely on target, while so many of the other gags are thrown onscreen to see what sticks and what doesn't. The good news for all involved this time is that many of them stick.

Zucker is an old hand with this stuff, and he does fine by the material. The script may not win any prizes but it's so much better than the awful movie that preceded it that, well, maybe it should.

Faris is as likeable as ever, Hall is a lot of fun as Brenda and both Rex and Sheen are great additions to the franchise. The cast also includes Jeremy Piven, in a small but enjoyable role, Anthony Anderson and Kevin Hart having a lot of fun, Queen Latifah, Eddie Griffin and George Carlin helping to gently mock the world of The Matrix, and Leslie Nielsen as an incompetent President Of The United States.

Is it a movie I will seek out to rewatch again and again? No, none of the Scary Movie comedies will ever top my list of viewing priorities. This third outing, however, is one that I can always enjoy watching if I chance upon it while it is being shown on TV.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scary-Movie-Collection-DVD/dp/B001ECPV6Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1377373211&sr=8-11&keywords=scary+movie

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

After the success of Scary Movie everyone knew that a sequel was going to happen. I'm not sure if many people thought the thing would become a money-making franchise, but the sequel was definitely coming, whether we liked it or not. Keenen Ivory Wayans returned to direct and the script was whipped into shape by no less than SEVEN writers. Seven writers and this is the best that they came up with? Someone needs to change job, in my opinion.

Starting off with a fairly amusing spoof of The Exorcist, made all the better thanks to a fantastic cameo from James Woods, the whole thing swiftly moves on to parody numerous haunted house movies. The Haunting, The Legend Of Hell House, The Changeling, What Lies Beneath, Poltergeist and . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hollow Man and Charlie's Angels all find themselves on the receiving end of some unsubtle spoofery. A group of young folks - Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Kathleen Robertson, Tori Spelling, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Christopher Masterson - all head out to a big, slightly spooky house as part of a school project. While there, they are also in the company of their professor (Tim Curry), his wheelchair-bound assistant (David Cross) and a strange house servant (Chris Elliott) with a deformed left hand. Oh, and the ghosts. They're also in the company of a lot of ghosts.

When I first watched Scary Movie 2 I thought it was one of the worst movies that I'd ever seen. I wasn't far wrong, and it's certainly not a film I would recommend to anyone, but I must admit that I do manage to get a few giggles from it when rewatching it nowadays. The opening section is particularly fun, but then it starts to go downhill fast.

The franchise gets a fair bit of goodwill from me thanks to the inclusion of Anna Faris and Regina Hall, both funny women who always try to make the best of the material. This is, however, offset by the fact that Shawn Wayans plays the most annoying character, Shorty, in any comedy franchise that I can think of. The rest of the cast here do okay, with the exception of Chris Elliott, who is the SECOND most annoying character in any comedy franchise.

Once again mixing crude gags amongst the spoof moments, and once again including a pop culture reference outdated within years of its release (this time it's a GAP advert), this should appeal to fans of the first movie, but even they might see sense and decide to skip it in favour of other instalments in the franchise.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scary-Movie-Collection-DVD/dp/B001ECPV6Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1377373211&sr=8-11&keywords=scary+movie

Scary Movie (2000).

Most fans know by now that Scary Movie was the original title for Scream, which provides the main target for this parody.

Most fans also know, I hope, that Scary Movie isn’t all that good. Oh, it’s certainly not the worst (that would be Scary Movie 2) but it’s a horror comedy superceded by movies like Student Bodies, Bloodbath At The House Of Death (reviewed in this blog just last week) and even Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The Thirteenth, in my view.

The plot? Well, it’s essentially the plot of Scream mixed with a liberal sprinkling of moments from I Know What You Did Last Summer. And a Budweiser advert. And the obligatory, for the time anyway, Matrix gag.

The cast is a real mixed bag. Anna Faris is quite a delight and a wonderful, natural comic talent. I also really like Regina Hall even though her character is often annoying as hell. Jon Abrahams? He’s not bad but not all that great either. Cheri Oteri is pretty funny as Gail Hailstorm. Then we have two of the Wayans brothers. Marlon Wayans is, quite possibly, THE most irritating character to be included in a comedy movie ever while Shawn Wayans wrings a few more laughs out of numerous jokes questioning his character’s sexuality. Kurt Fuller gets some decent moments but the rest of the material is very much hit or miss.

The direction by Keenen Ivory Wayans simply allows for the parade of obvious gags and hammers home everything for fear of leaving any of the material seeming too subtle.

It’s no surprise to see the Wayans brothers names in the script department either but, more tellingly, the big warning lights should start flashing when you see the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Never mind the numerous comments about Michael Bay being the so-called antichrist or The Asylum being responsible for the very worst in movie entertainment, Friedberg and Seltzer between them tried to kill off comedy movies with their lame attempts at humour and this is where it all started. Well, the two first worked together on Spy Hard, but that had a title song by Weird Al Yankovic and was actually decent in places so let’s give that one a pass.

Despite the many things going against it (the irritating characters, the unfunny cast members, Friedberg and Seltzer), Scary Movie has just enough going FOR it to still make it a mildly amusing spoof. Faris is the biggest bonus but there’s also the simple fact that the riff on the most famous Scream sequences ARE pretty funny. So it gets by. Just. 

 

6/10.

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share