Zoombies 2 (2019)

I have ended up watching a film that, yet again, makes me wonder why I do these things to myself. I watched Zoombies a few years ago and didn't bother with the sequel. Why would I? I hadn't enjoyed Zoombies. But then I saw the trailer for the upcoming Aquarium Of The Dead, a film I discovered was the third instalment of what has now become a loose trilogy of zombie animal movies. That trailer sold me on the potential of the daffy premise, so I knew I had to watch Zoombies 2, if only to satisfy my own OCD movie-viewing habits.

All you need to know about this film is that it is very similar to the first film, with the main difference this time around being that the animals affected are in a large wildlife park. The main characters are a bunch of poachers and a ranger, Brooke Sullivan (played by Erica Sturdefant). As things start to look bleak for everyone involved, it becomes vital to figure out a cure for the zombiefication and stop the epidemic spreading throughout the rest of the world.

Writer Scotty Mullen and director Glenn Miller both return to deliver another load of animal mayhem, having obviously kept everyone happy enough with their work in the first film. Well, they must have kept everyone behind the camera happy, but I doubt many other viewers actually enjoyed the end result much more than I did. Anyway, they did what was asked of them, and they repeat the formula here, with the same level of quality present in the final product.

Things start well enough. There's a zombie porcupine that I thought was signifying a much more enjoyable movie, one with more humour throughout it. That wasn't to be, however, and things soon become a tiresome sequence of dull conversations between main characters and horrible CGI depicting animals on the rampage. Those animals may be eclectic enough to stave off boredom for a while - that porcupine, a meerkat, a crocodile, a tiger, a hippopotamus, some rhinos, etc - but the special effects are so clumsy and awful that any animal attack sequences become more of a pain than a simple pleasure.

I'm not going to be as harsh on the cast as I am on the script, special effects, and uninspired direction. Sturdefant is okay in her role, and she has a number of scenes working well with the equally-capable Terra Lyons (one of the main poachers, and someone who has maybe inadvertently started an animal apocalypse). Nobody else makes much of an impression, with Jonathon Buckley and Jarrid Masse both playing very similar males who are ready to battle the wildlife, and Jumarcus Mason, Caleb Thomas, Peter Stickles, and others all looking ready to become food at any moment.

In a way, the fault ends up lying with me. I should not have expected any big step up in quality here, and the film-makers all do enough to maintain a consistent standard between the previous movie and this one. It's just that their standard falls far below mine, and that is really saying something when you consider the wide variety of cinema that I enjoy. 

3/10

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The Sex Addict (2017)

I have to hand it to Amir Mo, the man who directed, wrote, and starred in this movie. Despite the many movies I watch every week, month, and year, there are very few that get the lowest possible rating. Most movies have something to save them from the very bottom of the barrel, be it a performance, one or two good scenes, or even just a good idea that isn't explored as well as it could have been. Not in this case though, oh no. The Sex Addict is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's often painfully unfunny (not being hyperbolic here, one or two of these "jokes" made me roll my eyes so much that I started to get a dull ache behind them), it's impossible to care about any of the characters, and all of the blame can be shouldered by Mo.

What's it about? A young woman named Suzanna (Valerie Tosi) decides to record interviews and events with a sex addict (Rex, played by Mo) for her PhD dissertation. This also leads to her meeting Trudy (Danielle Gross), a prostitute who is a friend to Rex and won't sleep with him, and young Theodore (Caleb Thomas), a high school student roped into being an intern. And hilarity ensues. Well, hilarity would ensue if you stopped watching the movie and found something funnier. I could suggest 1000 alternatives but right now I just have to make it through to the end of this review.

There are two things obvious from the start of this movie. First, Mo has a few friends that he was able to rope into making cameo appearances (they may not be a-list names but I recognised a couple of them). Second, Mo thinks that the main idea, and his script, is hilarious. He would have to fling himself into the deepest pocket of some alternate universe to be more wrong about that second point.

Even for what should be viewed as a light comedy, this struggles to get the basics right. It's set up as a document being recorded by the cameraman who is accompanying Suzanna. Until it switches to a film being shot by someone else. And there are also a few shots from the POV of, well, a standard camera position. Rex is the main character, and it's his journey we are watching. Until it's not. In fact, he becomes the least important figure in the second half of the movie. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just adds to the feel of this all being a bit lacking in focus and ultimately pointless. The whole thing is one joke that Mo clearly finds funny, capped with a punchline that doesn't feel amusing for viewers, it just feels like a lazy middle finger from someone who couldn't be bothered to come up with a proper ending.

Some of the performances are bearable. Gross and Thomas do better than Mo and Tosi, and the interview segments with Mary Carey are okay. That's all I can think of to say, in an attempt to end this review on a note that doesn't feel too sour. But this is an awful, awful film and if you watch it then don't say that I didn't warn you. Because I have just warned you.

1/10