Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

So I need to say that there are better title posters that I probably could have used for this review but the poster you see above is a 100% genuine poster that they created to promote the film and I think that's hilarious and they need to own up to it.

That being said, I did not dislike this movie nearly as much as I thought I was going to.

I was proudly one of the movie goers that contributed to Jurassic World making a crazy ton of money in 2015. While I have since become more aware of the flaws with that movie, I thoroughly enjoyed my theater going experience back then. It is not a perfect movie nor is it anywhere near the quality of the original Jurassic Park, but it is a fun popcorn movie and I still stand behind it.

But the three years since that movie have been a little sobering for everyone for the Jurassic World movies and while I think people were excited for the sequel, I don't know anybody who was rushing to the theaters or increasingly hyped when the trailer dropped. I think people had come to the realization that the first Jurassic World movie was just a dumb Transformers-like popcorn flick, why would the sequel be any different?

Fallen Kingdom takes place a couple years after the events of the first Jurassic World. The main conflict is that an inactive volcano on Isla Nublar where the parks were has recently become active and could blow at any minute.

Claire (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) is now apart of an activist group that is trying to prompt the government to save these dinosaurs while Owen (played by Chris Pratt) has fled into seclusion and would rather forget about the dinosaurs they left behind.

Claire is contacted by a colleague of John Hammond, Benjamin Lockwood (played by James Cromwell) and recruited to help gather up some of the dinosaurs and bring them to a new island sanctuary. They ask her to recruit Owen to help as well, mainly to help in the recovery of the velocirapter Blue that Owen had a close relationship with in the previous movie.

The weird thing is, that's really only the plot for half of the movie. I don't want to go too into spoilers, but the movie turns into a low key slasher film set in a guys house.

So here's the thing. This movie actually isn't the worst thing I've seen all year. Is it good? Oh god no. But I think because my expectations were so low, I ended up really enjoying this film. I knew exactly what I was watching.

As much as I want to believe that these movies are trying to recapture the thought provoking nature of the first film, that illusion is long gone and this franchise is now about how they can pack in a fun adventure where Chris Pratt gets to be an action hero, and dinosaurs get to roam around eating people.

It hits a lot of the same beats, there's a forced romance between Owen and Claire again that goes no where. There's a new hybrid that the old dinosaurs need to help the humans fight, they watch a lot of people get eaten by dinosaurs while they fight off that hybrid, it's rinse and repeat. And for the most part they succeed in making something that was somewhat entertaining as long as that's all you're looking for.

The characters are probably the biggest hurdle you'll have to jump over if you just want to turn off your brain and not care one bit about this movie.

Let's be real. Owen and Claire were super boring characters in the first movie and they're still super boring, still having less chemistry than the couple in the Fifty Shades of Grey films.

But they're totally serviceable. Not good, serviceable. Chris Pratt is your typical handsome, somewhat comedic action hero lead, and Bryce Dallas Howard is pretty. Do not expect anything beyond that.

And I honestly could not tell you the names of any of the new characters. There's a really annoying nerdy dude (played by Justice Smith), a spunky dinosaur vet who has never seen a dinosaur before, making her role confusing (played by Daniella Pineda), and random kid (played by Isabella Sermon). Everyone else does an okay job, but nothing really stood out to me.

Oh and if you thought that Jeff Goldblum was in this movie, that's really cute...

He is in the movie for probably about 2 minutes, MAX. I said in a tweet or something a couple days ago that Jeff Goldblum deserves better than your fan service cameos, he deserves more fun projects and to say that he was criminally under utilized in this film is probably the biggest understatement of 2018.

Seriously, 2 minutes to probably one of the most interesting and iconic characters in this franchise. Was that all they could get from him? The cameo felt really cheap and if it hadn't bookended the film, I would have forgotten about it completely.

And that's been the lasting effect of Jurassic World 2 for me. I accept what it is, but I can't totally get over what it could have been.

The surprising thing is that these new movies do lend themselves to some cool ideas and scenarios with dinosaurs being brought back that could be explored. An activist group supporting the rights of dinosaurs like other endangered species is kind of interesting, dinosaur veterinarians is also interesting, and Russian mercenaries buying dinosaurs on the black market to use as weapons is actually an interesting concept.

The first movie did this too. I bet you forgot that Vincent D'Onofrio was in Jurassic World but he was and he brought up the idea of the military using raptors to fight terrorists in the Middle East. Since then Raptors in Afghanistan has been on my mind for 3 years. Why would you not explore that?

But even the interesting ideas they do include get muffed up to return to what is comfortable and done before. The two character arcs of Claire being apart of a dinosaur rescue activist group and Owen being secluded not caring about Blue in the beginning should have been reversed. Does it fix the script? Hell no, but I think that would have been at least a start to make these characters a little bit layered and interesting as opposed to what they are now. Owen is a generic action hero. Claire is a generic action hero arm candy. The nerdy guy is your generic nerdy guy. The kid is your generic kid. The paramilitary guy played by Buffalo Bill is your generic paramilitary we've seen in bad Jurassic Park sequels in the past.

I'm not saying throwing Jeff Goldblum in there for no reason would have saved the movie because this movie itself is a testament to how that doesn't work. But I just want the writers to treat this movie and this franchise as more than just a regular old action movie.

I love action movies and there's nothing wrong with Jurassic Park being an action movie. But there's two types of action movie: there's the new Planet of the Apes action movie and there's Michael Bay Transformers. The ideas, the foundation, and even the set up they have for future films make Jurassic World ripe for a thought provoking but bad ass action movie in the vein of Planet of the Apes. But we have to accept that Jurassic World has decided to be a Michael Bay style action franchise and probably will continue to be until we get bored of it the same way we got bored of Transformers movies. I think the heart burn is that we all see the potential for Jurassic World to be in that former category, but for a second time we've had those hopes dashed.

But hey... at least there aren't racist stereotypes and jokes in Jurassic World movies like there are in the Transformers films...

Overall, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is not a very good movie. The characters are paper thin, the story isn't very good, and ultimately it's just an opportunity to sap the remaining nostalgia we have for Jurassic Park to make a bank load of money. However, if your just looking for a popcorn action flick to turn your brain off the same way you would for a Transformers film, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom isn't the worst choice for that. Bottom line, I enjoyed it. I just know it could have been better.

But those are my thoughts, what did you think of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom? Has anybody seen it? I saw it only because I was watching it with some kids I was babysitting but I am not convinced anybody else has actually seen this movie. Nobody I know has talked about it whatsoever so I want to hear your thoughts. Are you excited for Jurassic World 3 when they make it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

The Night Manager (And a rant about James Bond)

I think I heard about The Night Manager when it first aired. I don't have regular cable so I wasn't able to check it out then. But I did say that I wanted to check it out because it had two actors that while I'm not totally familiar with a lot of their work, I've loved everything they're in, Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.

I also had a short time frame where I told myself I wanted to read the book before I watched the show but I had a hard time doing that. So when it came on Amazon Prime, I decided to check it out.

The first thing to note is that the first episode, while pretty good, isn't as suspenseful or I would argue interesting as the rest of the season. It mainly sets the stage for Jonathan Pine (played by Tom Hiddleston), a British veteran from the Iraq war who is now a night manager for a luxurious hotel in Cairo in the midst of the Arab Spring.

He becomes aware of a woman staying at his hotel as well as the illegal business she and her boyfriend are involved in. He also starts hearing the name Richard Roper.

Eventually, tragedy strikes and Jonathan leaves the hotel in Cairo for another position, but not before he sends on some information about the dealings of Richard Roper (played by Hugh Laurie, a philanthropist who secretly is a notorious arms dealer.

Eventually, Pine crosses paths with an officer in British intelligence (played by Olivia Coleman) and they devise a plan to implant Pine into Roper's inner circle and bring the weapons dealing racket to a halt one way or another.

The rest of the series is a tense undercover story as Pine infiltrates Roper's business, becomes closer with not only him but his girlfriend Jed (played by Elizabeth Debicki). He also has to put his life at risk by winning the trust of everyone in Roper's circle, including his right hand man (played by Tom Hollander).

Strangely enough, this series focuses less on the international intrigue action that you might see in a James Bond film and more on the trade craft and relationship building as Pine shows his worth, his Tom Hiddleston-like charisma, and the romance that builds between him and Jed as she becomes more trusting of him and less of Roper.

The Night Manager is a very slow burn. For a series that felt like an audition tape Tom Hiddleston was putting forward to convince people he could play James Bond (which I'll talk more about later) the series is a lot of talking and deception rather than gun play. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed it. It's one of those situations where I think I was expecting something different and when I realized it wasn't that I probably enjoyed the show more because I knew what it actually was. Just don't go into it thinking this is going to be James Bond or Jason Bourne-style action because it's not.

 The show is really propelled further by the solid actors that give great performances. It's a mini-series so episodes were sometimes longer than an hour, giving the cinematic vibe multiple times over the course of 6 episodes.

Hiddleston and Laurie of course are going to give great performances because they produced the show and they're A-List actors. They're going to give their best performances no matter what. But the lesser known actors, Debicki, Coleman, David Harewood (it was fun thinking that David Estes from Homeland was working on a joint operation with MI6 the entire show), and Tom Hollander give really good performances as well.

The cinematography and music were also really great. I think they wanted to draw people in by giving it the music and somewhat of a feel of a Bond style spy thriller, but then the acting and story hits you with a slow burn espionage drama thriller.

One thing I will say is a strike against the show is that I keep on mentioning that it felt like a James Bond audition tape for Tom Hiddleston. I think that the story and performances do stand on their own and yes the Bond feeling does go away a little bit later in the series, but it was a little bit distracting. I don't know if its going to feel that way in 5 years when all the external context of Hiddleston seemingly wanting to play Bond is old news, but it was kind of apparent in the cinematography, the music, and the way they they built Hiddleston as this debonair, suave, very Bond-like spy.

Some other issues came with the relationships that Hiddleston had in the show.

The big relationship is that between Jonathan and Jed but I didn't feel like any of the relationships/hook ups Jonathan has throughout the series felt very genuine at all. Maybe that's the point that Jonathan isn't really a guy to be hung up on attachments, but they feel so quick that they fail to really create stakes that I buy him making some of his decisions over. Especially with the weird sense of time this show has, these hookups feel very rushed and they don't have the impact they need to have.

And the relationship that is supposed to be the most important is that between Jed and Jonathan and there doesn't seem to be a real sense of chemistry between them. Again, both give a good performance, but I didn't buy them getting together in the first place. On top of that, there doesn't seem to be a real tactical purpose to it when they finally do hook up. I was wondering to myself, why are you doing this? You're playing with fire by sleeping with the targets girlfriend. If it was like I mentioned before that he doesn't really do attachments I would have understood because it was a means to an end, but when they attempt an actual meaningful relationship, it just seems odd.

Another small, kind of nit picky thing I noticed was the shows sense of time. First off, you need to be paying attention quite a bit throughout the series. Because it's a show that relies on talking, there are some things that are mentioned in conversation, not in action. But furthermore, a lot of stuff happens in what I guess is a long period of time. But on the other hand Olivia Coleman's character is pregnant the entire time and if it was the amount of time you'd think it would be, she probably would have had the baby by that point.

I get it, it's a mini series so they only have so much time to actually execute necessary parts of the story so accurate passage of time probably wasn't the biggest priority, but it was kind of noticeable especially with Coleman being pregnant and Jonathan Pine being injured but getting better and gaining Roper's trust in a weirdly fast amount of time.  

The last thing I will mention is somewhat related to the timing of the show and the limited amount of episodes they could furnish. I understand the circumstances but I did notice that there were seldom any moments where you felt like the bad guys were going to get away with what they're doing.

Maybe I am characterizing the show wrong but I originally thought, especially if you get big names like Laurie and Hiddleston that this was going to be a game of wits between Roper and Pine.

However, there's really only one moment where the bad guys outsmart good guys and it's a very short lived moment. The fact that throughout the mini series I felt as though the good guys were going to win no matter what kind of threw off the balance of tension. They do a good job at showing Roper as a vicious person but on the other end of things, Jonathan Pine is a really smart (almost super human-like) character and I never really felt like his life was really at any risk.

So what we end up with is Pine being really smart and outsmarting Roper almost at every turn and while Roper seems competent, the entire series culminates with him just seeming like he got duped. I never really got that game of wits that I thought was going to happen. And unfortunately, the more I think about it, that's kind of a big deal as that's kind of the dynamic that was expected for the show.

I still really enjoyed the show and maybe that's just my observation. I still recommend you check it out and see what you think for yourself. 

So this show came out in 2015. To give a little bit of context, this was the same year that Spectre came out and Daniel Craig was looking like he was on his way out of his position as James Bond. I don't really remember if Hiddleston said he wanted to play Bond but I think I remember it being rumored. So while I didn't love the subtext behind this show, it did feel like an audition tape for Bond. Bond 25 is coming out in a year staring Daniel Craig again so this conversation doesn't feel timely but I think it is worth commenting on at least.

Would Tom Hiddleston be a good James Bond? Given the evidence from this show I’m still a little bit on the fence. The great thing about this show is that it shows that Tom Hiddleston can do more than Loki. He’s a really talented actor and I believe he can pull off the suaveness of James Bond as well as the action. He’s oddly lanky but the truth is, if you read into the description of James Bond from the original books, he actually fits the description of Bond pretty well as a lanky, homely looking guy.

I think the biggest thing hurting Hiddleston’s chances of becoming James Bond are the timing, who he’d be taking over from, and the roles he’s played in the past. Too many people see Hiddleston as Loki, and while I feel this series changed that perspective for me, not everyone is going to watch this show or any other movie Hiddleston is in to get a better idea of his range.

Personally, I feel as thought Daniel Craig is tired of Bond and frankly I'm a little tired of his Bond as well. I feel like Daniel Craig perfectly personified what Bond needed to be in a post 9/11 world but 12 years after Casino Royale I kind of feel like it might be time for a change. Now that might change with Bond 25, but if it were up to me I would have changed actors after Spectre which seemed like a decent send off for Craig.

Whoever takes over from Craig is going to have a difficult time. I think Daniel Craig's Bond films have overall been pretty great (with only a few missteps with Quantum of Solace and some of Spectre). But I think whether it's Hiddleston, Elba, or whoever, I think James Bond needs a revitalization beyond just a character change. I think that's why people are pushing for Idris Elba because they feel like that would be enough of a change whereas Hiddleston might look and feel like a lot of the same thing. I have no issue with Idris Elba being Bond, I think it'd be cool. But I feel like the change that needs to occur is more than skin deep (pun intended). Bond needs to go through a change the same way Brosnan's Bond needed to change. Craig's Bond seemed to be a reboot of the series and somewhat of a response to the Bourne series but at this point we've seen so many Bourne-like spy movies that it might be time for something else. Now I don't think people know what that change is yet. A post 9/11 spy thriller seemed like the obvious step for Bond and now it's hard to tell what direction it should head. And I don't know the answer to that.

Honestly, I'm not really that excited for Bond 25 for a lot of reasons. I wish I was. Again, maybe that will change when I see a trailer but I'm looking for a change. Maybe a more subdued Night Manager-like feel is what is needed. Double down on the realism. But I don't really think that's what is needed. I'll leave that to the people who get paid for this stuff.

Well that was a much longer rant about James Bond than I intended for a review about a miniseries that in reality has nothing to do with James Bond. I hope you get the picture that I really liked The Night Manager. I also hope you get the sense that I'm looking to the future for what a post-Daniel Craig Bond/spy thriller world is gonna look like. It's going to be interesting.

But those are my thoughts? What are yours? Did you like The Night Manager? Who do you want to see replace James Bond? Where do you see the franchise going? Do you think it relates? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films, miniseries, or shows I should watch in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading. 

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Often times when we hear that a movie is so terrible, it's often hard to go into that movie and not expect something terrible. In the same way though, it's often hard to go into a movie that we hear is amazing and keep expectations neutral and not be swayed by those reviews. That's exactly the problem that I have with Terminator 2. When a new Marvel movie comes out, it's easier for me to take people's review with a grain of salt and see things as neutral. It's harder when a movie like Terminator 2 has been out for 27 years and has been raved about since and not think that this movie is going to be super rad. All I can say is I tried to be neutral... I tried.

The other aspect of this review is that it has been a while since I reviewed the first Terminator film. I reread my review and I remembered that overall, I was generally underwhelmed by that movie and had a hard time understanding how the movie became such a staple in cinematic history... nd then I watched Judgement Day and it was like that final puzzle piece fell into place.

The beginning of the movie recaps the set up for the story. John Conner in the year 2029 sends Kyle Reese back to protect Sarah Connor from a terminator. But then they add that Skynet sends back ANOTHER Terminator to kill John Connor as a child but humanity sent back yet ANOTHER terminator, but one that is reprogrammed to protect a young John Connor. It's a plot that is explained well, but could be very, VERY  confusing if you think about it too much.

Now usually I'd keep the reveal that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played the T-800 and antagonist in the first movie, is now a good guy and the terminator sent to protect John Connor a surprise, but apparently the trailers didn't keep that secret either so I'm not gonna worry about it. The T-800 comes back to protect a young John Connor (played by Edward Furlong) from a more advanced T-1000 (played by Robert Patrick). As the movie takes place years after the first one, young John Connor has been raised by a newly militant Sarah Connor (played again by Linda Hamilton) to believing that he's the "savior of the human race".

 It's important to note that Sarah Connor has done a 180 change in this film. She is no longer a damsel in distress or horror movie survivor, she instead is a guerilla warfare badass who begins the movie in a psych ward because nobody believes her ramblings. And while we know that she's right and these things did happen to her, there's  a part of the audience that should think that Sarah Connor needs some help because there is some psychological issues there. I now understand why people love this character because she is so different from her previous character and at times she's not always the good guy that she's ten times more interesting. Our natural desire is for the relationship with her and John Connor to be perfect, but you can tell that while she wants the best for him and to keep him safe, she's also torn with the desire to save the human race from the monstrosity that haunted her in the first movie.

And that brings me to John Connor.

So as a character, I love John Connor. He's been through a lot with his mother's militant training and he deep down just wants the opportunity to be a kid. He also wants a father figure and that is developed throughout the film. He's also pretty innocent and kind of funny at times. I think given that this was Edward Furlong's first real role as an actor there is credit that has to be given for a pretty good performance.

I will say though that he is kind of annoying at times. He has a very high pitch voice and his acting and dialogue can be a little too stereotypical 90's kid. To give him credit this was 1991 and Furlong basically set the bar for stereotypical 90's kid as everyone was trying to recreate his grunge hair cut and attitude, but it doesn't really make it less annoying. He's not the worst kid actor in the world and its not so annoying it ruins the film, it's just there.

They spend the movie avoiding the murderous rampage of the T-1000, a Terminator that consists of morphing liquid metal.

There are actually a lot of really creepy scenes with this character and he's clearly the best and probably the only way you could up the ante from Arnold being the villain of the previous film. But, like a lot of this film, it's hard to top what already topped a really good villain and that seemed very prevalent with later films. (I'll get into that later).

So Sarah Connor, John Connor, and the T-800 must survive the assassination attempts of this new Terminator, but more importantly investigate the source of Skynet's creation and prevent Judgement Day.

Along the way, John develops a relationship with the reprogrammed Terminator and teaches him how to be human while also developing a struggling relationship with his mother.

I don't feel like I summarized the plot of the movie nearly as well as I should have but the truth is, it's hard to really pin down what exactly made this movie work so well. In a way it's rehashing similar plot points and vibes from the first movie, but at the same time it feels like a completely different movie that you don't really need to see the first one to appreciate. Instead of a science fiction horror movie like the first one, Judgement Day is a straight up action flick with amazing gun fights, car chases, and visual effects that honestly hold up a lot better than movies that came after this one.

I know in the first movie I said that Arnold is really not that great of an actor, and I stand by that, but in this movie he's actually able to give a meaningful performance that adds a lot to what's already there.

Somehow, they are able to form this relationship between John Connor and the T-800 that I wasn't expecting. Some how they're able to turn around a character like Sarah Connor to be someone totally different from the first movie but at the same time not only better but formed as a believable stepping stone from where she was. It not only focuses on science fiction action, but it develops characters and relationships better and it's an execution of a Terminator story probably will never happen again. At least based on what we've seen and what Hollywood tends to do with old properties that they're remaking, not because they have a real interesting story to tell, but rather to reap every single idea out of existing IP that they can to make as much money as they can.

There are now less Terminator movies that I haven't seen than Terminator movies that I have seen and I never really thought I'd be at this point. Because with the exception of this movie, I've been pretty indifferent if not a little indignant of the Terminator franchise.

I don't really understand why so many creative ideas are being thrown into a franchise that has had one good movie. Albeit a really great movie, but one good movie.

Terminator 1 is okay. Terminator 2 is amazing. Terminator Genisys is a hot pile of garbage and I haven't heard anything but apathy and critique of Terminator 3 and Salvation. So why are we putting so much effort into these movies?

The other thing that blows my mind is that while this movie is good, it doesn't really lend itself to a sequel. Honestly, if Hollywood wasn't obsessed with trilogies and sequels, I'd say they should have just ended it with this movie and have a decent horror movie followed up by a great sequel. Hindsight is of course 20/20 and no one is going to stop while they're ahead, especially as ahead as this movie brought them but again I have to say, why are we continuing down this road when every movie since Terminator 2 has been a bigger and bigger disappointment?

If I saw a picture like this for a new Terminator movie almost 30 years after T2 and I didn't know it was a picture for Terminator 6 I'd be super pumped and excited to see Linda Hamilton, especially after I watched this movie and saw how great of a character she is and how much of a badass she was.

But instead I look at this and I just shrug.

Overall, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is a really, REALLY solid movie. When you start 90's action movies off on such a high bar, with few exceptions its really hard to compete with it. I'm glad I watched it, I just think I'm just bummed now because I at least understand (still don't agree) the desire to continue this franchise. I also know that if I decide to watch Terminator 3 and Salvation in its entirety, I'm just going to get even more bummed out.

Are there issues with this movie? Yes, but they're very small and the truth is, it's just a really solid movie. Do yourself a favor and check it out if you haven't.

But those are my thoughts on Terminator 2: Judgement Day. What did you think of it? Do we need more Terminator films? Are you excited for Terminator 6... if you are I am actually interested in hearing why because I don't know anybody who is. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading.

Dreamcatcher

Something to note about Stephen King is that while I've really come to love a lot of his books and just the way he tells stories, I have started to notice that a lot of his work, especially his lesser known works, seem to repeat a lot of the same aspects and tropes he's used in the past. Sometimes it doesn't matter and can contribute to a larger universe. I find it really interesting when his stories interconnect and he makes reference to places like Derry, Maine from IT, or characters have psychic abilities that might be connected to the same Shining ability that Danny has in The Shining. 

So in that sense, there are some aspects of Dreamcatcher that I find interesting. If you're a fan of Stephen King's mythology and story telling, you might find some enjoyment in this film. But that only can get you so far and eventually you have to recognize how horrible this film is. 

Dreamcatcher follows the story of four friends Henry, Jonesy, Pete, and Beaver (played by Thomas

Jane, Damien Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, and Jason Lee respectively). Each one of them have psychic abilities and the four of them gather in a cabin in the woods every year to reminisce of the old times they used to have as kids.

This particular year though, they find themselves in the middle of an alien invasion as aliens that burrow inside a person and explode out their butt start to stalk them. The four friends must survive the onslaught of "shit weasels", the military quarantine led by a ruthless, ridiculous eye browed Morgan Freeman, and sort of using their psychic abilities to save their skin...

And that's about it. That's not a joke... this movie is about aliens that explode out of people's asses and Stephen King thought we'd take it seriously. The problem first and foremost is the fact that the premise is impossible to take seriously. It sounds more like a plot of a parody horror film or a B movie, not a high budget Stephen King novel directed by the guy who brought us The Empire Strikes Back.

The second biggest problem is that this movie is full of actors who I think have proven themselves to do a good job, or at least have done it since this movie but just give either horrible or just lackluster performances in this movie.

The two big names I can think of are from Morgan Freeman and Damien Lewis. Now to be fair to Freeman, he's not a very well written character from the get go.

At the beginning of the film, they set him up as this hardened military general whose dialogue probably wasn't updated from the book at all. He calls people "Bucko" and just has some of the worst lines that I'm sure Freeman had the ability to make work, but it doesn't really seem like he's invested in this film at all so it's kind of moot. He's a good example of a character that I'm sure might have worked in the book. But when adapted to film, the character probably is true to the description in the book but that makes him only come off as cartoon-y and silly.

And then there's Damien Lewis.

 I'm a little bit disappointed with Damien Lewis. I've been watching him in Homeland recently and he's really good. But I think there was definitely some development of his abilities between 2003 and 2011. His character Jonesy starts out as probably the most interesting of the four and remains that way despite being posessed by the alien, but for some reason this meant that Lewis needed to have some kind of split personality complex between his American character, and a British accent alien that took over his bodily functions. So while he might be the most interesting character and probably the best part of the movie, he's still very disappointing in the way he's written and his performance.

The other actors really struggle to keep me invested both in their performance and the way they're written. None of these characters have very interesting pasts or backgrounds and there's not really an internal struggle that gets resolved by the end of the movie.

The character of Henry for some reason thinks about killing himself at the beginning of the movie and it's only really mentioned one other time. The other motivations for the other characters are either very week or nonexistent, and therefore I don't really care when some of them get axed off.

If I didn't care about Jason Lee's character, and I don't care about Thomas Jane's character or Damien Lewis's character, why should I care when one of their friends die?

Are there interesting parts about the movie? Yes. There's a part of this movie centered on the fact that Damien Lewis's character stores all his memories in a "memory warehouse". There is some cerebral elements of the movie that are really interesting but I think that is attributed to King's imagination more than the execution of the movie. Like I said, the whole aspect of Stephen King's universe being utilized for a new setting and conflict is entertaining. The idea of four friends having psychic abilities is somewhat interesting and in better hands could have been really interesting. An alien invasion where the aliens attack you in a very intrusive and personal way I think would be difficult but could potentially be made into something interesting. But all the potential is lost when the movie just wants to be a poor slasher monster movie.

The movie does another Stephen King trope where they show flashbacks of these kids in a small town with bullies who are psychopaths instead of realistic bullies.

I'm not so worried that this just seems like a repeat of other Stephen King works like Stand By Me or IT, it's more that these younger characters are boring. Maybe they developed them more in the book, but for the movie they just come off as weak stereotypes of other stronger child groups like Stand By Me. There is a weak connection to their experiences as kids to the present day, especially with their mentally challenged friend Duditz (who as an adult is played by Donnie Wahlberg), but overall these scenes are way too long and could have been cut down. They could have also been extended to make a more interesting story, but without any kind of development or even base for the characters internal struggles in the present, they continue to follow a trend of just being boring.

I really wanted to give this movie a fair shake. I have seen some very critical reviews of the movie but I wanted to go in and see if there was something redeemable about it. Unfortunately, I was very underwhelmed and the movie became entertaining not because there were good parts, but because it was entertaining taking note of all the things it gets wrong.

I think Stephen King is getting a little bit of a revival these days because the good adaptations have built on the mythos that King has established. IT, 11/22/63, and Castle Rock (I think, I haven't watched it yet) seem to take the great parts of their lore and update it to today's standards, not keeping it locked in the past to stay true to King's books.

Furthermore, shows like Stranger Things harken back to the good parts of Stephen Kings work and leave out the bad parts like Dreamcatcher.

But I do have to give King some credit. He has the ability to just write and throw whatever he can at the wall. Writing a story about aliens that burrow out your butts wouldn't be a subject that any normal writer could handle, but King is the only one I can think of who I would trust to do something like that.

The movie is not great, but I still do have to applaud King for creative ideas... even if not all of them are classics.

But those are my thoughts on Dreamcatcher. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter, @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Disenchantment (First 10 Episodes)

So I'll be upfront, I am not an avid watcher of The Simpsons or Futurama. I've casually watched episodes here and there when they're on TV but I just didn't have the connection with those shows as other people clearly have. However, I do know and respect the name Matt Groening, so when it was announced that he was coming out with a new animated show on Netflix, I was ready to be floored. I think a lot of people were and I think that's Disenchantment's first mistake. I think the hype for the show was too high and people came in with expectations that were too high to actually meet. There are a lot of issues with Disenchantment that I will get into, but that's the first one by far.

Disenchantment takes place in a medieval fantasy world, mostly in the kingdom of Dreamland. It centers on three characters, Princess Tiabeenie or Bean (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), an oblivious elf by the obvious name of Elfo (voiced by Nat Faxon), and a devious spirit named Luci who has committed to be Bean's personal demon (voiced by Eric Andre).

The three of them come together to get into misguided adventures as Bean is an alcoholic misfit who doesn't want to conform to the expectations of being a princess, put on her by her father, King Zog (voiced by John DiMaggio). King Zog wants to extract the magical elf blood from Elfo to create the Elixir of Life and that is a continuing plot throughout the first ten episodes.

I should mention that Netflix only released the first ten episodes of the twenty that were ordered. I'm not sure if that means that the first ten episodes are season 1 and the next ten are season 2, who knows. Doesn't really matter.

The thing I want to figure out is what exactly makes this show so lackluster for me. As I mentioned before, I'm not an avid watcher of the Simpsons or Futurama. I like to thing I got the understanding for those shows and knew what made them funny but one possibility is that I just didn't understand that humor and I'm just missing what makes this show funny. What I think is more likely is that I did watch enough and I'm just comparing this show (perhaps unfairly) to The Simpsons and Futurama setting the expectations too high.

I won't say there are no funny bits in Disenchantment, but I thought about it quite a bit a couple hours after I finished the last episode and the main take away from my viewing experience is, I really have no idea what the whole show is really about. I really couldn't remember a huge take away I'm supposed to take from those 10 episodes.

Bean is neither particularly funny or memorable, she's just a drunk and is a screw up, constantly achieving only disapproval from her father who is an obnoxious screw up who's only interested in keeping power. I can really only remember one or two lines or moments from both of these characters that got a chuckle out of me. And their family dynamic is pretty lackluster as well. They go a little too hard on the fact that Bean doesn't care about what her father thinks so it doesn't even really make sense when they try to create some semblance of touching moments between them.

The show also really doesn't know how to create a meaningful serious moments. One of the few things I did retain from the season was the last few episodes where they delve a little bit into the tragedy these two are dealing with. But neither one of them are serious enough for me to really appreciate their tragedy and how it relates to their relationship. On top of that, I don't care enough about either one of them to appreciate how the tragedy affected individually, so a lot of it is lost, especially when they throw in a joke before it gets too serious.

And then you have Elfo and Luci. And I will give the show some credit, these two are probably the best part of the show. Elfo is an elf who leaves his world to come to the human world and he's so uneducated about what reality is like that there were a couple of moments where his stupidity was really funny.

And then you've got Luci who is a vaguely powerful demon who's sole purpose is to be the devil on Bean's shoulder telling her to do the wrong thing. He's almost always apathetic to what's going on and always acts in his own self interest that there are some parts where his character can be kind of funny.

However, both characters have flaws that prevent them from being really interesting and really funny.

In the case of Luci, his character design is so simple that there's not a whole lot of physical humor to come out of him. Almost all of the humor comes from Eric Andre. Andre is a funny guy, but I don't think he's given a strong enough script to really make Luci that interesting or extremely funny. On another note, Luci is so apathetic at times that he becomes more of a heel on the plot. While his apathy is funny at times, just as often its just annoying. Moreover, his character isn't always consistent because he's sometimes forced to disregard that apathy, especially the more a "friendship" develops between the three.

And then there's Elfo. Now I think Elfo's problem is more that he's not the main character. He plays second fiddle to Bean who is not nearly as interesting or funny. Elfo grew up in Elf land and is essentially the ignorant fish out of water. In the first episode he comes across a battle and inadvertently causes a lot of death and avoids his own demise out of sure luck and coincidence. This was a funny scene.

But as the show goes on, Elfo just feels like an out of place character and is almost too stupid for the plot.

But most importantly, the show has a very inconsistent tone on whether or not these characters are really searching for anything. Sometimes they seem very content with just drinking and hanging out. And if every adventure was them just falling into it or them reluctantly going into it, I would be fine with that. But then they throw in episodes where it seems like they're pointing to an underlying desire that they never really seem to have.

All three of the main characters (and the supporting cast) all feel like unique characters you might find around the town of Springfield, but they all lack a sense of centrality or underlying conflict.

The other aspect that felt odd about this show was that there were only 10 episodes. And maybe this is a personal preconceived notion but when a show only has 10 episodes, I feel like each episode needs to feel important. I liken those really good ten episodes animated series to ones like Rick and Morty or Bojack Horseman. Each episode feels special, and each episode has something to say.

Disenchantment felt like each episode was just another episodic outing. The stakes never feel really high and the characters feel like they return to status quo by the end of the episode. Which would be feel more natural if this was a season of 24 episodes, but when its only 10 episodes, it feels like it was intending to say more than it actually did.

The truth is, I can't honestly remember much of anything about the past ten episodes I watched. The episodes felt so inconsequential for the most part and overall the show just didn't have the same impact I've come to expect from other animated shows I've been watching recently, especially from Netflix.

Comparing this show to something like Bojack Horseman is impossible because there just seems to be a lot more work put into the writing of an episode of Bojack Horseman than Disenchantment.

To be fair, Bojack is trying to achieve a different goal, but the point still stands that whether its a drama with comedy sprinkled in like Bojack, or an episodic Simpsons-lite misadventure of the week like Disenchantment, Bojack accomplished its goal and then some with how refined the humor can be at times. Disenchantment misses the mark and stumbles when it tries to add drama to something that it doesn't feel compatible with.

Is Disenchantment the worst show out there? No, but it's not a high bar when you say something is not the worst thing I've ever seen. It has its moments where I was entertained. It pulled out some funny voice actors from time to time and if you're a bigger fan of animation, you'll probably recognize and appreciate the voice acting more than I did. One of the only voices I really recognized was Matt Berry from the IT Crowd and he and his Noel Fieldings were criminally underutilized.

I think the thing that bummed me out the most was that I wanted Disenchantment to be good. I think a lot of the disappointment it garnered from Matt Groening fans was that it wasn't an instant classic like The Simpsons or Futurama. For Netflix viewers like me, the disappointment might have been that it wasn't Bojack Horseman. But I think the biggest disappointment was that I just wasn't that entertained by it and it didn't leave much of an impact. I don't need it to be a drama disguised as an animated comedy like Bojack, I just wanted some entertainment and I can't say that happened with Disenchantment. Ultimately the show was at best okay, and at worst boring.

But that's my opinions only. What did you think? Did you like Disenchantment? Do you think it reached the potential of The Simpsons or Futurama? Do you think its been fairly critiqued? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading.