The Flash: Season 2

In the time that I’ve been watching a lot of TV and reviewing it, I’ve realized that the quality of a network a television show airs on does not always correspond with the quality of the television show.  For example, Daredevil is a great show on a great service like Netflix, but Netflix also put out Richie Rich so they don’t always bat 1000. The CW, a network I have a lot of problems with, puts out Arrow, a show that I have a lot of problems with. But in the same year, they put out The Flash, a show that defies everything the CW has wanted to put out in the past. 

I don’t feel like I necessarily gave the first season of the Flash the review it deserved. I had a lot to say about the CW Arrowverse and I really wanted to get to the end where I talked about how the CW universe and the universe of the movies isn’t connected but at the same time they are connected by the fact that the comic books have always pointed towards multiple universes. And while Grant Gustin might not be the Flash in the movie universe, that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t do a quick cameo in the Flash movie pointing towards the existence of multiple universes. I was so excited by talking about the potential of that, because it is really exciting if they decided to acknowledge that in the films. But I sort of blew past the reviews of both the 2^nd season of Arrow, and the first season of The Flash, both actually really entertaining seasons of television. 

The fun part about this season is that it just supports the theories I had in my first Arrowverse tangent. I’m going to focus more on the structure of the second season and what I liked and what I didn’t like, but there will be time to talk about different Earths and the implications that are set up by the second season of the Flash. 

The first season of The Flash ended with Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) killing himself in order to negate the existence of Eobard Thawne or Harrison Wells (played by Tom Cavanagh). The actions of Thawne created a singularity above Central City and would have destroyed the city. The last thing we saw was Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin) going off to save Central City from a huge singularity. 

The first episode takes place 6 months after that singularity and the Flash has been doing his thing by himself. He was able to stop the singularity, but at the expense of Ronnie Raymond (played by Robbie Amell). On a side note, as much as it is sad to see that character die, they really needed to get rid of Robbie Amell, he’s just not a good actor. Barry feels guilt for the loss of Ronnie and he feels like he’s keeping his friends and family safe if he works alone. 

However, a number of meta-humans start appearing and Team Flash soon figures out that they are not from our world. Barry realizes that he needs all his friends to stop a looming threat. Team Flash includes a lot of Barry’s friends, including Cisco Ramon (played by Carlos Valdes), Caitlin Snow (played by Danielle Panabaker), his adopted father, and detective Joe West (played by Jesse L Martin) and his sister who he has had a crush on for years and now knows his secret identity, Iris West (played by Candice Patton). 

But the team is also supported by a man by the name Jay Garrick (played by Teddy Sears) claiming to be The Flash from another universe. They are also supported by the Earth 2 doppleganger of Harrison Wells, the very man who killed Barry’s mother. On top of that you have people making guest appearances and having a run of episodes where they carry Barry through a story arc like Dr. Martin Stein or one half of Firestorm (played by Victor Garber) and of course Barry’s love interest for the first half of the season Detective Patty Spivot. Of course throughout the season, everyone visiting the Flash, whether they be friend or foe, harken the coming of the speedster who only goes by the moniker of Zoom. 

Now I go back and forth on what I think about Zoom. On one hand, he is a very menacing villain and he actually has tense moments just being a scary dude. But at the same end, it is a little bit of a retread from the first season. The main villain is a speedster, Barry of course faces him early on in the season and he gets his shit wrecked. The entire season Barry is wondering if he’s fast enough to defeat this evil speedster. It is a little bit of a retread. Having watched the entire season though, I do see the differences, and while I want the third season to focus on a main villain that isn’t a speedster, I actually really liked to overall story of Zoom and what his motivations are for wanting to fight the Flash and spread his wrath across universes. 

And that really is the best thing that really sets Season 2 apart from Season 1. Earth 2. 

Because of the singularity created in the last season, Team Flash has now opened up portals to other worlds like Earth 2. In the first half of the season, there really is only mention and brief glimpses into Earth 2. But when they actually go to Earth 2 and they get to interact with their dopplegangers, things get a lot more fun. This was definitely a great way to up the ante of the show and introduce a whole new level of storytelling to a show like The Flash. 

Now something that was an issue in the first season and carried over to the second is the science by which they solve their problems. The part of the Flash that is probably the most formulaic is that it goes down like a lot of 40 minute episodes do, bad guy shows up, the Flash fights him, fails, then the team reconsolidates and figures out a way to stop the bad guy, The Flash fights him again and wins. The issue is the science is absolute bullshit. It does that thing that movies do where they explain a very complex idea with something that seems plausible but then throw in a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo just enough to get you confused and go back to your thought process that this could be plausible with the right circumstances. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if episodes getting formulaic doesn’t bother you like it doesn’t really bother me. 

The one issue that The Flash has with its explanations is the bullshit radar when it comes to time travel. The thing I have really liked about The Flash is that it delves into Time travel, but not enough to turn the show from a superhero show into a time travel show. It’s very clever in its use of characters, show atmosphere, and plot lines that it is a lot of fun. However, that doesn’t always mean that their explanation of why things that should be paradoxes are not paradoxes.

The thing that I thought was going to be the biggest issue was the drama. While The Flash is a TV show that is one of the better superhero shows out there today, I always reminded every once in a while that it is airing on the CW. And this is for a multitude of reasons. The acting can be pretty cheesy and hokey at times. Some of the actors were hired more on the basis that they look good as opposed to their acting ability. And as much as we try and run away from it like the speedsters we wish we could be, there is always that super dramatic subplots that plague the filler episodes in this 24 episode season.

And to be fair, these episodes are not nearly as CW-ish as the filler episodes of Arrow where Oliver’s rich sister is having relationship issues while possible developing a drug problem with the rich white people drugs, The Flash does have plots that do relate to more people and ground the characters better than Arrow does. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of filler episodes in a season that is so good, it could just be streamlined into a 10-12 episode Netflix series.

And while I complained a lot about the filler episodes (Evidence being in my Twitter feed), the one

good side of a lot of filler episodes is marked by two great choices. The first one is that a lot of those episodes focus on Barry and not the less interesting people, most namely Iris. Filler episodes are more likely to be bad in the Flash because they are just Barry questioning himself when he really shouldn’t be. In other shows, most namely Arrow, they would have dedicated almost full episodes to Iris and her relationship issues, or actors who are just not as likeable. On top of it all, every episode, whether it’s a filler episode or not, taps into the rogue gallery giving Barry a villain of the week to face off against. A lot of the focus is on the task at hand of Barry defeating that villain, and the filler relationship stuff really takes a backseat.

But that is really helped because the cast of characters is developed really well in The Flash. And this is really what helps the show in a lot of ways. In the times that they do focus on Barry’s relationships, something that isn’t as exciting as fighting bad guys, it works because Barry is a likeable character and we care about him. The times where Joe is dealing with his long lost son Wally (played by Keiynan Lonsdale), it works because we care about Joe and while that story wasn’t as interesting, we wanted to see him succeed. Even the times where the dialogue is cheesy and the acting is hokey, it works because this season has built on what the first season did and created characters that are likeable and you care about.

And while it can feel like there are so many episodes, it does culminate into something great because everything is pointing towards the final showdown between Barry and Zoom.

We live in a world where TV has become so cinematic and because of that, our already short attention spans believe that the best shows can be condensed into 10-12 episodes on a streaming service. The Flash is an example of how to do the 24 episode season correctly. This was something that I felt with the first season, that I blew through these seasons and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. While I can’t say any episode really stuck out and can be named my favorite, but overall the season was a lot of fun.

I think the season took a lot of risks and it made me really excited to watch the third season. The Flash is the beacon of hope in a hit or miss Arrowverse. While Arrow may be either really good one season and awful the next, while Legends of Tomorrow just can’t hit that right note to keep me interested, I know that The Flash still manages to hit it on the head every time and give me something really worthwhile to enjoy.

But those are my thoughts on The Flash Season 2. I might do a spoiler review to talk about the individual stuff in the season I was a fan of, and I might add in some thoughts on the future of the series and make some speculation (even though the third season is happening and my speculation is probably wrong). I will let you all know. I just wanted to get my overall thoughts on the season out there. But what did you think? How does Season 2 compare with Season 1? Are season 3 and on of Arrow something I need to check out? Give me your thoughts on Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies 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.

I’ll leave you with this. This has to be one of my favorite soundtracks from a TV show of all time and possibly up there with one of the greatest superhero themes of all time. Enjoy!

  

White House Down

For some reason, in 2013 the big thing was making a Die Hard set in the White House. There were two big movies that came out with basically the same premise, down on his luck guy (the John McClane of the story) has to save the President when the White House is attacked by terrorists who have an inside man with the secret service. At the end of the film the John McClane and the President are buddies and the terrorists are foiled before the United States is plunged into chaos. White House Down and Olympus has Fallen were those two movies. They are pretty much exactly the same. The only difference is the tone. Olympus Has Fallen takes on more of a serious 80s action vibe to it, while White House Down is more of an action comedy.

I have already reviewed Olympus has Fallen. I even reviewed its sequel London Has Fallen. My biggest issues with that film were the over-the-topness of it and the predictability of the film. So how does White House Down compare?

White House Down follows the story of John Cale (played by Channing Tatum). He is on the security detail of the Speaker of the House but he would like to join the Secret Service and protect the President. He has a daughter that lives with his ex-wife and his daughter, Emily (played by Joey King) is not his biggest fan, mainly because he’s a little bit of a deadbeat father. Emily is really into politics and really into her Youtube channel and blogging about politics.

John is applying to join the Secret Service and he takes Emily with him when he goes to interview for the job. He is quickly rejected but before they leave, they go on a tour of the White House.

Meanwhile, the President James Sawyer (played by Jaimie Fox) is ready to unveil a new policy that proposes removing combat troops from the Middle East. His secret service detail includes his Head of the Detail, Martin Walker (played by James Woods) and another agent named Carol Finnerty

(played by Maggie Gyllenhal). Walker is on his way towards retirement when he facilitates a group of mercenaries to lead an assault on the White House and take everyone inside hostage.

John Cale and his daughter are separated before the assault and he breaks away from the hostage situation to find her. But he runs across the President and takes it upon himself to protect the President until the terrorists are stopped.

Outside the White House, The Vice President is rushed to Airforce One, Agent Finnerty (Gyllenhal) takes the Speaker of the House (played by Richard Jenkins) to a command center with all the security agencies of the United States trying to figure out a way to save the President and the hostages before they are all killed by the terrorists.

Right off the bat, this movie is hilarious. Roland Emmerich had to have known how ridiculous of a scenario this movie is set up as and instead of trying to normalize it, Emmerich leans into it, just making so many over the top action sequences and having the comedy to smooth the sense of

disbelief of the audience. Remember when I said in my Olympus Has Fallen review that I thought at times the movie was too over the top and ridiculous. While I think that worked for the film, it just worked in a different way. Olympus has Fallen took itself seriously the way and 80’s action movie would take itself way too seriously. It has its merits but if you’re not totally one hundred percent engaged in the film, you’re suspension of disbelief is only going to go so far. Now the same thing happens with White House Down, but the movie takes a little bit of a different approach. There still is the feeling of an 80’s Die Hard action movie when you watch this film, but it’s less a serious action movie and more a Rush Hour action comedy. This allows the movie to make more comedic moments, and up the ante with the stakes because you know there is going to be a funny reaction or a funny scenario that will keep the audience grounded and make it easier to digest. Now, it does at a certain point reach a point of diminishing returns and the action and plot do get a little bit over the top and ridiculous. However, Roland Emmerich doubled down on the over the top action, whereas Antoine Fuqua on the sappy over the top acting and patriotism factor. Personally for me, I prefer jumping the shark action over a movie taking itself way too seriously.

White House Down has just a likeable cast starting with Channing Tatum. Channing Tatum has really grown as an actor, and while I don’t think he’s on the fast track to winning an Oscar anytime soon, I get the feeling that I am going to like his stuff more and more once he gets in a groove of what he is good at and what his strengths are. The thing that I liked about the character of John Cale was that he is in essence John McClane. Not bald, bored out of his mind Bruce Willis, John McClane, he is John McClane from the first Die Hard movie. He’s a likeable down on his luck guy but at the same time you can imagine why he’s kind of a screw up. He wants to do best by the people he loves and yet he just can’t get it right. The other thing that I really liked about John Cale was the fact that he starts this journey with the one goal of finding his daughter and making sure she’s safe. He’s then wrangled into saving the President, something that immediately he is very good at. But all the while he manages to balance the desire to save his daughter with the duty to save the President.

And Jaimie Fox is a really good President James Sawyer. First off, there’s an obviously nudge to the audience that Jaimie Fox is supposed to be playing Barrack Obama. It’s done in a way that is both hilarious and respectful. And because its respectful, it makes the character a little bit more fun because there’s a piece of your mind that is imagining Obama in this exact situation and due to Fox’s comedic chops, it becomes even funnier with that mindset. Jaimie Fox also makes a contribution that not all Die Hard rip offs have been able to do, and that is make it a buddy comedy movie. Even the fourth Die Hard wasn’t that good because they decided to pair John McClane up with Justin Long (is Long still a thing? I haven’t seen him in a while). It takes the right pairing to make a Die Hard rip off work as a buddy comedy and Jaimie Fox does a great job being both a partner and a goal that Channing Tatum has to reach.

The rest of the cast is good. Jason Clarke is slowly becoming one of my favorite actors and I think everything he does, even if it’s bad, he still gives a pretty good performance. Maggie Gyllenhal actually did a good job, and freaking James Woods is the bad guy! That blew my mind when I first saw that. The last thing I saw James Woods in was a Family Guy episode and its great seeing him as the asshole bad guy.

The biggest issue I have with the ancillary characters is not so much about their performances but more the plans they have that drive the plot. The first thing I’ll talk about is the bad guy’s plot. The entire movie, the President surviving is necessary to the bad guy’s plot… except it isn’t but that’s a small side note. But furthermore, when you finally figure out what James Woods wants to do, it is the point where you actually see the plot jump the shark and go a little bit overboard. It reaches the point where your suspension of disbelief is reached and if you’re not totally loving the movie already, you might roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of the plot.

But the real problem with this movie is the incompetence of Gyllenhal and the government agencies trying to save the President and the hostages in the White House. These guys are kind of morons. Gyllenhal is a bit of a moron, the generals are morons, the Vice President is a moron, Richard Jenkins as the Speaker of the House is a little bit of a moron, they’re all just morons.

And I get it, it is a Die Hard-like movie, the John McClane character is supposed to be the smartest person in the room and the person who knows how to fix the situation the best, and there were parts in the original Die Hard where the police outside disagree and take matters into their own hands. In fact, White House Down basically rips off those exact scenes from Die Hard. But it does become a little worrying when you realize that the difference is that the police in Die Hard were local police. The officials on the outside were the military and the highest federal law enforcement agencies in the country. I get that the White House being under siege is an unprecedented situation, but there had to have been smarter decisions being made by the government and those decisions weren’t made for the convenience of the plot and the fact that Channing Tatum needed to take on these terrorists by himself.

And these decisions, like the over the top action, are acceptable for a certain amount of time, until they start jumping the shark and you just have to roll your eyes on how stupid these guys are.

And that is the one thing that I think Olympus has Fallen has over White House Down. The story just makes a little bit more sense. Emmerich really wanted to make this over the top action comedy that at a certain point, it reaches a point of diminishing returns and that’s where the story structure problems begin. In Olympus Has Fallen, you felt the power that the terrorists had over the government, and while Gerard Butler was still the smartest man in the room, you still felt like the government had a powerful role to play, they were just outmatched by the terrorists. In White House Down, Channing Tatum is the only one who is right the entire time and everything falls on him. That’s not necessarily a horrible thing, it’s just not the best story structure.

That being said, I don’t know why Olympus Has Fallen got a sequel and White House Down didn’t. I thought the action in this movie was great. I was laughing at this movie so many times. I thought the cast was really well done and I did care about the problems and trials of the hero in this story. I would love to see a sequel to White House Down and I could almost see it as the comedic pairing to the Olympus Has Fallen franchise.

Apparently there is going to be a third installment in the Olympus has Fallen franchise. Having watched both movies in that franchise and now having watched White House Down, I think the wrong franchise blossomed in the bizarre happening that was 2013’s obsession with the White House being assaulted. I like them both, but for different reasons, and neither of them are movies that I’m going to go out and buy. But White House Down has a lot of strong qualities that make it just a fun movie you can watch if it’s on cable. If this comes up when I’m watching TV, it will definitely be one I check out again.

But those are my thoughts on White House Down. I have finally seen both White House Die Hard films of 2013, which one do you prefer? Do you prefer an action comedy, or a cheesy 80’s action film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 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.

I’ll leave you with this. It won't be my next review but I am definitely going to do a quick reaction review on the new Beauty and the Beast trailer because it looks awesome. Enjoy!

Titanic

I think this movie and Avatar ruined James Cameron for me. I do respect that the guy for his accomplishments to make himself such a big name, and I do recognize that he has made a lot of ground breaking steps when it comes to movie technology. Furthermore, before I decide to be objective, I often feel the need to go against the grain. Titanic is so universally loved that I can’t help but immediately try and shit on it. Luckily that is what Twitter is for, but when I write down reviews, I want to be as objective as I can. That is what I’m going to try and do. I have acknowledged my biases but now I go into Titanic with a clear mind and write exactly how I feel about it.

Titanic chronicles the story of the legendary largest ship created by man that suffered a tragic fate after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic. The actual story of Titanic is one of heroism, human suffering, and a lesson to show the folly of man’s hubris. And yes, those elements are in this story. Unfortunately, instead of making those the centerpiece of this story, we instead focus on two fictional characters and their Romeo and Juliet love story.

Before all that, the movie starts out with Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett, a treasure hunter who is looking for a diamond that was rumored to be aboard the Titanic when it sunk. He attracts the attention of Rose Dawson Calvert (played by the late Gloria Stuart) and she claims to have survived the sinking and that she was in possession of the diamond. She is brought aboard their ship and she begins to tell the story of her time on the Titanic.

In 1912, Rose Dewitt Bukater (played by Kate Winslet) was a privileged young woman betrothed to the heir of a Pittsburgh Steel Fortune, Cal Hockley (played by Billy Zane). Of course, she does not want to marry Cal and she feels trapped as she boards the Titanic being forced into the luxurious lifestyle of the first class passengers.

Right off the bat, Cry me a river!

Don’t get me wrong, Cal is an asshole. I’m actually kind of surprised that they didn’t give Billy Zane a mustache for him to twirl he is such a cookie cutter bad guy in this story. But Rose is just a little bit dramatic with how “trapped” she feels in this movie. She has the power to leave Cal, you see it at the end of the movie, but it takes being saved from a suicide attempt by Leonardo DiCaprio to get her to finally do it. There’s a really interesting story about breaking free from what’s expected of you and going off to live your life the way you want to, but its really muddled by the whole Celine Dion fueled love story in this film.

But before I get to that, the other half of that love story is Jack Dawson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). Now I’ve seen Titanic a couple times but I don’t think I’ve ever really sat down and examined the film as a film and not a pop culture icon. I say this because I didn’t realize how horrible a character Jack Dawson is. Jack Dawson is a penniless wanderer who gets onto the Titanic by pure luck, winning his third class ticket in a game of poker. Put aside the fact that Leo took a while to get rid of his boyish looks and looks like he’s 16 in this film, he plays your basic charming 90’s hunk that basically could be on a poster that says not all who wander are lost. And I guess I knew remembered that he was your boy crush Leo in this film, but I never realized how much of a douche this guy is. Like Jack Dawson is your 1912 hipster, he’s so content and against the grain that you just wanna punch him. There’s a part where he’s sitting with the first class passengers at dinner and he just starts boasting about how his address is wherever he ends up and how he goes wherever the wind takes him. While I’m sure this was sexy in the 90s, it just comes off as lazy and a little annoying now.

These two star crossed lovers, torn apart by their social class and what is expected of them, find one another aboard the Titanic and if their status wasn’t enough to tear them apart, why not a horrific disaster that killed up to 1,635 people? The movie is basically divided into two parts. I remember when I was younger, the VHS had two tapes that you had to switch out half way through because VHS couldn’t hold a 3 hour long movie. The first half is your teeny bopper drama between Leo and Winslet, bucking conventions and falling in love with one another despite the social constructs they were born into. The second half is a full out disaster film with some really intense visuals and a lot more intrigue and suspense as the RMS Titanic begins to sink.

With the exception of a small part which I will mention, the second half is where I have to give Cameron credit. He knows how to film action and disaster as well as hundreds of people dying  in a way that is both respectful to the survivors and their families, and shows the full impact of what exactly happened. The visuals of a huge ship like this sinking, the water up to the necks of the survivors (water that was purposefully made freezing cold to bring a realism factor), and finally the bodies frozen in the water as they died from hypothermia, are really powerful and I would be silly not to give Cameron the credit he deserves there.

The biggest problem comes when the movie gets tripped up by the stupid love story that plagued the first half of this movie. There’s a scene when the boat is filling with water, people are panicking, and not only do we take time out from the real tragedy to focus back on this stupid love story, but Billy Zane’s character is so distraught over this betrayal that he pulls a gun on Jack and Rose! Yeah, like there is nothing more important than Leonardo DiCaprio running off with your trophy wife! EXCEPT THE SINKING BOAT YOU’RE ON WITH NOT ENOUGH LIFE BOATS TO SAVE EVERYONE!

When we were all younger and learning about the Titanic is school, it was a pretty straight forward case. Largest boat ever created at the time hits an iceberg. Boat sinks. Hundreds of people die. But the older I get, the more I do research into things and the more I start hearing about the stories of heroism of actual real life people on the Titanic. I start to recognize the themes that go along with the story of the Titanic when man tries to create something spectacular and his hubris is his downfall. I recognize the impacts this tragedy had on the world and how it changed things. But what is the first thing we think of when we hear the word Titanic?

That stupid Celine Dion song!!

Disaster Romance film is definitely a genre and Titanic spawned a number of movies that wanted to follow in its footsteps and capitalize on two markets at once. Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Twister, and other movies like it are all films that mixed romance films with disaster films and kept on thinking it was a good idea. And it’s all because everyone and their mother went to go see Titanic a couple trillion times to put it as one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Now to be fair, I will say I am letting my biases come out just a tad with my review of this movie so I must talk about some other good things in this film. The actors who played characters who actually existed and were real passengers of the Titanic did an absolutely phenomenal job. Bernard Hill plays Captain Edward John Smith, Kathy Bates played Molly Brown, Victor Garber played the ship’s builder Thomas Andrews, all very good performances. Now unfortunately Cameron doesn’t exactly stay true to all the historical characters, especially the First Officer William Murdoch who in real life displayed heroism and in the film ended up shooting a third class passenger… I will say that despite some inaccuracies, the actors they casted as these historical figures did a good job. The unfortunate thing is these characters are only window dressing to support the setting this love story is set in.

Furthermore, it’s not even that great of a love story. Your girlfriend might hate me for saying that but there have been and there will be better love stories than that of Jack and Rose. This romance probably would have been more believable if it hadn’t been bound to the confines of the Titanic narrative. Rose has three days to desperately fall in love with this handsome hobo from Wisconsin so much that she is willing to leave not only her asshole fiancé, but also her entire life and family, all within the timeline of the Titanic hitting an iceberg and sinking. If this had been a few weeks or something, I would have understood, but the Titanic hits the Iceberg 4 days after it departed from South Hampton. That is ridiculous!

Furthermore, the timeline of the Titanic doesn’t help the very development of Rose as a character. We know that at the end of the film, she is able to go off and do her own thing without feeling confined to the constructs of her class. But she goes from wanting to kill herself to having a sort of awakening at the end and branching out on her own. And that would have been a really powerful story of an empowered women if it wasn’t such a drastic change and it wasn’t because of Leonardo DiCaprio. Seriously, Rose goes from this milk toast rich girl to a milk toast beer drinking, spitting hick in a matter of days.

I first started to notice the holes in Titanic from a review a fellow critic did quite a while ago and he stated that if you put this story on a different boat, in a different time, you would get the same story and that you might as well call this movie Sinking Boat instead of Titanic. And I actually wouldn’t think that’s a horrible film. My issue comes when the movie is called Titanic but the events of the Titanic are secondary to the stupid Celine Dion love story.

This entire movie could have been about Victor Garber and his character Thomas Andrews. It could have been about Captain Smith, or Molly Brown. Hell I watched a documentary about the lawsuits that happened after the Titanic sank that would make for a fascinating courtroom drama. And yet Cameron decided to take the easy route and appeal to both fans of the romance genre and the disaster genre. And I understand that the Titanic has been romanticized quite a bit, in part due to this film, but I can’t help but feel this movie gets more recognition than it actually deserves.

And my bias comes back because that is my biggest gripe with this film. It took in so much money, taking its spot for highest grossing film of all time for so many years and yet I don’t feel like it deserved all that money. The optimist in me says people came for the technological spectacle instead of the romance, but even that depresses me because even films with the best CGI can suck because they don’t have a good story. Titanic and in the same vein, Avatar, doesn’t reward good storytelling, it rewards making the film look good. And Cameron has ridden that gravy train twice and wants to keep on riding it with Avatar sequel after Avatar sequel. He’s not a storyteller, he’s an event planner. He could be doing great films because he is a really good director, but instead he’s wasting his time with Avatar…

But I’m not talking about Avatar I’m talking about Titanic…

I am not a fan of Titanic, in case that wasn’t incredibly clear. Looking at it objectively, I can definitely point out the things that work. The visuals were spectacular, the casting was done really well, especially with the historical characters, and while I despise how much of this movie is more of an event than a story, I do have to compliment Cameron for how he marketed this film. Cameron didn’t just make a film about a horrible tragedy, he claimed that tragedy as his own. His film is now synonymous with the tragedy.

But everything else is just sappy or stupid. The romance overshadows a real life event when it should have been the other way around. The romance is not even that great, only being saved by two actors that just happened to have great careers after this movie, and while this movie is synonymous with the tragedy, so is that stupid Celine Dion song. I read something that said that that song was the 2^nd greatest tragedy to come out of the sinking of the Titanic.

I need to finish discussing this film. I’m glad that I finally sat down and we hashed out our differences. I can only walk away saying I did not like James Cameron’s Titanic. Plain and simple.

But what did you think? If you’re a fan of Titanic, why do you like it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for other movies 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.

I’ll leave you with this. This is probably one of the douchiest parts of the movie. Enjoy!

Step Brothers

There are movies out there that if they come on TV, you have to stop and watch them, regardless of what you are doing. For me, there are a couple in this category. If it’s a drama, its Shawshank Redemption, if it’s an action movie, it’s the Fugitive or Die Hard, and if it’s a comedy, its Step Brothers.

Throughout the 2000s, Adam McKay worked with Will Ferrell to produce a number of films that were just really strong comedies starring Ferrell. The top four that I can think of that had the most impact on me when I was growing up was, Anchorman, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys, and of course Step Brothers.

Step Brothers follows the story of a man named Robert Doback (played by Richard Jenkins) and a woman named Nancy Huff (played by Mary Steenburgen) who both have sons who are 40 years old and still live at home with them. As fate would have it, these two meet and fall in love and get married. So when they move in together, their sons have to move in together as well. Nancy’s son is Brennan (played by Will Ferrell) and Robert’s son is Dale (played by John C Reilly). Right off the bat these two clash and you can only imagine the hijinks that come as a result.

I personally think that this is the movie where Will Ferrell was at the height of his powers and really where he hit comedy gold. I’m always going to enjoy Will Ferrell in almost everything he does, but looking at his filmography, this is the last film that he starred in that really went up there as one of my all-time favorites.

So what works about Step-Brothers?

First and foremost, the cast is phenomenal. I’ll talk about the pairing of Ferrell and John C Reilly but I want to mention the rest of the cast because it is really good. Steenburgen and Jenkins do a pretty good job just being the kind of parents that would put up with two insane people like their sons. They’re not the funniest people in the film, but they really do a good job at being the straight men and just dealing with the crazy antics of John C Reilly and Will Ferrell. 

Adam Scott plays Brennan’s younger brother, Derek, who is a lot more successful but is definitely a bully to Brennan and eventually Dale. This was Adam Scott before he got his role on Parks and Recreation so for a long time I could only imagine Adam Scott as the asshole he plays in this film which is a lot different than the really nice guy in

Parks and Rec. Kathryn Hahn plays Derek's wife who comically falls in love with Dale who seems to have never been with a woman before. And the rest of the cast is a lot of funny names but are in smaller parts. Rob Riggle is in the film, and Seth Rogen is in it oddly enough. I mentioned this in my review of Popstar that this is a movie that just utilized funny people before they really caught fire. And even in the case of Seth Rogen who had just started to be a big name, his cameo didn’t really take away from the film. It worked for what the film needed and he didn’t overstay his welcome. I don’t know when we started overusing cameos in movies but we definitely need to pump the breaks and fill those smaller roles with lesser known comedians or really funny actors.

But the real comedy gold in this movie comes from the pairing of John C Reilly and Will Ferrell. I was a little bit in the minority when Talladega Nights came out and people really started to love John

C Reilly. It took me a little bit of time to actually warm up to him because I wasn’t sure if I actually liked him. Looking back at this film 8 years later, I can’t help but really enjoy him and Ferrell together. I’m always going to love anything Ferrell does, but John C Reilly is a hilarious actor, who oddly enough does a lot of serious roles as well. The two of them together make a force to be reckoned with and it’s hard to find a duo that I have laughed harder from in recent movie history. The only one I can think is MAYBE Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. We’ll see if Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart get there, but Ferrell and Reilly will go down in history as one of the best comedic duos of my time.

As for the humor in the film, if you enjoyed movies like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and movies like that, you’re going to feel right at home with Step Brothers. Reilly and Ferrell are very physical actors in this film and they do it really well. At the same time, a lot of the humor comes from how stupid these guys really are. There’s a scene where they are being forced to go get jobs and so they go to interviews. Not only to do they go and interview as a team, but they go in tuxedos. There is just so much about this movie that makes me laugh every single time.

I’ve honestly gotten to the point that I probably cannot review this movie without a bit of a bias because it has always been that go to movie if I’m looking for a solid comedy. I suppose the only complaint I have about the film is that it kind of leaves you wanting more. The story spans a period of time where Brennan and Dale are rivals and then they become friends and then they become rivals again and you just have to wonder how many fights they could have gotten into, how many hijinks they could have done as 40 year olds with the mindset of a 12 year old.

The really fun part about the movie is that these guys are clearly middle aged, there really isn’t anything to hide the fact that these guys are getting old and this was 8 years ago. But this film could have been about two teenagers who are forced to live with their step brother and you’d only have to change a few things. That is really what makes the movie funny and there is no end to the possibilities, especially with the fact that Reilly and Ferrell are two middle aged men.

The idea of a sequel for Step Brothers does worry me. We’ve had too many sequels that have come out years after the first one and it just failed miserably, Dumb and Dumber To, Zoolander 2, and most notably in this situation, the failure that was Anchorman 2. However, there is something about a Step Brothers 2 that I have a little bit of hope about that that is the duo of Reilly and Ferrell. Something about those two just gives me a lot of hope. On top of that, if they can recapture the 12 year old mindset they had in the first film, it doesn’t matter that they’ve gotten old because that was the joke in the first place.

I’m not totally sure if a sequel will happen and I’ll be honest, if it doesn’t happen I’m not going to be broken hearted. With all the horrible sequels that took too long to come out, I’m okay with Step Brothers not being added to that list. However, thinking about it and having watched it recently and my biggest complaint being that there wasn’t enough hijinks happening in this film, maybe Step Brothers is a perfect film that needs a sequel.

Overall, Step Brothers is one of my favorite comedies and definitely worth checking out if you haven’t in the 8 years it’s been out.

But what do you think? Did you like Step Brothers? Do you think it is too late for a Step Brothers sequel? Comment and Discuss below! I really want to hear people’s thoughts on this one. You can also send me your ideas and thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 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.

I’ll leave you with this.  Just to double tap the fact that these two are hilarious, here's an interview they did where they just talked unscripted to one another. Enjoy!

Central Intelligence

As much as I did like this movie, I think one of the best things to come out of it was the pairing of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart. I don’t know why they work so well together, but they do and this movie has made me excited for almost every movie I see them together in from here on out.

Central Intelligence follows the story of Calvin Joyner (played by Kevin Hart). In highschool, Calvin was the Golden Boy. He was the smartest kid in school, he was the Prom King, and he was the star athlete, which I find funny because it’s Kevin Hart and he’s really short but still, it’s a funny concept. Now Calvin is working as an accountant and he is bored with his life. One day though, he is visited

by an old acquaintance from high school who he did not expect. In high school, Robert Wheirdicht (played by Dwayne Johnson) was a fat loser who didn’t have any friends. But now he is Bob Stone and he’s basically The Rock. He’s incredibly muscular and attractive. The thing that I loved about Johnson’s character was that he’s still a nerd. Just because his character is now fit and an impressive specimen if I do say so myself, he still likes unicorns and really nerdy stuff.

Anyways, Bob and Calvin have a fun night but the next morning agents from the CIA knock on Calvin’s door asking where Bob is. Turns out he is a rogue agent with the CIA. Of course there are two sides to every story and Bob pushes Calvin into working with him to uncover a plot to buy state secrets. The two go on a buddy cop romp as Bob needs Calvin’s accounting skills to help him save the free world and clear his name.

Like I mentioned, whatever you think about this movie, you have to admit that it just makes you love Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Both individually and as a team. I’ll start with Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart is doing his same old shtick in this movie. He’s the loud quirky short guy who is a bit of a wimp. If you’ve seen his standup, you know what he’s going to be bringing to the table and if you’ve seen it before, you know what you’re getting into and you either like it or you don’t. I can do Kevin Hart in small doses and luckily this is a good amount of him. He’s screaming, he’s hiding behind the bigger guy but trying to act tough, he’s done it all before.  

So it works really well to have him paired up with Dwayne Johnson. The juxtaposition of the two is really great first because of their size. But they also work personality-wise. Johnson is charismatic and smooth, Hart is wonky and awkward.

And when I say that Johnson is smooth, he is really smooth. It would be one thing if he was just a stereotypical jock who is just built like a tank, but he’s just charismatic in everything he does. His character works just like that too because he is that nerdy person. He totally owns the fact that he likes unicorns, he totally owns the fact that he wears a fanny pack. He just seems to be having fun with the character and even though Bob seems more like a cartoon character than an actual character, he’s a lot of fun. You’d think that Kevin Hart would be the goofy, obnoxious, wimp who is the animated one but somehow he’s more of the straight man while still being animated while Bob is more animated with his quirkiness and charisma. Again, the pairing of these two is just fantastic.

But then you delve into the story and things are probably not as ingenious as the pairing. The story is pretty straightforward. It’s a simple spy thriller plot so that we can get to the main attraction which is these two just being goofy together. Sure it has a little bit of intrigue and mystery to it. There is a little bit of the movie trying to put you off balance and question whether or not Bob is a good guy or a bad guy. Amy Ryan plays a fellow CIA agent who is tracking Bob down and Aaron Paul plays a pretty fun small role in the film. Jason Bateman plays the guy who was a bully to Bob in high school. So nothing is wrong with the cast. The movie is just a little bit predictable and formulaic. But something funny I noticed about this film pretty early was the fact that it actually had a distinct moral and a message. Most films have messages in them, that usually makes a comprehensive story. But Central Intelligence actually has the moment in the end where the main characters make a big speech and explain to everyone, including the audience what this experience has made them learn. That’s something that I feel used to happen a lot but hasn’t happened in recent films. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing because on one hand, it really kind of slaps you in the face and it feels a

little bit like its pandering to the audience. But at the same time, because Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson are such a good team, you actually get a little bit invested in their development emotionally and I don’t mean to lean into the jokes that were brought in during the trailers that this movie had a little bit of Hart (haha) but it does. This movie does have some heart to it that puts it a little bit over the threshold of a standard action comedy in my book.

I’ve seen other movies try to tug at the heart strings but it usually doesn’t work because of the lack of chemistry between the characters. But Johnson and Hart really nail it and it really shoves aside the other issues with the movie I have. Very similar to The Nice Guys, Central Intelligence falls a little bit above the average movie going experience. It’s not a movie that I think I’m going to go out and buy but it definitely is one I’d see again and probably would enjoy more the second time around.

I feel like I’ve been doing some really short reviews lately. The truth is, a lot of these movies I’ve been reviewing in the past few weeks are neither really good or really bad, they’re just kind of on the spectrum right in the middle. I am waiting for X-men: Apocalypse to come out of on Redbox so I can do a rewind/spoilers review on that film and in December the extended edition of Suicide Squad is going to be released. So if you’re wondering why these reviews have been so short, I just haven’t had a lot to write about. However, more is coming. Let’s start November off strong!

But what did you think of Central Intelligence? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for other 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.

I’ll leave you with this. Again I love these two together. I think they're a really good pair and I want to see them work together again. Here we come Jumanji! Enjoy!

The Nice Guys

The Nice Guys was a movie that I saw the trailers for a while ago and I was really interested in. I like Russell Crowe, I like Ryan Gosling, and I thought the humor in the trailer was really funny. On top of that, like The Lobster, The Nice Guys is a totally original script written by Shane Black.

However, like Popstar, The Nice Guys debuted at a time when I was swamped with work and wasn’t able to go out and watch this film in the theaters. But when it came to RedBox, I decided it was time to check it out and see what all the fuss was about.

The Nice Guys follows the story of a Private Investigator by the name of Holland March (played by Ryan Gosling). March is basically a con man because the work field for PIs is not great. He basically
takes work from senile old ladies who ask him to find their husband who’s urn is on the mantle. On the other end of things, you have an Enforcer by the name of Jackson Healy (played by Russell Crowe). And Russell Crowe’s character is basically Deadpool if he never got his powers and turned into an older, larger Russell Crowe type. Seriously, you know how in Deadpool when he is hired by a teenager to beat up her stalker, that is the kind of work that Jackson Healy does in this film.

Well March takes on a case to find a missing girl by the name of Amelia (played by Margaret Qualley). Healy is hired by Amelia to scare March off the case. That’s the first time these two meet and it’s a hilarious exchange. Healy’s job is to scare March off the case and he ends up beating the shit out of him and breaking his arm. But when Healy is attacked and wants to know the location of Amelia, he teams up with the very same man he beat the crap out of and the two search for Amelia before the people who want her dead because of the conspiracy she’s apart of find her and kill her.

Their investigations into this mystery brings them into the depths of 70’s Los Angeles, into the world of porn, environmental manipulation, and government corruption. Along the way March can’t seem to shake his precocious daughter, Holly (played by Angourie Rice), who just wants to contribute to the investigation. If you’re trying to visualize this girl, she basically epitomizes any daughter character from any 90’s cartoon show, Inspector Gadget, Darkwing Duck, you get the idea. Which I thought was a really great throw back because you don’t really see that anymore. Yeah it’s wildly inappropriate that she follows them to a party where there are porn actors and hitmen, but at the same time it’s a breath of fresh air for the kind of detective mystery this is. She is actually a really great character even though I thought she was going to be annoying. She plays well with Gosling and Crowe and you actually feel the tension Gosling has with her being involved.

The movie is clearly a rated R movie with the violence and the sexual nature of the investigation but this is the kind of movie that utilizes that R rating really well. Nothing seems in excess unless its doing it on purpose and the humor in the movie works really well with an R Rating.

My biggest issue with the film is that it does drag a little bit. It is a little bit of a hard-boiled detective mystery so you’re going to have your twists and turns. But at a certain point the humor wasn’t drawing me in like it used to and I was starting to lose interest. Now to be fair I have been falling asleep during a lot of movies recently. I’m trying to figure out if that’s because I’ve been tired, or if I just haven’t found very good movies.

I think in the case of The Nice Guys, it is an above average movie. I don’t know if I would put it down as my favorite movie of 2016 but I think in a year with a summer that gave us a lot of below average films, its good to see some higher quality material.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling work really well together and they’re a really funny mash up. Ryan Gosling actually plays a character who is very much a coward and a con man which is a little bit

different of a role than I’ve seen him in in the past. It was good to see him be more of a weasel rather than a fox. And Russell Crowe plays just a brutal guy but at the same time he’s got a heart of gold. Again, I can’t help but compare Jackson Healy to Wade Wilson from Deadpool. He’s a merc that will beat the crap out of the bad guys and even do it for teenage girls. But he does it in such a hilarious way that you can’t help but really enjoy him. These two put together make for a really good team that I actually wouldn’t mind seeing again. The Nice Guys doesn’t really seem like the kind of movie that would have a sequel and Shane Black doesn’t seem like the kind of director that would bring a property like this back for a sequel, but hey, worse things have become sequels.

My overall though it that this was a good movie. It had its slow moments and I can’t say it’s the kind of movie that I’ll purchase, but I am interested in watching it again. I get the feeling that the movie will only get better with multiple viewings and maybe it might become a favorite. But for now, The Nice Guys goes down as a Nice Film, nothing show boat-y or over the top, just a good film. If you’ve got a list of movies you absolutely need to check out this year, I would put The Nice Guys on that list.

But what did you think of The Nice Guys? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 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.

I’ll leave you with this. Maybe its the easy choice but here's a Jimmy Fallon clip with Russell Crowe. Enjoy!