THE SUICIDE SQUAD

Margot Robbie     Idris Elba     John Cena     Viola Davis

Daniela Melchoir     Sylvester Stallone (voice)     Joel Kinnaman 

            It takes a creative, fanciful mind to dream up a story about such a motley group of characters (all prisoners) charged by the U.S. Government with dismantling a Nazi-like prison and laboratory in a foreign country, Corto Maltese.  Although The Suicide Squad does have drama, it’s also very funny.  Amanda Waller as director of the Suicide squad and researcher of human powers has a testy relationship with the squad she has formed to take down the Nazi-like prison of Jutenheim and its project named Starfish.  In the squad, there is a definite rivalry—sometimes boyish—among leading men Bloodsport (Elba), Peacemaker (Cena), and Col. Rick Flag (Kinnaman), for instance.  And there is Ratcatcher 2’s (Melchoir) attachment to rats and Bloodsport’s phobia about them.  On top of these dramas, we see examples of aspirations for political power, U.S. involvement in other countries’ politics, and the ethics of human research.  But… it’s more of a comedy in its buffoonery, japery, and craziness, with a shark (voiced by Stallone), a woman attached to rats, and a weasel (Sean Gunn) as part of the crew, along with the use of “super-powers” such as polka dots, starfish, and King Shark’s sheer bulk as weapons.   Thank James Gunn as writer and director for all this zaniness.  The trailer refers to “the Horribly Beautiful Mind of James Gunn”, so I think he deserves the credit.

            The first squad sent out to Corto Maltese doesn’t make it, the details of which are shown in a silly but amusing way.  Similarly, even though the second squad makes it, they come to find Col. Flag happily engaged with a woman in a tent.  He’ll have explanations for this, but then he joins Harley Quinn (Robbie), Peacemaker, Bloodsport, Ratcatcher 2, and King Shark in a plan to capture the chief scientist of the Jutenheim Laboratory and release all the citizens imprisoned by the government.

            “Do they succeed?” you might ask.  To find out, you must experience all the hi-jinks  along the way.  Actually, it doesn’t really matter, because the action is highly entertaining.  For instance, Peacemaker and Bloodsport get into a heated argument about some of Peacemaker’s remarks.  In reply, he says, “I cherish peace with all my heart, and I don’t care how many men, women, or children I kill to get it.”  You can enjoy Harley Quinn getting engaged in a heated affair with the president of Corto Maltese (one of their love trysts destroys a whole room), after which, she is persona non grata in the country and tortured to give up the names of her squad…until…

            Another entertaining part for me was to see Ratcatcher 2—first being seen sleeping much of the time with a rat resting on her shoulder—have a clear sense of justice and be able to use rats to effectively defend the team and the city.  I understand that Daniela Melchior had to audition with a rat to be sure she was comfortable with it.  Rats—some of the most abhorred species on the earth doing something heroic?  James Gunn makes it sensible—and endearing—somehow.

            Margot Robbie goes way out in portraying Harley Quinn, showing she can be a fine actress in action-comedies just as well as a bad girl in tense dramas (I, Tonya), a tragic Hollywood figure (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), a queen (Mary Queen of Scots), and the voice of an animated rabbit (Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit 2:  The Runaway).  She is an arresting figure who can be as powerful as any in vanquishing enemies, but her cohorts can be super impressive as well.  A stand-out is John Cena portraying a well-intentioned strong arm, Peacemaker, who is effectively held in check by more grounded Bloodsport (Idris Elba).  The cast is strong, perfectly matched to their characters by Yiniva Cardenas and John Papsidera.

            All in all, I would say this is a very successful movie in its genre—several notches above most.  In addition to making a female one of the most central figures, it extends the irony to men having big plans to rescue a woman who had already escaped and putting rats in an elevated position for a grand finale.  I did note that mothers are put down as a theme in the story, and dads as well, although not nearly as much.  Note the last gripping hilarious(?) scene.

            I would think that anyone with a playful sense of humor and an interest in quirky characters would enjoy Suicide Squad.

 

Get on board for an adventure plunging you into a world that will take some getting used to, you’ll have but lots of fun along the way.

 

Grade:  A                              By Donna R. Copeland

PLAYING WITH FIRE

John Cena     Keegan-Michael Key     Judy Greer     John Leguizamo

Tyler Mane     Brianna Hildebrand    Dennis Haysbert

     

     I shake my head when I see productions like Playing with Fire presented to kids.  Clearly, the filmmakers don’t know kids very well (all the dialog for these kids sounds like an adult who still has childhood remnants in his psyche and/or has no idea what real children are like), and they portray adults behaving and sounding like children.  The movie misses the mark in so many ways in consideration of quality programming for children.  These children smart off to adults (you’re supposed to laugh when they do), and the adults have their feelings stuck out, making them vulnerable and looking foolish, and do unlawful things like revving up the fire engines and roaring down the street on a shopping trip.

     The star, Jake Carson (Cena), is aspiring to follow in the steps of his revered father, a smoke jumper, who followed the creed of being a first responder in wildland fires; these are highly trained firefighters parachuting into remote and rugged areas to contain the fire and rescue people.  His crew includes Mark (Key), Rodrigo (Leguizamo), and Axe (Mane).  They get fired up when they’re alerted to a fire that has reached some cabins in a forest.

     As a well-trained crew, they quickly investigate, only to find three children huddled together; the oldest, Brynn (Hildebrand), holding her little brother and sister.  Keep in mind that none of the crew has any experience at all in dealing with children, and they’re terrified.  Roads are closed off, so they have to transport them back to their station.  But the heroic men treat them in all the ways that are bad for children—not listening to them and not respecting them, but still expecting them to do everything they’re told.

     Once they arrive, filmmakers have them getting into all kinds of trouble with nail guns, fire extinguishers, paint strippers, and soap that becomes suds when it’s sprayed with a water hose.  All of this is supposed to be a barrel of laughs, but it’s completely off base in terms of reality, as these are clearly well brought up children, and Brynn has served as a sensible, mature mother figure for them.  All the antics are simply a way for the filmmakers to poke fun at the men.

     A romantic interest (don’t we always need one?) is introduced in the form of Dr. Amy Hicks (Greer), an environmentalist whom Jake dismisses, but is, of course, secretly (he thinks) attracted to.  Authority is presented in the form of Commander Richards (Haysbert), who has informed Jake he will conduct an inspection at a specific time.  So when the whole place is in a shambles, everyone must work together to get it in tiptop shape.

     The story ends with the creators’ still clueless as to what is good for children (a truckload of presents, for instance), and a shameless attempt to pull at the heartstrings, revealing significant parental loss.

If you know children and are mindful of them, you will not like this movie.

Grade:  F                                    By Donna R. Copeland

BUMBLEBEE

Hailee Steinfeld     John Cena     Jason Drucker     

Voices of:  Dylan O’Brien     Justin Theroux     Angela Bassett

            Bumblebee is a lovable transformer that may convince you that robots have emotions after all.  This is not so far-fetched; a podcast of “This American Life” verifies that robots can come up with adages that the human mind can perceive as wise (Podcast #663, “How I Read it”).  Of course it’s a bit of a stretch to take that to emotional sensitivities, but…

            A prequel to the Transformermovies that started on TV in 1986 and appeared in movie theaters every few years thereafter (2007, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2017), Bumblebee(O’Brien) has been sent to earth by Optimus Prime, Chief of the Autobots, to set up operations to defeat the Decepticons, which are out to destroy earth.  

            Meanwhile on earth, Charlie Watson (Steinfeld), a teenage girl grieving over the death of her father is sustaining her memory of him by continuing to work on cars, their favorite activity together.  She has become sullen and self-preoccupied, but cheekily asks her mother for a car for her upcoming birthday.  Her mother doesn’t take this seriously, but Charlie has been looking in her friend Hank’s junkyard and spies a yellow VW Beetle.   She cagily bargains for it, and Hank lets her have it, giving his employee a wink that says, “if she thinks she can make that work…” good luck to her.

            Charlie doesn’t realize it, but this little car is one in which Bumblebee is hiding from the Decepticons.  When he first transforms himself from a car into the giant robot Bumblebee in her garage, she’s a bit intimidated, but her fascination and curiosity makes her pause, reflect, then want to make friends with him.  

            Most of the action thereafter will be battles with the formidable Decepticons Dropkick (Theroux) and Shatter (Bassett), mixed in with the not-very-helpful U.S. Sector 7 interventions led by Agent Burns (Cena).  

            Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie continues her fine record of performances in True Grit and The Edge of Seventeen, showing a spunky, searching teenager trying to sort out her life and understand the world she lives in.  As her newfound friend/neighbor Memo, Lendeborg lights up the screen with his initially smitten character who gamely goes along with whatever comes up, eventually respecting the strange girl next door.  Playing Charlie’s younger brother, Jason Drucker, captures your attention with his realistic portrayal of a kid who looks up to his older sister, but has ambivalent feelings about her.  

            I think this is a worthy addition to the Transformers franchise for those who like this kind of fantasy.  And the addition of a mechanically minded girl who becomes a hero especially pleases me.

A worthy addition to the Transformers franchise.

Grade:  B                                 By Donna R. Copeland

BLOCKERS

Leslie Mann     John Cena     Ike Barinholtz     Kathryn Newton     Geraldine Viswanathan    Gideon Adlon    Graham Phillips

     Ah, parents!  Three of them in this farce turn out to be helicopter parents bent on redoing their own youth through their children.  Which, of course, turns out to be interference.  “The Kids are All Right” as the 2010 entitled movie showed, and they’re all right here too, making much more sense than their parents—well, most of them.  Three of the teens’ parents were all right too; it’s just the other three who need an intervention.

     The basic conflict is that snooping parents find out that their three daughters plan to lose their virginity on prom night.  They’re set off for different reasons, but Lisa (Mann), Mitchell (Cena), and ambivalent Hunter (Barinholtz) simply assume that they should not let that happen.  

     Director Kay Cannon uses a script from Brian and Jim Kehoe to create a spoof about parents having to let go of their maturing children and protest it by including themselves in the kids’ prom night, of all times!  Of course, they are convinced that their only interest is in protecting their daughters from unscrupulous boys and “ruining their lives.”  It makes for a lot of laughs, without too much damage done.  Along the way, though, these intentions get them into hot water and embarrassing moments when they ironically get caught by their kids. (Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?  That parents “catch” their kids doing something?

     Blockers hits the mark in a number of places where, for instance, Lisa describes fears for her daughter Julie (Newton) that are clearly a reflection of her own disappointed hopes at that age. Especially funny is father Hunter, who has been an AWOL dad, but more than the others has kept up with millennials, and knows something about their culture and can interpret emojis. This is not always helpful, but at least he has some sense of the need for parents to step back.  No one heeds him, so in a desperate (although late) attempt to stay involved, he goes along with Lisa and Mitchell in their attempts to “rescue” their daughters.

     Where I think Blockers goes over the top is in the assumption that the more shocking something is, the funnier it is. Filmmakers don’t always recognize that fine line between dialog that is life-funny and that which simply turns the viewer off.  Example:  An innocent but determined character telling her partner to put his penis in her vagina in just those words.  No human is likely to say that, so it’s just not funny.  On the other hand, seeing uptight parents happening upon a couple play-acting a sex drama will make you laugh.

     Another place I think the filmmakers missed an opportunity is in deemphasizing the conflict between the sensible parent (who is a doctor) and her husband Mitchell and the parents of Julie’s boyfriend Austin (Phillips), all advising the trio to stay out of their children’s lives.  Maybe this is because Blockers is meant to be comedy over drama.

     Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, and John Cena are hilarious as the three interfering parents, all for different reasons, but consistent with their characters.  

A mostly funny account of parental meddling.

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

FERDINAND

Voices of:  John Cena     Jeremy Sisto     Bobby Cannavale     Lily Day     Juanes

Jerrod Carmichael     Kate McKinnon     Anthony Anderson     Peyton Manning    

David Tennant     Carlos Saldanha     Miguel Angel Silvestre

     How do you tell a story about a pacifist bull?  Well, Twentieth Century Fox Animation and Director Carlos Saldanha do just that, based on a book by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson.  We don’t know why Ferdinand (Cena) doesn’t want to fight; his father is a champion bull, but Ferdinand likes to smell the flowers—literally!  He is teased unmercifully by his peers, especially Valiente (Cannavale), a barnyard bully.  But Ferdinand is smart, and when it looks like he is going to be chosen to go to the arena for a fight, he bolts (no easy task, since the bull pen is highly secure). 

     I won’t say how he gets away, which is part of the fun, but he ends up on a ranch owned by Juan (Juanes), who indulges his daughter Nina (Day) in keeping as many pets as she wants.  She falls in love with Ferdinand, and they become fast friends.  He is SO happy with Nina and her father, smelling dozens of flowers on the countryside as he roams wherever he wants, and only has to contend with the testy Paco (Carmichael) the dog who is feeling like his special place has been usurped.  Ferdinand is fed and treated well at the ranch and grows to be “a beast” of a bull.

     All would have been fine ever after, but Ferdinand sees no reason why he can’t accompany his new family to the annual flower market in the city.  Juan says it is not a good place for Ferdinand, and he is left behind.  Alas, he argues with himself about complying with his owner’s wishes, but ultimately decides he should go to the festival.  Once there, he is so enthralled by all the flowers, he makes some bad decisions, and thereafter the festival becomes truly like “a bull in a china closet”, because his appearance terrifies people, and in trying to get away, he upsets more than one apple cart.

     This escape costs him greatly, and he finds himself once again in la Casa del Toro where bulls are trained and from where Ferdinand had just run away.  Now, we see the more mature Ferdinand taking a leadership role in trying to persuade his fellow bulls why they should resist going to the bullring.  These sequences are good for children to see how political positions are reasoned out based on observed facts. 

     After this, the story devolves into the contemporary popular car-bus-train chase.  (Every exciting film has to have a car chase, right?)  I didn’t get the impression the children in the audience were as fascinated by this as were/are filmmakers, but this goes on for a significant number of minutes in the film.

     When the story finally gets back to the basic idea of the film, it ends on stirring moments when the concept of/reason for pacifism is shown very clearly, both in the evidence about what actually happens at bull fights, and what can go on in the ring when a bull doesn’t want to fight.  It ends in a way that preserves everyone’s pride.

     Ferdinand has some very clever, funny scenes (e.g., a dance contest, of all things, between the Germanic sounding, haughty horses and the inhabitants of the barnyard at Casa del Toro), and some lines tossed out for adults in the audience (e.g., “Let’s try to Haagen-Das (hug) it out”, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t giddy-up”, and a reference to re-gifting.)  But most of its value is in modeling for children a) how to make decisions about whether to fight or not to fight; and b) showing that bravery can be shown by leadership just as much as by muscle.  Related to that, it shows how maturing in a loving atmosphere is strengthening.

This is about a brave bull who had good reasons for not going into the bullring.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE WALL

Aaron Taylor-Johnson     John Cena     Laith Nakl

     There are some movies that make you wonder why they’re made at all.  For example, what is the reasoning behind The Wall?  Even though it’s about war, there is very little action, no heroics, and instead has a bizarre situation where an American soldier talks to an armed Iraqi citizen who has hacked into his radio system, is watching his every move, and has plans to sabotage a rescue.  The Iraqi is a schoolteacher who has good reasons to hate Americans and deeply resents their invasion of his country.  The odd part is his sadistic streak, where he keeps trying to engage Isaac (Taylor-Johnson) in a conversation about himself, his family, and the references made by Isaac and the other soldier, Sergeant Matthews (Cena) when they were standing watch to see if anyone was around a bombed out school, unaware that they were being observed.  In the contrived plot, the attempts at conversation seem solely for the purpose of taunting Isaac later with things about himself he feels bad about.  It’s a weird kind of psychological warfare resembling an interrogation that encourages the subject to reveal things about himself that may be compromising, and in this case, it is alternated with predictions of what the Iraqi is going to do to Isaac (e.g., peel the skin of his face and pluck his eyes out).  He constantly reminds Isaac of the power he has over him.

     Unlike the film Locke, where Tom Hardy talks on the phone the entire time while he drives a BMW, riveting the viewer’s attention, The Wall is tedious, nerve-wracking in a bad way, and shows experienced American soldiers behaving unwisely and hysterically.  Not that that doesn’t happen, but to show it without apparent purpose in a film with essentially only three characters…?  The dialog—when you can understand it, what with the sound of the howling wind, radio static, and actors speaking inarticulately—is sorely lacking in building up intrigue and interest.  Maybe it’s common for soldiers to use the f-word multiple times in every sentence just like gangsters, but I find that hard to believe.  Most of all, in a movie it is a waste of words that gives us very little information.

     My final beef with this film is the absence of background information about a mysterious man named Juba, an ominous figure with the appellation of “Angel of Death.”  Is this the sadistic figure who taunted Isaac for the entire film?  Revealing more about him early on might have made the film more interesting. 

     Whereas Aaron Taylor-Johnson was given high praise for his performance in Nocturnal Animals, I think the script has let him down in this production.  He did as well as he could with what he was given, but this is not a scene-stealing part like Ray Marcus, a real baddie on an isolated Texas highway.  John Cena is essentially wasted as the other main character in that he is taken out of the action early on and given very little to do. 

     This is a movie with potential that, unfortunately, misses the mark.  Director Doug Liman and writer Dwain Worrell will need to go a long way in creating a story that will engage audiences and have more meaningful content.

This war picture has lots of tension without excitement.

Grade:  D                                    By Donna R. Copeland

SISTERS

Amy Poehler   Tina Fey   Maya Rudolph   Ike Barinholtz   James Brolin   Dianne Wiest   

John Leguizamo   John Cena   Bobby Moynihan

          Sisters is a waste of good talent, the stars’ Poehler and Fey as well as a large supporting cast (Rudolph, Barinholtz, Brolin, Wiest, Leguizamo, Cena) are really fine actors who always hit the mark if they’re given good material.  Moynihan’s role was so lame I couldn’t appreciate his skill in acting.  It seems that Fey and Poehler are always much better when they write their own material.  The “comedy” in this film mainly has mainly to do with human weakness, failing, sniping at one another, hiding the truth, and drunkenness.  That is, we’re supposed to laugh, but I don’t find much of it very funny.  I regret especially when filmmakers send the message that unless there is overindulgence in alcohol and/or drugs a party is a dud.

The work of director Jason Moore and writer Paula Pell has mostly been in television, and the film plays much like a sitcom:  brief sketches chained together without much depth of meaning.  There were a few good points made.  In the beginning Maura (Poehler) sees a man sitting on the sidewalk and immediately assumes he is homeless and begins to “give” him items that will “help” him.  He ends up thinking she is nuts and walks to a pick-up that will take him back to work.  So, first impressions are not always accurate—especially purely visual ones—and people should be given a chance to accept or reject help being offered.  There is another point made about family members keeping important information under wraps for various reasons—none of which are very good.  And finally, rigid family roles of “giver” and “taker” put undue pressure on both parties.

The music of Christopher Beck and cinematography by Barry Peterson lend high notes to the production.  Beck includes soft, sentimental tunes when a scene calls for it, and loud party dance tunes when it is going strong.  Peterson is especially skilled in showing the gradual destruction of a house and the interactions among various people that give a sharp picture of the character.  The action can be slapstick at times, though, which detracts from what could have been a uplifting family drama.

A family drama that goes too far over the top and lasts too long.

Grade:  C-                                    By Donna R. Copeland