Apologies, burgeoning fan-base. It seems Mr. Dahlke has been
juggling too many balls (not his own) and fallen behind on the
Cinema-Crazed circuit. Nonetheless, he honors his commitment to
celluloid lunacy as much as possible. And he honors his
commitment to you, dear reader, to you.
This ‘month’ among
the offerings burned for the movie gods are two sequels. Where
would American cinema be without sequels? If we’re talking about
films-per-year output, we’d be somewhere in the mid-‘60s, so
thank god for a lack of imagination, and for taking the safe
bet! Anyway, two sequels, and they both start with the letter
‘F’.
To continue on the
chronological tip, the first sequel is Friday the 13th Part II.
Why part II? Seen the first one too many frickin’ times.
Besides, part II is always more interesting – either way better
than the first or an amazing train wreck. Or, in the case of
F13II, just kinda there, hoping, waiting for someone to love it.
So, blah blah, Part II is the first movie where Jason Voorhees
is the killer, blah blah, wears a canvas bag instead of a hockey
mask, blah blah. If you didn’t know this, we’re holding you back
a year. Also, if you didn’t know this, sorry for the spoilers.
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After our heroine from
the first movie learns that in a Friday the 13th
movie, it’s never over, and you’re never safe, we’re
introduced to a new group of cutlets. These cuties,
class clowns and Casanovas are getting set to open a
campsite on the other side of the lake, as they
wouldn’t want to get mixed up in anyway with the
huge camp counselor slaughter that happened five
years ago a scant canoe-paddle away. But as the
crazy old guy says: they’re doooomed!
Too bad, too, as this
kill-ection of kids is actually more likable and
believable than the first, and includes a good three
or four smokin’ hot ‘80s babes. |
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Oh how I love tight
pink sweaters with HUGE turtlenecks! The kids get up to the
usual goofing around and underage drinking with the supposedly
responsible camp leader, so much so that you might actually be
interested in them, before falling one-by-one in unspectacular
fashion to a mysterious stranger’s vast collection of pointy
implements. Or maybe it’s not that big a collection; a machete,
a big knife, and whatever else is handy.
Ultimately it comes
down to a face off between that one lucky girl and that one ucky
psycho with a bloated face and a
mother-fixation like no other. A little bit of nice, pathetic
and creepy atmosphere livens up the finale, but on balance, not
enough nudity, not enough creative gore, and not enough nihilism
makes Friday the 13th Part II a mere patch on the original, and
even on some of the sequels that followed, because it, of
course, made enough money after all. And
remember, it’s not over.
Oddly enough, it’s
not over for Fantastic Four movies either. Even though Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has
only just now made back its production cost in domestic grosses,
after worldwide totals it’s 150 million in the black! And this
is what the safe choice gets you, a dopey, amiable franchise of
movies - that read like half-hour Saturday morning cartoons -
that people gobble up like candy.
In this packet of
Skittles, Reed Richards and Susan Storm are set to marry, but
hyper-villain Galactus plans to crash the wedding, using his
herald the Silver Surfer to prime good old Mother Earth for a
chow-down.
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Into this slight set-up
– which could breeze by in 22 comic book pages – the
producers pump tens-of-millions of dollars of CGI, and a
buck-two-eighty for acting coaches and suchlike. And yet
… it almost works. The Silver Surfer is very cool, and
the utter lack of pretension (everyone’s just having a
good, silly time) is certainly refreshing. But unlike
the lighter moments in Superman or its sequels, for
instance, viewers will struggle to find much in the way
of genial believability in these heroes to make all the
goofing all right. Michael Chiklis as the Thing aside,
you could put any other actors into these uniforms and
no one would notice the difference. Johnny Storm? |
Evs! And Ioan
Gruffud, until you tell me how to pronounce his name, I ain’t
going to believe in his immense brain-power, or that he sees
anything in Jessica Alba except her boobs.
And then, duhn duhhn
duhhh, faithful Four fans get ripped off in ultimate fashion, as
the beloved Galactus is changed
from a hundred-foot-tall badass in a weird suit to … a cloud of
space dust? Come on, people, we’ll watch The Mummy
again if we want to see menacing dust. And, in the end, that’s
what we get from the Fantastic Four, affable smoke and mirrors.
Plus the most ridiculous dance-sequence ever committed to film.
If white guys can’t dance, white rubber guys really can’t dance.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a popcorn movie for
sure, but microwave popcorn with lite butter flavoring. Dahlke
out.
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