Tag: Paramount Pictures

Cinema Dispatch: The Naked Gun

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Naked Gun and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Akiva Schaffer

What, another reboot of a classic comedy from the eighties? I don’t know about you, but the Gen-X nostalgia for Ghostbusters alone has me wary of any revivals from the Reagan years, but people were surprisingly optimistic about this one, and the trailers at least put a solid case for itself to be taken seriously as a genuine successor to the original. It would certainly have to find a new angle given how different cops in both media and real life fit into popular culture, but it has some interesting talent behind it, and Neeson certainly seems game to fill Nielsen’s iconic shoes. Could this be the rare reboot that finds a way to be both faithful to what came before while also forging an identity of its own? Let’s find out!!

Detective Frank Drebin Jr (Liam Neeson) is a hard-nosed and sharp witted cop; right on the edge and peering over the side into the darkness below. This intuitive insight into the depths of man’s inhumanity to itself, along with the pleas of Beth (Pamela Anderson), the grieving sister of a man who died under suspicious circumstances, puts our intrepid hero from the venerable Police Squad on the trail of billionaire tech genius Richard Cane (Danny Huston) who’s all smiles and charm in front of the camera but is hiding something sinister behind closed doors. What is this fiendish villain planning, and does Frank Jr have the wherewithal to overcome whatever silly challenges get in the way of cracking this case? Where does Beth fit into all of this, and will she prove to be a strong ally to Frank or the sexy cause of his sexy downfall? With a man like this leading the charge, what could possibly go wrong?

“Fitting an entire hot dog in your mouth is not merely a challenge; it’s a show of domination to the rest of the food. They will KNOW who’s at the top of the chain!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Sonic the Hedgehog 3

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Fowler

The Sonic movies have been only slightly better than mediocre, but I’ve given them praise where it’s been deserved, and audiences have been more than kind as the films have racked up impressive box office numbers. Certainly small potatoes compared to The Super Mario Bros Movie’s billion dollar haul, but Sonic has been jogging behind my main man Mario for over three decades now and is just happy to be in the conversation. With this third movie, however, it’s time for SEGA and Paramount to find out if the audience that turned out for classic Sonic will stick around for the more modern iteration and all the baggage that comes with it. Will this be another hit for our favorite blue hedgehog, or are parents gonna dip out before they have to explain who Rouge the Bat is to their seven-year-olds? Let’s find out!!

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, and Idris Elba) are enjoying their life of carefree picnics with their adopted human parents Tom and Maddie (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter), but this idyllic situation comes with a price as GUN will occasionally call these three in to deal with whatever strange mess they’ve gotten into now. The latest disaster that our team is airdropped into is a renegade alien that had been in GUN captivity for the last fifty years but has finally escaped and is ready to exact his vengeance on the world. Said renegade, who seems quite ambivalent to good and evil, is Shadow the Hedgehog (Keanu Reeves) who can teleport, has rocket boots, and can glower with the intensity of a thousand suns. He proves to be far stronger than Sonic Team can handle on their own, so they are forced to recruit Ivo Robotnik and his assistant Stone (Jim Carrey and Lee Majdoub) in order to take down the rebellious hedgehog. What secrets are lurking in Shadow’s tragic backstory that has led him to be such a jerk, and is he right to resent GUN as much as he does? Can Robotnik be trusted to stay on the side of good, especially when his and Shadow’s past are far more intertwined than anyone could have realized? Is there any chance we can just root for the bad guys, because they seem like they’re having a lot of fun in this.

I’d say they should start a boy band, but they’ll just start fighting over who gets to be the tough one.
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Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Rowe

To be frank, I just never got the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing. I like the original live-action movie well enough, but it’s not a franchise that I ever got invested in as it just felt like one of those Gen-X holdovers that overstayed its welcome. Well, now the joke’s on me as my childhood is now getting eye rolls from the Zoomers who also can’t escape the prevalence of their previous generation’s obsessions. It’s the circle of life I suppose, and TMNT is taking yet another stab at staying relevant to the youngsters. Will this be another hit for the franchise to go alongside Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or will we be begging for the Bay-Turtles to come back by the time this is over? Let’s find out!!

In the beginning, there was ooze; and said ooze landed on a quartet of cute turtles as well as a very paternal rat. The ooze mutated them to be humanoid, but their ninja skills came from their adoptive rat-dad Splinter (Jackie Chan) looking for a way to protect his kids from the outside world. The turtles are now teenagers named Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello (Nicolas Cantu, Shamon Brown Jr, Brady Noon, and Micah Abbey) and while they can kick all sorts of butt with their ninja skills, they’re mostly used to get groceries and hide in the shadows; away from the scary humans who would surely reject them if they were to come out of the sewers. Sounds rather bleak if you ask me, but fortunately, they run into a high school reporter named April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) and she doesn’t immediately turn them in to the authorities to be dissected but instead comes up with a plan to make them heroes so that they can be accepted and go to high school, and she can get the scoop of a lifetime! Their mission is to take down the mysterious Super Fly (Ice Cube) whose been wreaking havoc all over the city with daring heists of top secret scientific hardware, and while the Turtles want nothing more than to live normal lives, getting closer to Super Fly also gets them closer to some very uncomfortable truths about themselves. What is this Super Fly after, and are his goals as evil as his means of achieving them? Is this a win-win scenario for all involved, or will the world never accept them even if they do save the day? Would we honestly be that shocked to learn of sentient turtles in the sewers who fight crime and eat pizza? I mean Congress had a hearing on UFOs and that barely lasted a day in the news cycle!

“I’m just saying, everyone thinking we’re from Krypton is gonna help us with our PR problem, and it’s not like they can prove otherwise! Heck, we don’t know where that Ooze came from! Maybe it’s from space!” “I think you’re stretching there, Mikey.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley

Tabletop RPGs and I; we just don’t get along.  I guess I just grew up with video games that integrated the mechanics of RPGs in a way that didn’t require math or looking up obscure text in a dictionary-sized player’s manual, and the few experiences I’ve had with them were rocky at best.  Still, there’s no denying that Dungeons & Dragons is second only to Tolkien as far as influence in the fantasy genre, and while the last attempt at a film adaptation didn’t fare too well, there are enough unique ideas and creative settings for a truly great movie to base itself around.  Does this latest attempt at bringing the tabletop game to life leave us with an exemplar of the genre or was this campaign doomed from the start?  Let’s find out!!

Our fantasy hero for this epic tale is the bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) who has been locked up for several years after a regrettable crime and wishes for nothing more than to pay his debt to society and reunite with his daughter (Chloe Coleman)!  Well at least that’s the story he wants you to believe when in actuality he’s a thief who got himself and his partner Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) locked up after a botched robbery, and instead of paying his debt to society he’s just gonna break himself and Holga out of there to reunite with his daughter who has been under the care of another member of their crew who managed to escape.  Said escapee is Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) who I’m sure you are shocked to learn maybe had something to do with those two getting caught in the first place, and while he has been taking care of Edgin’s daughter, he’s also been cavorting with a red wizard (Daisy Head) and, worst of all, has gone into politics to become the Lord of Neverwinter!  With Forge intent on keeping his power and the red wizard Sofina looking to advance her own agenda, Edgin and Holga are forced to go on the run and find a way to stop them; most likely by pulling off a heist because that’s what they’re good at.  To help with this task they recruit another former associate, the young wizard Simon (Justice Smith), as well as a tiefling druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis) who has her own reasons for wanting to bring down the current Neverwinter administration.  Along the way, they’ll find themselves in perilous situations, fighting red wizard minions, and facing tough emotional conflicts; quipping their way through it all because this crew is on the chaotic side of the alignment and are at least a little flexible on the good and evil axis.  Can a band of such disparate misfits hope to pull off this heist against a stronger and more ambitious foe?  What lessons must be learned for them to come together as a team and fight for the greater good?  Can they maybe fight for the neutral good or semi-good?  I mean being a hero doesn’t pay the bills, right?

“I suggest we throw a rock down there first to see if it’s safe.”     “How about we throw you down there?”    “Me!?  Why!?”     “A rock can’t scream.  How will we know if it’s unsafe without screaming?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Scream VI

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Scream VI and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

The Scream franchise is certainly a unique presence in horror with a few solid entries under its belt and a premise that frankly hasn’t been replicated well by anyone else.  The blending of slasher tropes with whodunit elements feels like one of the most obvious premises imaginable, right up there with using Superheroes as the basis of big summer blockbusters, and yet nothing has really tried to put their own spin on it outside of arguably the Saw movies which itself ran out of steam the same way Scream did after the third one.  The reboot series of films which started with four has had some interesting takes on the formula and a few good ideas to keep the series relevant, but can they keep that momentum going long enough to round out the trilogy, or will it crash and burn as spectacular as Scream 3 did?  Let’s find out!!

After the events of the last movie, the survivors have decided not to stay in Woodsboro and instead move to New York City for a change of scenery.  After all, it’s not like slasher villains have a history of making New York City the one other place they go to kill people, right?  Sure enough, another Ghostface Killer makes themselves known and it’s up to Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) to find out who is donning the outfit this time and to keep their friend group from becoming mincemeat.   This includes Mindy and Chad from the last movie (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding) as well as newcomers Quinn, Ethan, and Anika (Liana Liberato, Jack Champion, and Devyn Nekoda) who could all be the new killer because that’s how these things usually work out.  Oh, and of course, Gail Weathers shows up again (Courteney Cox) because this is a Scream movie and we can’t have one without at least one of the original survivors.  Will Sam and Tara survive yet another serial killer that’s hot on their heels, and in doing so resolve the tension that’s been building between them since the last time this happened?  Who could the killer be this time, and what new rules of horror movies need to be explored in order to stay one step ahead of Ghostface?   What exciting new ways of murdering are available to Ghostface now that he’s in the big city?  Maybe he can stab someone in an overpriced apartment instead of an oversized suburban home!

“Can you even name another horror movie that takes place in a bodega!?”     “Uh… Vampire Vs. the Bronx?”     “NO!  NETFLIX MOVIES DON’T COUNT!”     *BANG*
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Cinema Dispatch: Top Gun: Maverick

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Top Gun: Maverick and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

It’s true that I’m getting to this one pretty late, but it’s also true that the darn thing is still the biggest movie at the moment so I guess I can still call this review somewhat relevant. I guess it’s no surprise that one of the most enduring classics of the eighties finally getting the sequel everyone always wanted would hit like a meteor full of money, but it’s still pretty surprising just how much this has eclipsed everything else around it. Even MCU movies which are supposedly so ubiquitous that we should all be sick of them don’t manage to have the kind of staying power that this movie has! So what is the secret formula that turned this into a license to print money? Is it actually as good as its box office would suggest, or has nostalgia once again suckered us all into giving money to a movie that was better off being remembered than revived? Let’s find out!!

Captain Pete Mitchell, better known as Maverick (Tom Cruise), has been bumming around the Navy since the glory days of Eddie Money and Leisure suits, and it’s landed him a gig as a test pilot for experimental aircraft. Of course, Maverick being Maverick, he manages to screw that up by ticking off Admiral Ed Harris and is only saved from a dishonorable discharge by his old friend Admiral Tom Kazansky who was once known as Iceman (Val Kilmer). Instead, he gets sent to teach the next generation of hot shot pilots which just so happens to include Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Goose who died while flying with Maverick back in the first movie. His assignment, should he choose to accept it, is to get these Millennials in tip-top fighting shape for a ridiculously complicated and ludicrously dangerous bombing run to destroy a uranium enrichment facility, and there’s no one better than Maverick for making the impossible merely improbable! Can Maverick finally put his ego in check and be the teacher that these pilots need? What happened between him and Bradley that left him feeling so bitter, and is this Maverick’s last chance to make things right? Was waiting nearly forty years to make a sequel just a flex on Tom Cruise’s part to show how little he’s aged since then?

“Just hang tight and we’ll be done before you know it.”     “How long until we’re over Macho Grande?”     “Son, I don’t think we’ll ever get over Macho Grande…”     “Was than an Airplane 2 reference? Seriously, how old is this guy!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Fowler

The first Sonic movie didn’t really do it for me, but I could at least appreciate the parts of it that were well put together as well as the few flashes of fun Sonic nonsense peppered throughout; especially the song from the credits! I still listen to that pretty regularly and frankly it was all I really needed from Sonic on the big screen. I’ll just keep reading the comics and playing the games over her while Paramount and SEGA keep the brand relevant with run-of-the-mill family movies. Then they started showing trailers for this one that had Knuckles in it and a more game-accurate Eggman, so perhaps they plan to lean harder and harder into the fan service with each subsequent film. It seems to be working since this has already made more money than the original film, but does the deluge of recognizable characters and iconography lead to a better movie, or is this just a cynical attempt to fleece the fans on promises they can’t deliver? Let’s find out!!

Following the events of the first movie, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) is living with Tom and Maddie (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter) and everyone just seems to be cool with the space hedgehog doing his thing throughout the state of Washington. Sure, maybe he’s a little overzealous with his Blue Batman shtick, but who can blame him now that he has full(ish) control of his speed powers? Well, he may just get a bit more than he wished for when Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) manages to escape the mushroom planet with the help of a red Echidna named Knuckles (Idris Elba) and they have a few words for the quip spouting rodent. Fortunately, he’s rescued by another mysterious creature, Tails the fox (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) who fills him in on what’s going on and why Knuckles is after him. Something from Sonic’s past leads directly to an ultimate power known as the Master Emerald and Knuckles is heck bent on finding it while Robotnik is just kind of along for the ride and will probably do something nefarious to everyone by the end of this. With such an unstoppable power at stake, Sonic and Tails must sift through his past to find the pieces necessary for finding the Master Emerald and protecting the world as we know it. Oh, and Tom and Maddie are at a wedding or something; probably not important. Can Sonic and Tails find the Master Emerald before Knuckles and Robotnik release its power upon the world? Why is Knuckles so intent on finding this thing, and how does his past tie in with Sonic’s? Seriously, this seems like a pretty big leap from the last movie! Are we sure that Sonic is ready for something that doesn’t involve slo-mo bar fights and fart jokes?

“So how did you save the world last time?”     “Eh, I mostly sat in a car listening to the radio. This seems a little more involved than that.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Jackass Forever

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Jackass Forever and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Tremaine

This was yet another movie pushed WAY back due to the Pandemic, but honestly the kind of thing I want at this point.  Even if things are far from over, we’ve been on a hellacious journey the last two years and a nice little nostalgic throwback like this can certainly lift my spirits; assuming of course they manage to pull it off.  All the Jackass movies have worked so far, but can the formula work even when the gang is within spitting range of collecting social security checks?  Let’s find out!

The dudes who you know and love from the previous film are back once again to do ridiculous stunts and terrifying endurance tests for your amusement.  That’s about all there is to it, and that’s about all there’s ever been to this premise.  Film a bunch of stuff, put it in a decent order, and save something big for the very end.  Despite such a simple formula, is it something that they can pull off for the fourth time?  What new wacky ideas did they come up with in the ten years since the last film?  Will any of them live through this to see Jackass 5, or is this as far as we should push it?

“I’m Jonny Knoxville, and welcome to… Zzz”     “Johnny?  JOHNNY!”     “JACKASS!  What?  What happened?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Robert Schwentke

How many people have seriously sat down and watched that GI Joe movie in the last few years?  Heck, I’m pretty sure Obama was barely into his second term the last time this franchise was the least bit relevant!  GI Joe is just not a franchise I ever had any affection for even if the more ludicrous aspects of it seem right up my alley, and roping a guy like Henry Golding into the franchise when even The Rock couldn’t salvage it seemed like a lot of wasted time and effort.  Still, it was a movie that Paramount had enough faith in to move out of its original October timeslot to wait until crowds can enjoy it on the big screen which is either true confidence in a unique vision or panicked desperation to try and turn a profit on a hundred million dollar ninja movie.  Does this manage to elevate the franchise and generate enough good will to get a few more sequels out, or (much like the movie’s namesake) this was a really bad bet to go all in on?  Let’s find out!!

A lone drifter known only by his fighting name Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) is searching for his father’s killer but hasn’t had much luck of it and spends most of his time punching things and being alone.  He’s eventually recruited by the Yakuza with promises of finding the man he’s been hunting, but it doesn’t take long for that to go sideways as the boss Kenta (Takehiro Hira) wants him to prove his loyalty by killing a traitor.  Now Snake Eyes is a lot of things, most notably a guy with a silly name, but he is not a killer so he and the supposed traitor fight their way out and escape; only for Snake Eyes to learn that he hit the motherlode as the traitor Tommy (Andrew Koji) is actually the heir to the most powerful ninja family in Japan and is offering Snake Eyes a place among them.  This decision doesn’t sit well with everyone in Tommy’s clan, especially their head of security Akiko (Haruka Abe), but with the bad blood between Tommy and Kenta as well as the ever rising tide of terrorism and weapons in Japan (no doubt provided by an organization that likes to brand everything with snakes), Snake Eyes may just be the man they need to save the clan from the ever encroaching threats that wish to bring them to their knees.  Is Snake Eyes really willing to dedicate himself to such a cause; especially with his father’s murderer still out there?  What does Tommy see in this guy that has convinced him to make such a bold move, and is this a decision he will end up regretting once all the dice have been rolled?  Is it just me or is this WAY more interesting than it has any right to be?

Are we sure Paramount didn’t just sneak a Takashi Miike movie into theaters and slap the GI Joe name on it?  I mean it worked for Power Rangers, right?
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Cinema Dispatch: Sonic the Hedgehog

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Sonic the Hedgehog and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Fowler

Remember when that first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer came out with the horrifying monster design?  Good times!  I do wish that design stuck around a bit longer though because I REALLY wanted a plushie of that ghastly version of Sonic so he can sleep with me in my bed and devour my nightmares, but then again the redesign looks pretty good and will surely add a lot to this movie!  Yeah, it could almost be an inspirational tale of a studio realizing its mistake and actually taking proactive steps to correct it if it wasn’t for the fact that the studio that made the new design a possibility crunched to do it and closed down as soon as the work is done!  Sounds like Paramount should have gotten a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, but in any case the story of this film has finally come to its conclusion and we’re all on pins and needles to find out how it all ends!  Was Sonic’s face lift enough hto save this movie from being a total train wreck, or is there only so much that you can polish a turd before you’re just wasting perfectly good polish?  Let’s find out!!

Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwartz) is a happy go lucky blue alien that calls himself a hedgehog for some reason who was teleported to Earth to escape from bad guys when he was but a wee lad.  Now that he’s grown up to the ripe old age of… sort of teenager, he’s starting to realize that spending all his time hiding in the woods just outside the town of Green Hills is leaving him with a lot of emotional scars and abandonment issues, and one day he has a super powered moment of angst that knocks out all the power on the West Coast.  The super power blast is enough for the US government to call in Doctor Robotnik (Jim Carrey) who wants to track down whatever caused the anomaly and uses its powers for his insidious and tax payer funded ends, so now Sonic has to escape from this planet to go to ANOTHER planet where I guess he’ll be even safer.  To transport himself there he has a bag of magic rings that open ports to wherever it is he needs to go, but through wacky happenstance and poor timing his rings get lost in San Francisco which he has no idea how to get to.  Fortunately the local sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), after being somewhat responsible for Sonic losing the rings decides to take this strange creature across state lines to the city of San Francisco so he can get the rings and get the heck out of Dodge.  It shall not be a straightforward road trip however as Robotnik is hot on their heels and is ready to not only dissect Sonic in the name of Sonic but ruin Tom’s life as well in pursuit of his prey.  Can Sonic and Tom make it to San Francisco before Robotnik and the US government find a way to stop them?  Will Sonic learn valuable lessons about friendship along the way and perhaps find a true home instead of just jumping from place to place on his own?

STHCD1
“AM I PRETTY ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW!?  WILL YOU FINALLY PUT A RING ON IT!?”

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