Double Feature: Crawl (2019) & Bumblebee (2018)

Welcome back to another double feature! Today, we are looking at an interesting pairing to say the least. One is a creature feature with alligators and the other is another Transformers movie but more of a spin-off of how Bumblebee ended up on Earth. Its a pretty fun double feature

Crawl (2019)

Director: Alexandre Aja

Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson, Jose Palma, George Somner

A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators. – IMDB

*Originally posted as Friday Film Club on Movies and Tea HERE*

While sharks are primarily the star of creature features, Crawl takes on a lesser used monster as it takes a disaster film and pairs it with a horror film where a father, daughter and their dog gets trapped in their basement crawl space and hunted down by alligators during a Category 5 hurricane. As in any of these films, it is about survival. Directed by Alexandre Aja who is no stranger to directing horror films, Crawl takes on a decent form from the atmosphere and how the whole story goes as it builds gripping tension with these characters and this quiet predator.

Starring Kaya Scodelario as a rising swimming athlete in university called Haley who goes to check on her father Dave played by Barry Pepper, she ends up finding him in a crawl space unconscious and their own salvation is behind these pipes that the alligators hunting them can’t get through. As the crawl space fills up with water, they need to find a way to escape without being noticed by these alligators. Just looking at the character designs, it definitely feels like a rather contrived way to put a swimmer as a central character in a flood and yet, if you can get past that (and you should), Crawl manages to create some gripping moments and build up a decent  bit of tension while also making the whole crawl space experience to play well in the claustrophobic and time-sensitive situation.

There’s a lot to love about Crawl. For one, it uses a lesser used “monster” which definitely needs to be used more as quiet predators create some good surprise attack moments. At the same time, the characters are pretty good. While there is still some family drama to sort out between the father and daughter, the focus on survival is the priority. At the same time, the script makes an effort to give reasoning for why these alligators have gathered in this crawl space and it all does come together in the end. Plus, the director manages to not only use the crawl space and the claustrophobia of that setting to its potential but when it migrates out of there, it still manages to use its environment and the hurricane to its advantage as well. Crawl definitely delivers a great creature feature film that’s well worth a watch.

Bumblebee (2018)

Director: Travis Knight

Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Cena, Jason Drucker, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider, Ricardo Hoyos, John Ortiz

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small California beach town. On the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, Charlie Watson discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. – IMDB

While I don’t have any major qualms with Transformers to this certain point but knowing that its really just mindless entertainment, Bumblebee is a whole different level. I guess nothing looks so bad until you find something better that comes along. Bumblebee is a fun movie and brings so much to the table because its so goofy and really about the unlikely friendship between Bumblebee and Charlie as she learns gradually about what he is, maybe not fully as this movie also shows how he loses his voice and ends up finding it again with the help of Charlie and her mechanic skills.

Hailee Steinfeld has gone a long way in her acting career. She’s had some misses, mostly due to the overall movie and not her. Bumblebee sees her in a blockbuster role that she really does take on very well. Her character is a tad bitter about her life with her own burdens in her current life situation while at the same time, her sarcasm adds to the humor especially when playing off of Bumblebee who also is discovering Earth and just how it all works despite his amnesia. Its a bit of a fish out of water story in a Transformer point of view and its executed so well.

If there was anything that I disliked about Transformers, it would have to be the annoying John Cena character which plays a little like Samuel L. Jackson’s role in Kong: Skull Island who pursues Bumblebee like he is a threat and the army gets manipulated by the Decepticons (because you know, who wouldn’t believe anyone called Decepticons, right?).

Overall, Bumblebee is a fun time. It definitely has much more substance and gives an origin story angle for Bumblebee which works very well. It balances between the comedy, drama and action a lot and also manages to get in a lot of  screen time for the Autobots and Depcepticons instead of the humans. Really good job here!

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen these two films? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Double Feature: Mean Girls 2 (2011) & Geostorm (2017)

Welcome to Double Feature #2 of 2020. I’m going to stop counting at a certain point (probably the next one). This pairing is probably the two least liked movie that I’ll put together but hey, why not, right? The first is the (not so) long-awaited sequel to Mean Girls, a whole 7 years after the original. The second is a disaster film which I watched on New Year’s with Gerard Butler in the name of Geostorm which I remember bombed pretty hard at theatrical release.

Let’s check it out!

Mean Girls 2 (2011)

Director: Melanie Mayron

Cast: Meaghan Martin, Linden Ashby, Donn Lamkin, Claire Holt, Diego Boneta, Patrick Johnson, Maiara Walsh, Nicole Gale Anderson, Jennifer Stone, Bethany Anne Lind, Tim Meadows

The Plastics are back in the long-awaited follow-up to the smash hit Mean Girls – and now the clique is more fashionable, funny, and ferocious than ever. – IMDB

Its a fairly certain statement here that no one particularly wanted a sequel for Mean Girls especially when the entire cast had changed. Plus, the Mean Girls thing isn’t exactly something that can merit a sequel. Apparently, my non-creative mind was right because Mean Girls 2 was incredibly predictable and while it changed its characters and the lingo, it was pretty much the same kind of story as Mean Girls but just more mild in its bad deeds. The Mean Girl wasn’t threatening, the new girl that turns bad with power also isn’t all the innocent or whatnot. The whole scheming with friends plot line is all been there done that.

There’s a lot of unnecessary sequels out there and Mean Girls 2 definitely fits into that category. Mean Girls was great the way it was with its one movie as it covered what it wanted to express properly. There’s nothing new that they can add to the content in its original, making Mean Girls 2 quite less impressive especially if its the same structure, showing the same issues that occur in a different decade in the tough high school environment. I can be forgiving about the cast here as I think they did what they could with their flat characters, its really more the mentality that I don’t support that everything at some point or another needs a sequel. Sometimes, you can just leave things alone.

Geostorm (2017)

Director (and writer): Dean Devlin

Cast: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Eugenio Derbez, Amr Waked, Adepero Oduye, Andy  Garcia, Ed Harris, Robert Sheehan

When the network of satellites designed to control the global climate starts to attack Earth, it’s a race against the clock for its creator to uncover the real threat before a worldwide Geostorm wipes out everything and everyone. – IMDB

Disaster films are never really meant to be some award-winning masterpiece. Its just a fun little romp with a lot of explosions and illogical concepts and some overdone action pieces. Geostorm got a lot of crap and lost a lot of money for the studios and its pretty understandable. I mean, Gerard Butler projects haven’t really been all that great in its last few offerings so for myself, it was like I was expecting it to be really good. Perhaps its the low expectations going in or the New Year’s alcohol hasn’t left my system but Geostorm wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

Geostorm tries really hard to add suspense and also tries really hard to be different. Where it misses its mark is in a lot of the overuse of drama and the whole brothers story that gets dragged into the mix. Gerard Butler is Gerard Butler which is pretty decent as he has some alright moments. The story itself has some issues here and there. I’m not a very knowledgeable science person so I don’t go and question too much about the whole technology they are talking about and whether it makes sense because it probably doesn’t if you dissect it.

Honestly, I’m not trying to defend Geostorm. Its just an average disaster movie. There are some funny moments here and then some moments that really stretched the imagination which they chalked it up to the family communication code or whatever. But hey, I always kind of like the charisma that Gerard Butler brings to movies (even the bad ones) and then we get a short role from Daniel Wu and Hong Kong scenes and I have a soft spot for that. The mystery of it all was pretty obvious where they would place the twist. Like I said, nothing too special here. Its just pretty average and I can see how some would think its below-average even. Like I said in the beginning, I’m pretty forgiving for disaster movies but if you aren’t, then just skip this one.

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen these two movies? Thoughts?

Double Feature: The Boy Next Door (2015) & How It Ends (2018)

Welcome to this week’s double feature! A very random combination, right? Its actually quite random in terms of how it all came to be as well. The Boy Next Door was really just because it looked like something that didn’t need a ton of energy to watch while How It Ends was a random Saturday night movie choice of my husband’s. Nothing deliberate but let’s just say both of these were at certain degrees…left a bit to be desired.

The Boy Next Door (2015)

Director: Rob Cohen

Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, Ian Nelson, John Corbett, Kristin Chenoweth, Lexi Atkins

A woman, separated from her unfaithful husband, falls for a younger man who has moved in next door, but their torrid affair soon takes a dangerous turn. – IMDB

Call me crazy but I’ve been meaning to watching this one for a while, of course, knowing that its been rated pretty poorly. Honestly, its not too surprising. After all, there are few factors here that have almost always failed me in films. The first being my constant search for an erotic thriller that works well, the second being that I don’t find Jennifer Lopez as a good actress and third, these movies always have bad dialogue and predictable execution. I’m going to say right away that The Boy Next Door fell into exactly what I expected of it. So I guess, it can’t disappoint but at the same time, it was kind of a waste of time, luckily, I had it on for a multitasking moment so that kind of worked out.

Where to start with this, right? The Boy Next Door is a predictable erotic thriller. Its erotic bits are really just based on that one scene between Ryan Guzman’s Noah and Jennifer Lopez’s Claire. Granted, that scene was pretty steamy and sexy so I’m not going to take that away from it. It does help that these two are pretty people and the chemistry there was pretty on point. The majority before and after it: the dialogue, the start of the film, the ending, the overacting was just ridiculous. Its the usual thing you’d expect. Its a been there done that sort of thriller which doesn’t offer much of anything new.

I gave this movie one star on Letterboxd and that was based on the fact that there was that one steamy scene that was done well and Ryan Guzman and Jennifer Lopez are pretty-looking people to look at.

How It Ends (2018)

Director: David M. Rosenthal

Cast: Theo James, Forest Whitaker, Kat Graham, Grace Dove, Nicole Ari Parker

A desperate man tries to return home to his pregnant fiancée after a mysterious apocalyptic event turns everything to chaos. – IMDB

How It Ends is categorized as an action disaster film. I can see how it would fit into there but then its more of a road trip film if anything and the disaster happens but then remains the background mystery that hinders the road trip. Looking at the ratings for the movie right now, its really low. Thing is, Netflix movies are a lot like this its strong at the beginning and then as the movie goes along, it just falls apart. The same can be said about How It Ends. The beginning and the set-up does work as it sets the stage for how the characters involved are in terms of relationship and gives them a basis of their personality and where everyone stands before setting up the turning point which is the mysterious event that breaks connection to one of the characters and uniting the other two, the fiance and the father together to go through all obstacles to reach her.

On many levels, How It Ends isn’t really that bad. In fact, Forest Whitaker does a good job as the father and Theo James also did a decent job as well. Together in their roles together, as with a lot of road trip movies, their issues get sorted out as their deeper personalities do start showing as they get through one obstacle to the next. The story gets a little awkward when more elements move into the picture like picking up a third person to join into the road trip, which has its good and bad points to it. At the same time, some of the events that happen do help pad out the situation at hand and start piecing together what has happened while keeping the big reveal for the the ending. If we talk about the “big reveal”, its never fully explained what happens and only hints at the possibilities, making the ending in some ways open-ended, possibly giving it space for a sequel (maybe?).

Its always hard to talk about movies like these where it starts off with all the premise and elements that do it a lot of favors and then as the movie goes along, more things get added in and it just seems to break away those good points. The way its set up still works in a way but it would be more of like a prequel to a TV series or something. At the same time, the movie is not for those who dislike coincidences, for example, you drive by a ash-filled location and coincidentally a fire truck was abandoned there with the one gas mask to use. They can definitely be ignored or admired as forethought but deal is, are there that many coincidences to make it believable to a certain extent or is every event set to create obstacles and feels very deliberate? That’s an issue with How It Ends. If you don’t mind all that, this movie is alright.

That’s it for this Double Feature!
Have you seen The Boy Next Door and/or How It Ends? Thoughts?

Remembering James Horner Blogathon: The Perfect Storm (2000)

The 4th Annual Remembering James Horner Blogathon is among us between June 21st to 23rd!

Having joined in the last few years, its been quite a joy to look back at all the entries and also being able to discover some of the movies scored by James Horner who has no doubt given life through music in a lot of movies to help enhance each scene and story. After Year 1 doing Once Upon a Forest to Year 2 doing The Spiderwick Chronicles and then last year, tackling The 33, one of his scores, this year is trekking a little back in time but into a more dramatic film to look at the 2000 drama thriller, The Perfect Storm. I’ve only seen this movie once before years ago but I remember it being quite good, so it’ll be nice to revisit it.

The Perfect Storm (2000)

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Cast: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, William Fichtner, John Hawkes, Allen Payne, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Ironside

An unusually intense storm pattern catches some commercial fishermen unaware and puts them in mortal danger. – IMDB

Based on the 1997 non-fiction book of the same name by Sebastian Junger (which I haven’t read), The Perfect Storm is a biographical disaster drama film that portrays the story of a group of commercial fishermen lead by Captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) who goes out further than the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the Flemish Cap on a late season fishing expediation due to a poor fishing season to try to get a big catch. However, on their way back, they end up getting caught in the “perfect storm of 1991” where three storms converge to create a deadly weather system.

While The Perfect Storm’s primarily focus is on the crew of Andrea Gail and their loved ones and friends at home waiting for their return, The Perfect Storm of 1991 wasn’t only about one fishing boat but also about the actual storm that also caught other unfortunate souls out at sea and the brave rescue efforts of both the jobs of the Coast Guard and the Air National Guard in these desperate times, risking their safety to save others in need.  Its a story that tells the hard life of fishermen but also the dangers of working in working as rescue crews whether at sea or in the air. In that sense, it did a good job of portraying both of the sides and giving the story a few more layers and angles.

Looking at the cast, it holds some solid efforts. George Clooney plays a main role as the captain who, while isn’t a mean guy, is trying to win back some reputation from having a bad season and the desire to bring back a huge catch to prove his worth. At the same time, close to him is Mark Wahlberg who plays one of the fishermen Bobby who leaves on this last trip to get enough money to get a better life for his family. There’s some other drama and conflicts between some of the crew that propel the story forward in the background especially between William Fichtner’s character Sully and John C. Reilly’s Murph. This is a male-heavy movie however, Diane Lane plays Bobby’s girlfriend. Everyone delivers on their roles pretty well.

The Perfect Storm actually relies heavily on its soundtrack to give that dramatic turn of effects. Some of the scenes are solely the soundtrack and gives it a certain life and atmosphere that gives an idea of whats going on even without any dialogue going about. As with any disaster film, it has a lot of drama to it especially in the face of loss and danger. There’s a beautiful patriotic music in the beginning, adventure and victory comes in through the middle and as the crew enters into the perfect storm and danger ensues, the music also becomes a great piece to bring life to their fight for survival and the tension that builds with each scene and issues that occurs. The power of music and scores is such a strong element in a movie to build up the mood in every situation and for The Perfect Storm, that has to be one of the strongest elements that keeps the movie in check to amplify its emotions.

A huge thanks to Film Music Central for hosting this great blogathon!
Have you seen The Perfect Storm?
Which movie did you love James Horner’s score the most?
Remember to head over to Film Music Central to catch up on the other entries!