New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

David Mumpower: Turbo is a genteel movie that is clearly a Cars knock-off straight down to the Radiator Springs clone that springs up midway through the film. Still, as far as derivative projects go, Turbo has a heart and some dazzling visuals that share a certain similarity with Speed Racer. By that, I mean it is cinematic Ritalin. Like Speed Racer, Turbo skews very, very young and there aren’t a lot of adults who would find it to be a passable usage of their time. I was braced for worse so I was pleasantly surprised.

A Good Day to Die Hard is the converse in that I lowered my expectations so much that I did not believe I could possibly be disappointed. This is the only Die Hard movie that I didn’t watch on opening weekend, and I followed that by never watching it the theater. The reviews and comments from friends scared me so much that I decided to wait for what I consider to be the optimal setting for movie watching, my sofa. Alas, there is no setting, not even a white sand beach, which could counteract the abject failure of this catastrophe. It is unworthy of the Die Hard name. In fact, A Good Day to Die Hard is the sequel Michael Bay never made but easily could have. It is nothing but a series of pointless explosions and randomized gun fire. The fifth Die Hard film is exactly the sort of over the top, brain dead title that the original title lampooned. I thought that Die Hard with a Vengeance missed the mark, but it’s The freakin’ Godfather compared to this monstrosity. The only real shock for me is that I watched an even worse movie the following week, because A Good Day to Die Hard seemed like a strong candidate to be the worst film of the year.

The Internship is like Turbo in that it is very well intended. It is exactly the same movie that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have both made together as well as with Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and the other flagging comedians against whom the new generation of movie goers is rebelling. But…I liked it. I may have liked it a lot. There is a Quidditch scene – you heard me – that lingers in my head because it is so off the wall funny. It reminds me of that quirky fuzzy wall sequence in Get Him to the Greek. It’s chaos comedy, but it works. The Internship tells a paint-by-numbers story that offers few real surprises yet I find it quite engaging. It’s comfort food.

The Hangover 3 is a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that I was not as offended by it as some of the other BOP staff have been as stated in their reviews. In fact, I found it much less obnoxious than the second Hangover movie, one of the angriest titles I have ever seen. This project is a glorified victory lap for the cast, as there are very few aspects of true storytelling involved. It’s just another extended misadventure that starts horribly with that dead giraffe that everyone hates. By the time the movie gets to the finish line, a bit more heart has been shown as the producers’ fondness for the characters shines through in the end. I always felt that The Hangover was wildly overrated while The Hangover 2 is the very reason why “sequel” doubles as a swear word for many. The Hangover 3 is another money grab, but if it had been the second movie rather than the third, I would likely have a much higher opinion of the franchise as a whole.

Continued:       1       2       3       4