It seems that this week’s movie releases have a theme. “What is that theme?” you say. Well, I’m glad you asked. It is the same theme that NUFEC has been using for our special once a month weekend meetings: So Bad, It’s Good. Because why enjoy watching a brilliant piece of art when you can laugh at a terrible hunk of garbage? Of course, we don’t charge members to watch such gems as Con Air, Nine Lives, and Rocky IV, but if you need a laugh, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a big (unintentional) one.
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Our story begins with Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of the cursed Captain of the Flying Dutchman, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). He is a crew member on a British naval vessel, whose captain refuses to heed Henry’s warnings against sailing into the uncharted Devil’s Triangle. The ship is promptly boarded and captured by the undead sailors of Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), who lets Turner live so he can carry a message to his arch-nemesis: Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Sparrow, meanwhile, has resorted to bank robbing due to his dearth of a ship. It is isn’t long before events force Henry, Sparrow, his old foe Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and an astronomer named Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) together as unlikely allies. 

Somewhere on the vast digital sea of the internet, a bad fanfiction writer is really pissed that Disney used their Pirates of the Caribbean script without permission. But honestly, Dead Men Tell No Tales is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time (along with Song to Song). Almost every aspect of the movie is terrible, but special mention goes to the writing. The script was actually written by Jeff Nathanson, who is also responsible for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Speed 2: Cruise Control, which should really tell you all you need to know about this movie. The plot is mostly nonsensical, with Sparrow, Turner, Salazar, Carina, and Barbossa all having different objectives, forcing the story to take numerous contrived turns and forcing everyone to fight for the limited screentime. Plus, the story relies really heavy on all the mystical bullshit that the earlier films in the series at least attempted to minimize. There’s magical artifacts, ancient curses, scantily-clad witches, and undead sharks out the wazoo in this film, despite said magical elements being generally one of the least-liked aspects of the earlier films. 

The dialogue writing is also atrocious, which frequently overlaps with another gripe about this movie: most of its attempts at humor are painfully unfunny. Some examples illustrating both of these problems are as follows:

1.  Early in the film, a British colonial governor opens a new bank, only to find a hungover Jack Sparrow inside the vault. Before his guards can shoot our beloved hero, a half-naked woman also emerges from the vault, and the governor is informed that “Sir, that is your wife!” Ha ha.

2.  Carina enters a shop specializing in scientific instruments, and examines a large, fancy telescope. The shop’s proprietor, a (17th century) nerd, walks in and proclaims that “No woman has ever handled my Herschel before!” I guess Baywatch didn’t get enough mileage out of the awkward, nerdy guy who can’t get girls trope. 

3.  There is a scene in which Jack encounters an old acquaintance of his who tries to force him to marry his large and unattractive daughter, who Jack refers to as “It” for the duration of the scene. Because apparently Hollywood thinks making fun of unattractive women is hysterical in the year 2017!

Oh, did I mention that the movie reenacts the infamous vault-dragging scene from Fast Five, except they do it with horses and drag the entire bank building through the streets? Or that Javier Bardem is criminally wasted on a character that sounds like a cross between a whiny Spanish emo and someone with a hole in their throat from those old anti-smoking commercials? Or that Johnny Depp actually seems to have been drunk for the filming of the first half hour of the movie? Or that his character who was once an occasionally noble hero is now a complete dick completely relegated to the role of (ineffective) comic relief. Or that…

I could keep going, but I think by now you get the gist of it. I wasn’t expecting this movie to be great. But I was not prepared for it to be this laughably bad. The only parts of it that are actually watchable are a couple of the action scenes, which are occasionally entertaining- one particular scene involving a guillotine is reminiscent of the very creative water wheel fight from the second film. But as soon as anyone opens their mouth, whatever enjoyment I was able to gleam was instantly shattered. The only reason I would say anyone would want to watch this movie is if you want to have a So Bad, It’s Good event with your friends. Between this and Baywatch, you could make a whole evening out of it. Of course, I make no guarantees about your mental state afterwards.

Grade: D-

I hate this film. This is the worst shit I have seen in a long goddamn time. Holy fuck. I don’t even know where to start with this so I’m just going to dive right in. Baywatch is an unfunny mess of a film, a dump-heap of near epic proportion that seems to be so far up its own ass that it can’t figure out how simultaneous banal and heinous it is. It takes all the tropes I would have expected out of a terrible comedy from the early 2000’s and compounds them into a trashy cluster-fuck of borderline insulting and offensive badness. 
 
The movie follows veteran lifeguard Mitch Buchanan (Dwayne Johnson), who is forced to take in new recruit Matt Brody (Zac Efron) into the Baywatch team. Brody is a cocky, disgraced Olympic swimmer, forced to work as a lifeguard as both a PR move for the beach and to serve community service for a previous crime. But Brody quickly realizes that the job involves more than he thought when drug-dealer/business tycoon Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) threatens to buy off all the beachfront property and use it for her own nefarious purposes.
 
Everything about this movie is unlikeable, but I think the most egregious aspect are the characters themselves. None of them are even remotely interesting, relying heavily on stereotypes and tropes that we are so used to by now that we could map out their actions after having taken five pounds of heavy narcotics. And sometimes these stereotypes go from dull to actually offensive, especially in the case of the realtionship between characters Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass) and CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach). They are the generic “overweight nerdy guy falls for sexy woman” pair, going all in on both of the terrible tropes that come with both ends. The nerd is insanely awkward and eventually falls to the role of being the team's “tech guy”, the woman is just a sexy body and given no character whatsoever. It’s the perpetuation of stereotypes like this that makes the film unbearable.
 
And even the characters who are not offensively tropey are oddly hypocritical. Take the lead, Mitch. Mitch is the perfect lifeguard, a physical specimen who simultaneously saves lives and make the people on the beach feel comfortable. He reiterates multiple times that the only thing the Baywatch team should care about is saving lives, that you can only be on the team if you are going to give your all into saving the lives of people who need help. But then, he spends something like five fucking minutes of screentime having what is essentially a dick measuring contest with Brody. It’s a cheap chance to show off Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron’s ripped bodies, and it is so out of character for Mitch that it is extremely obvious how little of a shit the screenwriters give about making their characters any more than vessels for jokes.
 
And, in theory, all of that might be OK if the jokes were any good. But they are not. The film’s brand of humor reminds me of Masterminds, my least favorite film of 2016. The jokes are childish, the kind of humor that you’d expect twelve-year-old boys would laugh about while carving penises into the stalls of their middle school’s bathroom. Actual jokes that happen are as follows:
 
1. A guy gets a boner and tries to hide it by laying on a lawn chair, but his dick gets stuck. He can’t get it out, but his boner won’t go away because he keeps looking at an attractive woman in a swimsuit.

2. Brody has to look at a dead man’s taint. This is the extent of a joke that goes on for about 30 seconds.
Also, the dead man’s dick is out. Laugh.

3. Buchanan and Brody have to sneak into a building in disguise. Brody crossdresses. There is no discernible punchline, as the film expects seeing Zac Efron in drag will be so side-splittingly funny that it would be unnecessary to actually add a joke in.
 
And I could go on from there. The movie has a slew of other problems, like the awful editing and action sequencing, which make it so reprehensible. It’s a comedy that completely lacks any sense of humor, any characters that we can even slightly enjoy, any attempt at being interesting. Baywatch relies on hackneyed stereotyping and uninspired dick/shit jokes so heavily that I find it hard to believe six grown-ass adults wrote it and not 30 sixth-graders who huff glue. Please, don’t see this movie.
 
It’s not worth the Bay-watch (sorry). 
 
Grade: F

As a huge film buff, I follow movie news quite closely. As a result, I see quite a lot of movie trailers (although probably still far fewer than anyone who still has cable). Over time I’ve gotten pretty good at analyzing trailers, and I can usually tell from them whether a film is going to be worth seeing or not. Although it’s certainly not a science- Suicide Squad’s trailer still trips me up. Ever since I saw the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant I expected it to be another Prometheus. Turns out, that is exactly what it is, for better or worse. 
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In the year 2104, the starship Covenant is on its way to a remote planet to settle a new colony. While conducting repairs following a solar flare event, the crew picks up a signal seemingly of human origin, despite there being no records of any previous expeditions in their region of space. Changing course to investigate, they find a strange, hidden world full of life and perfect for human habitation. But they also find something else…something very dangerous. Featuring an ensemble cast including Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, and Michael Fassbender, Alien: Covenant is the sixth installment in the Alien franchise (if you include the two films that many fans pretend don’t exist). It is a direct sequel to 2012’s Prometheus, taking place ten years after the events of that film. Fassbender reprises his role as the android David, while simultaneously playing another android named Walter.

To get right to the chase, if you liked Prometheus, then you will like Covenant, and if you didn’t care for the last film that you likely won’t care for this one either. This film has all of the same strengths and the same weaknesses of its predecessor. On the positive side, the film is absolutely gorgeous, with cinematography, special effects, set design, and other visual aspects being out of this world (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun). The pace of the film is brisk, with the action kicking off early on rather than taking time to build suspense as is typical of films in the series. And the action is very-well done, particularly the extra-grisly alien kills, which are truly a sight to behold and probably the highlight of the film.

However, everything that people complained about regarding Prometheus is still present. Many of the characters still act really, really dumb. Which honestly doesn’t bother me that much considering that most real people don’t make great decisions under extreme pressure, but it does get frustrating watching characters in these movies make the same tired mistakes over and over again. Worse, the muddled philosophical concepts of the last film are back, because apparently Scott seems convinced that the Alien movies need to be about something more than unfortunate space farers being murdered by ravenous beasts. Whether or not these films should have a greater meaning is a topic for another day, but I will say that, if he wishes to go that route, Scott needs to write the philosophical bits better. Because he already made one movie featuring androids droning on about philosophy, and believe me it works much better in Blade Runner than in these films. 

So basically, Alien: Covenant is more Prometheus, which by itself should tell you whether this movie is worth your time if you’ve seen that movie. For those unfamiliar with the franchise, the film is worth a watch if you can tolerate dumb characters and inane metaphysical babbling so you can get to the good stuff. I.e., aliens ripping said dumb people apart in delightfully creative ways. But then again, xenomorphs aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Grade: B-

​I don’t know if you are able to tell by my writing style, or by the fact that I am writing for a university blog, but I am neither a tween nor a “young adult”. Well, I guess technically I am a young adult, but 20 year olds are never what people mean when they say young adults. “Young adults” aren't young adults; they are older children, usually between the ages of 13 and 17. And that demographic is one that advertisers, filmmakers and novelists have been targeting for years. This is a group of young people going through a transitional time in their lives, and they seem to  eat up media that have characters who share the types of emotional experiences they are going through. Some films and novels, like the Harry Potter series and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl do this extremely well. Everything, Everything does not.

Everything, Everything, based on the novel by Nicola Yoon, is a soulless film that lacks both interesting characters and any kind of backbone. The film follows 18 year-old Maddy Whittier (Amandla Stenberg), a teen who suffers from a rare disease that causes her to have extreme allergic reactions to almost everything that exists in the outdoors. Because of these allergies, she is forced to live an isolated life in her home, only coming into contact with her mother (Anika Noni Rose), Nurse Carla (Ana de la Reguera) and friend Rosa (Danube Hermosillo). Everything changes, however, when Maddy begins forming a relationship with Olly Bright (Nick Robinson), her new neighbor. This budding romance causes Maddy to call into question everything about her condition and life trapped inside the same four walls.

Maybe it’s simply because I am not a middle-school aged person anymore, but nothing that happened in this movie interested or spoke to me on any level. This is because none of the characters do anything to stand out or make you care about them. They are all quite boring, and that goes especially for the two leads. We are essentially made to believe that Olly and Maddy are so charming that they both fall for each other instantly, without knowing anything about the other. Except nothing these characters do is remotely quirky or interesting. They are the most normal and dull people I could imagine a movie being made about. I feel like the film thinks that the main character having a rare disease makes her inherently interesting. It doesn’t. She is boring.

And the lack of depth that the characters have only accentuates the predictable and lifeless story. I won’t expressly say what happens at the end of the film, but it is so fairy-talish and safe that I feel like a room of executives sat down and wondered how best to pander to a young audience. The movie feels like it has about thirty safety nets to ensure that nothing even vaguely upsetting happens throughout the movie. This makes it feel as though the film has literally no stakes, which only adds to the nothingness and boredom created by the blank-slate characters.

Everything, Everything is a drag. It’s a film that completely lacks anything intriguing. It’s a dull and predictable mess of a film, the kind of movie that thoroughly misses the mark of being original in any facet. Maybe I’m just out of touch, because the pre-teen females in the audeince really seemed to dig what was going on. I’m glad they found value in it. I didn’t.

Grade: D

Recently I have been pondering the question of why there seem to be so few good fantasy films. It’s odd that we seem to get at least one or two good science fiction films every year, but it’s quite rare to get an actually good fantasy film. It might be because the genre of fantasy in all mediums frequently struggles with staying out of Tolkien’s massive shadow, or simply because fantasy films aren’t made that often. Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes [2009] and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) has now joined the fray with his interpretation of the Arthurian mythos, and it is… interesting, if nothing else.
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I say "interpretation" because King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is only very loosely based on the classic myths. Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) was once a Prince, until his uncle Vortigern (Jude Law) murdered his father and usurped the throne. After years of living in exile and on the streets he has nearly forgotten his royal lineage, and heads a gang of thieves and thugs in the slums of Londinium. But when a chain of events leads to him drawing the sword Excalibur from the stone, he is thrust into the role of revolutionary against his will, aided by a ragtag group of rebels including a warrior named Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou), an archer called Goosefat Bill (Aidan Gillen) and a mysterious mage (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey).

The best way I can talk about this movie is by separating its narrative and technical aspects. On the one hand, the former category is somewhat lackluster. The plot frequently seems to forget that it is supposed to be a movie about King Arthur, and goes off on tangents that have little to do with the meat of the story. Honestly, it sort of feels like a script that was originally just a normal fantasy film which had Arthurian elements tacked on during rewrites. The acting is hit-or-miss; Hounsou is badass and Gillen gives the film some much-needed levity, while Jude Law has fun chewing the scenery as the obvious card-carrying villain. Hunnam plays a strangely deadpan King Arthur, and Bergès-Frisbey is good though her English is not the most fluent. Overall, the narrative is pretty bog-standard fantasy fare.

On the other hand, the choices made by the creative team for the technical aspects of the film are highly unusual and interesting. Guy Ritchie continues his trend of super slow-mo action scenes he pioneered in his Sherlock Holmes adaption, adding in some weird camera angles and funky fight choreography which gives the action scenes an almost 300-esque style. The editing is often incredibly fast-paced and sometimes non-linear, especially during the exposition scenes, and features such things as cross-cutting montages and flashbacks interspersed with flash-forwards. Most interesting of all is the score by Daniel Pemberton, which I can’t really think of a good comparison to, but suffice to say it is definitely not what you expect from a fantasy film. 

This is one of those films which I think is more interesting than qualitatively good. For the most part its a fairly standard fantasy action flick, but it’s not a complete loss. My recommendation is to go see it if you either really like hyper-stylized action/fantasy film, or if you’re intrigued by its unique film-making style. For anyone else, this is one sword that is probably not worth the effort to pull from its stone.

Grade: C- (narrative aspects), A- (technical aspects)

​I absolutely love the Rocky movies. Of the seven films within the Rocky canon, I only don’t like Rocky V, the one Sylvester Stallone himself says was a cash-grab mistake. But I love the other six films, from the excellent Rocky and Creed to the insane but hilarious Rocky III and Rocky IV. There is something about the charm of Rocky himself that make the movies so fun to watch, and Stallone seems to have been born to play the endearing character. But the character of Rocky, like many characters in fiction, did not come from nowhere. Stallone, who also wrote the original Rocky film, was inspired by the real life boxer Chuck Wepner, who nearly lasted 15 rounds in the ring with one of the greatest boxers of all time, Muhammad Ali.

Chuck is a biopic that tells the story of Wepner’s career and the impact that both the Ali fight and the success of the film Rocky had on him. Wepner, played by Liev Schreiber, is a small-time boxer who barely keeps his marriage together through his problems with drugs, alcohol and women. When he is given a shot at Muhammad Ali and manages to do far better than anyone assumed, causing newbie writer Sylvester Stallone to write a film based on him, his arrogance shoots through the roof, pushing his loved ones further away from him and spiraling him into a drug-fueled and lonely life. 

While the premise of Chuck was at least somewhat interesting to a huge Rocky fan such as myself, I quickly found myself bored by the film as a whole. And I feel like this is the hardest type of movie for me to describe. No aspect of the film is abrasively bad, but in no way is anything that happens even remotely interesting. Take the performances. Schreiber, Elizabeth Moss, Naomi Watts, Ron Pearlman, Jim Gaffigan and more all do a fine job in their roles. But I can’t think of a single moment in the film that didn’t stop my eyes from glossing over. At no moment in the movie did anything capture my attention.

And that makes it not only extremely difficult for me to talk about the film, but also very difficult to score. I can’t really bash the film for the way its story is structured, seeing as the movie is based on true events. But I also can’t say I found it interesting, because I definitely didn’t. The dialogue is super forgettable (I don’t think I remember a single thing any of the characters said), cinematography standard and music unremarkable. 

Every aspect of the film is like the color beige. It’s fine, and I can't really complain about it, but I wouldn’t want a wardrobe that was all beige. This film lacks the cinematic color to make it stand out in any facet. All I could think the entire movie was that I’d rather be watching Rocky. And, in a couple of months, I’ll bet you anything that I won’t even remember I saw this movie.

Grade: C-

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent is a biographic documentary about famous (or perhaps infamous) chef Jeremiah Tower, who influenced contemporary American cuisine and operated the “Stars” restaurant from 1984 to 1999. While watching, I couldn’t tell whether I disliked the movie or if I just disliked Tower himself—I soon realized it was both.
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The film begins with choppy shots of Tower inexplicably wandering Mexican ruins and saying dramatic axioms such as “I need to stay away from human beings, because somehow I am not one.” At this point in the film, we do not know where Tower is, why he is there, or why these ruins are relevant. Film-goers may not even be sure who he is in the first place. This opening thus feels bizarre and confusing, and its over-dramatic tone is downright laughable. When the documentary informs us that Tower mysteriously disappeared during his career and moved to Mexico, the scenery make slightly more sense, but the sequence continues to be theatrical and borderline nonsensical. The shots of Tower looking over the ruins from the top of a pyramid, his feet walking along the sand, are totally unnecessary. There are even images of unidentified children, which only seem remotely appropriate when Tower discusses his childhood.

The documentary depicts Tower in such an unfavorable light that I wondered if we were supposed to dislike him (it soon becomes unbelievably apparent that we are meant to sympathize with him). Tower begins to talk about his privileged, opulent childhood by saying that the worst thing to ever happen to him was not being an orphan. However, after expressing a desire to have been an orphan he describes how his parents’ wealth enabled him to live a lavish life, including the ability to order plate after plate of luxury food that directly inspired his culinary career. Tower may not have been so successful were it not for his parents and the privileges his family name afforded him, yet he whines that he would have been better off without his parents.

He proves to be even less relatable as the film goes on, laughing about the fact that when civil movements were coming to fruition in the 1960s, he was “too busy cooking” to be a revolutionary. Not everyone needs to or should consider themselves revolutionary, but Tower seems apathetic when he boasts that while people were fighting for their rights (and his rights, for that matter, because Tower is homosexual) he was drinking champagne and expensive wine, cooking dinner for his friends, and throwing a Molotov cocktail at an unoccupied building in the middle of the night on a joyride with his friends. The filmmakers clearly want audiences to feel sorry for Tower when, at the age of 30, his parents stop giving him an allowance hefty enough to support his frivolous lifestyle, but I couldn’t help but think he deserved it. It is also hard not to sympathize with his friend-turned-lover-turned-enemy Alice Waters, who clashed with Tower when he turned her affordable hippie restaurant into an expensive, high-class business. 

The documentary was difficult to watch because the editing and narrative were disjointed and confusing. Modern day interviews were juxtaposed with shots of Tower participating in merry activities (such as snorkeling, yachting, and shopping) while talking about how sorry he feels for himself, which were combined with mysterious shots of the ruins and dream-like sequences of childhood flashbacks. The film also switched back and forth between time periods without explanation, jumping back to unrelated events that took place in the 1980s, then forward to 2014, then back again. When the documentary discussed the “Stars” and “Tavern on the Green”  restaurants, the filmmakers for the most part focused on one linear time period and theme—and those parts were the most enjoyable to watch. 

It would have been an infinitely more enjoyable film if they had edited in a linear, sensible manner and scrapped the clichéd, melodramatic shots of Tower gazing pensively over the Mexican landscape. Tower also, while clearly an influential genius, is not a relatable or particularly likable person, and the film could have done more to humanize him. You will learn much if you watch this documentary, but you will also likely leave the theater confused and annoyed.

Grade: C-

The first Guardians of the Galaxy film was a huge surprise to me. It was the first Marvel film that I could watch as anything more than a popcorn action-flick with my friends. Its colorful space opera aesthetic, quirky characters and (most importantly) its humor and charm blew me away. It opened the door for Marvel movies to be not just cool superhero movies, but parts of a much more diverse franchise, which has continued with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. This one not only makes you laugh, but it also makes you feel.
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Following the events of the first film, the self-proclaimed Guardians of the Galaxy have capitalized on their new-found fame by becoming “heroes for hire”, charging exorbitant fees for their heroic feats. But after a job for an alien species called The Sovereign goes south, the crew is rescued by someone unexpected: a man called Ego (Kurt Russell), who is Peter Quill’s father. As Quill finally learns about his mysterious parentage, the crew embarks on a new adventure. Along the way, they collide with faces both familiar (Gamora’s sister Nebula and the space pirate Yondu) and new (Ego’s empathetic sidekick Mantis). Oh, and Groot is now Baby Groot.

Surprisingly, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is simultaneously the wackiest film in the Marvel franchise and one of its most serious. The film maintains the original’s goofy sense of humor and quirky characterization, and really ramps up the silliness even during most of the action sequences. Everything we loved from the first is still here: Drax’s complete literal-mindedness, Peter and Gamora’s flirty banter, Rocket being a crazy psychopath, and (of course) more 70s pop music. The film also expands on its comedy by branching into significantly raunchier jokes and outrageous celebrity cameos, including Sylvester Stallone (and not to mention the best Stan Lee bit yet).

And yet, Vol. 2 is at times a very serious film. The movie ventures into significantly darker territory than the first, indeed darker than most Marvel films. The stakes are much higher than the previous film, and although the action scenes are often weird they also possess much more dramatic danger than is typical for a superhero film. There’s much more emphasis on character development, showing vastly more complex and nuanced characters than the first film generally portrayed. And the themes of the movie, concentrating on what makes a family, are completely earnest and sincere. The film is, dare I say it, somber at times. 

And yet, there’s also a really funny joke about Kurt Russell’s penis. And that pretty sums up this film: when it isn’t doesn’t make you laugh, it makes you feel. And sometimes it makes you feel while you’re laughing. While in the hands of less-talented cast and crew it could have easily become an incoherent mess, James Gunn has yet again made what is easily one of the best entries in the Marvel franchise. It may not be as unique and original as the first one, but it’s even sillier and packs a significant emotional punch. Whether or not you’ve seen the first one, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a film that shouldn’t be missed.

Grade: A