As most people would probably agree, the title of this movie, “What Men Want” as well as the original from 2000 “What Women Want”, should be “What Men Think” and “What Women Think”, due to the fact that the entire premise is the main character suddenly having the ability to hear what the opposite sex is thinking. Aside from the impossible idea behind this film, the situations and dialogue that can spring from an idea like this are endless and potentially very entertaining. Unfortunately, this movie does not take anywhere near advantage of some very good scene and dialogue ideas, and in too many cases, takes the easy raunchy route. The original “What Women Want” released in 2000 was at best a below average movie and considering Mel Gibson was the star, reminds us that the year 2000 was 19 long years ago. Releasing a remake of an average movie does not make much sense, unless the remake has a significantly better twist and plot idea than the original. Unfortunately this remake fails on too many levels and is not nearly as good as the original.

What Men Want stars Taraji P. Henson as an employee of a sports agency and of all people Brian Bosworth, the former football and action star from the early 90’s who I have not seen in any movie in many years. You have to admire Bosworth for not giving up on acting given his very few acting parts in the last 10 years, acting is a very tough profession. Tracy Morgan is also in this movie playing the father of a high school basketball star about to go to the pros. I thought Morgan’s use of language and his funny way of talking was not enough to fix the dialogue in this script. This movie once again fails the audience movie rule for any comedy – nobody laughed in the theater I was in, an obvious must for any good comedy movie. “When Harry Met Sally” released 30 years ago, still stands out as a standard for all comedy films, as well as Annie Hall in 1977. There has never been a comedy movie released since 1989 that I have seen that comes close to these two all time classics in my opinion.

A good number of of the scenes involving back stabbing and office politics were realistic, very well done, and just about the only good thing in this entire story. There was one line at the end that I thought was very profound and basically stated: “nobody should ever derive their sense of self worth from the opinions of others”. An idea we should all live by.

The ratings for this movie on IMDB are a very low 3.2 and 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, I agree with both scores. What Men Want should be skipped.

The new Liam Neeson movie “Cold Pursuit” achieved some new ideas I have never seen before in any film. First of all, Nels Coxman, played by Neeson has the most unusual job I have ever seen – he clears snow in mountain roads in the surrounding mountains of Denver Colorado. There is a long list of people who die in this movie, all followed by listing their name and religious denomination right after their death. The entire story is played very low key in a way that I found extremely unusual. Neeson’s co-star Laura Dern, who plays Coxman’s wife has an extremely small part in the beginning of the movie and then disappears, never to be seen again. The ending was also very strange with a shocking unexpected death that might have been an attempt at humor or insanity given the large number of people who die in this story.

Cold Pursuit is an effective revenge drama with Neeson, in a role similar to the excellent Taken from 2008 role as a father who would do anything for his child. The story involves a local drug cartel and once again we are reminded of ruthlessness of people like this, who kill like most of us brush our teeth. For most people like this they meet their own end as violently as they killed others.

The story of Cold Pursuit also involves a custody battle between the head of the drug cartel and his wife, and they have a young son who has a likability and niceness that bears no resemblance to his parents. I found this an unlikely reality given the child’s parents and circumstances.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Cold Pursuit is a very solid 80% and my score would be more in the 70% range due to some of the slow points in the story and an ending involving the young boy in the aftermath of a shootout that made no sense. I give a mild recommendation to Cold Pursuit.

In 1994 Quentin Tarantino introduced a whole new way to tell a story, by starting at the end and then filling in all the blanks with flashbacks in a circular order and then doubling back to where the movie began. Over the years I have seen a number of movies that have tried to tell a story this way and most of them have failed. The new movie “Destroyer” starring Nicole Kidman has successfully used this highly unusual story telling method; not as well as Pulp Fiction but well enough to make the movie both engrossing and understandable.

As far as the acting, you have to admire Nicole Kidman for taking this role because not only does she not wear any makeup, but she is made to look like she is a disaster of a person who has not slept in weeks and might be close to suicide. As the story unfolds her appearance becomes more and more understandable due to an undercover assignment with a fellow police officer that goes in a very bad direction. Kidman probably took this role to enhance her acting ability and perhaps hoped for an Academy Award nomination, but unfortunately the film itself is not strong enough for the highest movie awards.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Destroyer are an average 72% and due to some of the flaws in the story that is slow in some areas, I would give this movie around a 75% rating and give it a solid recommendation.