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Movie Review: Mean Girls

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For the second time in recent weeks, another popular-well-remembered-cult movie has been produced, this time “Mean Girls”, first released in 2004. The hook once again is to remake the original as a musical to generate more interest. This is also the case with the recent remake of “The Color Purple” with both new movies starting as musicals on Broadway.

In every case, the idea behind remaking a well-known film is name recognition, and remaking the original as a musical is intended to bring in additional people because they are curious about the musical numbers. This idea might fail and succeed because there are a great many people who hate musicals but love the original film, and people who love musicals but hate the original Mean Girls. This movie, just like The Color Purple was very close to showing too many musical numbers, and unfortunately a high number of the musical numbers were not only not that good, but seemed unnecessary.

The reason why the Mean Girls movie from 2004 was so popular is that we all can relate to the cruel insanity of bullying that comes far too often with childhood. The lead bully Reginal George is about as cruel and vicious as they come. What is it about individuals like this, who derive so much sadistic pleasure from trashing and humiliating other human beings? Very often it is young girls who are far more cruel than young boys in middle school and high school. Bullying is a major problem around the world with too many young children committing suicide as a result.

There are several famous lines and scenes from the original movie that are repeated in this remake with three original cast members Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprising their roles and Lindsay Lohan appearing at the end as a math contest moderator. What is the point of showing so many scenes from the original movie? Why not have a whole new series of new scenes and ideas, much funnier than the original? Then not worrying about disappointing the rabid fans of the 2004 version, who just want to see mostly the same movie again? Adding some musical numbers will never change a bad idea into a good one, regardless of any Broadway musical.

The new cast members, despite the musical numbers, were not as funny or effective as the original cast, including Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, Reneé Rapp as Regina George, and Avantika as Karen Shetty. While this entire new cast is not bad, they are also not different or funny enough to warrant any sense that this new version was worthy of the first film. I was surprised that after 20 years including a Broadway musical and so many script updates and rewrites this movie was at best, not funny enough, different enough, and only average. For all fans of the original Mean Girls, released in 2004, see that movie, because this new one is just not worth 2 hours of your time.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is a low 71%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Memory

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It is important for any moviegoer going into the new movie “Memory” to know that this is a film with no real screenplay, connected scenes, signs of acting, or any real story. Memory is just a series of disconnected vignettes about a woman Sylvia, played by Jessica Chastain, who is a recovering alcoholic, and a man Saul played by Peter Sarsgaard who is suffering from early onstage dementia. Saul and Sylvia are not married, they are acquaintances, who meet in one of the strangest scenes I have ever seen where Saul follows Sylvia around the city of New York and winds up on her doorstep the next morning. Over time, they become involved and as things progress, the extent of Saul’s dementia becomes more pronounced.

There are numerous side stories, including Sylvia’s memories of a bad childhood, where she was sexually abused by her father and her mother refuses to believe any of her stories. Sylvia has a daughter from a previous relationship and her purpose seems to make this movie have a runtime closer to 2 hours. Saul has a controlling brother who tries to prevent him from trying to live a normal life, due to this dementia. This entire movie seems more like a documentary that follows the lives of about 7 different people – to their houses, picnics, dinner at restaurants, arguments, and several nude scenes where in one instance, Saul is found lying nude and unconscious on the bathroom floor and is discovered by Sylvia.

There is no story resolution here, no message, and in the end, a very abrupt ending with Sylvia vacuuming the floor and then hugging Saul. What is the point of all this? To once again be different just for the sake of being different? I am more than tired of movies like this, that cut corners in an attempt to try and discover a new type of movie, that is not a movie at all. Then add the high number of minutes where this entire film is extremely slow and boring.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie is a high 86% but with a low 71% fan rating on IMDB. My rating is 60% and a solid pass on this one, hoping that movies like this one are all a passing fad.

Movie Review: The Beekeeper

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In terms of well-done revenge movies, with a great opening idea, the new Jason Statham movie “The Beekeeper” is one of the best films of its kind I have ever seen and clearly the best action movie that Statham has ever starred with the lead role.

What draws you in, is the start of this movie, where an older woman Eloise Parker, played very well by Phylicia Rashad is at her laptop and like so many millions of us have seen, she receives a message on her screen that says, “call this number, your computer’s hard drive may be corrupted”. For those of us who have no real computer experience, calling the phone number is a natural thing that too many people would do, out of fear of losing important data on their computer. The other reason why so many call the number is that decent human beings can sometimes have a very hard time understanding just how disgusting the lowlife in this world can be. Who are these animals who prey on old people, try to scam, trick, and ultimately steal billions of dollars every year from so many good human beings. Life savings are stolen, representing years or decades of hard work. Too many victims commit suicide, realizing that their entire lives have been destroyed by the worst kind of criminal.

Adam Clay, played very well by Jason Statham is the neighbor and close friend of Eloise Parker, and once he finds out what happened to her, he embarks on a vendetta to destroy the entire organization that exists to collect data to find the right victims and steal money from millions of people, using technology and the internet. It turns out that Clay’s profession as a beekeeper was also his code name in a covert part of the CIA that gave Clay the highest level of Karate and hand-to-hand combat skills. What follows are the expected over-the-top and standard Statham Karate scenes, this time more violent and insane than some of Stathan’s previous movies. The ability of Adam Clay to kill so many, mostly FBI agents, and not be injured and killed himself is as crazy and implausible as any of the 4 John Wick movies. Regardless, the action scenes are as well done and impressive as I have seen in any Statham movie.

This film also stars Minnie Driver who plays Director Janet Harward of the FBI, in a surprisingly small role. Jeremy Irons plays Wallace Westwyld the CEO of a parent company that supports the many warehouses of criminals that spend all day preying on thousands of victims. I was surprised to see Irons in this movie because even though this movie is good, it is normally below the higher quality films that Irons has made in the past.

The only objection I had with this story is that the number of FBI agents that Adam Clay killed, seemed way out of proportion, considering that he was trying to wipe out a company comprised of the worst kind of criminals and the FBI agents were only trying to do their jobs.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are once again wrong at 69%, with my rating a solid 85% for a very well-done action/revenge movie.