Movie Review: The Running Man


There should be a documentary made about the decision makers in Hollywood who decide what movies to remake. Almost forty years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger made the original “The Running Man” about a man who tries to escape being killed by assassins, fully televised for a huge cash prize. Kind of like a modern day Rome and the Coliseum, from 2000 years ago. This movie also starred Richard Dawson as the host of the show and the accurate Rotten Tomatoes rating were 59% for a movie that was at best, below average and close to B movie status.

Why then, when producers are looking for a good acting movie premise for the rising career of actor Glen Powell, would this be the vehicle for his first solo action movie? The reason is, it takes too long, to create a new idea and write a new screenplay, so in order to take less risk, a well known movie name from a long time ago is chosen that starred a very well known actor in the hope that name recognition mostly from baby boomers would help make this movie a hit or be profitable. Unfortunately, this is a bad movie, no matter how much name recognition and action scenes you throw at it. It is slow, stupid in too many places and implausible throughout because as is always the case, writing a great screenplay is the most challenging part of movie making. Without a great story foundation, the movie will never been good and in the majority of cases will lose money – especially when the budget is 110 million dollars.

This film stars Sean Hayes as one of the hosts of the show Running Man, Lee Pace, as an evil assassin, Michael Cera who appears at the end of this movie for mostly filling time and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, starring in the part originally played by the late Richard Dawson. Why Brolin took this part in a movie this bad, is anyone’s guess.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a correct 64% made even worse by a bad movie that runs too long another big mistake here. I rate this movie a run for your life, big pass.

Movie Review: Twisters


The summer blockbuster hit “Twister” was released in May 1996 and had some of the best tornado special effects ever filmed. For many fans of the first film, the new remake “Twisters” will not disappoint as far as the special effects which are as good and in some areas better than the original. I was surprised that while the special effects in this new movie were impressive, considering the advances in technology in the last 28 years I was expecting more spectacular action scenes.

With the increasing number and severity of global warming, this new Twister remake has been expected. This time around, this new film has more science as far as ideas on how to stop a tornado once it starts. Once again “Dorothy”, the flying plastic balls that when released into the funnel cloud send signals that give scientists an idea of how a tornado forms, to better understand these increasingly devastating weather disasters from happening are a minor part of this new film. There was a good amount of science in this story, which is why storm chasers risk their lives chasing these dangerous violent weather phenomena.

While this new movie is a remake of the original it is significantly different enough as far as the story and what happens as well as the characters with two scientists Kate, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Tyler played by Glen Powell who are mostly at odds, and then become more than friends later in this story.

There is significantly more death in this remake, especially at the beginning of this movie, where Kate experiences the deaths of several of her friends. Realizing that there are real storm chasers who devote their lives to trying to solve the most dangerous weather conditions in the world, you have to admire the courage it would take to do drive an SUV into a tornado to make a living. The idea this movie proposes to insert chemicals into an active tornado to stop it might be a viable idea in the future, using electric drone SUVS, assuming that such chemicals could ever be created.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film of 77% is accurate and I give it a solid recommendation mainly for the special effects.


Movie Review: Anyone But You


The good news about the new movie “Anyone But You” is that it covers an important area of relationships that I have rarely seen addressed in any film. From the beginning this story is about the fear of getting hurt, previous relationship dissapointment and painful breakups. What human beings do to avoid getting hurt to save their ego and most importantly, how relationship misunderstandings (that are very often easily fixed) can ruin a rare chance in our lifetimes, in finding true love.

Anyone But You stars Sydney Sweeney as Bea and Glen Powell as Ben, who meet at a Starbucks and almost immediately find out that they are extremely attracted to each other. Unfortunately after a one night stand, life steps in, as it often does, and things to do not progress as it should have – due to the fear that Bea experiences due to a previous breakup and subsequent misunderstandings that could have been avoided. How often in life is something as great as true love destroyed due to something that is overheard, or misunderstood that prevents two people from finding love in their lifetimes.

The rest of this story is more about a typical romantic comedy where too many of the comedic events and dialogue fall flat. Through a series of unlikely coincidences, Ben and Bea find themselves attending a wedding in Austrailia with common friend. While in Austrailia a series of crazy events start, and Ben and Bea try to fool all their friends and family members trying to convince them that they are in fact a couple, when they are at odds with each other. They do this to try and stop their friends from interfering in their lives. Most of this fails to be funny or even entertaining too much of the time.

What does work is the chemistry between Ben and Bea with Sydney Sweeney stealing this movie with her rare and exceptional movie star looks that might just make her a major and in demand movie actress in the future.

There is a scene that involves a spider and nudity with Glen Powell’s character that was an all too obvious attempt at bringing in more movie goers with a gratutious nude scene, and an attempt at crude humor that fails miserably. This spider scene was all about saving the box office that is most likely to be a failure with the main reason being once again, the bad screenplay. The idea with this scene is to add it to the movie trailer to “trick the wrong people” into attending a movie that could have been much better had a good screenplay been written.

I also thought that the ending was rather ridiculous, invoving a helicopter to try and avoid anything that might have been thought of as “seen this before”. Understandably for all of these obvious reasons, the Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is a low 58% with my rating at 70% and a recommendation, only because of Sydney Sweeny who just might have found her inroad into becomming a significant movie actress.