Life Stinks (1991)

In my opinion Mel Brooks has a very erratic track record when it comes to his filmography. There are the highs, the lows, and the somewhere in-betweens; this would be one of his very safe mid-tier efforts that would come under the umbrella of 'meh'. A very simple riches-to-rags-and-back-again tale that encompasses a very generic message about being good to your fellow man and don't be an evil fatcat. It is also one of Brook's few movies that isn't a parody.

Goddard Bolt (Brooks) is a highly successful and wealthy businessman who doesn't really care about anybody, he only cares about the almighty Dollar and making more of it. If that means cutting down rainforests or knocking down old folk's homes then so be it. In his latest dastardly move, he wants to tear down a local slum area and turn it into profitable real estate. However, his rival, Vance Crasswell (Jeffrey Tambor), who also wants the same area for his own gain, bets Bolt that he cannot survive on the streets homeless in said slum district for 30 days. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone how this story pans out. At first Bolt has trouble getting by. He eventually meets other homeless people whom he befriends. No one believes Bolt's story. Crasswell tricks Bolt and goes back on the bet. After some convincing Bolt's new friends all agree to help him get his fortune back. In the end Bolt and co manage this and Bolt saves the slum area and renovates it, hurray!

This movie really is a simple affair, far too simple. For starters Brooks can't help but initially add a more slapstick approach to the story which he was obviously famous for at the time (and now). There are the odd little touches here and there that border on spoof such as his character's early appearance which looks very much like President Skroob from 'Spaceballs'. Bolt goes through all the things you'd totally expect him to go through in such a situation. Things that you've seen in many other similar movies. 

Being a rich tycoon Bolt finds it incredibly hard to get by and is easily horrified at how people survive on the streets. Without cash Bolt is unable to get a room. He is forced to sleep ruff. People treat him like dirt, he himself is treated like dirt. He witnesses people going to the toilet in the streets. He ends up begging for food. He tries busking, he tries to steal, and eventually he ends up getting robbed for his shoes. It's all highly predictable, the comedy is predictable, and it feels a bit childish really. It is remarkable how quickly his suit gets so ridiculously dirty.

The easily predictable plot continues as Bolt eventually stumbles across various homeless people who treat him well despite him being somewhat rude to them. They take him in as a friend and help him with a place to sleep and somewhere to eat. Of course one of these homeless people is a woman (Lesley Ann Warren) who despite being homeless still manages to look quite glamorous. As you have probably already guessed the pair will eventually fall in love with each other and they will both live happily ever after.

Amongst all this generic guff there are the odd moments of legit emotion. The main sequence for this involves the death of one of the homeless men who befriends Bolt. Bolt finds his old friend lying dead in the street, just lying there, yet everyone is ignoring him, walking around his lifeless body. A shop owner complains that his body is blocking the entrance to his store, people look but show no emotion, they don't care. Eventually an ambulance turns up and they simply bag the man up like a piece of trash and drive his corpse away. Bolt is clearly heartbroken and learning a hard life lesson. Indeed the scene is blunt as hell, no subtlety here, but it still packs a punch and for a brief moment, it really hurts. Of course Brooks being Brooks manages to twist said sad scene by giving it a golden moment of laughter when Bolt and co try to disperse of the ashes with as much dignity as they can and it all blows back in their faces, literally.

So yes there are some very good nuggets of (mostly visual) comedy dotted around here, but there are far more moments of cheese in this corny story. Yes Brooks does manage to cram in a song and dance number, somehow. There is the inevitable moment Bolt goes off the rails and is taken to hospital. This comes after the inevitable sequence where Bolt goes back to his mansion and finds out Crasswell has double-crossed him. And of course the eventual finale where Bolt and all the homeless folk fight back against Crasswell as he tries to demolish the slum area is...kinda stupid.

If you ever wanted to watch an easygoing archetypal rags to riches type comedy then this is definitely it. I can't really stress enough how generic and unoriginal the plot actually is though. This is an old concept that has been used many many times before, this is merely a Mel Brooks version. Is it a good version? Hmmm...not really no. This isn't a bad movie but it isn't really anything to write home about either. Its heart is in the right place but it's just so darn gooey and hammy with (to be brutally honest) poor humour. Brooks seems to struggle trying to remain serious and because we all know his work it's hard to take him seriously.

5/10

Alien: Romulus (2024)

It's the year 2142 and apparently nothing much changes in this 'Alien' universe. Another team of misfits must run around the dark tight corridors of a ship battling aliens and a female is the hero...again, because they just can't move away from that one novel move made by Scott back in 1979 apparently.

So for this little rant I'm just gonna go through my thoughts in a checklist-type fashion because I think it will be easier. The plot you say? Well, there's a bunch of misfits that board this mysterious abandoned ship. Whilst poking around they accidentally let facehuggers loose which leads to aliens and in the end the female and the synthetic are the heroes again, originality eh.

The original 'Alien' film was set in the year 2122 when the creature was presumably killed by getting toasted in the engines of the Nostromo escape shuttle and then drifting off into deep space. But low and behold in our current age where nothing is sacred we find out that the Xenomorph can actually survive in deep space by somehow cocooning itself and it didn't die after all! What kind of species would know how to evolve to survive in the cold radioactive vacuum of deep space? This one apparently. So does this mean there's an alien Queen cocooned out in deep space somewhere? Anyway, the evil Weyland-Yutani company manages to find it (did it not drift off into deep deep space then?), try to experiment on it again, and end up getting all their people killed. Thus leaving a ghost ship floating in space.

Said ghost ship manages to float right into the orbit of a planet with a Weyland-Yutani mining colony on it yet somehow not get detected at all...except by this bunch of misfits. Said bunch of misfits are yet again a perfectly balanced diverse team of young men and women of various ethnic backgrounds, just like reality. Oh and for some reason most of them are cockney's, why? Cos Scott is British I guess? I dunno.

We learn that our female lead character Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is very close to synthetic Andy (David Jonsson), Andy is her surrogate brother. But when Andy has to have an internal disc in his head exchanged for another synthetic he becomes a completely different android and sides with Weyland-Yuntani showing that he cannot really be trusted unless he has the correct disc in his head. Its not Andy, it's really just down to a specific disc in his head. All this should really tell Rain not to get overly connected to Andy, not to get so emotional over him because he is clearly just a machine. But she does, to the point where she risks her own life and others just to save Andy. This is the first time we see a synthetic in this universe switch in this fashion. Change the disc and they can go from kind to emotionless in the blink of an eye which makes them feel way more disposable in my opinion. Why would anyone care about them?

Also, why are these synthetics so super strong? And why do they have such super fast reactions? To the point that they can take out facehuggers mid-leap. I know we saw Bishop showcasing his super fast skills in 'Aliens' but I never really understood why they would be able to do this. They're just androids, not supermen.

We meet another synthetic called Rook who is the same model as Ash from the original film. This model is the rank of science officer and apparently way more untrustworthy and dedicated to Weyland-Yutani than Andy's model. Still not really sure why a company like Weyland-Yutani would have such wildly different looking synthetics for different roles. Like why is the Andy model Black and the others White? Unfortunately the character of Rook is an AWFUL CGI monstrosity which is supposed to look like Ian Holm. Was that the best they could do??

In this film we see how the alien's acidic blood melts its way through the entire hull of a ship with deadly results. This happens a few times. The question is why have we not seen this happen before in any other alien encounters in any other film? We also again see the ridiculous lack of continuity with the gestation period of the alien species. In the original film Scott had this process take time, building suspense. Well not anymore as it all happens within five minutes, yet again.

There's an action sequence where Rain fends off a swarm of aliens using a pulse rifle in zero gravity. Sounds cool right? Sure, but the reason for this was so the acidic alien blood turned into a gloopy substance floating around the corridors. This then enabled Rain and Andy to navigate their way through it more easily. Original? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes. There is no way that would have made it easier to get through the corridors as the blood would simply be everywhere after getting splattered with gunfire. No way they would have been able to avoid all that blood. This also leads me to a small moment where Andy leaps on top of an alien whilst blasting it to pieces with his pulse rifle. So now the acidic blood doesn't matter?? Sheesh!

To top it all off we have yet another horrendous alien newborn sequence (because we all wanted another repeat of that idea). And Rain then manages to kill off said newborn in virtually a beat for beat remake of the finale from the original 'Alien' film, bar a few changes obviously. So no one was bothered by all this? No deja vu??

I have so many thoughts here, it's really hard. This is by no means a bad film, and it's definitely not the worst in the 'Alien' franchise. In fact, I'd say this is actually one of the better 'Alien' films, definitely better than 'Alien Resurrection' and the 'AvP' movies. Being a Ridley Scott production everything looks incredible, like all his films. The attention to detail is phenomenal. This world looks lived in and just incredible. Highly authentic looking, everything looks like it could actually work or do something. All the small callbacks to previous films, the little touches on set details, computer screen readouts, vehicles, costumes etc...The film is set in between 'Alien' and 'Aliens', and visually, tech-wise, sound-wise, it's all absolutely spot on, perfect, faultless.

The problem comes with originality and the plot. The plot is as basic as it gets and offers nothing. The characters are all the same predictable types and having the last man standing be a female yet again is becoming a bit of a joke now. Yes it was unique with Sigourney Weaver and Ripley but that's been done now, it was also done in 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant', time for change methinks. But overall, despite this film looking terrific, once again it feels more like a greatest hits compilation in better definition and with new faces. There are SO many moments in this film that are simply taken from all the others its quite unbelievable. Essentially take bits from 'Alien', 'Aliens', 'Alien 3', the godawful newborn idea from 'Alien Resurrection', chuck in some black goo and voilà!

This film felt more like a necessity in order to sort out the convoluted mess left behind by the failed 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' films. Hence why this films plot does link with the black goo in order to try and explain what the hell has been going on. But had those films actually made sense and done well I doubt this film would exist because there would be no need for it. 

6/10

Civil War (2024)

 

Hey remember when Kirsten Dunst was a cute young actress? Yeah, seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it? But anyway, what's this flick about then? A prediction for the outcome of the 2024 election? 

Right so there isn't really that much to explain when it comes to the plot of this film. The US of A is currently under the control of an apparent authoritarian President and administration which is set to govern for a third term (the US President can only have two terms, hence the authoritarian bit I guess). But never fear, the combined Western forces of California and Texas are here to save the day! Not sure what the rest of America is up to during this spat but there you go. This film follows a small group of journalists who are on their way to try and interview the President in Washington as said Western Forces are closing in on the Capitol.

This film came out at a time when politics and the public mood in the US, leading up to the Trump vs Harris 2024 election, were at boiling point. So good marketing there I guess. Director Alex Garland had stated that the film was in no way supposed to be leaning one way or the other politically and definitely wasn't supposed to try and influence voters, riiiiight. I mean hey, come on, this is just my opinion but this was clearly a political statement surrounding Trump and his previous four year term, and the potential for his next four year term.

I found this film quite odd frankly...and somewhat triggering truth be told. For starters, the idea that the State of California and Texas would join forces to battle the Federal government (which is clearly conservative) is quite simply ludicrous. What about the other Western liberal States like Oregon and Washington? We are told that the current administration are authoritarian but we are not told why. Are they really or is this the liberal Democrat view on authoritarianism? We also learn that the Western Forces are secessionists, which in my book would kinda make them the extremist party in this story, the bad guys perhaps. But the Western Forces are obviously meant to be the good guys as we follow the plot from their viewpoint as the main characters follow their side. So I feel we don't really get a level playing field overall.

So we don't really know what the current POTUS has actually done to trigger this Western insurrection and we aren't told what the Western Forces are actually wanting. Yeah they wanna depose the President but with what intentions? As I said we don't really know who to root for here. The main characters also offer no real insights into the story or themselves amazingly. Dunst plays a war-hardened journalist who has PTSD from her previous travels. She wants to interview the President and at the same time is mentoring a young conflict journalist wannabe played by Cailee (Kayleigh?) Spaeny who is wet behind the ears and trying to toughen up in the face of much violence. Pound shop Pedro Pascal Wagner Moura is a journalist working with Dunst's character to interview the President. And Stephen McKinley Henderson is the elder mentor journalist in the group who doesn't need to be in the story. He's there for a predictable emotional death scene. Oh and two foreign born Americans turn up halfway through the story for no other reason other than to have a scene involving racism and America-first nationalism, because of course.

The story unfolds much like any war film whose point of view is from a specific soldier, usually fresh in the field. The small group travel from one harrowing emotional moment to the next in their 4X4. Each one is obviously supposed to toughen up the naive young journalist for her big predictable emotional finale where she finally sees through the blood and gore. It's pretty obvious that Dunst's character will also die seeing as she literally discusses the possibility with her young apprentice at the start. Said harrowing moments aren't actually that harrowing really, I've seen worse. It's all as you would expect, rogue groups of militia doing illegal things, bit of racism, moral quandaries, life being cheap etc...Highly predictable stuff.

The real meat of the dish comes towards the finale as the team join with Western Forces to storm the White House. This plays out much like any other Gerald Butler action flick and I had to keep reminding myself that it's actually supposed to be a serious dramatic sequence. The heroic (?) Western Forces storming the White House taking out hordes of secret service and various other forces still loyal to the evil (Republican) President. They murder any White House staff left alive, literally! Which again got me questioning who was supposed to be the good guys in this story. Eventually they crash the Oval office, drag the begging President out from under his desk, get him to beg a bit more, then execute him with extreme prejudice! They then pose with his corpse over the end credits! Geez!!

Now again, call me crazy, call me a conspiracy theorist, call me controversial etc...but to me this entire sequence played out like a Democrat wet dream. The whole notion of storming the White House to drag the current (supposed) authoritarian President (obviously Trump) out from under his desk like a snivelling coward (maximum humiliation) and then throw his ass in jail is exactly what many left-leaning people actually wanted to see happen (going by social media). Hell the Democrats spent most of 2024 trying to throw Trump in jail via any means possible so some elements of this film aren't too far-fetched.

I found this film highly amusing with its predictable cliches and generic plot. The only surprise being California and Texas joining forces which just seemed like a move to try and not make the plot look like left vs right. Essentially, think of 'Apocalypse Now' but nowhere near as good or harrowing with bizarrely poor musical choices and you're kinda along the right lines. Everything was so obvious, I literally had a checklist of cliches and tropes in my head that were mostly all ticked off as the film progressed. Add to that the fact that everyone and everywhere claims this film wasn't influenced by any current day politics is just laughable. I think people just didn't want to acknowledge the obvious. This is essentially what the Democrats thought was gonna happen at the end of Trump's first term back in 2020. Anyway, the film was well directed, well made, and well shot without breaking the bank, but overall it's incredibly generic with a vague plot and characters.

4/10