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Review of LIFE OF THE PARTY (Blu-ray combo)

July 28, 2018

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, PG-13 rated Leave a comment

Grade: C/C+
Entire family: No
2018, 105 min., Color
Comedy
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for sexual material, drug content and partying
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C+
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer
Amazon link

Of the last five movies that Melissa McCarthy starred in—Life of the Party, The Boss, Spy, Tammy, and The Heat—only two are funny. The Heat is a hilarious pairing of McCarthy and Sandra Bullock as cops, while the less riotous Spy has her playing a desk-bound CIA operative who has to hit the field to prevent global disaster. The other three are uninspired and reliant on bits and gags we’ve seen a thousand times before. And not coincidentally, the three disappointments were written by McCarthy and her husband, actor Ben Falcone.

So can I just say, on behalf of all the fans of McCarthy and her Robin Williams-like improvisational talent, would you please leave the writing to someone else?

Life of the Party feels like a female remake of Back to School, which starred Rodney Dangerfield as a parent who cramps his son’s style by going to the same college and hanging out with some of the same people, ultimately becoming the most popular “kid” in school. Except that Back to School is much funnier and also less raunchy and more believable. More

Review of EVERY DAY (Blu-ray)

July 15, 2018

James Plath, Family Home Theater Drama, Fantasy, PG-13 rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Entire family: No
2018, 97 min., Color
Teen drama-fantasy-romance
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for thematic content, language, teen drinking, and suggestive material
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: B+
Trailer
Amazon link

Every Day is a strange film. Angourie Rice (who was Ryan Gosling’s daughter in The Nice Guys) plays an average teenager in the Greater Baltimore area whose life is upended when she meets and becomes attracted to another teen whose looks change on a daily basis. And we’re not just talking about capricious makeovers.

That other teen somehow (why is never fully explained) wakes up in a different teen body every single day. “A,” as she comes to know them, can be a 16-year-old girl one day and a 16-year-old boy the next—black, white, Asian, gay or straight. A has no control over what body they awake in, but for the day that A is inside that body and inhabits that person’s life, A has tried to abide by one rule: do nothing that would alter that person’s life for good or for bad. That’s something A finds harder to do once they meet and fall for Rhiannon (Rice). A’s brain, A’s emotions, A’s memory bank, A’s spirit enters a person’s body and then lives that person’s life for a day. Throughout the film we see A do this with 15 different individuals who have zero to some vague memory of that day (whatever memory A decides to leave behind, though his standard M.O. has been to leave no memories). And both Rhiannon’s and A’s lives become more complicated when they develop feelings for one another.

I told you it was strange. But it’s also unique and oddly compelling. You want to see how this star-crossed romance could possibly end. More

Review of READY PLAYER ONE (Blu-ray combo)

July 14, 2018

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

Grade: A-/A
Entire family: No (10 and older)
2018, 140 min., Color
Sci-fi Action-Adventure
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, partial nudity, and language
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby Atmos TrueHd
Bonus features: A-/B+
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer
Amazon link

What a fun ride this is—Jason and the Golden Fleece for the 21st century. Fantastic graphics and CGI special effects, plus a strong, suspenseful story and likable characters make Ready Player One a real winner for all ages.

Based on the young adult novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One requires knowledge of video gaming no more than another Steven Spielberg directed film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, required viewers to have seen a UFO. Sure, audience members will reach another level of allusions if they’re gamers, but there are plenty of cultural markers here for non-players to enjoy.

Besides, the film’s overtly stated theme is that maybe, just maybe, people spend too much of their lives avoiding reality, so parents thinking that this is just another film that glorifies video and online gaming so much that it’s a virtual commercial can relax. Cline and Spielberg are on your side.

Ready Player One is set in 2044-45, when so many people live in slums or have mediocre lives that just about everyone dons virtual reality headgear in order to spend time in the OASIS, a virtual reality world where people go after work or school to relax, have adventures, and meet other people. They all have avatars and other names when they’re in the OASIS, and that’s when Spielberg and his effects team really gets going. But the opening slums known as the “stacks” are also pretty impressive—a trailer park of sorts for the future, with mobile homes stacked on ramshackle iron structures—an idea as unique as we’ve seen for future living prognostication. More

Review of RAMPAGE (Blu-ray combo)

July 13, 2018

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

Grade: B-/C+
Entire family: No
2018, 107 min., Color
Sci-fi Action
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief language and crude gestures
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: B-/B
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer
Amazon link

Watching Rampage, I got the giggles when a giant gorilla and an equally enormous mutated wolf and alligator all headed for Chicago, lured by a homing device of some kind for a reason I’m not sure we’re ever really clear about. Rampage is, after all, a popcorn movie—an action film that takes no prisoners and hopes viewers will ask no questions.

Still, I couldn’t help but giggle when a government honcho learns these creatures are only minutes away from doing to Chicago what Godzilla did to Tokyo, and he barks, “Evacuate the city, immediately!” Really? A city of 2.7 million people? Just like that? You couldn’t even convince people to leave the drive-thru line at Portillo’s during that length of time.

Then again, logic isn’t standard issue for a film like this. We don’t need to know exactly why genetic editing was outlawed, or by whose authority. We don’t need to know why some corporate scientists were still working secretly in space, or what they hoped to accomplish. We don’t even need to know why one government agent acts like a cowboy and is unquestioned in his authority everywhere he turns up. All we need to know is that genetic editing is bad, bad people are still doing it, and a good person who used to work for the bad corporation is now trying to save the gorilla . . . and maybe Chicago too. More