MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 31 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Bad Guys 2

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Comedy, Action

Director: Pierre Perifel

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Zazie Beetz, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Maria Bakalova, Alex Borstein, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh

DreamWorks Animation continues with their adaptations of the beloved children's book series into features, and now the titular "Bad Guys" are now reformed and trying to reintegrate themselves into our civilized society. But, heroes or not, life ain't so easy for convicted felons, and the group has trouble making a living. Eventually, they are tempted back into their old ways by a group of villainesses, who are out to steal a special material called MacGuffinite (you know you watch too many movies if you understand this joke). It's more of the same from this series, so if you love the first movie, this one is going to be on your list. I barely remember the first one. I remember it being cute, if inconsistent. I held the same opinion of the this one. As to which one is better, I plead the fifth because of my fuzzy memory. What I will say is that The Bad Guys are more fun when they do bad guy things. Sadly, if the Bad Guys don't go good, there is no story. That makes any Bad Guys movie an inescapable conundrum. There a zippy fun heist sequences where this movie genuinely comes alive. When they're reluctant to do it, it becomes less fun. But, Sam Rockwell is always a charming lead, and Awkwafina continues to be the most Awkwafina thing to ever have the name Awkwafina. I've always found the other Bad Guys to be unmemorable set decoration. One's big and dumb. One is a snake. One...farts? I'd feel like characters can be more fun if they have characterization, but this is a kids movie. Kid's don't need three-dimensions to love a joke. Farting in a space suit is funny because it just is, and it will never not be funny. And if you have kids, you get a fun and colorful adventure that just happens to have a farting piranha in a space suit suffocating a snake with his gas. Instant A+.

The Naked Gun

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Comedy, Action

Director: Akiva Schaffer

Starring: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Danny Huston, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand

I've heard more than a few right-wing nuts profess excitement about a new Naked Gun movie because "They're don't make movies like that anymore." This is true, but it's not because of "woke" or whatever. They don't make parody movies like The Naked Gun anymore because they wouldn't fucking stop making them in the 2000's, and they just kept getting worse until the genre died (thank you very much, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, this is why we can't have nice things). Of course, this isn't unique. Many genres die from oversaturation of inferior products, like the late 80's slasher movie or Sony strangling superhero movies by making Morbius and Madame Web. Given the right circumstances, this is also set-up for eventual resurrection. Without that genre deterioration, you don't get a movie like Scream.

The Naked Gun is a good selection for such a resurrection, because it's one of only a handful of these types of movies that successfully franchised itself out. As long as there are beat cop tropes to parody, The Naked Gun can thrive. Originally based upon the short-lived TV series Police Squad!, which adapted the trademark humor of Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker (creators of Airplane! and Top Secret!) as a weekly series mocking police procedurals, The Naked Gun took the failed show and launched a successful film franchise out of it. The series and films starred parody icon Leslie Nielson as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, a cop on the edge who finds love in femme fatale Priscilla Presley. The films also featured O.J. Simpson. We choose not to talk about that. It's one of the few instances where a failure turned into something iconic. It was kind of the Firefly of its day.

The new Naked Gun is the first without the involvement of Nielson, who passed away in 2010, or David Zucker, who hasn't worked on a movie since the declining returns of the Scary Movie franchise and whatever the fuck An American Carol was supposed to be. Priscilla Presley has a cameo in it, which is about as much of a torch-passing as you're going to get. The new film hails from producer and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who is probably as close to a Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker presence as we currently have in this media climate, and directed by Akiva Schaffer, of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers fame. This is a talented team we have. The biggest hurdle is finding someone to fill Leslie Nielson's shoes. Their solution was Liam Neeson.

I'm sold.

The casting of Neeson is a brilliant move because it tells the audience that the new movie understands what made movies like The Naked Gun funny, where the entire world created is chaotic but the protagonist is so straight-faced that he takes it seriously. This is something that spoof movies post-Scary Movie lost in translation, where the movies began to become so loaded with comedic actors who are playing up and trying to upstage each other. The movies become less fun if the leads aren't stoic. This is why Leslie Nielson is so beloved, because he knew how to play these roles. Neeson's casting is a message to Naked Gun fans, one that says "Don't worry, we get it." Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr. in the film, presumably the baby that was born at the end of the The Final Insult. Like dear ol' dad, he grows up to become a legendary officer of Police Squad. He has his own run-in with a femme fatale, played by 90's heartthrob Pamela Anderson, and is sucked into a case that leads him into tech company villain Danny Huston, who has a master plan to use a piece of tech called the P.L.O.T. Device to turn the world savage and murder each other while he hides in a bunker.

If the evil villain plot sounds familiar, that's because it was practically cut and pasted from Kingsman. This is probably the main thing I have against this movie, because it borrows a lot. There is an interrogation scene that is lifted straight from Mission: Impossible - Fallout. There are a series of sexual innundo sight gags that feel more Austin Powers than Naked Gun. The movie even does its own version of the "I'm Into Something Good" music montage from the original Naked Gun, but much stranger. I'm unsure about which of these are homages and parody because even the movie doesn't seem to know. It kind of blurs its own line and has this swagger to it that seems to be trying to convince the audience that everything it's coming up with was its own idea. I didn't particularly care for that.

Setting that aside, the proper measurement of a movie like this is if it makes you laugh, and I can confirm that I laughed. Quite a lot. Neeson is everything I hoped he'd be as Frank Drebin, and Pamela Anderson holds her own as the lady lead who is neck deep in trouble and far too sexually stimulated by the hot load of man-cop that she finds herself next to. The movie constantly confirms that these are the correct leads for this movie and gives them the material to prove it. The movie's lack of originality is off-set by its enthusiasm for making a new Naked Gun movie, and it so earnestly persues that goal that it makes a Naked Gun movie that is worthy of being called a Naked Gun movie. The only thing that doesn't make it a Naked Gun movie in my eyes is that it doesn't have the traditional police siren opening that the other movies have. However, it does make up for it by doing a closing "freeze frame" gag that is reminiscent of the original Police Squad! show. I'll allow it.

She Rides Shotgun

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Thriller

Director: Nick Rowland

Starring: Taron Egerton, Ana Sophia Heger, Rob Yang, John Carroll Lynch, Odessa A'zion, David Lyons

Based on the 2017 novel by Jordan Harper, She Rides Shotgun tells the story about a convict father who finds his family has been targeted for assassination by thugs that he has wronged, so he breaks out of jail and whisks his daughter out on a road trip to Mexico. It's a pretty solid book, one that starts of as a kidnapping dramatization that slowly comes into focus as a chase thriller, all being underlined by rather sweet father/daughter bonding moments. For the most part, the film adaptation does a good job of bringing it to the screen, even if certain parts are rewritten to try and give them more relevance to the central characters and to streamline the story to make it move faster. But, even if it can stray, the basis of the story is there. My biggest disappointment with the film's reworking is that it completely rewrote the ending from the ground up. Arguably, this is a sign that the filmmakers had completely missed the point of the book, because the entire closing chapters and epilogue are about what he sacrificed to make sure his daughter is safe for the rest of her life, while adding a bonus theme of what types of people and events create folklore. The movie then offsets my hesitancy of what they chose to leave out with exceptional performances by its central cast. Taron Egerton is not who I would have immediately thought of to play this role, but he does surprisingly well here. But it's Ana Sophia Heger who steals the movie from him as his daughter. It's a performance that will make you smile as much as it breaks your heart. Polly is a little girl who goes through a lot of trauma in a short period of time, all the while getting to know the father that has been absent most of her life, while also thrust into situations where she is forced to be a grown up and defend herself. Egerton and Heger's bonding time makes the movie. If the movie had held the same regard for it as the novel and had not rushed it for a two-hour pacing, She Rides Shotgun probably could have been one of the best movies of the year. It settles for being a mostly good adaptation of a pretty good book, even if it chooses to leave some of its most interesting aspects on the floor.

Together

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Horror

Director: Michael Shanks

Starring: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman

Come see the horror movie that gives "You complete me" a whole new meaning, as Dave Franco and Alison Brie discover a spooky cave and break the horror movie rule about never, ever drinking the water in a place that looks like it houses murderers and monsters. Eventually, their bodies begin fusing together, because of course that's a thing that happens. Together amounts to a horror movie metaphor of that very romantic notion of finding "your other half" and wanting to be "together forever." Its execution of it can be uneven, especially in the home stretch, which becomes clumsy with shaky CGI, unnecessary lore, and an ending that fulfills the movie's idea, but seems weirdly anticlimactic. This is compounded by some performance issues, as Dave Franco and Alison Brie are a real life married couple, but that doesn't necessarily translate to onscreen chemistry. The two do feel like they're acting on different wavelengths, as Brie gives a subtle performance that gets increasingly more panicked as the film goes and Franco is constantly full-throttle, to the point that his character comes off as whiny and irrational. Part of this is intentional, because they're playing a couple with personal and intimacy issues, but the benefit of them performing this movie together never fully pays off. In spite of all of this, the movie is too effectively made to not be a recommend, because the horror sequences are stellar (up until the last ten minutes, which are pretty underwhelming). There are sequences in this movie that are such hard rock J-horror that you would swear that this is an unofficial Ju-On sequel. Brie's character has a few creepshow contortionist sequences that steal the show. Whether or not it's actually Brie or a body double is something I cannot say for certain, but if it's actually Brie, all I can say is that she really went through the ringer in this movie. Horror fans that have been waiting all year for a movie that pulls zero punches will undoubtedly flock to this movie in spite of its rough edges. It certainly accomplished the thing it set out to do.

Netflix & Chill

War of the Worlds

⭐️

Streaming On: Prime

Genre: Science Fiction

Director: Rich Lee

Starring: Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick

I didn't even know there was a new War of the Worlds movie until right before I watched it. I saw that something called War of the Worlds had just hit Prime and was getting raked through the coals, and since War of the Worlds isn't exactly hurting for bullshit that has been associated with its name since hitting public domain, this didn't narrow it down. Did you know there was a three season television show that had Gabriel Byrne and Daisy Edgar-Jones? Neither did I. Apparently, this new one was some cheapie that was filmed during the pandemic that starred Ice Cube and was shelved because it was garbage.

Well, now I have to see it.

The film is your basic alien invasion movie done in the style of Unfriended or Searching, trying to tell an entire film from the point-of-view of a computer screen. The film's producer, Timur Bekmambetov, also produced both of those movies, as well as directing one of his own in Profile, so this has kind of become his thing. A decent amount of these movies are surprisingly good, even though they're just a new-age spin on the found footage genre. War of the Worlds is what happens when one of these goes horribly wrong.

The movie centers on Ice Cube as a DHS agent who is stuck in his office on lock down while the world is being invaded by aliens. If you're saying "That doesn't sound anything like the novel," congratulations. You won Captain Obvious of the Year. I'm sure if H.G. Wells had any concept of of computers, surveillance, drones, and Amazon delivery tenacity, he would have written this exact story, but he didn't and it was up to these filmmakers to brave these waters. And if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of adaptations, the two most famous film versions (the 1953 George Pal production and the 2005 Steven Spielberg film) were both loose adaptations as well. Those films at the very least maintained concepts that were present in the original story, though. This movie takes the Tripod alien warship design and little-to-nothing else. We don't even get to see people turn into ash. This is fucking bullshit, man.

I imagine the film only used the title for brand recognition, meanwhile just wanted to use the computer screen format to tell an alien invasion story through media coverage. If nothing else, you can definitely say this movie is a swing. There are many issues it comes with. The biggest problem is that Ice Cube is so isolated from what is going on that any theoretical tension is at a disadvantage, because he feels removed from being a player in a real movie. But even when the film actually does portray characters deep in the shit, I imagine the movie wants to be seen like a viral social media clip of real life chaos, but the movie suffocates itself because none of these scenes look real. It looks like a bunch of jackasses running around with phones with an AI camera filter that added a spaceship to the background.

I think we all learned a valuable lesson today: Seeing an alien invasion through media on your computer screen isn't as terrifying when all the footage looks like deep fake trash.

All of this being taken into account, the movie's script is just awful. Ice Cube's character is unlikable from moment one, where the movie is trying to portray him as an overprotective parent, but he's using government equipment to spy on his children every waking second. This is creepy as fuck. It's also interesting to me that Ice Cube's news media of choice seems to be Fox News, but it's not a very realistic depiction of them because they're actually covering the invasion and not just showing a series of talking heads that are blaming the liberals for it. He then gets to his low point when it's discovered that the aliens are accumulating data, and gets upset because Facebook died.

PEOPLE ARE DYING AND MY FACEBOOK PHOTOS ARE BEING DELETED! THIS IS THE WORST DAY EVER!

(for context, the reason he's actually upset that his dead wife's account went down in the cyber attack, but this is such a weird plot point that I think my point continues to stand)

All this leads up to an absurd conclusion, where his son reveals himself to be a superhacker that was trying to take down the government. He uploads a virus onto a thumb drive and sends it to his father through an Amazon Prime instant shipping drone, where Ice Cube runs to some terminal, kills all the aliens, and ends the War of the Worlds in an afternoon. Great job, America. We did it. Tom Cruise must be kicking himself for not being able to end the invasion like motherfucking Ice Cube.

This movie is ass. Whatever aspects that could have made it interesting are the very things it puts the least amount of effort into. The script is nonsense, thriller elements are nonexistent, and we don't even get to see a goddamn alien. What even is this movie? It's the equivalent of having an idea that sounded good at the time but when you try to tell someone about it later, you can't remember parts of it and you just spit out a bunch of word salad. You know the face that person gives you? That's the entire audience to this movie. What an achievement.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

28 Years Later... ⭐️⭐️

Eddington ⭐️⭐️

F1 ⭐️⭐️

The Fantastic 4: First Steps ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Home ⭐️1/2

House on Eden ⭐️1/2

Jurassic World: Rebirth ⭐️1/2

Lilo & Stitch ⭐️⭐️

Oh, Hi! ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sorry, Baby ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️