MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 46 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Carpenter's Son

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Horror

Director: Lotfy Nathan

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs, Souheila Yacoub, Isla Johnston

Say what you will about this edgelord flick that tries to do a psychological horror take on the story of Jesus Christ, but it's interesting. And it sure as hell isn't boring. Nicolas Cage plays "The Carpenter," and unnamed protagonist based on Joseph, who protects "The Mother" and "The Son," AKA Mary and Jesus, from those who might harm them once learning that his "son" is actually the son of God. Meanwhile, "The Son" resists temptation from "The Stranger," a sadistic little girl who represents you-know-who. She spends most of the movie making "The Son" uncomfortable with her serpent's tongue. No, that's not a metaphor, she has a literal "serpent's tongue," a snake that crawls our of her mouth. She can do that. As sacrilegious as the film might seem at first, I actually don't sense anything malicious about this movie toward religion in general. It may very well be a movie made by an atheist wanting to shock with their heresy, but it actually comes off as having a more genuine heart than that. It feels like it was made in the imagination that Jesus was a scared little boy surrounded by enemies, and it's a movie portraying his fear by inducing dread and utilizing gore. Most movies depicting Jesus are much softer, wanting the be beautiful even if the period of time that Jesus lived in likely wasn't (The Passion of the Christ notwithstanding). I kind of respect this movie for portraying a harsh surrounding that's usually sanitized. This movie also could have been done better. At it's heart, this movie is about a boy with overprotective parents keeping secrets from him who discovers he has superpowers. This might as well be the pilot to Smallville. But The Carpenter's Son will likely have cult appeal based on its unconventional approach to its subject matter. Maybe some of that cult following might be in the Christian community. The movie might surprise you. I just hope you're comfortable with newborn babies burning to death in a blazing fire. That happens in the first five minutes. In close-up. Buyer beware.

Keeper

⭐️⭐️

Genre: Horror

Director: Osgood Perkins

Starring: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland

Most film directors bring about their latest project in about two to three years. Osgood Perkins has pushed that to about six months, proving that, no matter who your favorite director is, they're a lazy son-of-a-bitch. Perkins' second film this year, after The Monkey, was actually born from the writer and actor's strikes from 2023 while The Monkey was stalled from production. Perkins worked some loopholes with Canadian writers and actors who were not part of the American unions and went to production on this movie. I wish I could say it didn't look like a rush job but it kinda does. Keeper is a horror movie that stars Tatiana Maslany, who agrees to a weekend at her boyfriend's cabin, where spooky stuff begins to happen. It's a rather basic creepshow premise that isn't going to win much awards in originality. In fact, the whole idea feels underdeveloped. Perkins' distinct and exciting direction and Maslany's committed performance are both at war with a boring script, one that lacks thematic material, characterization, and just content in general. The movie can be exceptionally creepy when it wants to be, but it suffers from slowdown and a dull performance by co-lead Rossif Sutherland doesn't help keep the film interesting. Perkins is still one of the most distinct voices in genre work today, and even if Keeper ain't a keeper, he's still on full display and firing on all cylinders. That's proof enough that he hasn't lost his mojo. He just needs to find another Longlegs to put his best foot forth.

King Ivory

⭐️1/2

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Director: John Swab

Starring: James Badge Dale, Ben Foster, Michael Mando, Graham Greene, Melissa Leo

Police officers hunt drug dealers and yadda yadda yadda...look, this movie sucks and I don't want to talk about it. Chances are you've seen a dozen street movies of law vs. kingpins and drugs in the past. This one does everything those movies do except does it slowly and dully. Waiting for King Ivory to do something interesting is like waiting for grass to brown and die during the summer. I got so bored during this movie that I started listening to the foley work. It really started to weird me out, from drowning men making gurgling noises above the surface of the water to kissing noises that sound like someone aggressively tongue wrestling with a Tootsie Pop. It's a hard-edged production done with grime and grit, but its screenplay can only interest in minor patches and doesn't seem to have the balls to really hit hard. The movie has so little confidence in itself that it feels the need to subtitle Ben Foster, who is playing a character with a removed larynx. His dialogue can be rough but it's really not that hard to make out, and it comes off as if the filmmakers are assuming their audience is full of idiots.

One positive note is that this is one of the last performances of the late Graham Greene, who passed away earlier this year. MSTies will remember him best from Atlantic Rim and RiffTrax fans from the Twilight saga, but we won't hold either of those against him. He really was a good actor. Unfortunately, King Ivory isn't a great requiem for him. Making a boring movie isn't a crime, but movies like King Ivory argue that maybe it should be.

Muzzle: City of Wolves

⭐️

🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆

Genre: Action, Thriller

Director: John Stalberg Jr.

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Tanya van Graan, Karl Thaning, Nicole Fortuin, Adrian Collins, Hakeem Kae-Kazim

Muzzle: City of Wolves is a sequel to a movie that I've never heard of. If it's anywhere near as funny as this one, I'm going to have to check it out. This movie has a full-blown police funeral for a dog, complete with Aaron Eckhart giving grief-stricken seething vengeance eyes. If that doesn't perfectly sum up exactly what kind of movie this is, I don't know what does.

Eckhart plays a gruff hard-boiled cop who has a group of trained dogs by his side. When an underground kingpin threatens to kill his family unless he willingly commits suicide, he goes on the run to shoot the bad guys and protect his wife and baby. That premise might seem mundane but the way it's executed makes the movie a riot. This movie has so many clichés that it might as well be a dark 'n' gritty reboot of Jack Slater from Last Action Hero. The movie piles on so much outdated turns that weren't even good when they were popular that it feels like it should be a parody, but it's so fucking serious that it clearly sees itself as edgy. This movie is utter crap. It's really funny crap, based primarily on how misguidedly sincere it is, but it's still crap. I wholeheartedly recommend this movie based on that, because its sincerity needs to be seen to be believed.

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Adventure

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Starring: Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman

I saw the first Now You See Me when it came out. Didn't really like it. I'm not even sure I understood what it was about, but the one thing that nagged at me that I never forgot was that the movie was focused on magicians and had an opportunity to pull off a lot of fun in-camera visual tricks and instead it was a bunch of CGI bullshit, answering the eternal question of "How'd they do that?!?!" with "They didn't." I don't think I've ever seen a movie completely lose focus on its own appeal like that. Anyway, I didn't watch the second one because I assumed it would be more of the same. Now I'm here watching the third because I have nothing better to do.

This threequel sees a young group of magicians who are inspired by the legendary "Four Horsemen" to do small-scale "steal from the rich, give to the poor" jobs. The actual Four Horsemen show up on their door, selecting them to help out with a bigger heist of a giant diamond. It's all an excuse to showboat and do a lot of monologues about how in control of the situation everyone is. I will admit I had more fun with this one that the last time I visited this franchise, though I share some of the same annoyances. A convoluted plot, an over-reliance on computer graphics, a lot of running around without a visible goal, and a twist ending that mistskes "Huh?" for mind-blowing. It's a collection of problems the Now You See Me franchise has had since movie one. It's just in the most zippy and enjoyable package they've ever presented. What I enjoyed about this movie is that, while it's aimless, it is very spirited. The young blood characters have so much spunk that they bring zest to the proceedings. That being said, there are probably too many characters in the movie. There is a little bit of wiseness to how the film works with this because it's assuming the audience is already familiar with the Horsemen and selects to give the young stars more development time. Ariana Greenblatt is the showstealer of the trio with a couple of parkour sequences that highlight the movie. Meanwhile, the Horsemen are here more for bravado, talking about how great they are and chumming about because it has been a while, letting the audience know what they've been up to since they've last robbed someone. There are a few surprises in store, some are genuinely good and others feel like post-production tinkering, but if you're a fan of Now You See Me, then I imagine this trilogy capper is mostly what you hope it would be.

The Running Man

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction

Director: Edgar Wright

Starring: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo. William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Katy O'Brian, Sean Hayes

I have a polarized history with The Running Man. I saw the 1987 Schwarzenegger movie when I was a tween and it established itself as the greatest movie my innocent eyes had ever gazed upon. I then read the Stephen King (AKA Richard Bachman) book in high school and...didn't like it. For the last few decades I attributed that to my rose-colored glasses of the movie version, which was quite different to the source material. I re-read the book recently to confirm this, and no, the book just sucks. It's a nihilistic and cynical work, admittedly for the right reasons, but it's one that just rages out without anything productive or enlightening in its content. And the last fifty or so pages read as if King had written himself into a corner and just gave up on the entire thing, rendering the story just a angry rant that just abruptly cuts off. I do not recommend the book on this one. The 1987 movie, though, that's still a top tier camp classic. 10/10, will watch again, and if the choice were between The Godfather and The Running Man, I'd pick The Running Man in a heartbeat.

Now, Edgar Wright is here to put his own stamp on The Running Man. My initial thought was yes, I absolutely want this. Then it occurred to me it was probably going to be based on the book and not the Schwarzenegger movie, and that made me sad. Wright's version of the King novel might have promise, but Wright's version of the Schwarzenegger movie would have been transcendent. But I'll give it a look. I love Wright as a filmmaker, and if anybody can whip that book into shape, it's him. And he does break through and turn a shitty book into something that could potentially win me over. But he's still held back by the not-so-good source material.

The Running Man sees Glen Powell playing Ben Richards, who desperately needs quick cash to buy medicine for his sick daughter. He applies to the game shows on "The Network," and is selected for "The Running Man," where Richards must survive as a fugitive for thirty days, but if he gets caught, he dies. Fans of the book will be more pleased that the concept hasn't been radically altered for this film, while the screenplay mostly stays faithful to the story's structure as well. This is for better and for worse, because the book doesn't have a great structure to begin with. The movie takes the worst aspects of the book and tries to salvage them by "Edgar Wright-ing" them up, which pays off in that it's no longer a dull work of stoic cynicism but a fast-paced work of cynicism that's kinda funny sometimes. You can have fun watching this, but its social commentary is still clumsy. It's bad enough that the parody concepts like "FreeVee" and "New Dollars" didn't even read well on the page but hearing them in live dialogue makes them sound even dumber. But probably the worst aspect of this movie is something that can be said for m "person starts an uprising against the tyranical government" media, which is that the message can be easily misunderstood. One can easily watch this movie and think it's about one brave "Republican" and his war against "Fake News" and "Liberal Media," and the only sources you can trust are "The People's Voices" on YouTube and Elon Musk's dumpster of a social media empire. The Running Man's social satire is pretty irresponsibly delivered because, taken at face value without analysis, it might make the radicalized even more radical.

But the movie isn't all bad. Most of its weaknesses can be attributed to the faults of its source. The movie actually improves on the book in a number of ways. The book is slow and not very exciting, Edgar Wright's film is a capable ride from start to finish. Characters from the novel who jump in and leave are given fairly beefed up roles, a lot of it with mixed results (Michael Cera's additional action sequence is put into play out of stupidity) but I appreciate the effort. The movie is also much funnier than its grumbling counterpart, which helps lighten some of the mood. It's definitely helps the tryout stage of the story, which I think is supposed to be funny in the novel but is done through a lot of racist slurs and sexism. Here, it actually is funny, because Powell is so in on playing someone who is so irritated about being there that my laughter couldn't be contained. The movie also changes the book's objectively terrible ending. Elements of the ending are still present, but there is an added post-script that recontextualizes as being less "life sucks and then you die." To be honest, the new ending is pretty shitty too, but it is unquestionably a less abrupt note to go out on.

The Running Man is Wright's weakest movie. If I were to take anything away from that, it's that Wright is starting look look like he's someone incapable of delivering an unentertaining movie. This movie can be a hoot, it's also frustrates as much as it delights. Just be prepared for that and you'll probably like it just fine. And we'll always have the Schwarzenegger movie, which is destined to be the most iconic version of this story, faithfulness and quality be damned.

Trap House

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Action

Director: Michael Dowse

Starring: Dave Bautista, Jack Champion, Sophia Lillis, Tony Dalton, Whitney Peak, Kate del Castillo, Bobby Cannavale, Inde Navarrette, Zaire Adams, Blu del Barrio

For a wrestler-turned-actor that most of the prime talent in Hollywood seems to have nothing but praise for, Dave Bautista has made a lot of schlock this year. It feels like it's every few weeks I'm seeing him in an Afterburn or an In the Lost Lands. This weekend he's in another low-budget action flick from another small-time distributor, though I am at the same time not surprised by what it is while also being surprised at how much fun I had watching it. Trap House sees Bautista play a DEA agent who, for some reason, has gear readily available to his teenage son. After a fellow agent is gunned down and the DEA fails at supporting his family, Bautista's son nabs a bunch of his father's gear and gathers a group of friends to crudely steal from the drug cartel in a series of hit-and-run robberies. The cartel eventually notices the DEA gear and starts targeting DEA agents. The story is a pretty solid groundwork for this movie, although it's not a particularly memorable screenplay. The movie can be ripe with melodrama when it feels like it, but it counterweighs it with a lot of spirit. The group comaraderie of the kids is flavorful and endearing, and watching them muck around from their clumsy first hit to being neck deep in something they can't handle is actually more investing than I expected to be. Meanwhile, watching Bautista trying to figure out who is doing the hits has a quirky pleasure to it. The movie is pedestrianly made, the action is nothing to write home about, and the movie's biggest twists are obvious from the get-go, but this movie is more fun than it has any right to be. I could name a hundred ways it could be better, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the basic ride as presented. If it ain't broke...

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Die My Love ⭐️⭐️

Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Predator: Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sarah's Oil ⭐️⭐️

Tron: Ares ⭐️⭐️

Wicked Part I ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2