This week, a documentary on MAX about the failure of MoviePass debuted. It was a really interesting look into how such a flawed idea to start with managed to go down in a blaze of glory because people made things so much worse. The MoviePass basic issue made me think of something that I very much part of my life now, AMC A-List. MoviePass was never going to work because there were always going to be more money going out for tickets than money coming in by subscribers. By only charging $10 a month for unlimited movies once-a day, the amount the company had to pay if people saw 3 or more movies a month was never going to balance out. This issue is something A-List has to be facing right now too. I will just use my situation for this year through May 10th. I have spent a total of $165.03 for movies so far. The actual cost should have been $390.64. That means I have saved $225.61, and I am not the only one who is saving this much on movies. AMC has to be losing so much money on so many people. It is really interesting how this ship continues to sail on, but as long as it does, I will be a passenger. All it takes is to watch 2 movies a month to pay off the $20 payment, then the rest are basically free screenings. This month, I saw 5 movies in that window. The fifth was this week, and part of the reviews below. What else did I see in this final week of May. Let’s find out. On to the reviews!
Garfield is my favorite cartoon. I had so many collections of the comics, and I loved the cartoon show when I was a kid. His adventures on the big screen have been a different story. The two live action movies with Bill Murray voicing him were bad to terrible. Unfortunately, this one was just barely better than those. There was part of this movie I really liked. It was the first 10 or so minutes when it is just running through jokes and references to the comic strip. I was really digging it. Then the plot kicked in, and I was just counting the minutes until it is over. There are a lot of minutes to count too. Why did this have to be over 90 minutes? Also, why does Chris Pratt have to be the voice of seemingly everything currently? He sounded weird as Mario, and he sounds weird as Garfield.
I say all of this and flies in the face of another fact: my niece and nephews really enjoyed it. This was a kids movie, and not made for people like me, but it could have been so much better. Toy Story is a kids movie and it works for everyone. Shrek, Despicable Me, and Super Mario do too. This one just went for broke to tell a story that is boring for adult and enough zany things to entertain the kids. Here it the thing though. I am willing to bet nobody will remember this movie by September. There are better and more popular movies for kids to watch, and no adult is going to want to watch it, unless they are high probably. It is just really disappointing that there might never be a good Garfield movie, but when I really think about it, there isn’t really a plot in the cartoon, so there is never really going to be one for a movie.
I learned something with this one. Always check the ratings before getting the ticket. I assumed this was rated R, because of course it would be. It basically is a Friday the 13th movie from Jason’s POV. Before leaving to head for the theater, I checked the start time, and saw the film was unrated. That meant that it was going to be a lot more gory than I was prepared for. It certainly was. I already am a wimp with gore in movies, but there were a few kills in this that made me wince. To my defense though, there is one kill in this (referred to as “THAT scene” in other reviews) that kind of messed with everyone in the theater. Of all the kills, the one I like the most was one we don’t see. It felt a lot like Hitchcock ploy where you know the bomb is there, but the characters don’t know, and you are waiting for the explosion. In this case, our killer leaves the frame and we just wait for him to pop back up, awhile the scene stays static on one shot. It really worked. The plot is very basic, as a group steals a necklace from a cemetery, and someone comes back from the dead to take it back. We don’t get any backstory on the would be victims, and we really didn’t need it. The novelty of following the killer as he just walks around to his next victim wasn’t lost on me, and I did like that it ended in under 90 minutes. I don’t think I will ever revisit it, but it was something interesting to watch, and I think it will play a lot better for people that really dig movies like Saw or Terrifier.
(Programming note: I wrote down my thoughts throughout the movie, and I have a post coming Wednesday that runs down what I noted minute by minute. I hopefully be interesting to read, but it may be better if you watch the movie before reading it. That way you could read more than what I am writing.)
This was really working for me for the first hour. The tension of what was building in the diner as more people were added to the equation was enjoyable to watch. However, after an event that happens at what I guess was the end of Act 2, all the air left the balloon. It was like watching a completely different movie. It was a disappointing turn of events. This was just the simply of plots with not a lot of character development. Not that it really needed it. My problem wasn’t that either. It was just that even though the film is 90 minutes, it felt like the story was fast forwarded at a certain point, then left things at a certain point that didn’t really mesh with the first hour, especially changing what we know of one character throughout the movie. I don’t think that was a bad movie by any means. Just one that I don’t think knew how to land the plane. Writing a good and satisfying ending can be hard sometimes.
After the last two weekends, the bar couldn’t be lower for Mike and Marcus to take first place next weekend. Nothing really else releases wide, so the other 4 are just more of the same as the last couple weeks.
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die
- The Garfield Movie
- Furiosa
- IF
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
With May done and over now, it’s now up to June to make going to theaters less of a chore than it’s been quite a bit so far this year. That won’t be the case though this upcoming week. One trip to AMC and two on streaming to start the month.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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