MRMOVIESETC
REVIEWS:
“Tucker: The Man
and His Dream” (1988)
“The Godfather” trilogy, “Apocalypse
Now”, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, and nestled in-between all those for Director
Francis Ford Coppola was “Tucker”; a biopic about Preston Tucker and his
automobile lovechild creation – the Tucker Torpedo – back in 1948. While
seemingly an odd choice for a man whom became legendary thanks to the other
stylish aforementioned titles, Coppola did also place his name on other films
lighter in tone, like “Jack”, “The Outsiders”, and “The Rainmaker”. Still, it’s
understandable how a viewer could be a little underwhelmed with “Tucker” at
first with its straightforward, no frills storytelling about the man that many,
me included, know little about and yet had a huge impact on automobiles and the
automobile industry as we know it.
In all honesty it is an
interesting story, and I can imagine Coppola was able to produce it with relative
ease having a talent like Jeff Bridges behind the wheel as the industry
underdog, Preston Tucker. However, if it is a stout education you’re looking
for, “Tucker” probably isn’t going to give you anything more than a taste
despite doing a good job keeping all the Hollywood-isms to a minimum.
This isn’t a film that exactly
has or ever will jump off the page next to Coppola’s other filmography, but
definitely feels like a passion project all the same. For those into this type
of subject matter, I suspect you might get the same general pleasure out of it
as I did.
“Tucker: The Man and His Dream”:
7/10
“Stuber” (2019)
Damn, I’ve been trying to think of what “Stuber” reminded
me of after watching it the other day, and now it finally hit me – this film is
the gorier version of 2012’s “21 Jump Street”; only not quite as good. Yes,
granted, there have been plenty of action comedies both before and after that
time, but the two counterparts – both physically and emotionally – eventually bonding
and teaming up to stop a deadly drug ring with tons of physical comedy along
the way kind of speaks for itself, no?
Don’t get me wrong, Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani are
excellent together and are the driving force of making this whole thing work,
overall. Having Bautista’s character be almost completely blind throughout the
duration was also a nice touch to hinder what would normally be effortless
badass-ery for him. There’s little worthy argument at this point against the
fact that we have likely already seen the full depths of Bautista’s acting
ability, but he has such a stoically comical demeanor that it could probably
work for him for a long time as long as he can be dropped into intriguing surroundings
to use it in. The same can be said for Nanjiani, whom is displaying a lot of
the same mannerisms here as he did in “The Big Sick” a few years ago, but he’s
so damn endearing it’s hard not to be in his character’s corner.
As for the rest of “Stuber”, like I said, outside the
particular character attributes, the story borrows a lot from similar comedies
that came before it, and while Stu’s arc had a better subtext conclusion than Vic’s,
there really wasn’t much else to grab hold onto. By no means, though, does it
fail as a comedy. Plenty of laughs registered throughout, and while it was a
one-time watch for me undoubtedly, I can recommend it at least as a rental.
“Stuber”: 7.5/10
“Fast and Furious
Presents: Hobbs and Shaw” (2019)
“Hpbbs and Shaw”, because I am
most definitely not spelling that whole obnoxious title out every time, is a
textbook example of a potentially fun spin-off gone wrong because, goddamn it,
Hollywood just gots to have that sequel, y’all. Outside of a few bright spots,
this film is phoned-in and inexcusably boring, and by phoned-in, I’m not
talking about the cast. Dwayne, Jason, Idris, and Vanessa are all in and
looking to have had a grand ol’ time on the set driving fast cars and blowing
shit up.
At the end of the day, I was
completely fine with that, and truly, that’s all I wanted out of this. I wanted
to see a bunch of goofy banter between Johnson and Statham, and watch Elba go
off the chain as a new breed of Terminator bent on annihilating the weakest of
humans so he can rebuild the remaining humans as the new partially-mechanical
super race while Hobbs and Shaw attempt to stop him.
Oh. Yeah. That one sentence
summarizes the whole plot for a two-plus hour movie, by the way. I have nothing
in the slightest against longer movies, you know, as long as they’re not pumped
full of forty-five minutes worth of a filler just to end up at a non-ending
that you can and will see coming at about, eh, the ten-minute mark. It starts
to become even more painful when the Second Act starts and it becomes glaringly
apparent that the script has already run out of gas with the two lead gents
recycling jokes and punching their way out of the same group brawl for the
sixth or seventh time. Thankfully, once the Third Act hits and the scenery
changes to Samoa, the movie does get a second wind of redemption for about a
minute until all the ideas there are similarly spent entirely too quickly.
Ugh. How can a movie designed
for mindless viewing piss me off this much? I know like everyone else in the
back of mind that this was a cash grab, but with the original “Fast” series
already raking in a stupid amount of money, did we really need a whole second
branch of sequels? Apparently, Universal says “Yes”. I think I’m going to get
off this ride now and stay off.
“Hobbs and Shaw”: 4/10
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