Review: Son of the Mask

Plot: Jamie Kennedy is a manchild who dresses up as a giant turtle and entertains kids for a living. Apparently, he wants more from his life than all that and aspires to be a cartoonist. Jamie Kennedy’s wife (the delightful Traylor Howard) somehow is oblivious to the fact that she’s hitched her wagon to the personification of arrested development and actually wants to procreate with him. One day, the family dog brings home a creepy old mask, which just so happens to have been forged by Loki, the Norse god of mischief. Jamie Kennedy wears it to a party, becomes possessed by the spirit of the mask, bangs his wife, gets her pregnant and poof there’s a baby. Pretty soon Kennedy gets left to watch the baby on his own and he starts to notice that the kid has special powers. So he has to deal with that while also working on a big cartoon pitch for his boss and fending off Loki who just wants his mask back, but no one will give it to him for some reason. Oh yeah, and at a certain point, the family dog decides to literally go to war with the baby over Kennedy’s love and affection. So that’s a thing that happens.

Thoughts: OK, so full disclosure here: I’ve never actually sat down and watched the original “The Mask” with Jim Carey. I’ve seen bits and pieces here and there, and I vaguely remember something about a cartoon TV show that I may have spent some time with, but the first movie, nope. Flew under my radar. 

I did, however, see “Mask” starring Eric Stoltz as a deformed teen at least twice during my childhood and was pretty well traumatized by that, if that counts for anything. That probably explains a lot actually.   

So maybe I’m missing out on something here. I don’t know, but “Son of the Mask” seems really, really dumb.

Bad acting, nonsense script, accidentally a major downer. Yeah I'll be happy to avoid it again. Miss you Stoltz!!

 

I’m not sure who the audience is for this kind of movie. I’d say it’s meant for kids because the humor is ripped straight from the pages of every “Looney Toons” script ever. But it’s also kind of dark, considering Kennedy essentially spends the entire second act and most of the third one as a complete raving lunatic, gradually succumbing to the pressures of work and family. I mean, there’s enough cartoon explosions to keep the kids happy, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to spend so much time in your kid’s movie telling kids just how much they ruin everything. Seems like a mixed message.    

I guess if you’ve ever watched “Looney Toons” and thought: “This is great, but I wish there were less animals and more people in this,” then “Son of the Mask” is very much for you. You one guy, you.

I’ve never really been on board with Jamie Kennedy’s brand of humor. I mean, I guess this is his cartoon phase, and it’s way better than his nerdy-white rapper phase, but it’s still not all that funny. Even still, he finds time for a quick rap/R&B number anyway, because it’s what he does.

Also, I just got really weirded watching him turn into a psychotic person. Like I said, it’s super uncomfortable and it seems really out of place in a movie I can only assume is meant for kids.

                I spent a lot of my time wondering why this was happening and by this I meant the entire narrative of the movie. Loki’s father is the all-powerful god Odin, yet said all-powerful god refuses to help Loki find the mask. Why? Because, that’s why. Also, Jamie Kennedy doesn’t seem to really want the mask or care about it at all, so why not just give it back to Loki?

                For a lot of the middle of the movie, the baby is portrayed as the main villain, driving Kennedy totally nuts just for the heck of it. Yet, instead of asking Loki for help, Kennedy runs from him! Why? Until the very, very end, Loki doesn’t do anything to make himself seem like a bad guy. In fact, for most of the movie, he seems OK, he just wants his mask back.

                Alan Cumming, who plays Loki, is wasted here, though he and Odin do slightly resemble their more popular counterparts in “The Avengers,” costume-wise.  So that was fun.

                Worst of the Worst

                There’s an elaborate sequence in the middle of the movie where the family dog, who’s wearing Loki’s mask, sets up a massive trap for the baby. We’re talking Mouse Trap style nonsense here. Oh, the baby’s CGI, by the way. If you’re the one person who still thinks CGI babies are funny, then here’s your “Schindler’s List,” I guess. Anyway, so the CGI baby tricks the dog into its own trap. It’s just a total knock-off of every Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd skit ever. Funnier with cartoons.

I can’t in good faith recommend any actually watches this movie. I didn’t laugh, I was kind of depressed  and creeped out by the middle part of it, and the rest is just boring.

Bumblebee tuna.

Review: Cursed

So, “Cursed.”

                You know, the tendency when you have success with something is to push it as far as you possibly can. Perhaps horror director guy Wes Craven and his screenwriter pal Kevin Williamson should have just quit after “Scream.”

                After all, it’s sort of hard to top defining an entire genre of movies --- for better or worse --- for an entire decade.

                But they didn’t quit. The duo churned out two sequels to “Scream,” where a killer in a mask stalks sexy youths, then a werewolf movie, where a werewolf stalks sexy youths and then they went ahead and made another “Scream” just for good measure.

                And “Cursed” is a weird movie. Williamson and Craven clearly seem to be going for the same sort of wink-wink, nod-nod humor that worked so well for most of the first “Scream” movie.

                Only, instead of slasher conventions, this time their focus is on Hollywood culture. Which I guess is pretty funny to two guys who work in Hollywood, but not so much for the rest of us.

Clunky acting, bad script, lame visuals make for a movie I'd like to steer clear of watching again.

                I’m going to go ahead and spoil a lot of this movie, so if you haven’t seen it run! And don’t stop running until you find a place on the internet that talks about new movies.

                Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg play a brother and sister, still sort of grappling (but not too much) with the deaths of their parents. Ricci is a producer or something on “The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn,” while Eisenberg plays a nerd. Shocking.

                One night, while driving back from the city, the pair get in a car accident after a massive wolf hits their car. They careen into another car, driven by Shannon Elizabeth, who’s sporting some very unfortunate bangs. Long story short, the wolf eats Shannon and bites Eisenberg and Ricci, cursing them to become werewolves. Unless they can find a way to break said curse.

                Oh yeah, there’s also a few useless subplots thrown in the mix for luck, I guess: Joshua Jackson trys to open up the least night-clubiest night club in the history of night clubs (lots of wax sculptures, no bar?), a high school bully who turns out to be gay for some reason, etc., etc.   

                Any way, the sort of main werewolf here is a crazy, back-stabbing publicist. With the right kind of ears, you can almost hear Williamson saying “Geez, publicists, amirite?” and then high-fiving Craven off screen.

                Towards the end of the movie, after her treachery has been revealed, the publicist narrowly escapes being shot to death by an entire squad of cops. Now, Christina Ricci’s character won’t stand for that. For one, she never liked the publicist to begin with, (because publicists, amirite?) but also because Ricci thinks she needs the publicist dead to break her werewolf curse.

                  She lures the publicist --- who’s now completely in werewolf form, by the way --- back by talking about how she has bad skin and a fat ass. Being a super-vain resident of LA, the wolf-publicist can’t stand for this and comes back to flip off Ricci, only to be promptly gunned down by the army of waiting police officers.     

                I didn’t get the movie’s humor and I’m not totally sure Williamson knew what to do with it either. He has characters deliver all sorts of painfully flat lines like:

• "That's enough with the biting!"
• Ricci: "All the good things in my life keep going away," to which Josh Jackson replied in a manly fashion: "I'm not going anywhere."

                And the thing is, he’s got a pretty talented cast. He just ends up making them all look pretty bad. Well, that’s not entirely true. Eisenberg makes himself look pretty awful with his half-assed scream during the carwreck scene and Milo Ventimiglia is the least convincing high school bully of all time.

                Eventually, we get the usual twists, turns and monologues during the climax that we’ve all come to expect from Williamson and Craven. Turns out the publicist wasn’t the main, main werewolf, but that’s only a surprise to the characters. The movie telegraphs pretty clearly who the real one is going to be, and even if it didn’t there are only so many characters it could be anyway. Personally, I was pulling for Kilborn, but alas, no.

                Once revealed,the real big wolf on campus predictably spends the finale sorta trying to kill Ricci and Eisenberg and sorta just trying to talk their ears off. I have no idea why our filmmakers are so fond of this plot device, but they must be head-over-heels for it because they’ve used it five times now.

                Mostly though, “Cursed” was just pretty yawn-inducing. The plot wound its way down a familiar path, never doing anything even close to the fun and clever stuff we got early on in “Scream.”

On top of that, I didn’t get the humor, the performances were clunky and the writing made them look even worse.   

Worst of the worst

See: Christina Ricci tells werewolf she has a fat ass. 

There it is kiddies, “Cursed.” Don’t blink or you might miss a mustache-less Ron Swanson early on as a helpful cop. Definitely the highlight.

Bumblebee tuna.

Review: The Hottie and the Nottie

Well, the easy way to do this review would be to spend the next 900 words or so trashing Paris Hilton for being a horrible actress and a worse person and so forth.

                But I’m not going to do that. For one, because I like to do things the hard way or as I like to call it, Colin’s way.

                Secondly, I don’t hate Paris Hilton all that much as an actress. I mean, she really does lack any sort of talent, but still I have to give the girl credit for starring in a personal favorite: “House of Wax.” I’d call it a guilty pleasure, but I feel no guilt about loving that movie. It’s a cheesy good time and it has Jared Padalecki in it. Recipe for success.

                So, let’s get that out of the way right at the top. Paris sucks. She’s not an actress and she spends more of the movie posing than she does playing a character.

                Done. The rest of the people involved in “The Hottie and the Nottie?” Uh-uh. Paris is a drunken party girl, but the rest of you people are supposed to be professionals, so what’s your excuse for this mess?

Acting is bad, but script is worse. Pedophile undertones are more like ovetones. Can't see the need to watch this one again.

                That’s the thing. Paris took a lot of flack for this movie, but even with a competent leading lady, it would still be a total cluster f from start to finish.

                The biggest culprit is the script from Heidi Ferrer.

                In the movie Paris plays Christabel, a super-hot girl that every guy in town wants to bang. She’s best friends with a gal named June (Christine Lakin), who is the polar opposite. June has all sorts of funky moles, deformed toenails and too much hair in places where you don’t want any and not enough in the places you do.

                Enter Joel David Moore as Nate, a tall, lanky, nerdy loser who was obsessed with Paris when they were kids together in the first grade. Only the first grade though, somehow they never saw each other after that. Maybe he switched schools or something, the movie never specifies.

                Anyway, he’s maintained that obsession well into adulthood, occasionally looking longingly at a picture he has of Christabel he’s kept all these years. From when she was a small child. In the first grade. Take a minute to let that sink in. It’s an adult man making lovey eyes at a picture of a little girl. Yeah, so aspiring screenwriters take note: Probably not a good idea to make your leading man look like a raging pedophile. Unless that’s what your movie is about, in which case, go sick.

                But Nate’s not supposed to be a pedophile. He just really, really seems like one. And even if you somehow manage to ignore that massive strike against, his character still isn’t very likeable. More on that later.

                Christabel has vowed not to sleep with any more dudes until she can find June a man of her own. Nate seizes the opportunity to set June up with any sort of random wackos he can find, even performing do-it-yourself electroshock therapy on one guy to convince him June’s actually hot.

                So this goes on for a while and spoiler alert. Eventually June undergoes a “She’s All That” style makeover and it turns out, under the extra body hair and moles and green teeth, she’s actually cute. Shocking!!!

                Nate ends up spending lots of time obviously flirting with June and even kisses her once she gets prettied up. Despite all that, he spends almost as much time with June talking about how he wants to bang Christabel.  So he also kind of comes across as a huge scum bag in addition to the earlier pedophile thing.

                Underneath all that mess, I guess there’s supposed to be some sort of positive message about inner beauty, even though June only gets anyone’s attention by completely overhauling her whole outer appearance. But yeah … themes are hard so whatev.

                Apologies to Joel David Moore, but he’s wildly miscast as Nate. In no reality or dimension of time or space would Paris Hilton ever be attracted to him and all of the trendy facial hair configurations in the world will never hide that fact.                

                 “Hottie and the Nottie” also has a character type that never fails to drive me nuts: the chubby, overtly creepy, sort of goofy but probably a date rapist best friend, in this case it’s portrayed by someone who actually calls himself The Greg Wilson. Seriously. I hate this type of character so much. I’m looking at you “Good Luck Chuck.”

                Honestly though, there’s no reason the plot of “Hottie and the Nottie” should ever happen. None of the characters have any reason to spend any time together. The Greg Wilson was Nate’s best friend also in the first grade and the first grade alone. Somehow though he’s more than willing to put his life on hold and help this essential stranger --- Nate --- bang another total stranger --- Christabel.

                Like I said. Paris took a lot of heat, and she is a miserable actress and an easy target, but as far as the problems with “Hottie and the Nottie” go, she’s somewhere more in the middle. 

                Worst of the Worst

                The scene where Nate and June share deserts while sitting romantically close on the floor together. He spends all this time flirting with June, leading her on and then even kisses her, but somehow still has the balls to ask her to help him bed Paris. If you didn’t despise Nate by that point in the movie --- keep in mind, he’s basically been painted as an accidental pedophile --- you definitely will after that.

                Bumblebee tuna.  

News: 'Baywatch' star announced!!

Fried chicken. The Internet. The music of Pat Benatar.   

                Every so often the world hits on an idea that just makes you stand up and go “Yes! That is correct! We need more of that!”

                This is one of those times. I'm so excited about this, I just had to share it.

                Oh I don’t know, about a year and a half ago I snarkily reported to you good folks about a big screen remake/reimagining thing of the classic TV series “Baywatch.”

                Back then I told you Peter Tolan, creator of “Rescue Me” had just finished work on the script and everyone was just waiting for Paramount to make a move.

                Well, a move has been made.

                Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the just-hired star of the big screen adaptation of “Baywatch” … 

screenjunkies.com

William “Bill” Hader!!! True f’n story if you’ll allow me to work blue for a minute.

Yes, the best thing to happen to “Saturday Night Live” since some kid named Ferrell, Bill Hader will step into Hasselhoff’s trunks and chest hair in the film that’s being described as a “funnier remake akin to ’21 Jump Street’” according to CinemaBlend.

“Reno 911” veteran Ben Garant is slated to direct he film. No word on whether or not Tolan’s script is still at play or if any rewrites are in store. Filming is set to begin in April if all goes according to plan.

Either way, it’s safe to say we should all be very, very excited about this. Very.

Info: CinemaBlend   

Cheese List Preview

                So let’s try this whole comedy thing again.

                Since season six of “Dexter” is currently tying up my Netflix account and iTunes has proven to be unreliable, my options are limited.

                However, I think I found a winner and it even stars one of the word’s most recognizable celebrities to boot.

                The film tells the tale of a young man, Nate, as he tries to win the fair hand of his childhood sweetheart, Cristabel. Unfortunately for Nate, there’s one giant obstacle standing in his way --- Cristabel’s unattractive best friend June. It seems June is also looking for a fella, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to find one, even if it means using Cristabel as bait. So before Nate can woo the lady of his dreams, he first needs to find some poor schmuck to saddle with June.

                It’s downright Shakespearean. Here is …

                Credentials: 5%, Certified Rotten (rottentomatoes.com) // 1.9 out of 10, # 34 on the Bottom 100 List (Imdb.com) // 7 out of 100 (Metacritic.com) // Nominated for 5 Razzies at the 2009 Golden Raspberry Awards, won two (Worst Actress --- Paris Hilton, Worst On Screen Couple ---Paris Hilton, Christina Lakin, Joel David Moore) // Also won the Worst Actress of the Decade award for Paris Hilton at the 2010 Golden Raspberry Awards

                Richard Roeper, from Ebert and Roeper, called it “excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful.” The man’s got a way with words.

                Not to be outdone, Dave White from Movies.com theorized: “Hard time in the joint can change a person. Make them worse sometimes. And it would appear that this is Hilton's idea of revenge on a world she feels has done her wrong.”    

                As always, there was some positive. Stefan Birgir Stefansson from something called sbs.is called “The Hottie and the Nottie” “an insult to mankind.”

                So yeah, that’s what I’ll be subjecting myself to this week. Join me … if you dare.

                Bumblebee tuna.