Hunka burning crap The Identical Elvis fans know that he had an identical twin brother, Jesse, delivered stillborn about half an hour before his arrival. For over 50 years, the question “What would’ve happened if Elvis’ twin brother had lived?” has been tossed around. The Identical, one of those “faith-based” movies like God’s Not Dead, Heaven is For Real, and Jesus Loved Jellybeans, is a take on by the surviving Elvis twin premise, replacing Bob Grimm Elvis and Jesse Presley with the fictional Ryan Wade and Drexel Hemsley, both played by bgrimm@ newsreview.c om real-life Elvis impersonator Blake Rayne. Obviously, getting the rights to Elvis music would cost more than three new Cadillacs, so the producers of this dreck wrote some crap Elvis copycat music and a shameless script that stars Elvis without really starring Elvis.
1
Totally not Elvis. Nothing like him.
1 Poor
2 Fair
3 Good
4 Very Good
5 excellent
22 | RN&R |
I would encourage the likes of Lisa Marie Presley to sue the makers of this movie for obviously stealing her dad’s likeness, but then she would have to actually see this movie, and I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. Somehow, this aberration attracted the likes of Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Seth Green and Joe Pantoliano to star in it. It’s bad. It’s so bad, one viewing could cause septic shock due to cinematic shit entering your bloodstream through the eyes and ears. The movie starts with Rayne as Drexel, the brother who has grown up to be rich like Elvis, sitting in his limo and seeing a vision of people picking cotton in a Depression-era field out his window. It then flashes back to that time when a couple decides to give up one of their twin newborn boys because they can’t afford the little brat. That boy, Ryan, is raised by a preacher and his wife (Liotta and Judd) with a big Jesus influence and a push toward making him a
SEPTEMBER 11, 2014
pastor. The film is peppered with scenes of Liotta delivering fire and brimstone sermons, sermons that get funnier and funnier as his character ages under prosthetic makeup. Ryan loves Jesus, but he’s got rock ’n’ roll in his bones, evidenced by his sweet dance moves when he visits an evil honky tonk bar. He dabbles in music on the side, writing Elvis-like songs with his hip drummer friend (Green, a long way from Robot Chicken). Ryan has no knowledge of his famous brother due to some weird pact Liotta’s character made with his dad to not mention his brother until both his birth parents were dead. So, while one brother grows up to be Elvislike, living in a house called Dreamland and making bad surf movies, the other is pseudoElvis like, joining the Army and singing in honky tonk bars. It’s worth noting that Rayne was 40 years old when he filmed this movie, a movie that asks him to be in his teens for a good hunk of its running time. Rayne does look and sound like Elvis, but he’s missing some of that Presley bravado. Actually, he’s missing all of that Presley bravado. Actually, this guy has no business being up on a movie screen playing a character that is supposed to parallel Elvis Presley. His act should be reserved for state fairs and cheap casinos only. The whole thing is just bizarre beyond words, and made even weirder by the fact that this is a movie the producers want church groups to attend. It’s a PG film, but the only thing that makes the movie PG is when Rayne’s precocious Ryan refuses beer at a bar where “reefer” is being smoked. I watched this movie in complete disbelief, totally aghast, mouth agape, and laughing out loud at its wretchedness while sitting in a completely empty movie theater. The music, with such wannabe hits as “Boogie Woogie Rock and Roll” and “Sunrise Surfin’” is inexcusably awful, and the “Jesus Loves You” undertones are the equivalent of somebody walking up and smashing you in the face with a Bible and then shoving its pages down your throat while you are lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding. So, this was supposed to be the movie that made Blake Rayne a household name. It succeeds in that, from now on, when my dog vomits on the household carpet I will refer to it as “Blake Rayne-ing.” Ω
5
Boyhood
A lot can go wrong when you film a movie on and off for more than 12 years with the cast aging naturally. Cast members could die, the director could lose his drive and quit, etc. Writer-director Richard Linklater’s cinematic undertaking doesn’t have the ring of experimental or stunt filmmaking about it. It’s just a great looking, terrifically acted, tremendously moving film. It’s an amazing thing to see young Mason (Ellar Coltrane, who we first see set to the joyous strains of Coldplay’s “Yellow” on the soundtrack) go from a wide-eyed 5-year-old boy staring at the sky to an 18-year-old college student dealing with girls and big life decisions. It’s equally fascinating to watch Ethan Hawke, playing Mason’s father, go from Training Day Hawke to The Purge Hawke in the course of three hours. We also see Linklater’s daughter Lorelei playing Samantha, Mason’s sister, and Patricia Arquette as Mom, putting in her best performance since she graced the screen as Alabama in True Romance. All of the performers go through beautiful and awkward stages, aging before our eyes without the aid of special effects makeup. This is a movie that will only be made once. Nobody will ever pull anything like this off again. Linklater has made a permanent, monumental mark on cinematic history.
2
The Giver
In a post-apocalyptic society, humans are being drugged into a state where they feel no emotion, are completely submissive and see no colors. When they hit their late teens, they are assigned their job for the rest of their life. Everybody’s equal, there is no war, all aspects of life are predestined. Lois Lowry’s novel had an interesting premise, but Phillip Noyce’s film simply feels and looks wrong. For starters, it comes off as a rip-off of Pleasantville, with the film slowly changing from black and white to color, while elements of the dystopian society come off like a dated Disney ride. As for the casting, it’s good to see the likes of Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep on hand in pivotal roles, but the young leads (Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush) seem like they are overreaching. Taylor Swift shows up for a couple of minutes in a cameo, a cameo that is being marketed as a starring role and is mighty misleading for her fan base. Bridges is at least interesting as an old wise man storing all memories of past societies in his head. He’s tasked with passing his memories on to young Jonas (Thwaites), as if that isn’t going to cause some sort of problem. Noyce gives us some pretty pictures and a halfway decent cast, and basically doesn’t know what to do with it.
5
Guardians of the Galaxy
This is a goofy, dazzling, often hilarious convergence of inspired nuttiness. You’ll probably hear comparisons to the original Star Wars, The Fifth Element and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, and all of those comparisons would be plausible. It’s a blessedly new and crazy direction for the Marvel universe, and director James Gunn (Super, Slither) has taken a huge step towards the A-list. Also taking a giant leap toward the upper echelon of Hollywood royalty is Chris Pratt, who mixes great charm, rugged action hero bravado and premium comic timing as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord. After a prologue that shows the Earthly origins of his character, Pratt sets the tone for the movie during the opening credits, grooving to his cassette-playing Sony Walkman on an alien planet and using squirrelly little critters as stand-in microphones. After unknowingly stealing a relic that could have the power to take down the entire universe, Quill finds himself in serious trouble. Events lead to his joining forces with a genetically enhanced Raccoon named Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper), a gigantic tree person thing named Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), an angry, muscle-bound alien named Drax (Dave Bautista) and an ass-kicking green woman named Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Together, they become the Guardians of the Galaxy, an unlikely troupe of mischievous outcasts that plays like the Avengers meets the Marx Brothers. The cast, buoyed by a spirited script co-written by Gunn, keeps things zippy and always funny. Visually, the movie is a tremendous feat of special and makeup effects.
1
Let’s Be Cops
A couple of 30-something buddies (Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans, Jr.), bored with their humdrum lives, dress up as cops for a masquerade party and discover that things are pretty cool when people think you are the law.
So they take the masquerade beyond the party and start chasing criminals and busting perps. Wayans, Jr., is the spitting image of his dad in every way, and it feels like this is a movie starring his dad after he’s time traveled from the past into the present for the shoot. Johnson, who has been making a name for himself in smart indie comedies (Safety Not Guaranteed, Drinking Buddies) tries to go big time with this vehicle, and fails miserably. The premise is insulting—not to mention a little dangerous—and it’s delivered with stale humor and bad performances all around. Director and co-writer Luke Greenfield (The Girl Next Door) has a made a movie more ugly than funny, and makes Johnson and Wayans, Jr., two funny guys, look like amateurs.
1
The November Man
Pierce Brosnan stars as Devereaux, a former CIA guy who winds up in places like Russia shooting people like nobody’s business and getting himself mixed up in their politics. For starters, there’s no way any American would get away with the crazy crap this guy does in this film. He’d get squashed like a bug the second he stepped out of his hotel room. The film is rife with spy movie clichés. Devereaux has a wife and child who create “complications,” he has a former trainee he shepherded (Luke Bracey) on his trail, along with a couple of CIA heads of questionable character (Will Patton and Bill Smitrovich) messing with him. Yes, there is also the mysterious damsel in distress (Olga Kurylenko) who Devereaux must protect while dealing with his own serious drinking problem. It’s your basic “who’s the real bad guy?” film, with everybody doing something relatively nasty at one time or another to keep things confusing. Brosnan’s character offs a lot of people, and even cuts an innocent woman’s femoral artery to make a dramatic point. It’s all nonsense, directed poorly by Roger Donaldson, who also directed Brosnan in the junky Dante’s Peak.
4
The One I Love
A husband and wife (Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss) struggling in their relationship visit a retreat on the advice of their therapist (Ted Danson), and they make a startling discovery in one of the guest houses. That discovery results in something that is beautifully clever in addressing the problems that plague many relationships, while also playing like a really cool Twilight Zone episode. The big twist results in one of the better romantic comedies in years, one with a big brain and strong insight. Calling this a romantic comedy is almost an insult, but it has romance and it is funny, so I suppose it falls into that particular genre. I do think it’s a movie that many therapists will hate, because it could save some couples a bunch of money. It’s an eye-opener, for sure. Duplass is making a name for himself as an understated, offbeat romantic comedy lead. He’s actually the star of another of the more recent great romantic comedies, Safety Not Guaranteed. Moss, star of TV’s Mad Men, has a movie career spanning over two decades, but The One I Love makes it feel like she’s just arriving. (Available on VOD, Amazon.com and iTunes during a limited theatrical run.)
2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Legions of Michael Bay haters have been jumping all over this Turtles reboot before it even hit the screen. It’s actually not a Michael Bay film; he only served as producer on this one. Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) is the director here, and he’s put something together that is far more coherent than the latest Bay-helmed Transformers movie. This is not to say that the movie is any good, because it actually isn’t, but it is markedly better than most of Bay’s output. Megan Fox plays April, a wannabe reporter who stumbles upon a vigilante force protecting Manhattan from an evil terrorist group. The vigilantes turn out to be the infamous turtles. The turtles, the result of scientific experiments, were raised in the sewers by a rat, and now they are ready to rise above the street surface and kick some ass. The film has some good moments, and the turtles eat some pizza and get some laughs. Fox is a bit of a bore in the central human role, Will Arnett is virtually wasted as her cameraman, and I’m sick and tired of William Fichtner playing bad guys. The special effects are OK, but the story offers nothing special. A sequel is already being prepared. A director with a better sense of wonder, and a better sense of humor, could do the franchise well.
