Movie Review: Let’s Be Cops

This film had potential to be much funnier, but just couldn’t put together the right formula. While Jake Johnson was fairly consistently entertaining, Damon Wayans, Jr. was the weak link in this buddy comedy. While showing hints of the same comedy chops that made his father famous, he is asked to play somewhat of a straight man throughout the film. This causes many of his sillier attempts at humor seem out of place. Overall his character is inconsistent. He’s wild and crazy for one scene and then straight and narrow for the next. The rest of the supporting cast is nothing special. Nina Dobrev’s role as the love interest never has a chance to have any solid chemistry with Wayans, not is she given enough screen time. James D’Arcy does what he can in his brief role as the main villain, while the normally funny Rob Riggle isn’t given a chance to do any comedy. An unimportant child side-kick comes and goes and a few other characters pop-up and are just never all that funny. The story isn’t bad, but takes an odd direction late, while missing out on many chances for much funnier sequences while the leads are pretending to be cops.

** out of *****

Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

I went into this film with very low expectations, but ended up enjoying it. I’ve watched all the previous TMNT films and the 1990’s cartoon series. I’ve played the old TMNT video games. That said, I don’t know all that much about the Ninja Turtles. I don’t know which turtle wields which weapon, who wears which colored bandana. That said, most of the changes that the new film made to the source material went mostly over my head. The plot was fairly predictable, and is about as cliqued as they come. Everything in the movie is super-sized. The turtles are six-feet tall, muscular and have super-strength, Shredder has a mechanical battle suit that could take down Iron Man and the action is pretty over-the-top at times. For whatever reasons, it all seems to work. The turtles themselves are entertaining, with the wise-cracking Michelangelo being the most entertaining. With the turtles and Splinter being totally CGI, it tends to be a bit much a times as the screen is basically filled with moving pixels. Megan Fox, as the most important human character, doesn’t really bring all that much to April O’Neil. She does what she does best, and that’s look good and try to keep you interested when the turtles are off-screen.

**1/2 out of *****

Movie Review: Into the Storm

A mediocre film, with only the impressive CGI tornados making it worth watching. As expected, the stars of the movie are the tornados, which generally show up for five minutes or so, destroy a few things in dramatic fashion, and then leave us with the boring characters. They try to inject some life into the cast of stereotypes, but it just isn’t enough to get the audience invested. What really hurts the film is that it can’t decide if it’s a found-footage narrative or not. One minute, it’s implied that everything we see is from the cameras held by various characters, but other times we’re just watching a normally filmed action movie. The plot exist just enough to provide danger and put the characters in harm’s way. Even given moments to shine, the cast is mostly unconvincing; with the only notable exception is Sarah Wayne Callies, who just puts enough meat on her performance to get you somewhat interested. The effects are impressive. While some of the tornados could’ve been rendered better, the destruction they cause it sight to behold.

** out of *****