Wayback Wednesday takes us back to 1994 and a bus that couldn’t drop below 50 MPH or everyone onboard would die. There are action films that are so big they spawn imitators of every stripe for the next several years. An immediate critical and box office success, like Die Hard before it, where every pitch became “Die Hard on a ____,” so too was the case for Speed as countless studios attempted to recreate the formula.
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John Wick: Chapter 4 has the same strengths and weaknesses of the earlier films. We get bloody, brutal, and at times spectacular, violence set against the backdrops of music video sets brought to life, which are dragged down at times by stretches of world building unnecessary for our enjoyment of the former. The fourth entry of the franchise plays at cross purposes with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) looking to work his way back into the life he abandoned for his wife in order to get out again. In terms of story, it’s a bit of a mess. In terms of action, there are a couple of long sequences which fans will not doubt enjoy.
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Centering around Superman’s (John Krasinski) super-dog Krypto (Dwayne Johnson) learning to accept his owner’s affection for Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde) and discover how to make his own friends in a group animals (Kevin Hart, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna) who all become super-powered through a mad guinea pig’s (Kate McKinnon) use of Orange Kryptonite, DC League of Super-Pets offers your basic animated kind of mildly diverting fun with the Justice League being completely unprepared to deal with super-villain animals and the need for our unlikely heroes to unite and form the League of Super-Pets.
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A common reaction to watching 2016’s Exposed is “Um, what?” That’s also the correct reaction. Reuniting Knock Knock stars Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas in a film which only briefly has them both on camera together, Exposed is at least two (maybe three) separate convoluted tales smashed together in a confused and haphazard fashion by writer/director Gee Malik Linton.
While Linton, under the name Declan Dale, wanted a surreal tale involving themes of abuse and its effects on victims both immediate and over time, Lionsgate instead wanted a cop picture. What was delivered is a little bit of both, but not a good version of either. While the stories eventually connect at the end of the film, they don’t ever true fit together leaving audiences questioning what they did with the last 100 minutes of their lives. There are certainly better ways to spend your time.
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2015’s Knock Knock fits into the subgenre of male fantasy gone wrong having some similarities to 2006’s Hard Candy. The set-up, which could only occur on film, involves an architect (Keanu Reeves) being visited by two beautiful stranded bisexual nymphomaniacs (Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo) on the rainy night his wife (Ignacia Allamand) and children (Dan Baily and Megan Baily) have left for warmer climates. It’s not long before the the two young woman lose their clothing and begin making increasingly obvious advances to their host.
The first half-hour sets the scene with the pair working a little too hard to seduce the family man, while stealing glances letting us know more is a foot which becomes suddenly evident to Evan the morning after when the pair announce they have no plans on leaving and the mind games take darker and darker (and more ridiculous) turns.
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