Here’s what happened. I went to the movie, ’cause, dude, pirates! And I watched it (still no Snakes on a Plane trailer. Jerks.), and at the end of the movie… nothing. No opinion whatsoever. So I did what any sane movie reviewer would do. I joined my friends for their kid birthday party evening viewing and watched it all over again. And if I had substantially more income than I do, I might convince myself to perpetuate this lie through another showing tonight, as my house is dead. But in fact my income retains its non-existence, and at any rate I am overdue on this review and another one exactly like it. (I may even cut-and-paste, so if it looks like there’s an error with a review posted twice in a row, rest assured, it’s on purpose. (I’m still lying, here. (OR AM I???))) Without further ado, then, my completely honest and spoiler-free review of the movie. Spoiler stuff will fall below the cut, as ever.

First, the raw impressions: It was pretty well unforgiving of people who had not seen the original. Chock full of quotable one-liners. Buckles were swashed harder than ever had they been swashed before. The people who made this have with at least 96% certainty played Katamari Damacy. Sufficient Cthulhiana to put me well down the road toward being convinced that maybe Lovecraft had a good point about the ocean. The plotlines were substantially more adult than last time. The humor was correspondingly more childlike. I expected five returning characters, and got eleven (or thirteen, depending upon how you count), which is pretty cool. “Undead monkey!” A multitude of characters with complex motivations bumping up against each other in realistic ways, and the corresponding double- and triple-crossing that ensues. Plenty of thematic concern with who’s good, who’s bad, and why, concern that was left unresolved by the end of the film. (The scene with Jack swapping out hats during the barfight, for example, was particularly noteworthy.)

A lot of things were left unresolved by the end of the film, in fact. Going into it, I was reminded a lot of the Matrix trilogy. You have an initial standalone film, and once it succeeds at making bank, the creators carry on with their originally planned longer story. I liked the second Matrix movie a lot, although it wasn’t quite as strong as the original. Much like here, you see. The one bright spot is that I have no reason to believe At World’s End will spectacularly flop, so that correspondence is basically over. So, that was my impression going in. And coming out? I have no complaint with cliffhangers that will be resolved in a reasonable amount of time, as seems to be the case here. My impression of the trilogy structure was altered a little bit, though. And hmm, delving into that requires spoilers, so I’m going to have to wrap things up here.

In short: Slightly weaker than the original, mostly in that the humor wasn’t quite up to snuff. The storyline was darker, which I for one am all about, and the characters had a lot more depth. As time passes, I’ll probably end up liking this one better, but right now, no matter how much it made me laugh, the original made me laugh more and in better ways, and as a result of having watched it just a couple days ago too, it looms larger in my mind on that scale, as that was the expectation I had walking into the theater.
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That thing about how I don’t go more than a day without typing up a movie review? It reminded me that I did watch a DVD last week without saying the slightest word about it, or really even considering that it needed to be reviewed. Perhaps this should be taken as an indictment of the film in question, though generally speaking I found it to be perfectly adequate in its teen raunchfest niche.

Marred only by an overly clever title and the sin of having reached its topicspace second, Waiting… is a tidy little grossout comedy about a day in the lives of the staff of a suspiciously Bennigan’s-like restaurant, including just about everything you’d be tempted to include if this had been your premise: annoying customers, tampered food, disaffected youth, incestuously intertwined love lives, and… okay, you probably wouldn’t have included the penis-showing game; that uniqueness is really what makes it the highlight of the show. Certainly the trite coming-of-age piece masquerading as the main plotline contributed far less to any potential enjoyment. So, okay, maybe it was marred by three things instead of two. But that’s forgiveable, because of how awesome the rap over the end credits was.

Ah, Thursday evenings in the summer, when a young man’s fancy turns to the dollar theater to catch stuff that came out during the April lull. Because, you know, $1.50 for tickets and then $1 hot dogs are the perfect way to round out an evening. And these hot dogs, I thought I had remembered accurately that they were worth approximately a dollar, after a fair markup caused by people wanting to make profit off of using their labor instead of my own and all. My memory was faulty, though; I’m pretty sure $.50 would be a more fair price. ‘Cause, wow, these were bad hot dogs. And with packets of mustard from a manufacturer I’d never heard of, instead of a giant tub of squeezable. That’s just weird to me, that packet mustard could possibly be cheaper in bulk. And yet, you know it must have been, because why buy it otherwise?

Naturally, though, all of this mediocrity was counteracted by the film in question, right? The Sentinel, starring probably Michael Douglas as the titular President’s guardian (though maybe Kiefer Sutherland instead; I doubt it, but maybe) who has lasted through 25 long years of presidential details after taking a bullet for Reagan without ever once getting a real promotion, but that’s okay because he does his job for the love of his country. Unless, that is, he in fact is at the center of a diabolical plot (here, I exaggerate; it was actually a fairly generic plot, and I can’t even tell you now what the reason behind it was, other than the usual infidel pigdog claptrap you’d expect) to assassinate the current President, as everyone seems to believe. But is it he? Or the First Lady? Or Kiefer? Or one of the many other Secret Service agents around?

So, plot, editing, action sequences: all pretty pedestrian. Exactly the kind of thing that you’d expect to see in April, which makes sense. But the whodunnit portion was on the whole satisfying. I mean, rarely is the actual reveal all that satisfying, and when it is, that’s usually a great movie. But they kept the questions running through my head far longer than I’m used to, kept the possibilities open far longer than they should have been able to, and any movie where I don’t already know the entire layout by the end of minute thirty? I’m prepared to call that a pretty good movie, as long as the acting is serviceable too. And this was, so at a buck-fiddy, I’ll take what I can get. It easily topped the hot dog, value-wise.

Is there anything cooler than going out to do something, and when you get there, there are your friends randomly present without having to do any of that pesky coordinating or what have you? Well, perhaps, but that is cool. Off I went to see Superman Returns, because of how he’s Superman and had planned to return, and all, and as I drive into the parking lot: friends! (Some of them refused to believe it was coincidence, which amused me to no end. But it was.) So there were people holding seats when we finished dinner, plus the awesomeness of the hangout itself. And I got a handful or so of free Reese’s Pieces, which is basically my favorite candy. Maybe Heath instead, but they’re both way up on the scale. On the whole, I have to come out in favor of the idea of friends, as they make life better in lots of different ways.

Which makes it kind of sad if you’re a strange visitor from another planet and feel like you’ve never really belonged or fit in in all your life, and then when you’re possibly making some headway in that arena, suddenly you decide that you need to go see what’s been going on with your destroyed homeworld, and you end up being gone for five long years, and the world moves on without you. Not just in the literal ‘hey, guess what, we can continue to more or less survive just like we always did before CapeBoy came along and started leaping over tall, speding bullets in order to save us from falling birds and/or planes’ sense, but in the personal ‘hey, guess what, I started dating a new guy and I have a small child and I never, ever talk about you, because guess what, I barely knew you existed, and also I’m really pissed at your alter-ego that I don’t know is also you for leaving me, and by the way isn’t it pleasant I haven’t been in mortal danger all this time until the week you got back?’ sense as well. And then you start hanging around outside windows looking for a glance of the domestic bliss that maybe you could have had for yourself, and it’s a little bit stalkerish, and nevermind that your arch-nemesis is just about to unleash a really cool and diabolical plot that, on the whole, you have no reasonable expectations of being able to prevent.

If it sounds like I’m having trouble classifying the film and my feelings about it in my head, well, that’s true. There’s some element of remake, some element of sequel, and both worked pretty well. Themes flying around in every which direction: whether and why heroes matter, messianic imagery, the importance of family and who actually comprises that family, the difficulty of maintaining quality evil henchmen, etc.

So, the good: Kevin Spacey owned the first half of the movie as Lex Luthor. I know he’s a bad guy and all, but I end up sympathizing with him a little bit more with every shred of nuance that writers throw at his character. It helps that he views himself as the savior of mankind so very often, I’m sure. Plus, the acting was every bit a match of the character, so yay there. Even more to my surprise, this Brandon Routh guy pretty well owned the second half of the movie as Superman. I like the guy in an abstract ‘isn’t that cool?’ kind of way, but Clark Kent isn’t as sympathetic as Bruce Wayne, and Superman tends to be too All-American all-star guy to have an actual personality. This Superman, though? I felt for him, both on behalf of himself and on behalf of me as the neutral everycitizen of the world who was thrilled to have the guy back, looking out for me. I would never have expected that; really either one of those, in fact, and yet there it is. And did I mention the awesomely diabolical plan? Good stuff.

The bad: Not a whole lot. The end of the movie got just a little bit overly mystical for my personal taste, and in ways that I would both have trouble explaining and furthermore am unequipped to, as they involve plot-shattering spoilers. Other than that, the single biggest, most glaring bad was the handling of Clark Kent. He was given short shrift both by the script (particularly the longer that the movie went on) and especially by the characters, any of whom should have had deep and searing questions for him from almost the first moments that they ran into him and all of whose questions should have grown ever more incisive and frequent as the show progressed. It was really a very flat point in an otherwise…. tremendous? well, certainly quite excellent movie. I think without that aspect, it might have been able to be my favorite film of the summer. As it is, I shall continue to rely upon Snakes on a Plane, despite having still not seen even one theatrical trailer.

A couple weeks ago, I saw a movie for rent in Hastings that reminded me why I used to go there all the time, when I lived somewhere unlike Dallas that had the chain in reasonably accessible places and back before I immorally kept one of their rentals because it was impossible to buy anywhere anymore and then never really got my membership restored to good standing, and then Netflix started to exist more and I went with that instead and stopped worrying about it as much. But my point is, good place and I was there not long ago. And I saw this great-looking movie, Bloody Mallory. And then ended up renting a different, really better movie, so that was okay. But I maintained my interest in the meantime.

Then, today, it was purchased and watched. And it has entered the realm of such legendary films as A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, Teenage Catgirls in Heat and Troll 2 in my personal lexicon of the best terrible movies of all time. There is nothing not to like here. In a familiar Europe nevertheless set nearly a thousand years into the future, Mallory and her team of anti-paranormal soldiers wander the land attacking demonic influences in revenge for long-ago, fairly inexplicable slights. (Mallory, for instance, reminded me loosely of the Bride, but if Bill had been the, um, Groom and also secretly a demon planning to sacrifice her in pursuit of some nefarious underworld sceheme instead of the leader of a group of reptilian-themed assassins.) A typical job might involve rescuing virginal nuns from breeder ghouls or restoring an unpopular pope to the Vatican after he’s been kidnapped right out from under his bodyguard-priests by soldiers of evil and transported to an alternate demonic dimension.

There really is too much awesome terribleness to include it all, but here’s a few bits and pieces: Two choices of bad dialogue, in that the subtitles hardly ever match the soundtrack. (I’m including both wooden and obvious yet somehow still incomprehensible exposition and attempts at snark successful and failed alike when I call the dialogue bad.) Good guys that include a child telepath ironically named Talking Tina and a wise-cracking transsexual with no apparent contributions to the fight besides her worldly ways and inappropriate personal history. Bad guys that decide who’s in charge of their diabolical plans by way of that old standard, pulling apart a wishbone. (Freshly removed from a human captive, though, clearly.) I am getting sad now, though, and will stop. It’s bad enough that such a sweeping segment of my readership will fail to acknowledge the awesomeness of all of this, but even worse, I can feel myself failing to capture the exquisite terribleness for those people who might otherwise agree with me. The important thing to take home is this: your life is not actually complete until you’ve seen this movie. Seriously.

Imagine, if you will, that David Carradine owned a tidy little small town inn and further that he had a little magic box that turned people into zombies. Add in six young people driving across Texas who need a place to sleep for the night, musical narration, an authentic hootenanny, and a hall of records keeperwho takes her job seriously indeed (okay, that part doesn’t make a lick of sense, but trust me, it works), and you have Dead and Breakfast. Predictable and sometimes given to taking the easiest plot path possible (but both in a good way), very funny and with better music than you’d think, plus a really hot yet cool chick with a chainsaw, I have to call it the best zombie flick I’ve seen all month. This despite a completely inexplicably murdered French chef in the first act, which should have derailed the plot entirely, but instead serves as one of the movie’s little charms.