Daddy's Home Two (2017) *1/2

Run Time: 1:38

US Release Date: November 10, 2017

Rated: PG-13 (Profanity, Sexual Content)

Director: Sean Anders

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, John Lithgow, Mel Gibson, Linda Cardellini, John Cena, Allesandra Ambriosio

Right up front I must admit that I have not as of this writing seen Daddy’s Home. A film should be able to stand on its own and I kept that in mind when sitting down to a mostly empty theater to see this latest attempt to attract holiday movie-goers with a Christmas themed sequel. This is the second such attempt to be released in the last few weeks (the other being A Bad Mom’s Christmas). Releasing these films nearly two months before the actual holiday doesn’t really make much sense. After all, do you release a Halloween movie in August or a Valentines movie in December? But I guess in the mindset of entertainment Thanksgiving is a non-holiday in the mad dash to get to Christmas.

The film focuses on a broken family, several in fact. We have Brad and his wife (Will Ferrell and Linda Cardellini) and Dusty and his wife (Mark Wahlberg and Alessandra Ambrosio) who share custody of their two children. A third child from Alessandra’s previous marriage is also in the picture and mid-way through the film her father also makes an appearance played by John Cena. The two fathers have different ideas on what is best for the kids but have come to terms with their differences, at least on the surface. But when daughter Megan (Scarlett Estevez) expresses her dislike for the holidays because of being pulled between the two households during the season the fathers determine the best way to deal with this is to have a joint Christmas together. This is complicated by the arrivals of Brad and Dusty’s fathers (Mel Gibson and John Lithgow). Bad spirits arise right out the gate as Dusty’s father, Kurt (Gibson) seems determined to drive a wedge between Brad and Dusty at every turn. Meanwhile Brad’s father, Don (Lithgow) arrives without his wife and questions immediately start to form as to why.

Right from the start there is trouble in paradise with this film. By fifteen minutes in I realized that I hadn’t laughed once. I knew it was going to be a long slog to the finish line when five minutes later the only other attendees at my screening left the theater and never came back. I sat it out, though, hoping it would get better and it never did. Not one laugh in the entire film. The jokes fall flat all around and there is a general feeling of mean-spiritedness to the whole proceeding. For a holiday film there is a lot of negativity to it. Even when it tries to add a pretty bow to the ending it fails to stick the landing and Gibson, whose character is the most in need of an arc, learns nothing and is just as much a jerk as he was at the beginning.

Holiday movie-goers will be sorely disappointed with what is served up here. This is not the film you would want to take the whole family to see this holiday season. It will make you question how much you really like those relatives you’ve gathered together for the holidays. If you are in a mixed family it will not inspire you into feeling you can make it work during the season or any other time of the year. It is a cynical film determined to cash in a successful film and a holiday theme and it fails on both accounts. You’d be better off seeking out one of the classics than wasting your time with this abysmal failure of a holiday film. Bah Humbug. 

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) ***1/2

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Olivia Colman, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Marwan Kenzari

Run Time: 1:54

US Release Date: November 10, 2017

Rated: PG-13 (Violence)

It seems like an odd choice in this day and age to take a novel from the 1930’s, a slow paced novel bereft of any real action scenes, and faithfully translate it for the screen in 2017. Casting a mixture of today’s rising stars and elite Hollywood royalty is a further head scratcher. Just who was this film made for? The trailer plays up the action scenes while also emphasizing a mystery that has been around for over 80 years and has existed in film form since the mid seventies. The modern movie-goer has probably never seen that 1974 film nor read the original Agatha Christie novel and thus can’t be expected to be familiar with the story, yet the mystery will feel familiar and play out roughly as expected because of that familiarity.

Christie’s novel has been adapted three previous times into film. The first and most well known version was released in 1974 and featured a cast that included the likes of Sean Connery, Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Martin Belsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave and Michael York, all well known actors of the time. Aside from a rather quirky performance by Finney as the genius detective Poirot this was a straight forward retelling of the novel. Finney played the part so broadly that at times it felt like parody. He was really in a film of his own and it was jarring at the time. Still, as a whole the film worked and, while not a timeless classic, it holds up as solid entertainment.

The same cannot be said for the two following adaptions. 2001’s version was made for TV. This time around the story has been modernized, no longer taking place in the 30’s but in the era of internet. Much of this version is played out the same as before making it a jolting film that only occasionally reminds you that it is not a period piece. Once again we get a star cast, although not nearly as impressive of a pedigree: Alfred Molina, Meredith Baxter and Leslie Caron are the biggest names here and none of them manage to elevate what is ultimately a made-for-TV vibe.

Then came the 2010 version. From 1989-2013 BBC-TV aired a television series entitled Poirot and during the course of the series every Agatha Christie story and novel involving detective Poirot was produced. This led to Murder on the Orient Express getting an episode eventually. This version has an even less well known cast, at least to those of us in the states, but there are a few performers that stand out to me: David Morrissey and Jessica Chastain have made a name for themselves in recent years and Toby Jones was a welcome familiar face from years past. But the film itself is dismal and plodding despite having a rather short running time of only eighty minutes. The ending was changed somewhat to add a crisis of conscience for the lead character of Poirot that existed in none of the previous versions. David Suchet’s Poirot was a stuffed shirt who shouts out moral judgments like a preacher and distances himself from those around him and us the audience as well. It’s a capable, if very stuffy film that suffers from familiarity to the source material. 

Then comes this, the most recent adaption. Harkening back to the original film the cast of characters are made up of who’s who of Hollywood and the international cinema. There’s someone here from every modern era of film to appease to the older generation as well as the millennials. Kenneth Branagh leads the pack as Poirot. He is supported by the likes of Daisy Ridley (Star Wars – The Force Awakens), Penelope Cruz (Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides), Johnny Depp (Edward Sissorhands), Leslie Odom, Jr (Red Tails), Lucy Boynton (Sing Street), Michelle Pfeiffer (Scarface), Judi Dench (Casino Royale), Josh Gad (Love and Other Drugs), and Willem Dafoe (The Grand Budapest Hotel). Each holds their own and brings some panache to a very familiar proceeding. The real question going into this film is is it worth going into it when one is familiar to the story. Also, does it work if one is not familiar with it.

The story is pretty straight forward. Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is a world famous detective traveling on the Orient Express en route to another case. While on the way the train is stopped by an avalanche and one of the passengers is murdered. No one could have left the train so the murderer must be among the passengers. The bulk of the film is Poirot interrogating the passengers one by one while piecing the testimonies and clues together to figure what happened and how.

I came at it from both perspectives having seen all versions and reading the book prior to checking in for this one. My wife accompanied me without any of that baggage. The mystery unfolded exactly the same way it did in the other versions, this time with a little bit of action peppered into it to appease a crowd that might not be used  to a slower paced film. Still, three quarters of the way through my wife had the mystery figured out. There is enough foreshadowing to figure the whole thing out for those who are unfamiliar and for those who are there is a fascination with how this new cast and crew will present these characters and motivations in a way that will speak to a modern audience. For those who prefer the shaky action films of Michael Bay this film will bore them to tears. For those who don’t mind a slower pace and good characters this will be a delight to watch. It is an actor’s film through and through. The few action scenes added to break up the mystery a little feel natural and only stand out when compared to the other films that didn’t have those moments.

The story holds up even though it is a well known mystery. It is not quite as well known as And Then There Were None, but still familiar enough that those who see it should recognize where it’s headed. There is a twist to the ending that is true to the novel and films and does not come out of nowhere; it can be predicted if you pay attention to the investigation. The ending cribs some from the 2010 Poirot episode but not quite as harshly. It is a happy middle ground that plays better and doesn’t leave us with a bitter taste in the mouth about our protagonist. Who is this film made for? Hopefully a new audience that will feel inspired to pick up the book and experience a truly gifted mystery writer from the past. It holds up as an example of an older property that can still hold its own in the modern cinema landscape without changing its character into something barely resembling the novel. In this day and age that is rare. 

Thor Ragnarok (2017) ***

Run Time: 2:13

US Release Date: 11/3/2017

Rated: PG-13 (Cartoon Violence, Profanity)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo, Tessa Thompson, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, Anthony Hopkins

There was a lot of negativity surrounding the release of Thor: The Dark World a few years back and not without good reason. That movie was slow and brooding at times and took itself way too serious for it’s own good. After all, the idea of Norse gods battling it out in the cosmos over some red floating liquid that could destroy the universe isn’t exactly heady material. It also wasn’t all that exciting. To compound the problem it was a sequel to a film that was visually impressive but not much else. This doesn’t seem like the type of property to greenlight a third film yet here we are with Thor Ragnarok, a movie which ditches the feel and tone of both of its predecessors and skews so broadly into camp as to almost qualify as parody. There are moments in the film that would have felt right at home in a Scary Movie type of super hero film.

The film opens up with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) bringing us up to speed on how he got to where he is since the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Almost immediately we’re thrown into an action set piece that holds no danger to our lead character and serves only to showcase the power of Thor’s hammer, a point that was felt needed to set up just how formidable our lead villain, Hela (Cate Blanchette) is when she later destroys it.

Upon returning home to Asgard Thor finds his brother Loki right where we left him at the end of The Dark World, impersonating their father Odin. The two set out to find the real Odin only to come face to face with their heretofor unmentioned older sister, Hela, who is determined to take over Asgard and use her powers to expand her rule beyond the nine realms. Thor gets banished and forced to compete in a gladiator style arena where comes face to face with the main reason people will want to see this film, The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). This is all stuff that can be gleamed just from the trailers and all of it plays out just as expected. This movie really isn’t out to surprise you with its story. Instead, it tries to keep you invested by hitting you over the head with humor and pop culture as if to say ‘Look at how silly this concept is. See, we’re in on the joke, too.”

Nearly everything about this movie plays like a punchline. It’s evident from the first moments of the movie while Thor is narrating to a skeleton in a cage. First he asks it how much longer he has to wait in there in reminiscent of a popular meme about waiting on women in a craft store long enough to have degraded into nothing but bones. Then, to add a second joke into the same moment, the jaw bone falls off the skeleton as if the dead person is in awe of the story it is being told. There are at least a dozen more jokes and visual humor just in this scene alone and while they are mostly funny it is quite a bit jarring, especially after coming off all the previous Marvel movies that take their over-arcing stories much more serious.

Aside from this dramatic shift in tone Thor Ragnarok doesn’t really take any chances and serves up more of the same for the MCU. It advances the story leading up to Avengers Infinity War but only a little and only for the two lead characters. It barely mentions any of the other Avengers and the only other one we actually see is Black Widow via a recording that comes straight from Age of Ultron. While this might dissatisfy hard core MCU fans it actually helps Thor Ragnarok to stand on its own two feet without relying too heavily on the films before it. Doctor Strange gets an extended cameo, too, but it doesn’t add up to much other than to show that he has gotten better at his powers than when we last saw him.

Cate Blanchette is a delight to watch as Hela. She is clearly enjoying herself playing the part and it shows every time she is on screen. She chews up the scenery in a way that was sorely missed when she played another villain in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She is better here and she knows it. She has presence and charisma, and she is formidable, something that comes across loud and clear the first time we see her. She is definitely the highlight of this film. Tessa Thompson and Karl Urban are both good but could have been utilized a little better, especially when undermined by their comedic moments. Elba is also good but sorely underused. The biggest let down is Thor’s brother, Loki, who never grows as a character. He’s in the same place as a character as he was last time and, if advance footage from Comic-con can be trusted, will still be there in the next film out the gate featuring him, Infinity War.

The film as a whole is disjointed, wanting us to be drawn into the stakes while at the same time hitting us over the head with over-the-top humor. While most of the time it works there are moments that take it too far and push us out of the film. A little better writing and editing could have gone a long way towards fixing this. Altogether it is a fun movie to watch, just don’t expect anything revelatory.