Deadpool (2016)

Every so often, a TV show's minor character will get so popular that they graduate from a small supporting role to being one of the primary stars of the show. Characters like Fonzie from Happy Days, Steve Urkel from Family Matters, and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are all huge examples of this. And this can apply to other forms of storytelling beyond TV shows. I mean, that's how characters like Tigger, Jay and Silent Bob, and the Minions got their starts.

It's also quite prevalent in comic books as well. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't plan on having Mary Jane Watson stick around for long after her debut in 1966, but she's become just as important to the Spider-Man mythos as Peter Parker himself. Wolverine got his start as someone for the Hulk to fight in 1974's Incredible Hulk #181, but became one of Marvel's most popular characters not long after he was brought into the X-Men fold.

I bring all this up because we can't talk about breakout characters in comic books without mentioning the one and only Deadpool. Making his initial appearance in Marvel's New Mutants #98 in 1991, creators Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld will be the first people to tell you that Deadpool began as just a ripoff of Deathstroke from DC's Teen Titans comic. But as the years rolled on, Deadpool would evolve from a villain into a goofy, wisecracking motormouth antihero. And as he evolved, his popularity with readers grew exponentially, so much so that he's become one of their top-tier characters, almost on the same level as Spider-Man and Wolverine.

With that popularity, Hollywood was sure to come knocking on Deadpool's door. But alas, so did a little thing called "developmental hell." A movie starring everyone's favorite "Merc with a Mouth" was first conceived all the way back in the summer of 2000 by the now-defunct Artisan Entertainment, but nothing came of it and the film rights ended up with New Line Cinema in 2004. But they eventually scrapped the project, at which point 20th Century Fox picked up the character and gave him a brief role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that they managed to completely bungle in the process.

The Deadpool in that movie had "Murphy's Law" written all over him; if they could screw something up with him, they would (and did). By the end of X-Men Origins, Deadpool's mouth had been sewn shut, and he was shooting lasers from his eyes and waving blades that grew from his forearms like he was Baraka from Mortal Kombat.

But a spin-off was in the works, with word around the campfire that one day, someone would correct the mistakes made by Wolverine & Co. and create a proper Deadpool movie. And it only took them a decade or so (give or take a few years), but that day has finally arrived. Deadpool has his own, proper movie, and I don't know if I could possibly be any more excited to see it. So let's dig right in, shall we?

Once upon a time, there was a man named Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds). Dishonorably discharged from the Canadian military, the cocky Wade puts his special-ops training to work as a mercenary, a soldier of fortune helping people in need. He's also madly in love with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), but their relationship hits a serious rough patch when Wade is diagnosed with late-stage, terminal cancer. As he begins to resign himself to his eventual death, Wade is contacted by a shadowy organization claiming they can cure him while making him a superhero in the process. Seemingly out of options, Wade sneaks away from Vanessa in the middle of the night and signs up for their program.

He arrives at their facility to discover that human experimentation is the name of the game. Under the supervision of the lead scientist, a rather sociopathic gentleman calling himself "Ajax" (Ed Skrein), participants in the program are pumped full of a specialized serum to grant them mutant abilities before being subjected to increasingly extreme conditions to fully trigger said mutations. Wade is put through the ringer for weeks, finally being locked in an airtight chamber and deprived of oxygen after Ajax grows tired of him being such a smartass all the time.

The experience does activate his mutant ability — a healing factor so potent that it not only stops the spread of his cancer, but renders him practically immortal in the process — but it also has the pretty side effect of covering his face and body in hideous burn-like scars. Enraged over this, along with the revelation that Ajax has secret, sinister motives for he and his fellow test subjects, Wade attempts to stage a fiery escape only to be beaten and ultimately left for dead by Ajax.

He survives, but is so humiliated by his extensive scarring that he's convinced it would be in Vanessa's best interests if he never returned home. It is shortly thereafter that, while out drowning his sorrows with his best friend Weasel (T.J. Miller), he gets the idea to put his newfound abilities to good use as a masked vigilante. He adopts the name "Deadpool" and begins cutting a bloody swath through the criminal underworld as he follows a trail of breadcrumbs that will hopefully lead him directly to Ajax and a potential cure for his disfigurement.

But while X-Men members Colossus (the voice of Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) follow him and try convincing him to join their little team of mutants and become a more conventional superhero, Wade is more concerned about finding Ajax. But when he catches wind that he's effectively led Ajax and his brawny sidekick Angel Dust (Gina Carano) to his own front door and put Vanessa in danger, the "cure for disfigurement" idea goes out the window and Wade just wants some good old-fashioned vengeance.

The thing about Deadpool is that it is so unlike every other superhero movie out there that going in expecting it to be more of the same is the wrong way to approach it. Granted, the plot is a bit of a paint-by-numbers origin story when you break it down, but outside of maybe Kick-Ass and its sequel, Deadpool is practically in a class of its own. It's violent, vulgar, immature, and hilarious. And when it's all said and done, Deadpool is such a unique entity among its superheroic brethren that I can't help but absolutely love it.

The movie marks the directorial debut of Tim Miller, who does a fantastic job telling the story and giving it an anarchic spirit. He crafts the movie in such a way that it feels very unique and stands out among all the other superhero movies out there. It stays energetic throughout, and the fights scenes... oh boy. They're ridiculously violent, practically outdoing the Blade trilogy and the Punisher movies combined. But they have the same infectious vibe as the rest of the movie.

And if it didn't earn its R rating through the violence alone, it definitely would via its script. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick of Zombieland fame, the script's sense of humor is about as blue as you can get. But it stays really, really funny all the way through. Sure, quite a few of the really good jokes have been given away by the trailers and TV advertisements, that doesn't stop the movie from having plenty of fantastic, fun, hilarious moments.

The narrative hopping around back and forth between flashbacks and the present day for the first two acts adds a little style to set it apart, while the frequent asides and breaks of the fourth wall add a lot to the movie's already irreverent sense of humor. Take, for example, a scene where Colossus tries dragging Deadpool away to meet Professor Xavier of the X-Men. Deadpool's response: "McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines are so confusing." It's things like that that keep the character true to his roots for the most part. I say "for the most part" because while the movie version of Deadpool is well aware that he has an audience watching him like his comics counterpart, we don't see him talking to his own inner monologue like he does in the comics. He's also way more of a potty mouth here than he was in the source material, the same kind of feeling is still there and bring a subversive silliness that makes the movie more engaging.

And then there's the cast, all of whom do a fine job in their roles. Morena Baccarin and T.J. Miller are quite likable, and Leslie Uggams is entertaining in her small role as Deadpool's elderly, wisecracking roommate, Blind Al. Ed Skrein, meanwhile, is perfectly sleazy as our villain. I also greatly enjoyed Brianna Hildebrand and Stefan Kapičić as the movie's resident X-Men, but the movie wholly belongs to Ryan Reynolds.

This is one of those movies that would live or die based on the performance of whomever plays the title role. Reynolds absolutely nails it, elevating the movie from "good" to "great" through sheer force of will alone. I'd heard that Reynolds fought hard to get this movie made after how much everybody hated Deadpool's appearance in X-Men Origins, and his affection for the character is obvious. He's turned all the way up to eleven here, playing Deadpool with a madcap intensity that makes him feel like a demented Looney Tunes character. The movie is that much better for it, and I couldn't imagine anybody but Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool. 

Deadpool is not going to be for everyone. The violence and occasionally vulgar comedy won't suit everyone's sensibilities. That being said, it's still a wonderfully crazy movie. It's a genuinely fun, entertaining flick that I can't recommend enough, a refreshing change of pace from the formulaic fair we usually get in this genre. So if an R-rated superhero movie that makes jokes about itself and other superhero movies sounds up your alley, definitely check out Deadpool. They don't come much crazier than this. 

Final Rating: ****

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)

Nobody could have possibly expected Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity would have been such a huge hit after Paramount Pictures plucked it from film festival obscurity and released it nationwide in the fall of 2009. It grossed nearly 200 million dollars and spawned a number of sequels, a Japanese spinoff, and a mockbuster from The Asylum while practically killing the Saw franchise in one fell swoop. But like many franchises before it, the Paranormal Activity saga started running out of steam after a while. As much as I enjoyed the first three, I was ultimately burned by the tremendously disappointing fourth and fifth chapters.

With the release of a sixth chapter in the form of Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, I find myself drawn to it not by any real desire to see the progression of the story or to have any unresolved questions answered, but by a feeling that I've seen all the other ones, so I'd might as well keep going. Besides, how often does one get to see a found footage movie in 3D? Outside of that fleeting possibility, however, The Ghost Dimension just isn't worth bothering with.

Christmas is fast approaching, and Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily Fleege (Brit Shaw) are preparing for the holiday season in the new home in suburban California with their daughter Leila (Ivy George). As Ryan and his brother Mike (Dan Gill) decorate the house, the pair finds a stack of decades-old VHS tapes and an oversized video camera. The tapes depict young Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tylor Brown) from the previous movies being indoctrinated into a cult, while Ryan notices that the camera is picking up strange things around the house that are invisible to the naked eye, quickly realizing that it was custom built to be capable of spectral photography.

That'll come in really handy, as a series of strange events start happening around the house. Each incident seems oddly focused on Leila, whose behavior grows more and more strange with each passing day. Ryan sets up a video surveillance system to capture these occurrences in conjunction with his investigation into the tapes of Katie and Kristi. It quickly becomes evident that the demon we've come to know as "Toby" is in their house and has nefarious plans for Leila.

Wow. Just... wow. I don't know where to even begin describing just how disappointing this movie is. And that's really saying something, considering I wasn't expecting much to start with. The movie is painfully dull, the plot is nonsensical, the acting is mediocre at best, and as I sat in that theater watching, all I could think during the entire movie is that I wanted to stupid thing to hurry up and end so I could go home. It might not be as frustrating to watch as The Gallows, but Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is almost as lame.

Gregory Plotkin makes his directorial debut here, and his efforts are poor, poor, poor. I say that because Plotkin violates what I consider to be the cardinal rule of the horror genre: The Ghost Dimension is not scary at all. There is nothing frightening, no suspense to be had. The scene where Toby chases Ryan and Mike into the kitchen comes close to mustering up a little tension, but it's dashed away almost immediately by a character making a stupid joke and the fact that the scene just stops. The chase has no payoff, no moment where Ryan and Mike barely get away and Toby is briefly repelled. It just cuts to the next scene like nothing happened. Even the token "boo!" jump scares are ineffective, serving only as an annoyance because it feels like the movie is suddenly shouting at the audience instead of trying to scare them. Throw in some of the most laughably bad CGI this side of the ending of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and you've got a horror movie that was doomed for failure from the start.

Plotkin doesn't even try making the franchise's transition into 3D worthwhile. The majority of the movie is actually in 2D, believe it or not. You can take off the glasses for long stretches of the movie and not feel like you're missing anything. Only a few brief instances of depth come from the bits and pieces being shot from the spectral camera. And even then, the 3D is very rarely ever used well. The franchise was built on a very angry demon throwing around everything it can get its hands on. Hell, the most famous moment of the very first movie (and arguably the trademark moment of the whole franchise) was Micah Sloat getting thrown at the camera at full force. That would make you think that a jump to 3D would be a perfect fit, right? But nope, The Ghost Dimension is actually relatively tame by comparison to the other movies in the franchise. There are one or two big moments, but outside of those, not a lot happens and the 3D goes underutilized for the most part.

Plotkin's direction may be underwhelming, but he isn't helped by the script, credited to Jason Harry Pagan, Andrew Deutshman, Adam Robite, and Gavin Heffernan. For starters, I am genuinely surprised that it took four people to write this movie. It really needed that many people to come up with this piece of crap? Did they each write their own script, then lump them all together in one great big pile? Was there some kind of Writer's Guild mandate that said they had to credit so many people? But with that many names attached to the script, I'm astounded that they couldn't collectively come up with something worthwhile.

I can overlook the movie featuring stupid and unlikable characters since that's actually par for the course with the Paranormal Activity movies, but I can't get over just how abysmal the story is. It's all over the place, as if it were having a panic attack brought on by the vague mess that is the franchise's mythology. None of it makes any sense, and some parts actually seem contradictory to the point that I think I'd honestly have to sit down and come up with some kind of flow chart to make heads or tails of any of it.

The acting suffers too, with Chris J. Murray only really standing out from the rest. The majority of the cast are just kinda there, going through the motions, while I was actually upset that Toby didn't kill Dan Gill's character early into the movie. Gill is annoying as the movie's token comic relief, a clichéd character that I'm getting tired of seeing in movies like this.

I think it's ironic that Paranormal Activity dethroned Saw as the horror franchise du jour. Both began with strong first chapters, their sequels starting out good too. But each franchise started going downhill from a creative standpoint starting with their fourth respective chapters, finally coming to an end with a so-called "final chapter" released in 3D. And much like Saw 3D, I walked out of Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension asking myself, "Is this it? Is this really the way they wanted to end these movies if this really is the last one?"

If The Ghost Dimension really is the end, then it's a really lame note for the franchise to go out on. I'm stunned by just how genuinely boring and ho-hum this movie is; the majority of it feels like it's just doing a half-assed copy of things we saw done better in the first five movies. Hell, that forgettable Japanese spinoff was better than this. And that's the really disappointing part; the Paranormal Activity movies got off to such a promising start and ended up here. The movie's tagline is "for the first time, you will see the activity," but you know what? I wish I hadn't.

Final Rating: *½

Fantastic Four (2015)

I guess I've been spoiled by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I'm so used to seeing Marvel Comics movies that you absolutely have to go see or you'll be missing out on something fun. They're so good that sometimes I actually forget that there's the occasional misstep with the movies based on Marvel's properties. Every so often we get a Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, or an X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or a Spider-Man 3. But the characters that I think have suffered the most are the Fantastic Four. Of the three times in the past that the Fantastic Four have been adapted into cinematic form, one was never released, and the two that actually were disappointed critics and were only modest successes at the box office.

It's been nearly a decade since they last appeared on the big screen. And say what you will about Roger Corman's movie, the 2005 one, or Rise of the Silver Surfer, but they're all far, far better than the newly-released reboot of the franchise. That nine-year wait was not worth it at all, as this attempt to revitalize the franchise is off to a terrible, terrible start.

Ever since childhood, Reed Richards (Miles Teller) has been attempting to build a machine capable of teleporting matter from one point to another. And while the prototype he and best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) have developed isn't perfect, it draws the attention of renowned scientist Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Caffrey), who invites Reed to join his team of scientists in building a similar, more advanced version. Also brought onto the project are Storm's children Sue (Kate Mara) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), along with Franklin's brilliant yet cocky former protégé Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Their initial experiments upon finishing the teleporter's construction is successful, as they're able to transport a chimpanzee into an alternate dimension, a strange wasteland they've dubbed "Planet Zero," before bringing it back.

The bad news, however, is that their higher-ups want to take the project from them and give it to NASA for further development. A drunken Reed decides that they should be the first ones to travel to Planet Zero instead of a bunch of astronauts. Convincing Ben that he should tag along, they, Johnny, and Victor remotely activate the device and make the trip to this strange new world. But their trip proves to be a huge mistake, as the green lava-like energy that covers much of the area's surface begins to erupt. Victor is swallowed up by the collapsing ground, and an explosion destroys the device just as Sue arrives and pulls the other three and their shuttle back to Earth.

Reed, Ben, Johnny, and Sue (who herself was caught up in the aftermath of that little misadventure) are whisked away to a secret military base, where they find that the energy from the explosion has altered them significantly. Reed can stretch his limbs, Ben has been transformed into a giant rock creature, Johnny turns himself into a flying human fireball at will, and Sue is able to render herself invisible and create force fields. Reed quickly realizes that the government has no intention of curing them, choosing rather to study the use of their powers as it pertains to military application. He escapes and becomes an international fugitive as he tries to find a way to reverse the process that gave them these abilities.

Reed is recaptured in Central America a year later, asked to rejoin the teleportation project as the scientists who overtook it plan to return to Planet Zero. The explorers discover that not only has its entire landscape changed, but that Victor is still alive. Having fused with his environmental protection suit, Victor has himself developed a multitude of superpowers with which he intends to wipe out humanity and rebuild Earth in the image of Planet Zero. Although they have never quite been on the same page, Reed, Ben, Johnny, and Sue must come together and use their own abilities to save the world.

I went back and read my reviews of the previous three Fantastic Four movies before seeing this new one. I wasn't particularly kind to them (especially the Corman one), but I would gladly watch any of them before going back and watching this new one again. Everything about it is cold, ugly, unappealing. Its depressingly bleak tone undercuts any sort of adventure or heroics the titular quartet may engage in onscreen. I'm not opposed to the idea of dark superhero movies, but unless you're going for parody, it only really works for dark characters like Batman or the Punisher. Who asked for a grim and gritty reboot of the Fantastic Four?

The movie is the second directorial effort from Josh Trank, who'd previously helmed the found footage movie Chronicle in 2012. But while Chronicle was a solid, entertaining movie, Fantastic Four makes his successful debut look like a total fluke. Trank's direction here is subpar to say the least. The pacing is all over the place, the CGI is overdone and barely adequate at best (the Thing looks particularly weak), and it feels like the movie was edited with a chainsaw. The cinematography just plain sucks, with the only decent bit of it ― a tracking shot near the end of the movie that follows behind Doctor Doom as he marches down a hallway, effortlessly murdering everyone in his path ― being better suited for a horror movie than a superhero flick.

I read somewhere that Trank was inspired by the week of David Cronenberg when prepping production, and I believe him because the movie isn't exactly subtle about it. Elements of Scanners and The Fly are blatantly apparent, which only adds to the movie's bleak tone. The idea of a Cronenberg-style superhero movie does sound intriguing, don't get me wrong. But not only does Trank approach it weakly, it doesn't feel like this is the proper opportunity to do it either. Had Trank been making a movie based on Warren Ellis's Ruins, I could understand it. But doing dark versions of characters just because you can, being edgy for the sake of it, seems silly to me.

I'm not saying that comic book adaptations can't be dark and have to be completely, 100% accurate to the source material. Tim Burton's Batman killed people and those two movies were really good. But sometimes you'll end up on the opposite end of that spectrum with movies like Man of Steel or Fantastic Four. But at least Man of Steel is a well-made movie, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for Fantastic Four.

That's partly due not only to Trank's lousy direction, but the script as well. Credited to Trank, Jeremy Slater, and Simon Kinberg, the script just how little anyone cared about making a Fantastic Four movie that was worth a damn. There's no real loyalty to the source material in any serious effort, especially when it comes to the characterization of Doctor Doom. The three core parts of Doom's personality have always been his insufferably enormous ego, his irrational hatred of Reed Richards, and his genuine belief that the world would be a better place if he were its supreme ruler. We do see evidence of the first two when, in the character's first scene, Doom immediately accuses Reed of stealing his work despite the two having never even heard of one another previously and acting independently to develop their systems. The catch here, though, is that this version of Doom does not want to conquer the world, but destroy it. Doom is an incredibly complex character when handled well, but the movie depicts him as a stereotypical omnicidal villain with no depth or any sort of motivation. He actually even completely disappears from the movie for the entire second act and is barely mentioned subsequently, only reappearing with his new superpowers to raise hell during the last twenty minutes of the movie. It's an absolutely pathetic waste of a great villain, one that makes the rather lackluster depiction of him played by Julian McMahon in 2005 and 2007 look a lot better in retrospect.

The other characters don't fare much better, as they're chock full of an almost unbearable amount of angst because of their superpowers. I get that might happen, and it's expected in regards to Ben Grimm, but it's almost too much angst. I don't want to watch a superhero movie where the heroes are self-loathing sad sacks that are resentful of each other.

But the script has more problems than just that. Judging by how the movie plays out, the story must have been put together at random because it feels disjointed and haphazardly put together. I don't know if that's how it was written or if there was a lot of executive meddling (judging by the producers ordering rewrites, the studio doing reshoots behind Trank's back months after production ended, the terrible editing, and Trank's since-deleted tweets, I'm guessing the latter more so than the former), but the narrative skips and stutters like there was some heavy duty editing going on with no consideration of how the final product would flow. The movie never feels like it's going anywhere because as soon as it starts building some momentum, it comes to a screeching halt to go in a completely different direction.

I also got the impression that the cast would have preferred being anywhere else on the face of the planet than on the set. They came across like they're putting forth the absolute bare minimum amount of effort, but then again, they could have hired Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep and it still would have ended up being rough to watch.

Miles Teller and Jamie Bell aren't totally awful, I'll give them that, but Tony Kebbell is given practically nothing to do, which makes me wonder why they even bothered including Doctor Doom in the movie at all. Kate Mara seemed like she was phoning it in (assuming said phone was a tin can on a string), but factoring in the rumors that Trank supposedly treated her poorly due to his anger with Fox ordering him to hire her, I can't admit to being all that surprised.

The only real standout among the entire cast is Michael B. Jordan, who was a controversial choice to play Johnny Storm simply because of his race. Much like Michael Clarke Duncan playing Kingpin in Daredevil, hiring a black actor to play a character that has traditionally been depicted as white rubbed a lot of the hardcore comic book nerds the wrong way. But Jordan isn't bad at all as Johnny. He's not the first person I'd have thought of when casting the role, but he's charismatic enough that he becomes the one bright spot in the darkness that is the movie.

Based on the word of mouth, I entered Fantastic Four expecting the worst. It's not as aggressively terrible as I'd anticipated, but the movie was still a waste of my time and money. The only worthwhile part of the whole thing was seeing the green-band trailer for Deadpool before it started. Fantastic Four is proof of how much a lack of respect for the source material and a director and studio that have no clue what they're doing can hurt a movie. I just hope that the rights will revert back to Marvel sooner rather than later, because if they could redeem Howard the Duck with one ten-second cameo, they can redeem these characters too. The Fantastic Four deserve so much better than this.

Final Rating: *½

The Gallows (2015)

Found footage movies are all kinda the same nowadays. At least, that's how it feels. It takes something serious to make one stand out from the rest. Cloverfield had a giant monster, [•REC] had zombies, the V/H/S trilogy were anthology movies utilizing a multitude of different horror styles, but everything else comes off like the same tired haunted house movies churned out by filmmakers hoping to replicate the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise.

This brings us to the new flick The Gallows. Its trailers and TV commercials make it look like a found footage slasher flick, an idea that doesn't fill many horror fans I know with much hope. (Just go on a horror website and ask for opinions about the rumored found footage Friday the 13th sequel if you don't believe me.) But the "Tuesday the 17th" segment of the first V/H/S movie turned out well, so there's a shot, right? As it turns out, The Gallows isn't as much of a slasher movie as it is just more of the same supernatural horror we've gotten from every other found footage movie over the last couple of years. And if you haven't seen The Gallows yet, take my word for it: you aren't missing much.

Welcome to the small town of Bernice, Nebraska. Back in 1993, the high school drama club's performance of a play called "The Gallows" ended in tragedy when leading man Charlie Grimille (Jesse Cross) was killed when a prop noose malfunctioned. Now, twenty years later, saying Charlie's name has become bad luck among the drama club, similar to the superstitions surrounding Shakespeare's Macbeth. But that aside, they're now prepping a revival of "The Gallows" under the assumption that enough time had passed to prevent old wounds from reopening.

We're quickly introduced to the new production of "The Gallows" by Ryan (Ryan Shoos), a football player filming his buddy Reese (Reese Mishler) as he rehearses for his role as the play's male lead. Ryan has nothing but contempt for the drama club, relentlessly teasing them while razzing Reese for taking the play seriously. But it really hits the fan when Ryan realizes that Reese has something of a crush on his co-star, pretty nerd Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown).

Upset with the fact that Reese is attracted to one of these lowly theater geeks and unwilling to let him embarrass himself with a lousy performance, Ryan decides to wreck the play on the eve of its opening night. He pesters Reese until he agrees to participate, and with Ryan's girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) tagging along, they sneak into the auditorium and start dismantling the stage.

They're interrupted by the arrival of Pfeifer not long thereafter, but as the quartet try to leave, they discover that they've somehow been locked inside the school with no way out and no means of contacting the outside world for help. They're not alone, either, trapped inside with a malevolent supernatural force that does not want them to leave alive.

I really didn't have very high hopes when I sat down to watch The Gallows earlier this afternoon. The commercials didn't fill me with any sort of confidence, the reviews have been overwhelmingly terrible, and I only really decided to see it at all because I was bored and wanted to go to the movies. I actually kinda regret it now because The Gallows is spectacularly lousy. It's one of those horror movies that no matter how much it may try, there's no way that the audience could ever take it seriously. There is a severe lack of scares, atmosphere, suspense, likable characters, or anything else that would make it a decent horror movie. But to its credit, at least it's short.

Part of the reason why it's so bad is because the writer/director duo of Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff completely fail at everything. Lofing and Cluff don't even try to bring anything new to the table, choosing not to innovate but to rely on the same tired clichés from every other found footage haunted house movie. There's nothing you haven't seen a hundred times over in a hundred other movies.

Lofing and Cluff don't even make these clichés interesting to watch, and the movie continues to fail when you start looking at the slasher movie elements that they've ever so slightly adopted. A slasher movie doesn't need gore or ultra-creative kills to work; Bob Clark's Black Christmas and John Carpenter's Halloween proved that. But a lame-duck of a movie like The Gallows would have been helped by bloody, over-the-top deaths and it doesn't even try to go there. The movie is just one dull moment after another. There are one or two decent jump scares, I'll give them that. But there's no atmosphere or suspense, or even a reason to care. I just sat in the theater with my head in my hands, wondering when anything interesting would happen.

It doesn't help anything that Lofing and Cluff's script is so unbelievably abysmal, either. For example, the "why do they keep filming this?" argument plays into this very heavily. The characters never once put down their cameras for any reason, which, had their plan to wreck the play gone off without a hitch and they'd never encountered the killer ghost, would have given the police plenty of evidence with which to prosecute them for breaking and entering and vandalism. I get using the lights and night-vision option on the cameras to see, but why keep filming?

Which further begs the question, did the movie even need to be in found footage at all? There's a lot of screen time devoted to just the cast's feet as they're running from Charlie, time that Lofing and Cluff could have devoted to using the admittedly really frightening looking sets to build some serious atmosphere. But the found footage thing really hurts the movie something fierce, because it really constricts what Lofing and Cluff could have been able to do with it. Some movies can work using the format, but The Gallows is not one of them.

Those are just a couple of simple nitpicks (and I've got a hell of a lot of things to nitpick about The Gallows), but the really big problem I had with it is the twist ending comes completely out of nowhere with practically no foreshadowing whatsoever to set it up. And then you start thinking about the logistics of it, and you start noticing things that make absolutely no sense at all given the facts that the movie presents us. Add the epilogue into it, and it's just another ridiculous thing that makes the movie really freaking infuriating to watch.

And if you're making a horror movie where the characters are getting picked off one by one, the audience may root for the villain, but the characters still need to retain some sense of likability in order to keep the audience invested in them. But Lofing and Cluff have written a movie where not only is the villain completely uninteresting, but practically the entire primary cast is unlikable. You can't even root for Charlie to kill them because you just want them to go away and never come back. They're legitimately some of the most unlikable characters I've seen. And if you're like me, you'll even find yourself growing to loathe them. They're so annoying and stupid and awful that I'd rather do pretty much anything else than watch these idiots stammer around the screen for 80 minutes.

The actors just make this worse, because they're all pretty awful. I spent the movie wishing I could replicate the scene from Wayne's World 2 where Wayne has the gas station attendant replaced with Charlton Heston because they're all just that bad. Cassidy Gifford (whose only real claim to fame is being Kathy Lee Gifford's daughter) is forgettable thanks to her character being so flatly written that there are no defining features to her whatsoever, while Reese Mishler and Pfeifer Brown don't do any better than mediocre. (To her credit, though, Brown is pretty cute in her role up until the ending, so I'll give her that.) But I cannot write anything about The Gallows without mentioning just how terrible Ryan Shoos is. Shoos is an awful actor, something exacerbated the fact that the character is absolutely unbearable to put up with. You'll spend the entirety of the movie wanting him to be slaughtered by Charlie here, as Shoos is playing the most insufferable douchebag ever. Had the entire last hour of the movie just been all the drama nerds beating the everloving hell out of him, I'd have been satisfied with that. The movie would have gotten a rave review if his fate had been ten times worse.

The Gallows is one of those movies that left me unable to wrap my head around just how stupid it is. I'm glad I saw the movie alone in an empty theater, since being able to talk back to the screen and berate the movie as it was playing was actually pretty cathartic. I can say the same for writing this review, because The Gallows is one of the most frustrating movies I've seen in quite a while and being able to get my thoughts out in writing really helps me feel better about it. It's the kind of movie that should have gone straight to video and been ignored as I passed by it while checking my Netflix recommendations. But it was released by Warner Bros. in 2,000 theaters, which puts it on a level with movies like Devil's Due and The Last Exorcism Part II that really makes me weep for the state of the horror genre. If you gain any knowledge from this review, I hope it is this: The Gallows sucks. It is a horrible movie that, if you haven't seen it yet, should be avoided at all costs. And the real tragedy? It's too late for me to ask the theater for a refund.

Final Rating: *

Ant-Man (2015)

I wrote in my review of Guardians of the Galaxy that Marvel Studios has been so unbelievably successful that they can make practically whatever movie they want at this point. They made a movie starring a gun-toting talking raccoon, for crying out loud! And it was a huge hit! It's probably this line of thinking that brings us here to take a look at their newest effort, Ant-Man. It may not be as risky a venture as the off-kilter space opera that was Guardians, but considering the Ant-Man character's relative obscurity among mainstream audiences, it seemed like it might have been a hard sell to some. But while Ant-Man may not be widely known among those who aren't comic book geeks, his movie is still a ton of fun.

The focus of our story is Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a talented cat burglar who, as we're introduced to him, is being released from a stint in prison after robbing his employers and posting evidence of their corporate malfeasance online in the process. His attempts to return to civilian life are wrought with failure; his ex-wife won't let Scott see his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) until he can start making his child support payments, but he can't hold down a job because most businesses won't hire a convicted felon.

Stuck in a serious Catch-22, Scott agrees to take a job breaking into a safe in a retired businessman's basement. He's able to get into the safe with very little effort, but the only thing inside it is what he initially believes to be a motorcycle suit and a odd-looking helmet. Scott, not wanting to leave empty-handed, takes the suit home and figures he'll try it on. But he's startled when he hits a trigger sewn into one of the suit's gloves and is shrunk to the size of an insect. The disorienting experience terrifies Scott so much that he immediately tries returning the suit to its rightful owner, only to be caught by the cops and arrested while trying to break back in.

Fortune soon smiles upon him, however, when he's visited in jail by Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Pym reveals that he's not only the owner of that suit, but set everything up so Scott could steal the suit in the first place because he wanted him to have it. And since Pym has greater plans for him, he smuggles the suit into into Scott's cell so he can escape.

Hiding out from the police at Pym's house, Scott learns that his new benefactor had invented the suit during the Cold War, operating as an agent of SHIELD codenamed "Ant-Man." After forcing Pym out of the technology company he founded, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) ― Pym's former protégé and the current CEO of PymTech ― is now on the verge of replicating the chemical that Pym developed to allow the Ant-Man costume to shrink. Doing so would allow him to manufacture what he calls "the Yellowjacket," a flying suit of armor that could be used to create miniature armies. And to make matters worse, he fully intends to sell the prototype to everyone's favorite terrorist organization, Hydra.

Disturbed by Cross's growing insanity and refusing to allow his creation to be weaponized, Pym and his estranged daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) have conspired to sabotage Cross's plans before he can bring them to fruition. That's why Pym sought Scott out, because his history with burglary and corporate espionage makes him the perfect person for the job. Scott will need to break into PymTech in order to accomplish this, but he'll have to learn to properly use the Ant-Man suit and a built-in device that would allow him mental control over ants. And that'll be far, far harder than it looks.

A lot of people, myself included, thought Ant-Man might be kind of a hard sell to some people. The character doesn't have quite the notoriety of an Iron Man or a Captain America, and his powers (the ability to shrink and use mind-control on ants) admittedly sounds like a weird joke. And then there was the initially troubled development that saw delay after delay between its initial announcement in 2006 and the beginning of principal photography early last summer. The good news, however, is that while Ant-Man isn't one of the best chapters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's still a funny, entertaining movie that is definitely worth checking out.

The movie was helmed by Peyton Reed, a last-minute replacement for Edgar Wright, who had originally been pegged to write and direct the movie. While I would have liked to have seen what Wright could have done with the movie, I thought Reed still made a movie that was better than I'd anticipated. His direction is tight, fluid, and makes the movie an engaging watch. The quick transitions from big to small as Ant-Man changes his size can be dizzying, especially if you see it in 3D on a large-format screen like I did, but other than that, Reed does a satisfying job building the movie.

I do wonder, though, how the movie would have turned out had Wright actually stuck around and directed the movie. Similarly, I'm also curious what would have happened had the script by Wright and Joe Cornish not been rewritten by Adam McKay and Paul Rudd. While Wright and Cornish are given co-writer and "story by" credits, I don't know quite exactly how much of their work survived the rewrites. The final result is something of a mixed bag. There are elements that are strong and well put-together, and the story ― a superhero-themed heist movie ― is simple enough to suit the movie's needs and make it stand out from the rest of the MCU franchise. I also liked how the characters of Hank Pym and Scott Lang were set up to mirror each other as two sides of the same coin. Scott is trying to rebuild his relationship with a daughter who never sees him yet adores him all the same, while Hank tries the same with a daughter who resents him for being too controlling. It's an intriguing dichotomy that isn't really dwelt upon for too long but still adds a bit of depth to the movie.

But there are also parts that that don't really click either. The relationship between Scott and Cassie is painfully underdeveloped, and ends up taking a back seat to Scott's training to become Ant-Man. The sort-of romance between Scott and Hope feels unnecessary and doesn't add much to the movie. And the movie ultimately feels like the first Iron Man movie was just retooled to suit the Ant-Man character and reflect where the franchise has gone in the wake of the two Avengers movies.

But at least the weaknesses are counterbalanced by its positives, among them its cast. Corey Stoll plays his character solidly, but much like Obadiah Stane in Iron Man, his character is a rather generic villain. Stoll still does a fine job with it and makes the role his own. Evangeline Lilly is capable and strong despite not having a lot to do other than react to everyone else in the movie, and I really enjoyed Michael Peña as the movie's token comic relief. But Ant-Man is really bolstered by the performances of Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas. I thought Douglas was appealing as Hank Pym, bringing a lot of depth and pathos to the role. Rudd, meanwhile, is charismatic and very likable as Scott Lang, but a bit more low-key than you might expect from Rudd's past roles. He plays the role in the way that makes the characters feel like he's realized he's in way over his head but knows this is the best chance to do something good. I know Rudd doesn't seem like he'd be the first choice to play any superhero, but he still plays it to the bets of his ability and the movie is better for it.

Ant-Man feels like it might be the least of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, with its smaller scale and lesser-known characters. But after the bloated mess that was Avengers: Age of Ultron, some low-key superheroics were a nice change of pace. It'll never be accused of being the best entry in the franchise, but Ant-Man is still an amusing ride that I thought was most certainly worth the price of admission. But I'll tell the truth: I still want to see how the director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would have made Ant-Man instead of the director of Yes Man and The Break-Up. I can always wonder, right?

Final Rating: ***½