The November Man (2014) – Pierce Brosnan is the revered semi-retired spy/assassin who goes rogue from a compromised Company, and is hunted by the assassin he helped train. It’s Mission: Impossible Lite (“Mission: Unlikely?”) with plenty of stunts and double-crosses, but I’m not sure it makes a very deep impression on the viewers. (Big problem: Showing someone in flashback who’s revealed later to be another character in the present — but there’s no way that that first actress grew into the second one.)
Battlefield: Fall of the World (2022) – It’s a Chinese-made Sci-fi/action flick that falls into the same category as The Tomorrow War (2021) in two ways:
- The main foe is a horde of unnatural CGI critterbeasts
- The script is full of plot points that are “Huh? Wait — what didn’t you just do this?”
In a nutshell, a huge alien invasion (comprised of feral beasts with personal force fields) decimates the Earth. Several years later, the aliens are still here… just kind of wandering around, looking for survivors… (What did the aliens want with the Earth, aside from killing all the humans? Shut up, that’s what.) And there are still ragtag military types going around, shooting ineffectually at the aliens. And of course, someone comes up with the secret way to actually kill them…
A problem that even The Tomorrow War didn’t have: This ragtag group has a bunch of non-Chinese characters (I think they’re supposed to be French, Russian, and some African ethnicity), who all speak English, constantly and poorly.
It all leads back to something I end up saying with appalling frequency: It’s no more expensive to film a good script than a bad one, guys.
The Producers (2005) – Which is better, the 1967 original or the 2005 musical (based on the stage version)? I don’t know. I can only say these two things:
- “Springtime For Hitler” is damned catchy.
- Hey, Will Ferrell doesn’t ruin it! Amazing!
(Insert obligatory “this would NEVER get made today” observation. Because it’s true.)
Abandoned movies:
Triassic World (2018) – Unlike most dino-schlock from The Asylum et al, this one has some actual practical dino FX instead of being all CG. But the script — oh lordie, I’d expect something better from a first draft right after wisdom-teeth extraction…