MatM '15-'16: #50 & 49

Welcome, dear readers, to the 2015-2016 edition of the annual Mulhern at the Movies countdown!

One benefit of not being a paid movie critic, and I’ve written this before, is that I’m not contractually required to see things like, say, the Fantastic Four reboot. Or Ted 2. Or Hot Pursuit. I can be a little more selective. It is more rare these days that I sit through egregious heaps of flaming garbage, but every now and then it happens. The majority of the movies are at the very least pretty good, or maybe they have a few redeeming qualities. Much of this has to do with the fact that I’m seeking out decent shit that I’m interested in seeing. Depending on the year, therefore, the difference between like, #46 and #31 is pretty minimal. 

Here, then, is the weakest of the decent (in theory) shit that I sought out.

#50 Aloha

Almost 30 years ago now, a relatively unknown filmmaker thrust a bumbling romantic in a tan trench coat onto the world. His name was Lloyd Dobler. He was in love with Diane Court, and he would do whatever it takes to land her, including standing outside her window with a boombox over his head, blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” in a moment that would be revered and replicated ever since, a moment that has become the visual equivalent of “finally getting the girl”.

That filmmaker was Cameron Crowe, and following Lloyd and Diane, he would go onto be responsible for even more iconic duos/trios: Jerry Maguire and Rod Tidwell, Penny Lane and Russell from the band Stillwater, Tom Cruise as David Aames and his Sophie’s choice of Penelope Cruz as Sofia and Cameron Diaz as Julie in Vanilla Sky. A few years later came his follow-up Elizabethtown, a schmaltzy, dragging war crime on cinema about finding love when returning home for a funeral. Even though I never saw We Bought a Zoo, I heard decent things, and so I went into Aloha hoping that Elizabethtown was just an anomaly.

It wasn’t.

Bradley Cooper is hotshot pilot Brian Gilcrest, who comes out of military retirement (following a major snafu in Kabul) to take a contract in Hawaii. Having been stationed there before, he bumps into his past in the form of his ex, Tracy (Rachel McAdams), who is married to Woody (John Krasinski, inexplicably taking a vow of silence). He is also introduced to his new military command, Colonel Lacy (Danny McBride, playing a turned-down version of his usual self) and Allison Ng (Emma Stone), who is tasked with keeping the “wild card” Gilcrest at bay. And guess what? She’s Asian. Because that makes sense. 

From there, cue convoluted military conspiracy subplot featuring sensitive information on a flash drive, an overwritten dialogue about the sacredness of the sky, old feelings coming to the surface for the two exes, new feelings coming to the surface about the younger and quirkier Emma Stone, and couple of big but totally predictable reveals.  Ugh. More frustrating, even, than being an active participant in Crowe’s decade-long freefall was watching Cooper, McAdams, Stone, Kransinksi, and McBride, alongside cameos from Alec Baldwin and Bill Murray, work their way through this sentimental hooey. 

Say aloha to this disappointment.

#49 Jurassic World

I have a close friend who has a one-year old son, and one of the things he finds himself doing less and less is going to the movies. He saw a total of three movies in the theater this year, two that will come much later on in the countdown, and this one. Thinking about this makes me depressed—not that he went to so few movies, but that 33.3% of his 2015 movie going was spent at Jurassic World. 

Despite some cool sequences, I was largely underwhelmed. Not nearly as much as a different friend, who said of JW, I kid you not: “I hate it passionately.”

Jurassic World takes place 22 years after the events of the original. Now there is a fully functional dinosaur theme park in Isla Nubar, Costa Rica with real dinosaurs. Bryce Dallas Howard, clad in a white tank. white skirt and high heels for the entirety of the movie, plays Claire, the manager of the park. Her nephews are there for a visit, but she is far too busy and important to care, so she puts them in the care of her dim assistant.

What could possibly go wrong?

Chris Pratt’s character, Owen Grady, is the park’s top dinosaur trainer. He has 4 velociraptors at his beck and call. Due to his expertise, he and two other park employees are tasked with evaluating the public readiness of the giant Indominus Rex, essentially a larger and more dangerous Tyrannosaurus cross-bred with a raptor.

What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, the head of the genetics company’s security team, Hoskins (Vincent D’Onfrio) decides he wants to attempt to train the raptors for military purposes.

What could possibly go wrong?

The simultaneous catastrophes (issues with the Indominus Rex, flying dinosaurs escaping the dinosaur aviary, the Mosasaurus splashing the hell out of hundreds of paying attendees) all, of course, build to a huge climax. Not everything about JW was bad; some of the action sequences looked pretty cool and the CGI was on point. However, the hackneyed dialogue, the beyond-formulaic antagonist, the kids-defying-authority-and-ending-up-in-peril storyline…it was too much to ignore.

Well, At least we still have the theme song.