Movie Review: Life of the Party (PG13 – 105 minutes)

Melissa McCarthy is very skilled at larger-than-life comedic characters.  Many of them are similar to one another, so the movies can run into one another without some clear differentiation. I’m not entirely sure this one had that differentiation, but it was entertaining enough.

The story begins with Deanna dropping her daughter Maddie off at college for her senior year.  It’s the school Deanna attended, but never quite finished because she dropped out partway through her senior year to have Maddie – at the insistence of her husband, Dan.  She has always regretted not finishing, and when Dan tells her as they are pulling away from the school that he wants a divorce, the opportunity presents itself for her to go back and finish what she began.

Once back at school, Deanna begins to enjoy all parts of the college life.  Once Maddie gets over some initial embarrassment (very quickly), she and her sorority sisters take Deanna to parties, give her a makeover, and insist that she have a good time while finishing up the courses.  Although honestly, we only ever see her in one course – she must have been really close to graduating the first time around. 

Dan eventually announces he’s marrying his new lady friend, Marcie, a real estate agent.  She also happens to be the mother of Jack, a guy Deanna is hooking up with on campus – which results in some hilarity.  Eventually Deanna learns to value herself again, finishes school, and I assume lives happily ever after.

This movie (like Tammy and The Boss) is directed by McCarthy’s husband, Ben Falcone.  Like his others, this one is uneven tone-wise. It wants to be both a slapstick comedy and a gentle family comedy with some dramatic moments. It would have been stronger had it picked one of those and committed to it.  Falcone is good at letting McCarthy’s characters run the scene, but I wanted even more comedy from this.

• Melissa McCarthy is charming and funny as Deanna.  She is a bit overbearing as a mother, but does make it clear she knows when her daughter is embarrassed and does try to pay attention to those boundaries – just not very well.  She’s good in this, but honestly deserves a little better material.  Can we just get a sequel to Spy?

• Molly Gordon plays Maddie, and she was very good at being very subtle to let McCarthy dominate their scenes. I found it interesting that she was embarrassed of her mother in one scene, but then she and her friends very quickly grow to adore her and want her around all the time.

• Matt Walsh plays Dan, and the opportunity was there to make him really detestable, but it was downplayed slightly.  When he tells her he wants a divorce, he does it simply and straightforward without any cruelty. The cruelty comes later in a passive aggressive way in his wedding decorations. Julie Bowen plays Marcie, the evil real estate agent.

• Maya Rudolph plays Christine, Deanna’s best friend and Damon Jones plays her easy-going husband Frank.

• Gillian Jacobs plays Helen, a sorority sister of Maddie’s who was in a coma for eight years. This is an odd character trait that is used once or twice, but seems a bit forced in for little to no reason. 

• Jacki Weaver and Stephen Root play Deanna’s parents, Sandy and Mike.
• Jimmy O. Yang plays Tyler, Maddie’s boyfriend and Luke Benward plays his friend Jack, the dude who is really into Deanna, as well as being Marcie’s son.
• Chris Parnell plays Mr. Truzack, who once was a classmate of Deanna’s and is now the archaeology professor.  That relationship was strange, and felt like the beginnings of something, but then was not followed through. 
• Heidi Gardner plays Leonor, Deanna’s Goth roommate, who is strange, dark, and reclusive, but also relatively nice.  And cousins with Christina Aguilera.

Overall, the potential was there for a much funnier movie, but this is still entertaining. It’s not terrible, but I did often find myself wanting more. Also – how in a movie with this many talented improvisers are there no outtakes over the end credits?!?  Rule number one with a comedy – put some outtakes over the end credits!

5 out of 10 – it’s just fine. Worth watching if it comes on TV.  And yes, it's very similar to Back To School:

Movie Review: Overboard (2018) (PG13 112 minutes)

The original Overboard from 1987 featured Goldie Hawn as a horrible socialite who treats construction worker Kurt Russell terribly until she gets amnesia, and he takes advantage of the situation to make her believe she was his wife. During the process, he basically treats her like a housekeeper for he and his three boys.  Along the way, she learns to love them, and despite recovering from her amnesia in the end, she chooses to go back to them.

This remake stays very close to the original, just switching the genders of the lead roles, and changing some of the characteristics.  Now, son of a Mexican shipping magnate, Leonardo, is a pompous playboy who belittles ship-cleaner Kate, who is working three jobs to put herself through nursing school while trying to take care of her three daughters.  Leonardo’s father is sick, and his sister wants the family business to fall to her instead of Leonardo. When she sees that Leonardo has fallen off the yacht and gotten amnesia, she leaves him there in the hospital – knowing her father will finally leave her the company. 

Meanwhile, Kate, at the urging of her friend Theresa, picks Leonardo up from the hospital, and sets about convincing him that he was her husband, a recovering alcoholic, and father to her three girls.  She also gets him a job with Theresa’s husband’s construction company.  At first, he’s convinced it’s a lie, but eventually, he settles in and comes to love Kate, her daughters, and his new friends at work. 

Eventually, his father recovers and comes looking for him, and after initially rejecting Kate and company – he comes back to them, just in time for a happy ending.

This version is directed by Rob Greenberg, and actually has fewer ‘sharp edges’ than the original, which I did love when I was younger, but does not hold up now, and actually feels a little uncomfortable.  Switching the roles makes the movie a little more palatable. 

• Eugenio Derbez is a huge star in Mexican movies, and he is slowly starting to get more projects in the states.  His character is not nearly as loathsome as Hawn’s was in the original, and I wonder if it is because he didn’t want his massive fan base to see him be that terrible.  At worst, Leonardo is arrogant and spoiled, but he’s never really cruel.  He also falls in with the family fairly quickly, guessing he had been neglecting the girls, and setting out to make things right.  He’s unbelievably charming, and the story works because of him.

• Anna Faris plays Kate, and she’s perfect in just-this-side-of-crazy roles (if you don’t remember What’s Your Number? – you should re-watch that).  She’s genuinely at the end of her rope in this movie, and is trying her best, but is completely overwhelmed. She goes along with her friend’s plan because she is finally starting to acknowledge she needs some help.

• Eva Longoria plays Theresa, Kate’s best friend, who comes up with the crazy plan.  She’s funny in this supporting role.

• Swoosie Kurtz plays Kate’s mother, who was going to help babysit, but has to listen to the call of the theater! It’s a fun role that she nails.
• John Hannah plays Colin, the yacht-butler?  I think that’s what he is. Or perhaps Leonardo’s assistant? No, I think he’s tied to the yacht. In either case, he’s really fun and surprisingly supportive. And very Scottish.
• Mel Rodriguez plays Bobby, Theresa’s husband, who helps Leonardo get a job to get back on his feet – so to speak. At first they make fun of his soft hands, but then he learns to work hard, and makes quick friends with them.

Overall, the movie is fun, entertaining, and charming. It is very predictable, but as I have said and will continue to say – if there’s one genre that I was to be predictable, it’s rom-coms. 

6 out of 10 – harmless fun.

Bonus – the original:

Movie Review: Avengers: Infinity War (PG13 – 149 minutes)

This is a pretty spoiler-free review.  If you want a really spoiler-y one, check the LAMBcast review, which I participated in, we broke down the movie, scene by scene!    https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lambcast/episodes/2018-04-30T10_25_33-07_00

 The original Infinity Gauntlet comic storyline was a limited series released the second half of 1991.  It was a huge crossover event, featuring characters from many individual comics interacting with each other to attempt to defeat Thanos, the Mad Titan, who was determined to collect all six infinity gems (soul, space, time, power, reality, and mind), put them in his gauntlet, and win over the heart of Lady Death through some amazing feats.  I did read the comic years ago, but found it to be a little difficult to wrap my brain around, as it deals mostly with Marvel ‘Cosmic’ heroes and the infinite abilities and strangeness of the universe.  Thanos also seemed very one-note and not all that interesting.

Ten years ago, Marvel took a huge leap in their movie-making division and created what would come to be called the MCU – or Marvel Cinematic Universe – with the release of Iron Man.  Directed by the guy from Swingers, Jon Favreau, and starring Robert Downey Jr., who was just beginning to get his life back on track after a series of odd substance-abuse related problems, no one was really sure how things would go – no one except Kevin Feige, the man who would become the President of Marvel Studios, and who had a several-phased plan for Marvel movies.

It was a huge success, and lead to building the Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.  The MCU set a president by casting great people who are interested not just in doing good work, but helping each other create the strongest possible stories, and hiring interesting directors, who understood that their individual stories would help build a large universe.  Eighteen movies later, we have finally arrived at the finale of phase 3, something we have been building towards for the last ten years – Avengers: Infinity War.

The story mirrors the comic story somewhat: Thanos, the big bad first introduced in the Avengers in 2012, has finally gotten tired of trying to hire folks to collect the six infinity stones for him, and sets out to do it himself with the assistance of his Black Order.  Incidentally, the Black Order has some of the very best names ever – Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Cull Obsidian, and Corvus Glaive.  Thanos is obsessed with restoring balance to the universe, which seems like an innocent enough goal – after all, he’s concerned about exponentially expanding populations on inhabited worlds while the resources diminish or cannot supply the growth.  It’s something we should all be concerned about, so that makes sense.  However, his plan is to collect all six stones, then use the gauntlet to eliminate half the living beings in the universe with the snap of his fingers.  Half of everyone!  Okay, so his concern with the issue makes sense, his solution is a little terrifying.

The movie opens directly where Thor Ragnarok ends, with Thanos’s ship appearing above the Asgardian refugees, and Thanos taking the tesseract – or Blue space stone – from Loki.  He tells us he’s already taken the purple power stone from the Nova Corps on Xander where it was left by the Guardians of the Galaxy on their first outing.  Then he plans to head to Knowhere to get the red reality stone, or Aether, from the Collector, and he’s going to send the Black order to earth to collect the yellow mind stone from Vision’s forehead and the green time stone from Dr. Strange’s neck.  He doesn’t yet know where the orange soul stone is, but he knows someone who does. 

From this point it’s really impossible to say anything else about the plot – and literally what I have said so far is the first 10 minutes of the movie.  This story jumps off from the word go, and does not let up.  If you are a fan of the MCU at all, you will love this.  It is directed by Joe and Anthony, the Russo Brothers, who previously directed two of my favorite MCU movies, Winter Soldier and Civil War.  This absolutely feels crafted by and for fans. The Russos manage to do some amazing things with this movie.  In a story that includes almost 70 characters, each one is given their moment, and no one feels shorted. The action set pieces are absolutely incredible, and the fight scenes with different heroes working together who have not previously are astounding. The stakes feel real, and yes, the story is heavy, but they still find the time to have several humorous fun moments – especially when teams of heroes who have not yet met first encounter one another.  I could watch the over-sized egos of Dr. Strange and Tony Stark snipe at one another for hours.  I could also watch hours of the Guardians of the Galaxy meet other heroes. 

The story was written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and they managed to do something I was really not prepared for – they make Thanos layered.  As I said, in the comic, I found him boring and one-note.  This movie is really a Thanos movie – he is the star – everything else happens around him.   The writing, plus the incredible visual translation by the Russos and the amazing performance by Josh Brolin actually give Thanos a few moments where he is a sympathetic character, where he mourns the sacrifices he has made to get to this point, and where his goal seems almost noble (almost).   

• Brolin’s performance is absolutely the stand-out for me, it is all performance capture, so he was there on set in the pajamas with the dots on them to have the performance translated to the giant purple being that will become on-screen Thanos. 

The Avengers are all fantastic – and while they all get some time to shine, there are just a few who have stand out moments –

• Chris Hemsworth gets to show Thor at his very lowest – he’s lost his home, his hammer, his family, and he’s a bit lost. He meets up with the Guardians, gets a new weapon, and promptly shows his friends on earth how much stronger he’s become. 
• The Guardians:  Chris Pratt as Star Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Vin Diesel as Groot, Pom Klementieff as Mantiss, and Karen Gillan as Nebula are all wonderful in this movie.  They have really settled into their role as Guardians of the Galaxy at this point, which is about 4 years after the end of the last Guardians movie.  Their interactions are wonderful, and their introductions to other characters are even better – especially SpiderMan.

• Tom Holland continues to be the very best SpiderMan we have seen to date. He’s fun, he’s energetic, he’s helpful, and determined.  He also has one of the most emotionally powerhouse moments in the movie.
• Robert Downey Jr. continues to just be Tony Stark. Tony seems to be attempting to talk Pepper Potts into having a child at the beginning of this movie when Dr. Strange comes to get him.  Benedict Cumberbatch continues to make Dr. Strange more watchable every time we see him, and Benedict Wong is equally as wonderful as Wong.

• Mark Ruffalo gets quite a bit to do that is non-Hulk in this movie, whereas Ragnarok was a lot of Hulk.  Banner is tired and afraid, and Ruffalo’s performance is wonderful.
• Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany have taken the Scarlet Witch/Vision relationship to the point we knew it would get to when we first saw them catch each other’s eyes in Age of Ultron.  They have been stealing moments together when this movie kicks off, as Wanda is still on the run from the government after the events of Civil War and Vision is staying with Don Cheadle’s War Machine as government employee Avengers.

• Chris Evans’s Captain America continues to be the heart and soul of the Avengers, and really helps to move the story along. His first appearance in this movie is the one that got the second loudest responses in my theater.  He shows up with Anthony Mackie’s Falcon and Scarlett Johanssen’s Black Widow - we can assume they were helping random folks under the radar while on the run.

•  The loudest response in my theater was when Cap says he ‘knows a guy’ who can help, and the team heads to Wakanda.  The reappearance of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, Danai Gurira’s Okoye, Letitia Wright’s Shuri, and Winston Duke’s M’Baku was a real highlight.  They also unfreeze Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier just in time to get a new arm and help out.

• The Black Order, Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw, Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight, and Michael James Shaw as Corvus Glaive, are intimidating and cool. I could have used a little more of them, but they do get some awesome battle moments.

Overall, if you loved the movies up to this point, you will love this one. If you were a casual fan of the others, and maybe haven’t seen all of them, parts of this will be overwhelming and confusing.  If you haven’t seen any of the others, and are going into this cold – you won’t enjoy it as much, but there is still plenty in it that you will like.  Yes, it’s long, but I didn’t feel the length.  Thor getting his new weapon was the only bit I felt that dragged a bit, so I would have trimmed that down, but everything else moves quickly, even the quieter moments.  The story is impressive, the cast overwhelming, and the weight of the finale real.  Now, slight spoiler here – yes, it has a very Empire Strikes Back type ending, but no worries, Avengers 4 will be out in a year’s time, and between now and then we have Ant Man and the Wasp in July and Captain Marvel in March.  Guardians 3, Black Panther 2, and Spiderman 2 are all confirmed, and there are many other MCU movies in the works.  So, yes, this one ends heavy – but no worries!  Everything will be okay – ish.

11 out of 10 – it’s damn near perfect.

 Bonus - This cast is awesome.

Movie Review: Ready Player One (PG13 – 140 minutes)

Ernest Cline released the novel Ready Player One in 2011. The story is set in the 2040s as Wade Watts in on a search for an Easter Egg left in the Oasis by its creator, James Halliday. Whoever finds it will gain control of the Oasis, and much of Halliday’s company.  Wade is out to get it to keep the Oasis free for everyone, and Nolan Sorrento is out to find it for his company, IOI, so that they can monetize the Oasis.  The book is filled with pop culture references and connections, and due to being set almost entirely in a virtual world, seemed like it would be very difficult to transition to a movie.

The movie Ready Player One is directed by Steven Spielberg and is similar to the book, but with some major changes. It’s still 2045, and Wade (and the rest of humanity) still spends just about all their time inside the Oasis - a virtual world that everyone uses for school, work, and recreation.  In it, you can be anyone or anything you want once you create your Avatar.  You can then collect coins and relics to add to your Avatar's abilities and skills.  

It’s been five years since Halliday passed away, leaving a challenge to find the easter egg inside the Oasis for his fans to find.  Wade spends the majority of his time looking for the egg (in the book, there are details about him also going to high school – that is completely eliminated from the movie).  The first challenge is a race, and the winner will find the first of three keys that open three gates that will lead to the egg.  During some of his research into the relationship between Halliday and his former business partner, Ogden Morrow, Wade finds a clue that leads him to an underground shortcut in the race, allowing him to win and receive the first key.

From there, Wade has to meet up with his fellow ‘gunters’ (egg hunters): Art3mis, Aech, Daito and Sho.  They go from working independently to working together to ensure that Nolan Sorennto and his ‘sixers’ will not win. 

The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg, who is actually mentioned several times in the book as the Halliday character is described as a huge fan of most of his movies. Spielberg changed several things, and tried to remove some of the references to himself – but honestly, it feels like he added some that were either not in the book, or just skimmed over.  I would have liked more information about the real world – the stacks, the decimation that lead to them and humans deciding to live mostly in the Oasis, but that really isn’t the point of this movie.  Other added differences seem to be there to make the story more cinematic.  For example, the three challenges to find keys in the book are mostly playing games or acting through movies.  In the movie, there is a giant car race facing off with King Kong and a trip through the Shining hotel.  It did seem more cinematic, but also a little less character-based. 

• Tye Sheridan plays Wade (Parzival).  It took me a minute to realize that he is also new Cyclops, but that is why the bottom half of his face looks so familiar. He’s just fine in the roll, making Wade genuine and earnest, despite a fairly desperate existence. 

• Olivia Cooke plays Samantha who goes by Art3mis in the Oasis.  She is less developed than her book counterpart (always an issue in an adaptation), and is leading a bit of a rebellion in the movie.

• Ben Mendelsohn plays Sorrento, continuing to add to his cadre of villains. Sorrento is in it for the money, and doesn’t really care who gets in his way.

• Lena Waithe plays Helen, and goes by Aech in the game.  Aech is Wade’s best friend and fellow gunter, despite never having met in the real world.

• T. J. Miller plays I-Rok, a guy who helps Sorrento get the goods on Parzival, who looks extremely intimidating, but sounds like T.J. Miller.

• Simon Pegg plays Ogden Morrow, who was Halliday’s business partner, and seems to still be keeping an eye on things.

• Mary Rylance places Halliday, and does a good job of making the real Halliday unsure around other people but his game character, Anorak, all knowing and wise.

• Win Morisaki and Phillip Zhao play Daito and Sho, the other two members of the “high five”.
• Hannah John-Kamen plays F’Nale Zandor, a character I do not believe was in the book at all, and seems to be the ‘muscle’ for Sorrento.

Overall, the movie is entertaining, but I did prefer the book.  A lot of people are saying that the movie makes the story more action-packed and faster moving. I think that eliminated the character background of just about everyone, but does still make for an entertaining movie.

6 out of 10 – it’s just fine, it's fun and entertaining and I think if I hadn’t read the book first, I would probably like it a little bit more.

Movie Review: Rampage (PG13 – 107 minutes)

In 1986, an arcade game called Rampage debuted that featured humans mutated into giant monsters (George, a gorilla; Ralph, a wolf; and Lizzie, an alligator) that then had to battle through a city-scape, causing as much destruction as possible.  Why wouldn’t you want to make a movie from that?

In this movie version of Rampage, we start with an astronaut attempting to make it to the escape pods on a space station as one of their ‘experiments’ has gotten loose and killed just about everyone.  Her boss down on earth – Claire Wyden – is refusing to allow her into the escape pod unless she brings the samples of the pathogen they were experimenting with.  She just barely escapes the experiment, a former rat – current giant scary monster. She gets the samples into the escape pod, but the pod burns up on reentry.  Claire tells her brother that’s no big deal, since the canisters were made to withstand that. All they have to do is go pick them up.

We are then introduced to the Rock, or Davis Okoye in this movie.  He’s a former US military solider, former anti-poacher specialist, and current San Diego Wildlife Park primatologist (of course he is).  He rescued an albino gorilla from poachers, and now cares for him at the park.  After a bit of a cutesy scene where we see the close relationship between Davis and George, the gorilla, we cut to the evening and the canisters landing from the space station.  In San Diego, George is exposed to one of them – in Wyoming, a wolf is exposed to another – and in Florida, an alligator eats the third – because alligators eat just about anything.

George grows crazy big and gets atypically aggressive.  Dr. Kate Caldwell, a genetic engineer who used to work at Energyne for Claire Wyden and her brother, hears about the space station explosion and George’s rapid growth on the news and heads right for Davis (convenient newscast that has all the pertinent information she needs).  She explains to him that while at Energyne, she had been working on gene manipulation – compiling traits from various species to find a cure for various diseases.  The Wydens weaponized it for profit, and she tried to sabotage her work, but they had her arrested and jailed instead. The Wydens send a team of the most alpha-males dudes they can find out to Wyoming to bring in the wolf. To say they are unsuccessful is an understatement. 

Meanwhile, a shady government operative, let’s just call him Negan, shows up to try to take George from Davis for “studying”.  The Wydens release a low-frequency signal from the Sears Tower (or Willis Tower, depending on how old you are) in downtown Chicago that will bring the creatures to them, and therefore save them the effort of looking for them.  George and the Wolf head to Chicago – but no one counts on the giant alligator also making its way there.   Once in Chicago, the three cause insane amounts of destruction as the city is being evacuated until (mild spoiler here) Davis and Kate are able to give George (in a hilarious method of force-feeding) a semi-antidote, and he promptly helps Davis fight the other two in an epically insane creature-destruction climax.

This movie is directed by Brad Peyton, who also worked with the Rock in Journey 2 the Mysterious Island and San Andreas.  Rampage is similar, and Peyton has really started to emerge as a guy who can cause CGI damage with the best of them.  The movie is complete nonsense, but also manages to be great fun.  The Rock is so entertaining to watch, and honestly, his interactions with George are fantastic.  The movie feels like a SyFy Saturday night creature feature, just with a bigger budget.  Everyone involved seems well aware of the level of silly – and commits to being so genuine they are almost over-the-top, which works well with this type of insanity.  

• Dwayne Johnson – The Rock plays the Rock, who for some reason is called Davis Okoye in this movie.  He’s charming, he’s fun, he’s lovely to look at, and he’s best in this type of movie that can capitalize on his action-capability as well as his personality.

• Naomie Harris plays Dr. Kate Caldwell, and she stays just on the edge of hysterical as someone who is desperate for redemption after realizing what the Wydens were doing with her research.

• Malin Akerman plays Claire Wyden, and what an exceptional villainess. She’s basically moustache twirling as she strides around her office being far more concerned with optics and profits than with any animal or human life.

• Jake Lacy plays Brett Wyden, Claire’s brother, who is basically there to help reinforce her evil-ness and eat things.
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Negan playing Harvey Russell.  Honestly, this movie could play as a Negan backstory as he cowboys his way through it, then saunters off with an infected rat. Negan started the apocalypse.

• Joe Manganiello has maybe two scenes where he attempts to out-badass a group of badass mercenaries (including Matt Gerald and Urijah Faber) as they are sent out to get the wolf, but then promptly gets eaten.

• Will Yun Lee has one scene as Agent Park, who comes to the Wydens’ office to collect their research and inform them they are under investigation.  This is not nearly enough Will Yun Lee for me, but it’s about the same amount of Will Yun Lee that was in San Andreas. 

Overall, the movie is perfect Saturday afternoon popcorn fare. Be sure not to think too much about it, and just go in ready to be entertained and I think you’ll enjoy it.  There are a couple of scenes that are too heavy for the rest of it – Kate’s backstory, George’s backstory, and that can make it a little uneven tone-wise.  I really enjoyed the scenes of all three monsters tearing around downtown Chicago, especially the reveal of the giant alligator as it overturns a ferry.

7 out of 10 – Sometimes it is nice to have something that does not pretend to be more than it is!

Bonus - In case you missed San Andreas:

Retro Movie Review: Top Secret! (PG – 90 minutes – 1984)

Out of the country trips sure do cut into my movie-viewing time!  I just returned back from an amazing trip to China with my dance troupe (check us out at http://www.TamarindTribalBellydance.com – and come visit us for Tribal Union this August), and so I haven’t been to the theater lately, but Top Secret was on TV recently, which reminded me just how much I love it.

The Brothers Zucker (David and Jerry) along with Jim Abrahams, were responsible for some of the zaniest spoof comedies on record, including the Naked Gun Series, Hot Shots, and Airplane!

One the very first – after the Police Squad TV series – is the movie Top Secret!  It is a spoof of spy movies, and features Val Kilmer in his first film role as an American Rock and Roll singer who accidentally gets caught up in an espionage tale.

Nick Rivers is a very popular American rock star in the 40s, with hits like Skeet Surfin’.  He is traveling to East Germany to perform at a cultural festival.  Unbeknownst to him, the festival is serving as a front so the East Germans can reunite the country under their harsh rule.  While at dinner, Nick meets Hillary Flammond, a member of the resistance.  He pretends to be her date, and later encounters her at a ballet, where he saves her from the police but is captured.  While captured, he accidentally meets Hillary’s father, who is a great scientist being forced to create a weapon. To avoid an international incident, Nick is told to perform and rescued immediately after by Hillary, who takes him to meet the rest of the resistance.  Nick has to deal with an ex-boyfriend of Hillary’s, a group of resistance fighters, an attempt to rescue Dr. Flammond, and a traitor (gasp!).

Honestly, the plot does not matter, as with all ZAZ movies, you are not watching for the plot, you are watching for the insane gags that happen between the storylines. This one includes many: the giant phone, the “Find Him And Kill Him” stamp, the chinstrap, the little German, the little horse, the backwards bookstore, Déjà Vu thinking he’s met someone before, and Chocolate Mousse’s high five.  It’s absolutely insane, but the perfect movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon with popcorn when the weather is too questionable to venture out.

• Val Kilmer is young and charming – and does all his own signing, of which there is plenty.  He sounds a bit like young Elvis, and is just fantastic. 

• Lucy Gutteridge plays Hillary Flammond, and is the perfect over-the-top serious to counter Kilmer’s earnest silly.

• Peter Cushing, yes Grand Moff Tarkin, plays the Swedish bookstore owner. And get this – the cast that was made of his face for the magnifying glass gag was used to help digitally recreate him for Rogue One. 

• Christopher Villiers plays Nigel, Hillary’s ex-boyfriend who mysteriously resurfaces as the head of the resistance, determined to do some good for the cause – or is he?

• Michael Gough – one of the top three Alfreds – plays Dr. Paul Flammond.

• Jim Carter plays Déjà vu and Eddie Tagoe plays Chocolate Mousse, two members of the French resistance and easily two of the best-named characters ever.

• And Omar Sharif plays Agent Cedric.  Omar Sharif!

Overall, if you haven’t seen it, but you love Airplane and Hot Shots, you need to check it out.  In fact – write off the whole evening and watch Airplane, this movie, and Hot Shots right after one another.

8 out of 10 – non-stop nonsense.

Bonus – Hot Shots! Watch Lloyd Bridges steal every scene... that Cary Elwes didn't already steal.