brendanrmorrow Reviews

Sinister 2 (2015)

Much better than I expected

[7/10 · 22 August 2015]

Sinister is one of my favorite horror films from the past few years, so when the reviews for this sequel started coming out, I was really disappointed. I mean, it has a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time that I'm writing this. But after going into the movie with an open mind, I actually thought it was surprisingly solid, a whole lot better than the reviews would have you believe.

When Sinister 2 was originally announced, I was pretty skeptical. The original focused so heavily on a mystery that was solved by the end, so how do you make another one when we already know what's going on? C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson pull that off by offering something totally different that still feels familiar. We follow the madness from a child's perspective this time, and that allows us to explore the rules of this universe in a really interesting way. In the first one we're begging for the Oswalt family to leave the house, but this time, we're begging for the family to stay in it. The formula is flipped around a bit, and while still being structured around a collection of film reels, Sinister 2 feels different enough to justify its existence.

It's also quite creepy just as the original movie was, although the atmosphere isn't as bleak and relentless this time. A whole lot of scenes take place during the day and just consist of a lot of dialogue, and it was definitely missing the Scott Derrickson touch in some places. Sinister 2 also relies on jump scares a bit more than its predecessor did, and in fact nearly every single scare in the movie is accompanied by a loud noise. They all worked on me, so I didn't mind too much, but I wish I could say the scares in this one were as inventive as they were the last time.

But overall, Sinister 2 does a really solid job of building on the first one. The plot is far more interesting than I expected, James Ransone and Shannyn Sossamon are both great, and the film reels themselves are all pretty fantastic (except for one that goes a bit over the top and just looks silly, but I won't spoil it). Best of all, while Mr. Boogie gets more screen time here, I never felt the added exposure made him any less terrifying, and luckily the franchise hasn't gone the Halloween route of explaining too much.

No, it's not as good as the original, but if you enjoyed that movie as much as I did, you should have a good time with Sinister 2.

Hollow (I) (2011)

One of the worst of its genre; a complete waste of time.

[2/10 · 16 March 2013]

I love found footage movies. I adored Paranormal Activity, and I'm a huge apologist for The Blair Witch Project as well as, recently, V/H/S. This gimmick, and it is definitely a gimmick, has potential to make for classic horror when put in the right hands.

That didn't happened here. Michael Axelgaard is the definition of the wrong hands.

Hollow is the worst found footage movie I've seen so far. It represents perfectly everything that's wrong with this gimmick, and how easily it can be abused.

Ideally, the first person format should be used to assist in the storytelling. With Paranormal Activity, the movie is all about creating a realistic setting, and much of the plot revolves around observing your room as you sleep. I can't imagine that as a traditionally shot film. It taking place on the protagonist's camera is important.

Movies like Hollow don't use this filmmaking style as a tool; they use it as an excuse.

It's an excuse to make your low budget, equivalent to that of a student film, seem less obvious; an excuse to never actually show anything substantial; an excuse to never fully develop your characters; an excuse to point the camera at someone's feet for minutes at a time and get away with it.

On top of that, nearly every single scare in Hollow is a fake out. The character will point the camera at something, or start to walk somewhere, and things will get quiet. Suddenly, the camera SUDDENLY CUTS to something else, or a bird will fly out.

These can be fun sometimes, but when the ratio of fake out scares to real scares is roughly 9 to 1, there's a serious issue. That number is probably too generous.

Now let's talk about the actual scares. What I mean by this is times we or the characters are frightened by something that turns out to be a real threat - the difference between a cat jumping out at you, and a monster jumping out at you.

I can recall maybe three in the entire film.

And who is the villain, exactly? The closest we get is a tree, which never actually does anything sinister (that skull on the poster is a complete lie), and a jacket. A character's coat becomes one of the major threats of the final act.

The rest of the film is a combination of useless filler scenes, mostly revolving around relationship drama that not even these actors seem to care about, and scenes of characters running around screaming as the camera points at the ground, with the viewer not being able to see anything.

The ending is puzzling. Not because it's surprising, but because it's so spectacularly unsurprising that you can't help but scratch your head. The movie forecasts exactly what will happen from the opening scene, and then by the end, it happens. And that's it. It never even attempts to offer anything else.

Hollow is essentially 90 minutes of watching vacation footage your douche bag kind-of-but-not-really friends shot while snorting cocaine and screaming about haunted trees.

But other than that, it was pretty good.

21 Jump Street (2012)

Unexpectedly hilarious and clever. 21 Jump Street subverts all expectations.

[9/10 · 17 March 2012]

21 Jump Street sounds like a terrible idea on paper: a big screen adaptation of an ABC TV series from the 80s. Was anyone really clamoring for that? Was there any reason to adapt that into a feature film in 2012? It sounds like just another example of Hollywood cashing in on an established franchise, akin to the decision to make a movie based on the board game Battleship. As it turns out 21 Jump Street is barely an adaptation, and it isn't just an excuse to capitalize on an old concept. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the team behind the brilliant and absurd Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, use the fact that nobody is too invested in the source material to their advantage, subverting all expectations for what a movie like this would be. The result is a smart, exciting and often hilarious action-comedy with real stakes and a surprising amount of heart.

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum star as Schmidt and Jenko respectively, two rookie cops who went to high school together, though belonging to different social circles. Jenko was the popular jock while Schmidt was the unpopular nerd. When they realize each has something the other one needs, a friendship sparks and they become partners. After a failed drug bust, they're reassigned to a special division when their police station decides to "revive a cancelled program from the 80s" (get it?). They're sent to a local high school undercover as students to investigate and bring down a drug ring. Despite identical titles, I don't know if we can even call this an adaptation of the show. While the TV show was primarily a drama, the film is essentially a satire of movies and shows like 21 Jump Street, fully aware of all of the clichés of its genre.

Writer Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) seems to have realized nobody really cared about a 21 Jump Street movie and instead decided to make something totally different. Early on, in a scene of dialogue that may as well have been delivered directly into the camera, a character explains that there aren't any original ideas these days and so we're stuck rehashing old concepts from the 80s to make a quick buck. In this way and many others, the movie is all about subverting your expectations, which based on this premise are probably very low. It's anything but a lazy cash grab, taking everything you know about buddy cop films and turning it on its head. It embraces the stupidity of its concept too, by constantly acknowledging that Hill and Tatum are way too old to be posing as high school kids, or by having Ice Cube play the stereotypical black police captain from every 80s movie ever, and then outright acknowledging that. In a hilarious early scene Schmidt and Jenko's roles are reversed, with the jock forced to pose as the nerd and the nerd posing as the jock. 21 Jump Street thrives on the unexpected.

Many were initially unsure how Channing Tatum would perform, as he is an actor who has never headlined in any major comedies before. While Jonah Hill is without a doubt the star, having had tons of experience in films like Superbad and Knocked Up, Tatum does a fine job as well and the two actors have great chemistry together. In movies like this with two main leads, the rapport between them can make or break the film. With 21 Jump Street, it absolutely makes it.

That's ultimately why the movie works as well as it does. Any successful comedy needs real stakes. Otherwise, it just feels like a series of Saturday Night Live sketches with no real purpose. A few years ago, Superbad was extremely successful not just for being a goofy and raunchy comedy, but also for having a believable high school friendship at its core. Similarly, 21 Jump Street works because the friendship between its protagonists feels real, and as a result there are real emotional stakes to go along with the satire. Driving this silly, raunchy comedy is a truly interesting story about popularity and friendship in high school, and about how you might act differently if you could go back as an adult. It's easily the funniest comedy in well over a year, but it's not just a vehicle for jokes: 21 Jump Street tells a great story, too.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller seem to love surprising us. As with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street is a movie nobody expected to be great. Its brilliance lies in the fact that it knows all of your complaints ahead of time. Think it sounds like a cheap cash crab based on an 80s property? They make a joke about that. Think Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are too old to play high school kids? They make a joke about that too. It's extremely clever and always two steps ahead of the audience. But what really stands out about 21 Jump Street is that it's not just an enjoyable and hilarious time at the theater, it also tells a genuinely interesting and emotionally compelling story, developing its characters in a way you probably wouldn't anticipate from a raunchy high school comedy.