"Disclosure Day" - I want to believe.

The idea has been around for decades that the government has been hiding proof of the existence of aliens. Specifically, that aliens have visited Earth. Just recently, the Pentagon released a bunch of declassified files about UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) investigations that proved exactly as much as every other information release regarding UAP (renamed from UFO some years ago). In a word - nothing. Personally, I do not believe that aliens have ever visited Earth. Definitely not since human beings invented civilization. I'm definitely open to the possibility, on the condition that any evidence presented is clear and irrefutable. But the biggest reason I don't think aliens have been here is because it requires me believing that they crash their spacecraft. Crash them a lot.

Disclosure Day is what all the alien conspiracy theorists dream of. It's the day we find out that aliens have been zipping around the skies of Earth for years. It's the day we find out the government knew about the aliens, even captured some of the aliens. It's the day we see the "real" video of UFO/UAP encounters; clear and detailed images of extraterrestrial craft and biologics rather than grainy videos of glowing orbs or flocks of seagulls. It's the day we confirm that despite wildly advanced technology allowing aliens to travel vast distances and defy the laws of physics, they crash more often than a drunk, fully self-driving Tesla.

Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) is a cybersecurity specialist working for the Wardex corporation. Daniel has stolen copies of all of their files related to the existence of aliens, as well as a piece of alien technology. Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) is the head of Wardex and wants his stuff back. Daniel is working in league with another Wardex employee named Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) to release all of the information to the public. After a botched attempt to trade Daniel his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) for the alien stuff, Daniel and Jane go on the run from Noah while Hugo finishes setting something up in preparation for the information release. It's a story and plot we've seen in countless other films, but director Steven Spielberg (also wrote the story) and writer David Koepp aren't content with just that.

Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is a meteorologist in Kansas City who wants more out of life than TV weather girl. When a cardinal flies into her apartment and looks at her, she gets what she asked for. She starts reading minds and speaking different languages, including an alien language while on air doing the local forecast. When that video goes viral, Noah and friends see it and immediately set out to capture Margaret. So too does Hugo, once he's clued into the video. Once all of these people are in motion, we find ourselves engrossed in a classic Spielberg film.

You know what I’m talking about. Clear goals and motivations for the characters. Steady pacing to build drama all the way to the climax. A well-defined plot that’s easy to follow. Actors delivering good performances, if not great performances. On that note, shout out to Hewson for some excellent work in the second act of the film. She’s asked to shapeshift (I won’t say how) and she does a remarkably good job going back and forth.

And of course, the special effects and musical score are top shelf. Close your eyes for a second and you immediately recognize music that can only come from John Williams. Then, open your eyes and soak in the beautiful visuals and long takes, including a four-minute take where Blunt vocalizes the alien language...with no SFX or AI assistance. Things like this are why we always show up for Spielberg films.

A friend that came with me was really interested in seeing the film. What I didn’t know prior to inviting him was that he hadn’t been to a movie theater in over a decade. When we sat down, he was surprised to find reclining chairs and plenty of legroom. The look on his face was one of joy. When the credits rolled, I asked him if this movie was worth returning to theaters for and that look was still there as he emphatically said it was well worth it. I may not believe aliens have visited Earth, but I believe in the power of Spielberg.

Rating: Worth every penny, conspiracy theory or not.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” - Off the rack.

In the eighteen years I’ve been reviewing movies, I’ve seen plenty of sequels that should not have been made. I’m sure there’s a timeline in the multiverse where Super Troopers 2 was hilarious and Independence Day 2 wasn’t embarrassingly stupid. We are in neither of those timelines. Nor are we in the timeline where someone made a version of The Devil Wears Prada 2 that didn’t make you go “why?”

It’s been twenty years since The Devil Wears Prada was released in theaters. That’s plenty of time for someone to have written an interesting sequel, show it to their friend, and their friend to roll it up, smack that writer upside the head with it, and say “no.” The Devil Wears Prada was a really good movie and a surprise smash at the box office. And it certainly didn’t leave any questions at the end for audiences to wonder about for two decades.

The biggest mistake when making sequels is misunderstanding why audiences loved the originals. The Devil Wears Prada didn’t appeal to audiences because of a fictitious fashion magazine or pretty clothes, it appealed to audiences because of the characters themselves. Both the hero, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), and the villain, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), were exceptionally well-written and well-developed characters. And the way the movie ends both of their story arcs is perfection. If the original movie had been called The Devil Wears Rawlings, Miranda was the general manager of a Major League baseball team, and Andy was Miranda’s young assistant, the rest of the movie could have unfolded the same way and been just as well-received.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 falls right into the trap of thinking the fashion magazine part matters. Now a seasoned journalist, Andy is hired back to the magazine to run the features section to rehabilitate the magazine. Except this time, Andy has no arc. She learned everything she needed to learn in the first movie. Now, she’s just trying to figure out how to save the magazine because it’s 2026 and nobody reads any more.

Same goes for Miranda. Her arc in the first movie was all about establishing and proving how devilish she was. Yes, she showed a teeny, tiny affection for Andy by the end, but that was out of respect for Andy growing a spine. In the sequel, Miranda is still head of the magazine, but she’s far less mean because the screenwriter thought it would be funny if Miranda was forced to be more politically correct and nicer. Just, gross.

Another sequel trap it falls into is trying to retread parts of the first film. The sequel tries to rekindle the same dynamic between Miranda and Andy, the tyrannical boss and terrified subordinate, but it falls flat for the reasons mentioned above. Not to mention Andy isn't a fresh college grad eating shit as a glorified intern just for a good recommendation for later employment. And, like I said, Miranda is being forced to be nicer, literally by her first assistant Amari (Simone Ashley), which not something any of us want to see. Other retreads that hit in much weaker ways are Nigel (Stanley Tucci) picking outfits for Andy, a sequence where Andy is trying to make the impossible happen (actually, two sequences), and Miranda trying to dismiss Andy's work on multiple occasions.

But the scene that proved how little the filmmakers understood of what made the first movie great was when Andy shows up for her first day of work. She walks into Miranda's office with a huge smile on her face, practically squealing with delight, and she greets Miranda and Nigel as if they are close sorority sisters Andy hasn't seen in years. There was no scenario where Miranda was going to light up with glee at the sight of Andy and Andy would never behave like this because Andy isn't an idiot. It's mindboggling to think that the director (David Frankel) and screenwriter (Aline Brosh McKenna) of this sequel served in those same roles for the original.

And in case you were wondering, Emily (Emily Blunt) returns in this film as well. Now, she's a senior executive at Dior and just as spicy and dry-witted as ever. The film tries to involve her where it can while also trying to establish a budding friendship between her and Andy. But like everything else in this film, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of heart behind it. Some of that has to do with the direction they take her character and how it plays into the larger plot. But it seems more like the filmmakers didn't embrace the possibilities of that direction and just sort of settled for something decidedly meh.

The entire effort of this movie reminded me of when people try to recapture the magic of something that happened spontaneously by trying to force it to happen again. (And it never works.) You know what I'm talking about. A blowout college party happens and some people try to recreate that same party. A night out on the town where you and some friends woke up the next morning on a famous person's yacht. Or even just a family vacation where everything went exactly according to plan, the kids had tons of fun and zero fights, and nobody wanted to push an in-law off a ledge. In other words, I can see that the filmmakers thought they could, but nobody asked if they should.

Rating: Ask for thirteen dollars back, not because you could but because you should.

"The Smashing Machine" - Who dis?

I noted in my review of One Battle After Another that I had seen exactly none of director Paul Thomas Anderson's previous films. That is nearly the case with The Smashing Machine's director, Benny Safdie. I’ve seen exactly one of Safdie’s films - Uncut Gems. And I hated Uncut Gems. A lot. Apparently, I hated it so much that I my subconscious made me forget to include it in my 2019 Year in Review.

I didn’t know Safdie was the director of The Smashing Machine until after I watched the movie, so I wasn’t biased going into it. In retrospect, it makes total sense that it was directed by Safdie (this time directing solo). Uncut Gems came off like a naked attempt to see if Safdie (and his brother and co-director Josh) could yank an Oscar-worthy performance out of Adam Sandler. Many people thought they had, but I found the performance insufferable because I don’t enjoy watching someone scream-act their way through a film. The Smashing Machine also comes off like a naked attempt to see if Safdie can extract an Oscar-worthy performance, this time from Dwayne Johnson. Yes, that Dwayne Johnson.

I’m not alone in wondering why The Smashing Machine is a feature length film. I’m not even alone in wondering why it’s a film at all. It’s a biopic of a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter named Mark Kerr. Wait, who? Mark...something, who might be the most who? of MMA fighters ever. Everyone exiting the theater had the same question - why Mark Kerr? Wait, who? Something...Kerr? Exactly. Imagine someone making a movie about second baseman Marty Barrett of the 1986 Red Sox. Who indeed.

Kerr (Johnson) was an MMA fighter in the earlier days of MMA and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). And by earlier, I mean 1997-2009. The film focuses on the middle part of his career from 1999 to 2000, specifically two tournaments in Japan, as well as his personal life. It’s the point in his career where he was at his peak, then saw his career begin an unremarkable downward journey experienced by a million athletes before him.

The title implies that we’re going to get to see some of Kerr’s fights where he demolishes other human beings. And at first, we do. Briefly. In a shaky-cam, outside-the-ropes montage of Kerr fighting his way to an 11-0 record. Complete with commentary telling us how devastating he is because the footage showing it to us is hardly convincing. I expected to see Kerr standing over the bloody pulps of his vanquished foes, but instead we saw the same sweaty, mildly bloodied fight endings of most modern MMA/UFC fights. What we could see through the ropes, that is.

I thought maybe Safdie chose Kerr because Kerr was instrumental in the UFC gaining popularity, especially since this was during the time Congress and most states were trying to ban UFC and MMA fights altogether. But nope. The film makes a point of showing Kerr actively reject fighting in the UFC because Pride offered more money. Inspiring, no?

Maybe it was Kerr’s personal life that made him an intriguing sports subject? Again, not even close. As Tom Hanks’ character laments in That Thing You Do! - “it’s a very common tale.” Kerr is in a rocky relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt). Dawn seems bipolar, her emotions swinging wildly from doting and caring to gold-digger to instigator to suicidal. Mark seems like a gentle giant, saving his anger for the ring and straining not to punch Dawn into another timeline every time she picks a fight with him. And they fight. A lot.

Mark is also addicted to painkillers. Big surprise, right? We don’t know for how long he’s been addicted, but it’s definitely months, if not years, prior to his first failure in the ring in the first of the Japan tournaments we see. After that fight, his addiction spirals so much that he ends up in the hospital after an overdose. After recovering, he goes to rehab, gets better, and it’s back to fighting. That’s it. No real drama, no suspensions or sanctions from fighting, no match where he starts spasming and collapses into a pool of his own vomit while forty million people watch on Pay-Per-View. Just your typical, run-of-the-mill drug addiction quietly conquered by your typical, run-of-the-mill rehab. Like a million people before him.

So, seriously, why Mark Kerr? Best I can come up with is Kerr is such an aggressively average and uncomplicated human that Safdie was confident Johnson could definitely handle the range required to portray Kerr. Doesn’t hurt that 1999 Kerr and Johnson share the same body physique, though the prosthetics and makeup applied to Johnson’s head and face to make him look more like Kerr (and less like Johnson) was far more of a distraction than anything it might have added to the realism. It also didn’t help Johnson that Emily Blunt was brilliant, overshadowing Johnson in every scene, and made Dawn a more intriguing character than Kerr. Even the character of Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader), Kerr’s longtime friend and fellow fighter, was more interesting than Kerr. Coleman’s story follows the standard sports movie formula. He’s the grizzled, older underdog making a comeback – and unlike Kerr, Coleman wins.

As it turns out, this isn’t even the first film made about Kerr. This film appears to be a remake of a 2002 HBO documentary also titled The Smashing Machine. That documentary also focuses on the same time period (1997-2000) and hits the same beats, including Dawn and painkillers. However, the documentary was just 78 minutes long, whereas the new film is 123 long minutes. Even 78 minutes feels too long. This story is barely enough to fill an ESPN 30-for-30 episode (60 minutes) and it would be a very run-of-the-mill 60 minutes.

Rating: Ask for half of your money back, just like a million other people before you.

“The Fall Guy” - A successful stunt.

Let’s jump right into it...The Fall Guy is an exceptionally fun movie. If you enjoyed Tropic Thunder and Bullet Train, put your hands together. If you didn’t enjoy those movies, well...maybe you just hate fun. The Fall Guy director David Leitch and writer Drew Pearce definitely like fun.

Depending on how old you are, you might remember The Fall Guy television show that ran in the early 1980s. I barely do. I remember that the main character was a stuntman and I remember his truck (mostly because I had the Hot Wheels copy of it). When the theme song started playing in the theater as the movie began, I found myself singing along with it, already starting to have fun.

(Very mild spoilers ahead.)

That stuntman’s name is Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling). On top of his game as the stuntman for A-list action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), he’s also working with the love of his life on a daily basis, camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). When he suffers a near-fatal accident during filming, he disappears from everyone and his life, including Jody. Eighteen months later, old friend and film producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) tracks Colt down and convinces him to fill in as a stuntman in a movie called Metalstorm, goading him into it on the basis that the film is also Jody’s directorial debut. After wrapping up his first day on set, Gail pulls Colt aside and reveals that Tom Ryder has disappeared and she asks Colt to track him down.

When Gail tells Colt she believes Tom has gotten mixed up with drug dealers, the first question the audience asks is “shouldn’t this be a job for the cops?” In poorly written movies, this question is either completely ignored or answered in a way that makes you roll your eyes so hard your seat reclines. In The Fall Guy, the first question Colt asks Gail is “should you call the cops?” Yay! And the answer from Gail is logical and believable - “if the cops get involved, the studio will find out the movie is way over budget and missing its star and they’ll kill production and you wouldn’t want that to happen to Jody, would you?” Yay!

With that final bit of setup complete, the movie plunges right into why it exists in the first place - action, romance, and comedy in heaping piles of deliciousness. The action was the easy part. The Fall Guy being an ode to practical stunts and stuntmen, Leitch crammed as many practical stunts into the film as he could. Wild car chases, jumps to and from helicopters, fight scenes, shootouts, explosions, people set on fire, even a world-record breaking cannon roll (where an explosion causes a vehicle to roll multiple times). The best thing about the action is it all serves a purpose other than action for action’s sake. Sometimes it’s to move the romance plotline, sometimes it’s for the movie within the movie, and sometimes it’s moving the plot to find Tom forward. For anyone who complains about too much CGI, happy birthday.

The comedy part is just as good as the action. Sometimes, the action is also the comedy. In one scene, Colt is set on fire and blown into a large rock over and over again as Jody expresses her displeasure at Colt abandoning her after his accident. In another, it’s the fake weapons Colt and stunt coordinator/best friend Dan (Winson Duke) must wield to fend off some bad guys. And when the action isn’t providing the comedy, it’s provided by the actors, who are delivering wonderfully likeable and hilarious performances. You’ll be cackling at Taylor-Johnson delivering one of the big, climactic, inspirational, pre-battle speeches in his best exaggerated Matthew McConaughey accent, but not until after you nearly pee yourself during a split-screen scene between Blunt and Gosling. And all of this happens in the context of making fun of blockbuster movie productions, much in the way Tropic Thunder did.

Finally, there’s the romance, which is mostly an extension of the comedy, but elicits real emotions from the audience. While the relationship between Jody and Colt is presented as mostly light-hearted and airy, there are moments that come across as really genuine, even when the film is trying to keep the tone light. Go back to the scene with Colt being all-but tortured by Jody as she confronts his abandonment over and over again. She’s doing this to him in the form of shooting multiple takes of the scene, substituting her own emotions as her movie character’s motivations while directing the scene. Everyone involved in the scene knows what’s going on, even to the point of being supportive of doing the scene over and over again. Blunt portrays real hurt in Jody, Gosling portrays real guilt and sorrow in Colt, all while everyone is trying not to laugh as Colt is slammed aflame into a rock wall over and over. It’s brilliant and, yes, extremely fun to watch.

While there is still a load of movies left to see this year, I have a hard time believing any will be as entertaining as The Fall Guy (yes, I’m well aware Deadpool 3 is one of them). It’s a near perfect blend of great acting, clever writing, amazing stunt work, and just the right amount of self-awareness. I could have done without the forced cameos from Lee Majors and Heather Thomas that felt like an afterthought, but even the best stunt people don’t get everything perfect.

Rating: That much fun is worth double what you paid for it.