The Twilight Zone (2019) -- Season 1 Episode 1 (The Comedian)

I remember seeing the coming attractions for the new Twilight Zone series.  I was excited until I realized that it was going to be on CBS All Access.  Granted, I also wanted to watch Star Trek: Picard, but it still wasn’t enough to get me to pay.  I don’t have a lot of money to spare.  Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, it looks like I have a free month to watch the first season.

Samir Wassan is the titular comedian.  He has an act about The Second Amendment that comes off more like a lecture than a comedy routine.  He gets no laughs.  That’s when he’s approached by a famous comedian, J.C. Wheeler.  J.C. hasn’t been seen for a while, but is apparently good enough that Samir asks for any pointers.

J.C. tells him that he has to put himself out there and he’ll get the laughs he wants.  But it comes with a catch.  He can never get that part of him back.  That might seem like an innocuous warning, but this is The Twilight Zone.  Nothing comes for free.

It starts simply.  Samir makes fun of Rena’s dog, aptly named Cat.  When he returns home to his girlfriend, Rena, she doesn’t recall ever having a dog.  All pictures of Cat are gone from Samir’s phone.  No one recalls Cat.

Therein lies the rub.  If he mentions a person’s name, that person disappears, but Samir delivers a popular routine.  Samir runs up against two further conditions.  First, he has to use the person’s actual name.  Sort of getting it right only to realize it might be an alias doesn’t work.  Second, he can’t use the same person twice.  He has to make a new person disappear each time he’s on stage.

At first, this seems great.  He can get rid of people he doesn’t like.  Fellow comedian Joe Donner hit a mother and child sitting at a bus bench.  When Samir makes Joe go away, the bus bench is restored and the mother and child are presumably still alive.

He goes through a list of people who wronged him, from bullies to a pervy school coach.  Eventually, he starts towards the petty.  He gets rid of Rena’s mentor.  She goes from being a lawyer to being a waitress.  He also makes her nephew disappear.  Not only does Rena not remember the nephew, but her sister is unable to have children.

Samir has an ethical debate.  He’s using people for his own advantage.  They did exist.  He remembers them.  But he’s the only one.  As J.C. points out, there’s no grieving mother.  No one really cares except for Samir.  When Rena finally calls him on it, there’s only one thing for Samir to do.

It might seem that this is exclusively about the Law of Unintended Consequences.  However, not each action has a downside that’s readily apparent.  Samir did save two people, which has to count for something.  Of course, just because we’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  We don’t know if Joe had kids or was helping people on the side.

It’s more about responsibility.  Samir points out that The Second Amendment states “well-regulated”, implying that not all restrictions are off limits.  The key here, though, is regulating yourself.  Samir doesn’t ever really try to hold back.  He’s aware of what he’s doing, but he does it anyway.  Sure, some good did come of it.  It’s not until the end that Samir realizes how much harm he’s caused, even if no one else knows it.  This is a solid entry for the new series.

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Dolittle (2020)

There seem to be a lot of movies lately that are meant to test the waters.  Maybe they’re setting up a TV show.  There might be a sequel planned.  It could be that the movie is an expensive advertisements for toys or dolls.  I don’t think this movie fits into any of those categories.  I think that somewhere along the line, someone had to say to an actor, “Yeah… I know.  I know… But you have one more movie in your contract.”

The story of Dr. Dolittle is fairly well known, even if it’s on a basic level.  It’s about a doctor that can talk to animals.  In this instance, Dr. John Dolittle and his wife are given a plot of land by Queen Victoria.  The two live there and treat all manner of animals until his wife dies.

The story begins years later when Tommy Stubbins accidentally shoots a squirrel.  Polly, a rather intelligent parrot, leads Tommy to Dolittle’s property, where he meets Carmel Laniado.  Carmel has been sent by Queen Victoria to summon Dolittle, as she’s fallen ill.

Carmel and Tommy find the house in disarray.  Dolittle has given up doing much of anything since the death of his wife.  He becomes motivated again when Carmel informs him that the property reverts to the Crown upon the death of The Queen.

So, Dolittle, Tommy and several animals have to find a book that contains the location of a magical fruit that can cure The Queen.  Of course, they’ll have setbacks and save her just in time.  Of course, what else would you expect from a family-friendly story that’s been done already?

“Done already” about sums it up.  There wasn’t anything particularly new or interesting in the movie.  It was sort of like someone took a pilot episode for a TV series and decided to make into a movie without really changing the script.

There’s very little character development and what development there is comes in very small increments.  Dolittle is a recluse who sort of learns to deal with people again after being nudged in that direction.  Chee-Chee is a scared gorilla that eventually manages to find some courage at exactly the right moment.

There’s not a lot of major violence.  In fact, when the squirrel is shot, I don’t remember seeing a lot of blood.  It might have been there, but I honestly don’t recall seeing any.  There are a few tense scenes, but everyone comes out all right.  It’s about as PG as I’ve seen in recent years.

I remember someone talking about the Sears/K-Mart merger, saying that you can’t combine two mediocre companies and get a better company out of it.  You’re just going to get a larger mediocre company out of it.  I find that this is the case with this movie.

I like Robert Downey, Jr.  I like a lot of the actors who voice the animals.  Everything about the movie is adequate.  I just don’t think that there are too many inspired elements to the movie.  It’s like someone was going to great pains to hit the all the marks exactly.  Nothing spectacular.  It’s like the goal was to make the most basic adaptation possible.  This is exactly the kind of movie you might show in middle school or high school if there’s a free day and you need something rather vanilla.

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Stuber (2019)

I remember someone once saying about the character, Frasier Crane, that no psychiatrist would ever act that way.  Any professional therapist would lose their license if they did a tenth of what Dr. Crane did during the run of the series.  This isn’t to say that the show wasn’t funny.  Much of the humor came from someone so intelligent being largely clueless.  The humor came from that disparity.

I don’t think that Stuber was going for that dynamic, though.  Vic Manning would seem to be your typical renegade police officer.  He shoots from the hip and maybe grunts out a few questions later.  The movie starts with Vic and his partner, Sara Morris, trying to take down Oka Tedjo, who sells drugs to kids.   Tedjo gets away, leaving Sara to die.

Cut to some time later.  Tedjo is still on the run.  Vic is still on the job, but his vision isn’t what it used to be.  This leads him to get laser eye surgery, which does require some down time.  Wouldn’t you know it?   Someone gets a lead on Tedjo, prompting Vic to spring into action.  Since he can’t drive, he has to rely on the Uber app, which his daughter thoughtfully installed for him.

Enter Stu, a driver with a 4.1 rating.  His main job is at a sports store; he does Uber for some extra cash.  Vic has Stu drive all over town looking for the next clue that will lead them to their target.  I doubt very much that any police department would allow an officer to put a civilian in the line of fire like this, to say nothing of paying for it.  But, here Stu is, desperately hoping for a five-star rating.

The main problem with the story is that there isn’t much of one.  Movies like Beverly Hills Cop had a pretty solid storyline.  This looked like someone wanted to see how closely they could stick to a template and still get greenlit.  I’d worry about giving away the plot, but anyone watching the movie could probably guess what’s coming next.

For instance, there are two running gags: Stu’s rating and Vic’s eyesight.  The entire reason Vic can string Stu along is the threat of a low rating.  (Stu states that dropping below a 4.0 average gets him kicked off the app.  I don’t know if this is true.)  The entire reason Vic even needs someone is that he literally can‘t see well past his nose.  There’s also Stu’s friend, Becca, who constantly calls him to hook up.  Stu promises that he’ll be right there, thinking that Vic couldn’t possibly need him that much longer.

The funny thing is that the movie doesn’t really feel like a rip off of a particular movie.  It’s more like the most basic entry possible into the genre.  This puts me in the awkward position of sort of liking it because I can’t find any particular fault with it.  It hit many of the marks, but was also kind of basic.

Vic and Stu get into a fight at the sporting-goods store, which sort of deals with toxic masculinity, but doesn’t do a great job of it.  Vic is also not a great father to his daughter, Nicole.  She’s thoughtful enough to put the app on her father’s phone.  Vic isn’t thoughtful enough to try to make it to his daughter’s art opening.  (He winds up there by chance.)

When I left the movie, I felt entertained.  However, it didn’t really have anything new or clever about it.  This isn’t going to make my list of top-ten police movies.  I don’t think it will make any of my top-ten lists.  It’s the kind of movie I’d tell you to rent if your Netflix queue is running low or Redbox is out of your first choice.  It’s probably going to be better than watching nothing, but I don’t expect you’d rent it a second time.

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Men in Black: International (2019)

I was so excited for a new Men in Black movie.  It didn’t have Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones in it.  Ok.  Fine.  That’s not the end of the world.  Emma Thompson’s there, offering some bit of continuity.  Frank the Pug has a cameo, as do The Worms, so there’s that.  Even thought it’s a mostly new cast, this could still work out.

The Men in Black are facing two threats.  One is from the Hive, an insidious organism that absorbs races rather than kill them.  The other is from an apparent mole in the organization.  When Agent M and Agent H are tasked with protecting an alien dignitary, said dignitary is killed under their watch.  Agent M is understandable, as she’s the probationary agent.  H is more experienced, although it doesn’t really show.

So, the two go off on a planet-wide adventure to figure out what’s going on and to protect the Earth from aliens that might do it harm.  Not everything is what it seems, though.  Friends might be enemies.  Enemies might be ordinary people just trying to protect themselves.

While the movie was fun, it didn’t quite capture the magic of the first three movies.  K was a straight man to J’s comedic personality.  The first three movies seemed to flow naturally as almost a single story.  This seems to be a case of trying one too many times.  Yes, it hits a lot of the marks, like fast action sequences and interesting aliens, but it’s just not the same.

Part of it might be that the first three movies had a clear enemy.  (Edgar the Bug, Serleena and Boris The Animal, respectively.)  The Hive is a little too amorphous and hidden to be taken seriously.  I get that having your own people pose a threat is something in itself, but the movie focused too much on the chase scenes and not enough on any real sense of urgency.  Agents M and H get to spend the night in the desert repairing an alien motorbike.

I also get that the stories for J and K had an arc and that arc came to an end, but it seems kind of sudden to simply replace them as lead characters.  It might have worked better to replace one or the other first.  Having cameos by other characters isn’t enough.  It’s too much of a clean break to really carry the momentum.

The London branch seems like a pale comparison of the New York branch.  How, exactly, did H become an agent, anyway?  He seems too laid back to be taken seriously.  I get that he does have skills, but the first time we see him, he’s “meditating” on the job.

While we’re at it, it’s evident that there are more than 26 agents.  New York didn’t seem to have that many agents and could have done with letters for names.  London has a lot of people.  Do they reuse letters?  MIB 3 had an agent AA, if I recall, but all of the characters shown on screen have a single letter: Z, J, K, O, M, H or C, for instance.  It’s also possible that people just use their first initial.  James D. Edwards became Agent J.  Molly Wright became Agent M.  Dealing with two agents with the same letter might be like dealing with two agents with the same name.  It also might explain why Liam Neeson’s character is called High T.

There are a few other issues that I have with the movie, some of which can’t be asked without spoiling the ending.  While it was a fun movie to watch, I was a little let down.  It’s just not the same.  I suppose another installment might do better, but this could very well be a case of a franchise going one movie too far.  It might have been better to leave well enough alone.

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