NY_Georgie

"Heads of State" is a loud and dumb Action / Comedy with a whole lot of "Odd Couple" Buddy Movie tropes thrown in. In this case, those mismatched buddies happen to be the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister. They might bicker like a married couple, but boy, they can kick some ass.

The movie aims low, which is frustrating. There was an inkling of a good movie in here.

John Cena plays Will Derringer, a former movie star who rides his box office popularity to an improbable election as Commander-in-Chief. He's still in the honeymoon phase of his young term and his approval ratings are at historic highs.

Idris Elba plays Sam Clarke, the Cambridge-educated Prime Minister who worked his way up through the army and Parliament. In his sixth year in office, Clarke has dealt with his share of crises, political battles & economic downturns, and his polling numbers are suffering because of it.

The two leaders meet for their first joint press conference and it does not go well. President Derringer is boorish, smug and shallow. One of my criticisms of the film is that the Cena character is too unlikeable; it's as if "Ricky Stanicky" was the President.

The two mismatched world leaders agree to a joint trip to Poland on Air Force One motivated by the 'smile-and-wave' photos that will generate good global publicity. They get way more than they bargained for when the plane is attacked by a band of global assassins. Derringer and Clarke are forced to bail out somewhere over Belarus and that sets up the meat of the movie: alone, the two Heads of State must work together to unravel a global conspiracy to assassinate them and disband NATO.

What a great film this could have been if they played it smart. Idris Elba is perfect as the world-weary Prime Minister, until the script has him running around firing assault rifles.

The action is as implausible as a Tom & Jerry cartoon. There's a scene where Cena and Elba are on Air Force One shot full of holes and 40,000 feet in the air. In front of a gaping hole, the two dangle horizontally, clinging precariously to the top of airplane seats and never get sucked out of the plane. Just one of many ways 'Heads of State' defies physics and logic.

The film opens with a huge shoot-em-up at the famous Tomato Festival in Spain in a scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the film.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays an operative who can kick butt and who once had an affair of the heart with Prime Minister Clarke.

I did like Carla Gugino in a supporting role as the Vice-President.

The film pokes fun at President Derringer's acting career starring as the Venim in Denim in the schlocky 'Water Cobra' franchise. 'Heads of State' is equally as schlocky."

I liked the first M3gan film; the sequel not so much.

Clearly, M3gan the doll-bot needs a factory reset if they want to revive this franchise.

'M3gan 2.0' seems to be a cynical money-grab as if the Blumhouse wanted to rush this into theaters before film-goers forgot about the titular doll that goes haywire.

Allison Williams returns as Gemma Forrester, M3gan's creator. After her Frankenstein monster wreaked havoc in the first film, Gemma has since rehabilitated her image (somewhat) by becoming an advocate for laws governing AI.

But there's a new robot threat on the scene: AMELIA is a military-grade destruction machine powered by AI. With her high cheek bones and spiky blonde hair, AMELIA looks a whole lot like Pom Klementieff, who plays the assassin in the 'Mission Impossible' movies.

With AMELIA now a national threat, what can possibly stop her? Gemma and her team decide to reboot M3gan to take down the bigger threat.

M3gan essentially turns good, or - to use a wrestling term - 'turns babyface'. This is exacty what happened in the Terminator franchise, one of many ways 'M3gan 2.0' feels unoriginal.

There's some technobabble about artificial intelligence that's as shallow as a kiddie pool. And the strained relationship between Gemma and niece Cady (Violet McGraw) is given short shrift.

The main event is clearly the Rock 'em Sock 'em Bot Battle between M3gan & AMELIA but that was a main course that was unsatisfyng.

Here's hoping for better writers and a much better script for the seemingly inevitable 'M3gan 3.0'. In keeping with the franchise's theme maybe they'll use AI. Anything would be an improvement.