Joshua_Penczek

Borderlands feels like a complete trainwreck. It's already being reported that film suffered from extreme studio meddling, and you can see it just by watching it, even with your eyes closed. It feels like two very different movies slapped together; one is a gritty post-apocalyptic Mad Max type flick with sleazeball and reprehensible characters, while the other a family friendly poor-man's Marvel rip-off with quirky humor and lol-tastic improv dialogue. I've read that Roth made an R-rated movie that was heavily refit into a PG-13 movie due to last-minute rewrites and reshoots helmed by Deadpool director Tim Miller. I wasn't there, but I am fully willing to believe it's all the truth.

Based on what I saw, I'd speculate that half of the movie is comprised of Miller's reshoots. One scene will have an giallo horror sensibility to it similar to everything Roth has done, while the next will look like Deadpool. One scene will look very grandiose and impressive, but the next scene will have Sharkboy & Lava Girl levels of green screen CGI. Obviously, some scenes had time to be perfected and others weren't, but so much of the movie looks awful that I believe Miller's last-minute reshoots take up more than what the studio is letting on.

The jokes are incredibly pedestrian, the story is as typical as they come, the action scenes are so-so. These characters have all been done better before, mostly in the Marvel movies that this one is clearly imitating, and when the special effects are bad, they're really, really bad. I'm not sure if it's one of the worst things I've ever seen, but it is a complete mess, and it very much feels like two different movies stitched together. It feels very much like, as a lot of people predicted, poor-man's Guardian of the Galaxy.

I wouldn't say Roth is off the hook, as even when it's his movie, it's still not that great. He's the one who hired this cast of actors who do not fit their roles whatsoever. Hart is annoying as usual, I'm not sure if Jaimie Lee Curtis knew what she was doing, Cate Blanchett feels like a church mom trying to be cool and it only works on occasion, and Jack Black's Claptrap could've been voiced by anyone else. I think Ariana Greenblatt worked well but that's about it. So maybe some of Roth's decisions brought the film down, but I'm willing to bet his gritty, sleazy R-rated version filled with violence and extreme gore would've been far more interesting and provocative than the final cut, which is a watered-down kid-friendly Deadpool clone. Maybe if the studio wanted a PG-13 MCU-type movie, they should've pitched that from the get-go instead of hiring an exploitation director to make a $100 million exploitation movie, and then go into panic mode to chop the film up into something it's not.

Don't hire a sushi chef to make sushi and then get mad when he doesn't make lasagna, and then don't bring in an Italian chef and give him 5 minutes to turn the sushi into lasagna, because it'll probably taste awful.

Poor John Carpenter cant seem to get a break. He makes films that are almost always disliked at first but eventually gain massive followings and critical reevaluations decades later. Why can't he just make a movie that's an instant hit? Ghosts Of Mars really hasn't gone under that reevaluation, as it's still usually considered his weakest film, but it's also his newest film, and maybe it just hasn't had the chance yet.

I think Ghosts of Mars is a very fun, silly, ridiculous film. People have complained that it's "not scary", but that has always astounded me because the film clearly is not trying to scary at all. It has Ice Cube and Jason Stathom spewing 80's-esque one-liners, a heavy metal soundtrack, Martians bouncing around all over the place, and tons of funny moments. Correct, there isn't a single scare in this film, but that's because it isn't a horror film, nor is it even remotely trying to be. It makes me wonder if John Carpenter had directed Austin Powers, would people be complaining that Austin Powers had not a single good scare? Because filmmakers can only make ONE kind a movie, right?

Carpenter is a great director and shoots this film very well. No shaky-cam action scenes, great stuntwork, and excellent special effects. While the fights are all clearly rehearsed and choreographed, you've gotta love how you can actually SEE the fights, unlike every action movie of the last 20 years where it looks like it was shot by Michael J Fox during an earthquake. The pace of the film works very well too.

I would never argue that Ghosts of Mars is a hidden masterpiece or high art, nor is it even close to Carpenter's top films, but I do think the film was misunderstood because everyone just blindly assumed 'the Halloween guy' would only make horror films. But even at his weakest, Carpenter's visual style and pacing was always at its A-game. I went into it thinking it would be a total trainwreck, but found myself having a good time. It's an incredibly goofy film and that's why I like it. Carpenter has done worse.

Illumination is a studio known for producing gutless, boring, paint-by-numbers, mass appeal movies that focus more on cute gimmicks and marketing than they do on actual storytelling and character development. If you've seen anything else from Illumination, you practically don't need to see this movie, because you can probably just predict every scene in your head and just about get it right. While The Grinch isn't Illumination's worst, it's still a thoughtless and emotionless product only meant to sell toys and theater tickets before charm and charisma.

Benedict Cumberbatch's Grinch is boring. I do like Cumberbatch and I did think he'd be great to voice the Grinch, but he's terrible in this movie. His voice doesn't match the character whatsoever, and does nothing to bring the character more to life. At least Jim Carrey put energy and emotion into his performance, whereas Cumberbatch sounds like he's disappointed about the small paycheck he's just been given. The Grinch himself is written in a way that pulls all punches and has to cave in to cutesy kids logic instead of a clever way that tells a good story. Instead of making The Grinch actually funny or interesting, they make him the typical 2018 grumpy hipster who's a good guy at heart but just needs his morning coffee. Making him a mostly good character really undermines the climactic payoff of him finally understanding the meaning Christmas towards the end.

Sadly, both the character and the overall movie as a whole share the same problems; it's boring, uninspired, and vanilla. Much like the character, the movie sucks out anything interesting in favor for playing it safe and selling toys. The music is even done by rapper Tyler The Creator, and even as a moderate fan of his work, the music here is terribly uninspired and obviously an attempt to make the film more hip. Most of the jokes are entirely predictable. Actually, the entire movie is predictable. I don't mean we've seen the original movies, I mean the film follows every generic story you'll ever see in a kids movie. The film feels more like it was written by a computer and less like a team of engrossed screenwriters. One of the film's running gags is the ex-popular 'screaming goat' meme...seriously, I thought that meme stopped being funny in 2013.

Truthfully, this film is not the worst thing to come out of Illumination. It may not be a good movie, but at least it doesn't completely bastardize and miseducate its message like The Lorax did, and at least it isn't as excruciatingly for-the-masses as Minions or The Secret Life Of Pets. The Grinch, as well as every single other Illumination Studios movie, is like a cute untamed puppy; it may urinate on your rug and chew up all of your shoes, but it's cute and looks at you with big puppy dog eyes and does silly things, so you don't punish it and let it slide when it really shouldn't be forgiven so easily. When are we as an audience going to stop letting these thoughtless movies slide solely because of their cuteness? Regardless, moms and kids alike will continue to enjoy these movies without the slightest care, simply because it's cute and nothing more.