[31 Days of Horror 3] Day 2 – Leprechaun 3 (1995)

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Cast: Warwick Davis, John Gatins, Lee Armstrong, Caroline Williams, Marcelo Tubert, John DeMita, Michael Callan, Tom Dugan

Screenplay: David DuBos

90 mins. Rated R for some strong horror violence and gore, and a scene of sexuality.

I wanted to ensure that I got the time this season to review the best in horror. I wanted to review the highest-selling direct-to-video release of 1995. I wanted to talk about Warwick Davis’ favorite Leprechaun film. Though not the best in horror, Leprechaun 3 does lay claim to the rest of these accolades. But I wouldn’t call it good. I imagine that Lee Armstrong would agree with me, as she retired with only 3 acting credits to her name after completing this film. Let’s take a look.

Leprechaun 3 follow another greedy little Leprechaun (Warwick Davis, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) who is awakened in Las Vegas. He comes across college student Scott McCoy (John Gatins, Real Steel, Need for Speed) and magician’s assistant Tammy Larsen (Lee Armstrong, Magic Island). Now, with the Leprechaun’s wish-granting gold spread out among the casino, all bets are off. Scott and Tammy must track down a rare medallion capable to defeating the Leprechaun before Scott succumbs to a terrible curse.

This is bad, real bad. And, to be fair, it’s one of the best of the bad. But still bad. Real bad. The Leprechaun’s powers are never really outlined, and it seems like he should be unstoppable, but yet he is constantly kept at bay. Then, there’s the question of his mystical coins, which again, have never been seen to grant wishes, though I suppose this is a different Leprechaun than the ones seen in previous installments. And what about the weird sequence of events that begins when the Leprechaun bleeds green oozy blood all over Scott, causing him to slowly turn into the most hillbilliest of Leprechaun creatures. Where the hell did this come from? I can settle for the weird amulet that turns him back to stone, but the rest of this just comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere.

It’s bad. Real bad. But its fun. Just not real fun. Leprechaun 3 is the kind of film you would expect from this series. Not really getting great, but at least it isn’t worse. For now.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Mark Jones’ Leprechaun, click here.

For my review of Rodman Flender’s Leprechaun 2, click here.

October 2, 2016 1

[Happy 5th Birthday!] Date Night (2010)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Taraji P. Henson, Common, Mark Wahlberg

Screenplay: Josh Klausner

88 mins. Rated PG-13 for sexual and crude content throughout, language, some violence and a drug reference.

Steve Carell (TV’s The Office, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) and Tina Fey (TV’s Saturday Night Live, This is Where I Leave You) are comedic powerhouses with great chemistry, and in Date Night, from director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb), they get the chance to play with it, even with the screenplay’s excessive shortcomings.

Carell and Fey play the Fosters, Phil and Claire, and they need a new spark of romance in their lives. Their friends are getting divorced from a lack of love and they desperately want a date night to change it all, so when the tables are booked at the new restaurant, they take the table reserved for the absent Tripplehorns and enjoy their night. That is, until a case of mistaken identity leads to a seedy underworld of bad cops, worse mobsters, and a missing flash drive containing some very dangerous content and the Fosters have more on their plates than a missing spark.

Carell and Fey have tremendous chemistry and play so well off of each other, while director Levy controls the camera nicely lobbing back and forth between action and comedy. We also get some great cameo work from Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights, The Gambler), James Franco, Mila Kunis, and more.

The biggest issue here is from screenwriter Josh Klausner (Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter, The 4th Floor) and his disappointing script. It has a nice general outline; there are laughs here and action there, but rarely do the two meet on equal ground (the dual-car car chase is an exception) which doesn’t give the leads much to do to flash their creative abilities.

The leads perform quite admirable and carry the film much better than most others could, which help make Date Night a worthy view of a film, even if it suffers from pitfalls of a less-than-worthy screenplay.

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum, click here.

For my review of Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, click here.

April 6, 2015 1

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Ian McKellan, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom

Screenplay: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro

144 mins. Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images.

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the work that Peter Jackson (The Lovely Bones, King Kong) and his creative team has accomplished. Six films, two trilogies, and hours upon hours of extended editions have comprised the Middle-Earth Saga.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, TV’s Sherlock, Hot Fuzz) and the company of dwarves have just let the diabolical Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game, Penguins of Madagascar) loose on Lake Town. It’s up to Bard (Luke Evans, Dracula Untold, Fast & Furious 6) to stop the evil dragon and reclaim their lives. Tempers soon flair up as the treasures of Erebor are up for grabs and Thorin (Richard Armitage, Captain America: The First Avenger, Into the Storm), consumed by greed, has decided not to honor the agreement made with Bard and his people. Meanwhile, Gandalf (Ian McKellan, X-Men, The Prisoner) continues his battle against the dreaded Necromancer.

The finale to The Hobbit trilogy is a far different film from its predecessors, and with a very simple plot, revolves entirely around the Battle of the Five Armies, one of the biggest battles in Middle-Earth history. It is very similar to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, where the entire film revolves around the climactic ending as opposed to standing on its own. It is definitely my sixth favorite Middle-Earth film.

Ian McKellan is a torn Gandalf here, caught between his allegiance to the Company of Dwarves and his commitment to reason and peace. McKellan continues to impress.

Evangeline Lilly (TV’s Lost, Real Steel) is great as Tauriel here, the elf who has developed feelings for the poisoned dwarf Kili. Her relationship with Legolas (Orlando Bloom, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Three Musketeers) and his father Thranuil (Lee Pace, TV’s Halt and Catch Fire, Guardians of the Galaxy) are further delved into in this film and helps to increase her internal and external conflicts as the story progresses.

As far as the Company of Dwarves, we get more great but wholly underutilized work from Ken Stott (Shallow Grave, One Day) as Balin, the dwarf who will one day claim Moria, and James Nesbitt (Coriolanus, Match Point) as Bofur, the dwarf who, above all else, just wants his home back.

I also loved the continual references to future events and foreshadowing from The Lord of the Rings, like the cameo appearances from Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, How to Train Your Dragon 2), Ian Holm (Ratatouille, Lord of War), Christopher Lee (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Dark Shadows), and Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas). My only major issue was that I wanted more. Tolkien fans will know that Balin ends up in Moria with Oin, we know that Gloin has a son named Gimli, we know Saruman’s fate, but I wanted to see more in this film.

Director Jackson continues to prove he can handle action and large-scale battle sequences, the action here is incredible. His cinematography mixed with the amazingly well-put-together sequences, and Howard Shore’s deep and thunderous score.

It took me a while to really enjoy Billy Boyd’s final song, “The Last Goodbye,” but once I did, I really felt it tied together not just this film, but the trilogy and in fact the entire saga.

If you get the chance to watch Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance capture for Smaug and the Necromancer, do it. He is incredible to watch even without the CGI placed over it.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies isn’t Jackson’s best work, but it certainly is a perfectly fine finale to an epic series. I feel like the theatrical cut of the film is missing some key details, and I hope that the extended cut has the ability to expand this on the film and show us some more connective tissues.

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, click here.

For my review of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, click here.

For my review of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, click here.

January 12, 2015 8

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Alain Chabat, Robin Williams

Screenplay: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon

105 mins. Rated PG for mild action and brief language.

I avoided the sequel to Night at the Museum like the plague. I enjoyed the original film but thought to myself that a sequel can only harm that. There couldn’t be any possible way for the sequel to be anything new. Literally, the title says it all. It’s just another night at the museum, right?

Not exactly.

Sure, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is more of the same, but it takes the original premise and expands immensely on it, providing a little of the repetition, but a lot of new fun that makes it comparable to the original.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller, Zoolander, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) has taken his inventing career to the next level, creating all manner of As Seen On TV that you see on the endcaps in stores across the nation. He has essentially put his past in the Museum of Natural History behind him, but that changes when he gets a call from Jedediah (Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris, Inherent Vice) telling him that Dexter the Capuchin Monkey had stolen the Tablet that brings the exhibits to life at night and it has been moved to the Smithsonian Museum where all heck has run loose, and it’s now up to Larry and his cadre of walking talking exhibits including Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet’s Society) and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams, Man of Steel, Big Eyes) to take on the evil and now alive again Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria, TV’s The Simpsons, The Smurfs 2) who thinks the Tablet belongs to him.

I loved all the ways that Battle of the Smithsonian expanded the universe created by the first film. From the talking bobbleheaded Einsteins in the gift shop to the paintings that Larry and Amelia get caught up in, this is a well-thought sequel with several new avenues for adventures. It does tread some of the same waters as the original, but does so with enough flair that it’s more forgivable. Director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, This is Where I Leave You) continues to stylishly supply action/comedy at full-tilt and it seems like the new characters like Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest, This is Spinal Tap, The Invention of Lying) have great chemistry with our returning players.

As always, the cinematography isn’t anything to sing to the mountaintops, and the film might run on a little too long for its own good, but Levy’s work behind the camera keep the film light-hearted and moving along.

As far as sequels go, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian could have been better (I’m still a little curious about where Carla Gugino went) but it stands up as a lot of fun that adds some new fun and sends up its predecessor nicely.

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Night at the Museum, click here.

December 26, 2014 2

Night at the Museum (2006)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Robin Williams

Screenplay: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon

108 mins. Rated PG for mild action, language and brief rude humor.

As 2014 comes to a close, and the final film featuring Robin Williams is soon to be released, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. With that in mind, I decided to look back at the original film.

Night at the Museum features Ben Stiller (Zoolander, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) as Larry Daley, a failing inventor out of his luck and looking for a job. That is, until he gets a break in the form of a position as a night security guard at the Museum of Natural History. The only catch is, everything in the museum comes to life at night thanks to a mysterious tablet. Now, with the help of a wax Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet’s Society), Larry has to protect the natural order of the museum and defend it from the forces trying to get their hands on the tablet.

Ben Stiller is a lot of fun in this movie. It happens to be a comedy that is more focused than a lot of Stiller’s less-than-stellar work. He does get great help from Carla Gugino (Watchmen, Man of Steel) who is largely wasted on a bit role, as well as support from legends Dick Van Dyke (TV’s Diagnosis: Murder, Curious George), Mickey Rooney (The Fox and the Hound, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and Bill Cobbs (Oz the Great and Powerful, The Muppets), but the film really rests of the shoulders of a strong screenplay and the masterful handling by director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, This is Where I Leave You).

The CG effects are strong and still look pretty good some eight years later, and the films jokes largely continue to land (with the exception of a few noticeable improvs from Stiller). I just plain had a lot of fun watching this movie. It is zany and yet smart and makes great usage of an interesting plot device. All in all, Night at the Museum is a wonderful film for audiences of all ages and it has the thrills and laughs to keep it going the entire runtime.

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

December 11, 2014 3