Rekt Reviews

The Rekt Krew discuss the 20-year-gap sequel to Independence Day. We discuss the impact of the original movie on our (at the time) young and impressionable minds and proceed to an inebriated evisceration of "Resurgence", a movie that is an obvious money grab, aimed at a God-knows-what audience, badly written with labored exposition and weak dialogue and a parade of young 1-dimensional characters. The global-level devastation wreaked by the aliens may be visually more impressive than in 1996 but utterly fails to resonate emotionally, despite the unimaginable loss of life and the loss of loved ones by the main characters. It is just impossible to care about anyone in this movie. 
On the plus side it was nice to see Jeff Goldblum's familiar gangly gesticulations and signature rhythm and Brent Spiner (Star Trek TNG's "Data") was thoroughly entertaining and arguably the one saving grace of this movie. To quote Erik - "Spiner was the only one who seemed to be aware he was part of a complete shit-show and just having fun with it."
Paul is goaded by Erik to wax intoxicated about some Illuminati conspiracy themes peppered in throughout the movie.

The Rekt Krew weigh on the latest X-Men movie and director Shane Black's "The Nice Guys". 
The prognosis for X-Men Apocalypse is not good. Though filled to the brim with undoubtedly pretty people, the rekt krew finds the movie to be uninteresting, unoriginal and forgettable.
The Nice Guys on the other hand was a surprisingly fresh and utterly enjoyable "buddy cop" comedy. The chemistry between a fat brutish Russel Crowe and an inept detective Ryan Gossling is crisp and hilarious. If you liked Shane Black's other triumphs - Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, this will not disappoint.

The Rekt Krew reviews the latest bloated Marvel phantasmagoria - "Captain America: Civil War". Paul refuses to call the Black Panther anything other than "Catman". Erik seems to have reached the limit of his tolerance for superhero ensemble movies. Christopher is delighted with the new scrawny smart-alecky Spider-Man, (at long last liberated from the incompetent clutches of Sony Pictures Studios.) Shark hits the nail on the head with his synopsis: the movie is essentially working off a bad, sloppy script and the schism between the Avengers seems forced and utterly avoidable. At the same time the direction is solid, the action scenes are exciting, particularly the fresh hand-to-hand combat scenes, and overall the movie is entertaining...assuming you are not looking too closely at things like character motivation or plot coherence.

The Rekt Krew review Disney's Zootopia and discuss the ever-expanding Marvel universe in anticipation of next episodes rekening of Captain America: Civil War.

The REKT crew start off by paying respects to Prince who passed away that day and getting all the tangential nonsense out of the way before delving into reviewing Hardcore Henry (which only 1.75% of the crew has actually watched.) Chris offers his opinions, Erik having watched only half of the movie offers half his opinions, Paul, having watched only the first 10 minutes offers his 10 cents, and Shark who is absent altogether has no opinion to offer.

The crew then goes on to talk about the semi-live action remake of Jon Favreau's "The Jungle Book". A gorgeous movie by all accounts, fun to watch in 3-D, works overall with a few drawbacks being songs that don't feel like they fit (and sung badly by actors who are not singers), a lot of the voice-overs being done by very well known actors (like Bill Murray) making it difficult to not picture said actor in a sound booth and thus taking the viewer somewhat out of the experience, and finally a fairly stiff performance by child actor Neel Sethi as Mowgli (though perfectly understandable being so young and the only live actor surrounded by green screens.)

The Rekt Krew with all hands on deck and all brain cells anesthetized take on the beautiful mess that is Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is all to easy to break a leg by falling into any number of gaping plot holes and being inebriated certainly doesn't help navigate such a hazardous environment. Erik, Shark and Chris point out the numerous ways the movie failed them - sitting through the gazillionth rehashing of Batman's origin story, the uselessness of Lois Lane, Jesse Eisenberg's over-the-top portrayal of an Aspberger's Lex Luthor, Justice League characters being shoved down your throat for no reason, and the utter incomprehension of anyone's motives. 
Paul is basically alone in attempting to find redeeming features in BvS and gives director Zach Snyder a lot of credit for at least attempting to weave together something resembling a serious film and saving most of his usual CGI shenanigans until the end. 
The movie is entertaining enough if you are willing to cut it a lot of slack and if your position is "any Batman is better than no Batman".
However it suffers from 3 major ailments, from which most of its smaller symptoms stem:
One - the movie inherits all the miscasts of Man of Steel (Henry Cavill and Amy Adams sorta look the part of Superman and Luis but have no depth and Kevin Costner is out of place as ever [having died in the previous film doesn't stop KC from reappearing in this one].) 
Two - the movie is attempting to emulate two mutually exclusive styles, on one hand trying to set up a Marvel-type fantastical shared universe and at the same time, trying to keep Batman grounded and moody, (something Christopher Nolan absolutely nailed with The Dark Knight), and predictably these two approaches prove to be (predictably) incompatible. 
Three -  this movie's ultimate goals are to set up a fight between Batman and Superman and to set up a Justice League franchise. The fight set-up is done with all the finesse of a shady fight promoter anticipating a big payout - the end justifies the means and we get to that fight through writing that is sloppy, lazy, full of shortcuts and incomprehensible plot lines. The attempt to set up a Justice League franchise feels overly forced and detracts this movie from standing on its own feet.

The Rekt Team is down a man this week, but that doesn’t stop Chris, Erik and Paul from forging on with drinks in hand. After a random bit of talk about the Wachowski Sister’s Sense 8, the crew moves on to the main discussion 10 Cloverfield Lane. Despite receiving glowing critical reviews, Bad Robot’s latest film wasn’t as well received with our hosts. Too bad a great opening and good performances from the actors can’t seem to save this film from a fair number of problems. What could be the problems that trouble our inebriated trio? Was it the simplistic plot? The lack of tension? An awful tacked on ending with a twist? The overuse of movie tropes? Not enough Final Destination? Lack of black actors? Not enough Slusho!? Spaceships with sphincters? Too much to drink before hand...? Probably most of these.


Besides discussing Cloverfield, the crew gets geared up for the inevitable viewing of Batman v Superman. Chris catches the group up to speed on the history of BvS while Erik and Paul try to forget as much as possible about ‘Man of Steel’.  Also we talk alcohol with a local Hawaiian when Rekt gets it’s very first caller to the show. Chaos ensues.

We start the discussion off with all the racial talk surround this year’s event and how the host, Chris Rock, approaches the subject. Most of us find his jokes on this subject pretty funny at first, however it’s gets a little redundant throughout the show. Moving on we discuss the careers of two nominees, Leonardo Dicaprio and Sylvester Stallone. Did Leo win because of his performance in The Revenant? Or is Hollywood playing kiss up since he’s been snubbed for so many years? Does Stallone deserve a nomination? Has he even been in a decent movie other than Creed? Find out as the gang ponders these questions in between sips of alcohol and blatant Uber sponsorship chilling.
On our second round we discuss some of the best picture nominations. Spotlight won best picture, but does it really deserve it? Sure it’s a fine film, but is it better than Mad Max? Paul and Chris chat a little about The Big Short and how it stacks up to it’s competition. Somehow this leads to the crew talking about James Cameron’s filmography which Shark has strong opinions on. Also Johnny Depp’s Oscar snub, Erik hasn’t seen Forrest Gump, and Paul shares his thoughts about Deadpool.

The theme of the hour seems to be vengeance and the REKT crew dissect The Revenant and Deadpool, two movies that couldn’t be more different in their execution and style and yet both surprisingly similar in focusing on the hunt for the protagonist’s arch nemesis and the protagonist’s ability to survive ludicrous levels of trauma and abuse.
The Revenant is a gorgeously shot wilderness drama, gritty and visceral, with powerful acting by Leonardo DiCaprio and a simply stellar performance by Tom Hardy, surely to go down as one of the year’s best films.
Marvel’s Deadpool is a sarcastic teenage fanboy’s ultimate wet dream, chalk full of F-Bombs, boobies, self referential pop-culture references and cartoonish violence – all the ingredients of a terrible film, yet Deadpool manages to be fun, at times original and often quite funny. Ryan Reynolds may have finally found a B-side superhero (or supermenace really) that fits him well.

Erik, Paul and Shark discuss their impressions of the obscure little indie film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens and tackle the question – is it feasible to rekindle a 10-year old’s sense of wonder in a 40 year old man-child?
The Rekt crew have some mixed feelings about “The Force Awakens”, (directed by J. J. Abrams), which undoubtedly captures the feel and flavor of George Lucas’ original pre-Jar Jar trilogy but is so scared to veer away and take a misstep in a wrong direction that a lot of the film ends up being a rehashing of same old plot lines, i.e., secret plans hidden in a droid, a bigger badder death star, etc.
The movie is definitely fun and fast paced, the CGI is not overdone and the acting is pretty solid overall and is immensely boosted by Daisy Ridley, who is just outstanding in her role as Rey, a scavenger in the process of discovering her Jedi prowess and lineage.
The hype, anticipation and longing to get back to the original Star Wars vibe makes it a bit difficult to critique this movie objectively but our overall impression is that the constant nostalgia-baiting is nothing a couple of beers can’t fix. What this movie’s place in the pantheon will be is going to be decided by the passage of time and the development of subsequent heavily Disneyfied sequels.