August was a better month of catching movies for me, though the quality of said movies wasn't nearly as strong as June and July were. Still, that's to be expected in August so for what we got I can't say it was completely terrible. I managed 19 films and while Thursday I'll be seeing what would be the 20th, it shouldn't count towards what I watched in August. So with that, let's break down the 19 movies I caught in August.
#19- Reagan
[Watched in theaters]
Absolute trash in the highest degree. I genuinely didn't think anything could beat Borderlands for worst of August but then this piece of trash sneaks in last minute. This movie is pure and utter conservative propaganda and if that's your thing, eat up, but otherwise this is one of the worst, most inaccurate, most aggressively bad movies I've seen wide released in a long while.
Ronald Reagan has a pretty tumultuous history as president, with some really serious failures that have set up the system we currently live in, yet this movie doesn't even begin to address them. We get a single mention of the AIDS crisis and it's from a montage painting the protestors as the bad guys. We get nothing on Iran-Contra, nothing on the war on drugs, and nothing about the idiocy that is "Reaganomics." The movie was so much more interested in painting Reagan as a Christlike messiah that saved America than it was any sort of analysis on him as a man. I'm not even saying that as a Reagan hater (though I very much am) I'm saying that as a film fan. This movie doesn't have any nuance or analysis of the lead character and instead he's portrayed as the infallible underdog hero and it's genuinely disgusting.
At least the big conservative release last year, being Sound of Freedom was mildly entertaining. This one fails at everything from depicting this guy's life to being a functioning movie. Absolute skip.
#18- Borderlands
[Watched in theaters]
I've not played any of the Borderlands games so I went into this without a ton of expectations. Honestly it looked like a Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff and while the trailer wasn't anything special, I thought maybe it would be at least a little bit fun... It was not.
The cast here was stacked but none of them felt like they were attached to or even knew their character, instead all feeling stilted and flat. Cate Blanchett is a phenomenal actor but this was clearly just a paycheck for her. Kevin Hart played against type but also shed any ounce of charisma Kevin Hart has. Ariana Greenblatt was insanely annoying, Jamie Lee Curtis was there, and Jack Black somehow was even more annoying than Greenblatt. Add all that onto sloppy greenscreen, terrible visual effects, and a nonsense story and you end up with this slop. Definitely a skip.
#17- The Crow
[Watched in theaters]
August remains really rough in this patch with The Crow, a "retelling" of the 90s film that killed Brandon Lee. I'm not really a big fan of that original movie and I've not read the graphic novel its based on so I didn't go in attached to anything and this still disappointed me. There is one decent action setpiece but most of the movie was just boring gothic trash without any neat visuals or good character moments.
For The Crow to work, you really need to buy the romance and I absolutely did not. These two characters didn't seem any more in love than some guy at a restaurant and a waitress who drew a smiley face on his takeout container, it's incredibly light and not at all believable as this relationship so important it keeps him alive in seeking revenge. If you want a revenge movie, just go watch the original film.
#16- Untold: The Murder of Air McNair
[Watched on Netflix]
This year has had a ton of documentaries I've dubbed the "why did that need to be a documentary" group and this is 100% a shoe-in for that category. The story is super baseline, covers a pretty uninteresting murder case that's pretty cut and dry, then tries to make some weird case for the murder not to be that cut and dry. It literally introduces an "alternate suspect" in the last five minutes and just goes "I don't know, think about it" then ends. While I feel for the family of Steve McNair and for the man himself, I don't think this story had anything interesting enough to make a compelling true crime doc. Just let people rest already.
#15- The Deliverance
[Watched on Netflix]
This movie started off so strong with a race and class commentary within a haunted house. It could've done some really interesting stuff with that setup and I genuinely felt that the movie was heading that way, but instead it takes some wild left turn and just becomes a bad exorcism movie that we've seen a million times. Unfortunately, it's not scary in the slightest, it becomes really generic, and it also becomes really preachy in the end. There's always a religious component to a possession story, it's kind of important most of the time, but this one felt more Angel Studios than it did The Exorcist. Plus at the end, the only thing solved is the demon stuff, the actual struggles the family was going through don't change but because they "found God" now the fact they're poor in a broken family is just cool? I don't know, I didn't really like this one after the first half.
#14- Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
[Watched on Netflix]
Someone at Nickelodeon needs to just let this series go. It's been ongoing way too long and now the animation looks like this. The movie is really boring and really ugly to look at too. Sandy's voice actor is facing the Marge Simpson issue of just growing too old and sounding tired so having her take the lead in this movie was rough to listen to. The live action segments were brutal to sit through and did I mention the animation looks terrible because it does?
I think a Sandy Cheeks movie could work if it actually explored Sandy as the character was established: an intelligent scientific squirrel from Texas, but instead now she comes from a travelling circus driving around in Cousin Eddie's RV? I've been checked out of SpongeBob for a really long time and this absolutely reaffirmed that.
#13- The Mouse Trap
[Watched on VOD]
Steamboat Willie is public domain now so of course less than a year past there's a Mickey Mouse murder movie. Unlike Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey or any other movies in the Poohniverse, this movie doesn't follow Mickey as a killer, its just some dude in a Green Goblin mask that lets him teleport? It's weird but at the same time it's wacky and has a bit of fun to offer if you're able to just turn your brain off and accept the fact this movie is going to be bad. It doesn't take itself very seriously at all (which was Pooh's biggest issue) and is just a generic stupid slasher. I wouldn't run out to watch it, but the stupidity worked for me a bit, enough to put it this high but not enough to beat what are objectively better movies, even if a bit less fun.
#12- Trap
[Watched in theaters]
Trap was fine, even good, through the first act and a half where the movie is actually following the premise that this concert is set up as a trap for a serial killer. When you're following Josh Hartnett's character trying to figure out how to get out, the movie works, but once a decision is made and the movie leaves the concert venue it falls apart entirely for me. The last half of this movie did less than nothing for me as it throws out like three false endings and follows one character who I just did not care about in the slightest.
Shyamalan really propped up his daughter and her clear dream to be a pop singer and I'll give it to her, the songs were competent and I could imagine them on the radio, but I can't sit here and even pretend she was a serviceable actress. When she becomes a central character to the story I checked out because I just wasn't buying her performance. I don't think the movie is worse than The Lady in the Water or The Village in terms of Shyamalan thrillers, but I also don't love it and probably won't ever watch it again. Glad Josh Hartnett got some love though.
#11- Blink Twice
[Watched in theaters]
I loved this movie for a decent chunk of it. I had a lot of fun with the premise, the shots were solid, I'll never complain about having to look at Adria Arjona, and the characters were solid enough as well. Unfortunately, I would argue that this movie has the single worst ending of the year so far and I don't know if it can be topped. The last 15-20 minutes are certainly rough, but I'm talking the last five minutes of the film just absolutely ruined any enjoyment I had left by taking it, stomping on it and taking a big ol **** on it. The movie was clearly trying to say something but that message gets entirely thrown away in those last few minutes. If you go watch this movie, walk out when there's the iconic "final girl wins and sits on the stairs with the fire behind her" moment that you'll recognize from Glass Onion or Ready or Not or plenty of others.
#19- Reagan
[Watched in theaters]
Absolute trash in the highest degree. I genuinely didn't think anything could beat Borderlands for worst of August but then this piece of trash sneaks in last minute. This movie is pure and utter conservative propaganda and if that's your thing, eat up, but otherwise this is one of the worst, most inaccurate, most aggressively bad movies I've seen wide released in a long while.
Ronald Reagan has a pretty tumultuous history as president, with some really serious failures that have set up the system we currently live in, yet this movie doesn't even begin to address them. We get a single mention of the AIDS crisis and it's from a montage painting the protestors as the bad guys. We get nothing on Iran-Contra, nothing on the war on drugs, and nothing about the idiocy that is "Reaganomics." The movie was so much more interested in painting Reagan as a Christlike messiah that saved America than it was any sort of analysis on him as a man. I'm not even saying that as a Reagan hater (though I very much am) I'm saying that as a film fan. This movie doesn't have any nuance or analysis of the lead character and instead he's portrayed as the infallible underdog hero and it's genuinely disgusting.
At least the big conservative release last year, being Sound of Freedom was mildly entertaining. This one fails at everything from depicting this guy's life to being a functioning movie. Absolute skip.
#18- Borderlands
[Watched in theaters]
I've not played any of the Borderlands games so I went into this without a ton of expectations. Honestly it looked like a Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff and while the trailer wasn't anything special, I thought maybe it would be at least a little bit fun... It was not.
The cast here was stacked but none of them felt like they were attached to or even knew their character, instead all feeling stilted and flat. Cate Blanchett is a phenomenal actor but this was clearly just a paycheck for her. Kevin Hart played against type but also shed any ounce of charisma Kevin Hart has. Ariana Greenblatt was insanely annoying, Jamie Lee Curtis was there, and Jack Black somehow was even more annoying than Greenblatt. Add all that onto sloppy greenscreen, terrible visual effects, and a nonsense story and you end up with this slop. Definitely a skip.
#17- The Crow
[Watched in theaters]
August remains really rough in this patch with The Crow, a "retelling" of the 90s film that killed Brandon Lee. I'm not really a big fan of that original movie and I've not read the graphic novel its based on so I didn't go in attached to anything and this still disappointed me. There is one decent action setpiece but most of the movie was just boring gothic trash without any neat visuals or good character moments.
For The Crow to work, you really need to buy the romance and I absolutely did not. These two characters didn't seem any more in love than some guy at a restaurant and a waitress who drew a smiley face on his takeout container, it's incredibly light and not at all believable as this relationship so important it keeps him alive in seeking revenge. If you want a revenge movie, just go watch the original film.
#16- Untold: The Murder of Air McNair
[Watched on Netflix]
This year has had a ton of documentaries I've dubbed the "why did that need to be a documentary" group and this is 100% a shoe-in for that category. The story is super baseline, covers a pretty uninteresting murder case that's pretty cut and dry, then tries to make some weird case for the murder not to be that cut and dry. It literally introduces an "alternate suspect" in the last five minutes and just goes "I don't know, think about it" then ends. While I feel for the family of Steve McNair and for the man himself, I don't think this story had anything interesting enough to make a compelling true crime doc. Just let people rest already.
#15- The Deliverance
[Watched on Netflix]
This movie started off so strong with a race and class commentary within a haunted house. It could've done some really interesting stuff with that setup and I genuinely felt that the movie was heading that way, but instead it takes some wild left turn and just becomes a bad exorcism movie that we've seen a million times. Unfortunately, it's not scary in the slightest, it becomes really generic, and it also becomes really preachy in the end. There's always a religious component to a possession story, it's kind of important most of the time, but this one felt more Angel Studios than it did The Exorcist. Plus at the end, the only thing solved is the demon stuff, the actual struggles the family was going through don't change but because they "found God" now the fact they're poor in a broken family is just cool? I don't know, I didn't really like this one after the first half.
#14- Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
[Watched on Netflix]
Someone at Nickelodeon needs to just let this series go. It's been ongoing way too long and now the animation looks like this. The movie is really boring and really ugly to look at too. Sandy's voice actor is facing the Marge Simpson issue of just growing too old and sounding tired so having her take the lead in this movie was rough to listen to. The live action segments were brutal to sit through and did I mention the animation looks terrible because it does?
I think a Sandy Cheeks movie could work if it actually explored Sandy as the character was established: an intelligent scientific squirrel from Texas, but instead now she comes from a travelling circus driving around in Cousin Eddie's RV? I've been checked out of SpongeBob for a really long time and this absolutely reaffirmed that.
#13- The Mouse Trap
[Watched on VOD]
Steamboat Willie is public domain now so of course less than a year past there's a Mickey Mouse murder movie. Unlike Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey or any other movies in the Poohniverse, this movie doesn't follow Mickey as a killer, its just some dude in a Green Goblin mask that lets him teleport? It's weird but at the same time it's wacky and has a bit of fun to offer if you're able to just turn your brain off and accept the fact this movie is going to be bad. It doesn't take itself very seriously at all (which was Pooh's biggest issue) and is just a generic stupid slasher. I wouldn't run out to watch it, but the stupidity worked for me a bit, enough to put it this high but not enough to beat what are objectively better movies, even if a bit less fun.
#12- Trap
[Watched in theaters]
Trap was fine, even good, through the first act and a half where the movie is actually following the premise that this concert is set up as a trap for a serial killer. When you're following Josh Hartnett's character trying to figure out how to get out, the movie works, but once a decision is made and the movie leaves the concert venue it falls apart entirely for me. The last half of this movie did less than nothing for me as it throws out like three false endings and follows one character who I just did not care about in the slightest.
Shyamalan really propped up his daughter and her clear dream to be a pop singer and I'll give it to her, the songs were competent and I could imagine them on the radio, but I can't sit here and even pretend she was a serviceable actress. When she becomes a central character to the story I checked out because I just wasn't buying her performance. I don't think the movie is worse than The Lady in the Water or The Village in terms of Shyamalan thrillers, but I also don't love it and probably won't ever watch it again. Glad Josh Hartnett got some love though.
#11- Blink Twice
[Watched in theaters]
I loved this movie for a decent chunk of it. I had a lot of fun with the premise, the shots were solid, I'll never complain about having to look at Adria Arjona, and the characters were solid enough as well. Unfortunately, I would argue that this movie has the single worst ending of the year so far and I don't know if it can be topped. The last 15-20 minutes are certainly rough, but I'm talking the last five minutes of the film just absolutely ruined any enjoyment I had left by taking it, stomping on it and taking a big ol **** on it. The movie was clearly trying to say something but that message gets entirely thrown away in those last few minutes. If you go watch this movie, walk out when there's the iconic "final girl wins and sits on the stairs with the fire behind her" moment that you'll recognize from Glass Onion or Ready or Not or plenty of others.
