Hotel Transylvania 2

That Five Star Resort for Ghosts and Goblins is back in cinematic business. Hotel Transylvania 2 is a 3D spooktacular that should satisfy the ghoulies in the audience; don't know about all the big ghouls.

Count Dracula (Adam Sandler), proprietor of the Hotel Transylvania, now allows humans as guests. His daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez) weds the mortal Jonathan (Andy Samberg), and they now have a son, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff). Dracula is over the moon for the new little Dhampyr in the Hotel. But by around Dennis's fifth birthday, his vampire qualities haven't kicked in yet. Even worse, Mavis and Jonathan want to move to his home town of Santa Cruz. What's a Drac to do?

So while Mavis and Jonathan vacation in Santa Cruz to visit his family, Count Drac and his Monster buddies take Dennis on a road trip. Perhaps something on their trip will trigger his monster instincts. Or not. And then there's the looming threat of Drac's father, Vlad (Mel Brooks).

Director Genndy Tartakovsky returns to manage the spooktacular dealings. The silly antics are at least worth a chuckle. The cutaway gags, including Bigfoot as a Soccer goalie, were the best jokes. These characters are mostly here to amuse you, not scare you. The worst part of the movie is that a few plot points are repeats from the first movie.

Its production design presents a colorful, Gothic world. The Hotel itself is an alluring spooky castle, just as it was in the first movie. The human world scenes are just as attractive as the castle itself. The only environment meant to be scary was Vlad's dark cave.

Most of the monster characters return from the first film; still, they're all uniquely designed creatures. I also liked Jonathan's homage to The Count's old man form in Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm sure that the designs of Vlad's bat-creature minions, including main minion Bela (Rob Riggle), were homages to that film as well. 

Hotel Transylvania 2 is worth checking-in for a matinee stay. It doesn't drown itself in obnoxious humor for the benefit of itself. And it's only 89 minutes long. Let's hope that the inevitable next stay doesn't reset things for itself.

Black Mass

James "Whitey" Bulger made a name for himself as a mob boss and a fugitive. So much so that his complicated story became a book, Black Mass, and was used for elements of The Departed. Now the viewing public gets to see the former come to cinematic life.

It's 1975, and Bulger (Johnny Depp) is the Kingpin of the Winter Hill Gang and of South Boston in general. His brother Bill (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a US Senator and their friend John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) is an FBI Agent. Connolly wants to take down the Angiulo Brothers gang, while Bulger would like them gone. So Connolly proposes to Bulger about becoming his informant within the criminal underworld. Bulger agrees.

On one hand, Bulger proves a valuable asset to the FBI. On the other hand, he's still doing criminal business as usual. Each murder and racket he commits makes Connolly's co-workers fume. But he just doesn't want to give up his most valuable asset yet. Not even if that most valuable asset is an unpredictable mobster.

The screenplay, realized by director Scott Cooper, frames the story with Federal interviews with Bulger's now-former associates. These interviews give the audience some insightful facts about Bulger's career. The problem is when certain characters are introduced and phased-out too quickly. A lot of insight gets lost in the mayhem.

But the one constant character, Bulger himself, is amazing. As portrayed by Depp, he's an affable man with a violent streak. The type you can discuss business with the second before he shoots you. He's unlike most characters Depp has ever portrayed, that's for sure. The ghastly makeup renders Depp completely unrecognizable, with his last scene making him a splitting image of the real man ... and his face was barely visible then!

Black Mass is an unusually lean two hours long. It could have benefited from some more developed insight into its supporting characters and their relationship to Bulger. But overall, it was a good Gangster movie.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

The Maze Runner left you hanging for a year?  Here comes the sequel to answer the questions. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials has some pretty decent answers, but getting to them took a while.

The first movie revealed that the sun went berserk and "scorched" the Earth. Thomas, our intrepid hero, and his fellow Maze-Prisoners, were lab rats for the WICKED organization. They're saved by a Mr. Janson and company, who take them to their base. But, alas, Mr. Janson works for WICKED, so Thomas and friends have to escape.

The rest of the movie has Thomas and friends roam the post-apocalyptic world, the "Scorch." Along the way, they have to fight zombies called Cranks. They also find the anti-WICKED resistance, the Right Arm, and join them. They also have to keep under WICKED's radar, for it's a pretty strong radar.

Director Wes Ball returns to visualize this part of James Dashner's literary series. And it's the best kind of visual spectacle: a responsible one. The production designers realize this world with both practical and digital sets, and the transitions aren't jarring. The decayed, toppled buildings were such a sight it made me wonder where our heroes were. The Cranks were legitimately frightening, whether they were on-screen or not. Overall, the filmmakers knew how to spend the $61 million budget.

It'll take awhile before the film acquaints, or reacquaints, viewers with the franchise. Those who absolutely know the franchise already won't have a problem. But I had a few issues; I remembered one character who was mentioned in passing in the first film, died, but now she's back and is the Big Bad. How? The film drags its heels a bit, sometimes repeating the same gripes. It's longer than its predecessor, but that in itself isn't a bad thing. What is a bad thing is the rapid fire editing on certain action scenes.

Those who loved the first movie, or the books, will get their money's worth. Those who at least tolerated them will find a decent matinee showing. Either way, you'll have to wait two years for the concluding chapter, The Death Cure, which Ball stated in interviews will be one movie. Pray that doesn't change.

The Gift

It just so happens that next year's Directors Guild of America Awards will introduce a new Award for First-Time Feature Film directors. Unless there's something I don't know about, then that's a nice gift waiting for Joel Edgerton, who transitions to auteur in The Gift.

Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn Callum (Rebecca Hall) have moved to Los Angeles for Simon's new office job. They're immediately spotted by Gordon Moseley (Edgerton), Simon's former classmate. Gordon is awfully insistent about wanting to be friends with the Callums. So much so that he drops off some innocuous gifts at their front door.

What's the problem? Simon remembers Gordon as the school "weirdo." So each gift and unannounced visit is creepy. When Simon tells Gordon to scram, his behavior goes from implied creepy to unambiguously disturbing. Along the way, some nasty secrets from Simon's past threaten to destroy his future.

The screenplay, also by Edgerton, must also be commended. It leaves you on edge from the moment the gifts start appearing. The audience will surely be invested as more of the story reveals itself. Sometimes, it twists its audience's expectations spectacularly. Its final twist is ambiguous, but given its subversiveness, my interpretation is the "positive" one.

The story's ingenuity extends to Simon. As played by Bateman, Simon is a nice guy with a sometimes crass sense of humor. But Simon's niceness cracks when Gordon's backstory is revealed. But we feel some pity when Gordon's final plan plays out. A lot of it was his fault, but still...

Back to the director/star himself. Edgerton makes for a subdued villain. He's so subdued that he seems legitimately nice at first. He never loses his cool unlike Alex in Fatal Attraction, one of the film's influences. He's content with letting the rest of the world lose their cool with his trolling. We also feel bad about his backstory, unless the "negative" interpretation was real.

The Gift is not for anyone who stresses out easily. It keeps your mind racing throughout the story, but only a few moments are loud jump scares. For everyone willing to brave it, they're sure to experience one of the most unique thrillers of any century. It's sure to keep the audience interested in whatever Joel Edgerton might direct next.

No Escape

What can you expect from a movie called No Escape?

Actually, there is escape. But the film's 103 minutes are so dour and intense that there's little exhilaration. Just relief that your ordeal is done.

Earlier than that...

Water executive Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) needs a job, so he uproots his family to "Whatchamacallit", Southeast Asia (actual country isn't named for eventually obvious reasons). His wife, Annie (Lake Bell), isn't happy here, while their daughters, Lucy and Beeze, are skeptical. But ex-pat rogue Hammond (Pierce Brosnan) tells Jack he'll "like it here." Actually, it's the worst time to move overseas.

The citizens of "Whatchamacallit" are angry over the American takeover of their water plant. An Angry Mob, whose leaders names are never brought up once in-story (I think), kills the Prime Minister and topples the Government. Now they want every single foreigner dead; since Jack's new company took-over the plant, he's an especially prime target. After he and his family escape their hotel, they'll have to find salvation from the mob ... somewhere.

The Dowdle brothers, John Erick and Drew, are most famous for horror films such as Quarantine and the barely-released The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Their latest film is a thriller more disturbing than exciting. One unpleasant scene had Annie and Beeze hold up in their hotel room while the mob went around butchering the other guests. The guests' screams were certainly memorable. As Jack and family go through "Whatchamacallit," the carnage becomes tiring. The ending wasn't exactly uplifting, though it was fun to see the mob suppressed by the border.

There's a missed opportunity with the antagonists. The Angry Mob is said to have a legitimate grievance but their external characterization is "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" We don't see, or hear, of their grievance from the mob themselves. The main leader throws away his audience empathy near the end with a brutal sadistic choice.

What else to say about this movie? The frequent slow-motion was OK at best and annoying at worst. The intended humor was flat. One major elephant-in-the-room, involving the US Embassy, was thankfully addressed. If the brutality of No Escape has a postive, then it lets the audience know what it's like to be in an urban war zone. But I don't think that's a destination most viewers want to book.