It’s “Groundhog’s Day” meets the slasher movie genre all over again with “Happy Death Day 2U,” the sequel to the surprise hit “Happy Death Day” in 2017. The premise for the first film was no doubt clever, as murdered college student caught in a time loop has her day reset over and over again until she was finally able to thwart her masked killer.
“Happy Death 2U” once again examines the concept, as the student, Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) finds herself back in the time loop thanks to her friend’s quantum physics science experiment.
As a result, Tree is brought back to the deadly day she was stuck in in the first film, but because she’s landed in a different dimension than she was in the first time around, the circumstances of her “Happy Death Day” are much different – bringing her an entirely new mess to get herself out of.
AUDIO: Listen to Tim reviewing “Happy Death Day 2U” with Tom Barnard on the “The KQ Morning Show” (segment begins 5:30 in).
Essentially, “Happy Death Day 2U” is the same film as the first one, but is told from a different vantage point. Some the twists are clever and some of them are confusing, while some of the situations are funny and others are outright stupid.
One saving grace of “Happy Death Day” is a smart if not poignant look at how people’s paths are shaped by major events in life, both good and bad, eventually spelling out how some things were simply meant to be.
While “Happy Death Day” isn’t nearly as good as the original, it’s entertaining nonetheless and a day worth watching unfold.
Lammometer: 7 out of 10
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.
Cue the peppy music: Everything is awesome again in “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part,” the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2014 (building) block-buster. Like the original, the film is driven by a smart script, snappy dialogue and dazzling visual effects, all of which are anchored by a poignant human story that most every viewers will be able to relate to, whether you’re a kid or adult.
Set five years after the events after the original film – which, as it turns out was a LEGO battle going on in the imagination of a young boy named Finn (Jadon Sand) and a disagreement he has in real-life with his Dad (Will Farrell) for playing with the adult’s massive LEGO collection – “The Second Part” finds Finn fighting with another enemy in the family: his younger sister, Bianca (Brooklynn Prince).
AUDIO: Tim reviews “The Lego Movie 2” with Tom Barnard on “The KQ Morning Show” (segment begins at 4 minute mark).
Finn and Bianca are naturally fighting constantly as brothers and sisters do, and their battlefield is once again the LEGO setting in the family basement, where Bianca’s LEGO Friends and DUPLO collection invades Finn’s space of traditional LEGO bricks. The already aggravated situation comes to a head, though, when Bianca’s characters kidnap Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Allison Brie) and company, and they’ve blasted off to the girl’s imaginative menagerie of characters and settings in space, where the captives strangely find themselves adapting to their new settings with relative ease. Meanwhile, Emmett has formed a new bond with the smart and resourceful Rex Dangervest (Pratt) in an effort to save his friends, but Rex isn’t all who he seems.
The key to the success of “The Second Part” is that screenwriters (and original co-directors) Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, along with director Mike Mitchell completely changes the setting from the first film’s massive LEGO metropolis to first a desolate setting reminiscent of the apocalyptic wasteland of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and before blasting off into outer space. Changing up the setting was essential in avoiding any sort of repetitiveness from the first film, even though the fun personalities of Emmett, Lucy and the hilarious Batman all remain, and are joined by the likes of new characters like Queen Waterva Wa’Nibi (Tiffany Haddish).
There are familiarities, naturally, like pop culture references (Pratt’s own “Jurassic World” films get a nod with dinosaur characters), and like the first film, “The Second Part” is punctuated with timeless real-life lessons — lessons that are just as relatable and sweet as the moment of bonding between father and son that wrapped up the first “LEGO Movie.”
While fans are bound to debate which “LEGO Movie” is better, there’s no question that the computer animation is just as impressive if not better than the original. That’s because like the first film, the characters come to life in static-like motion reminiscent of stop-motion animation, one of the most under-appreciated art forms in the movie business. Maintaining that style is clearly important to Lord, Miller and Mitchell, though, which is likely why they hired “Robot Chicken” alum Trisha Gum as their animation director to keep the film’s raw but impressive animation sensibilities in place. For the third “LEGO Movie” in a row – “The LEGO Batman Movie” was released in-between — the characters and the vistas are visually stunning. In fact, calling “The Second Part” awesome is almost an understatement.
Lammometer: 8 (out of 10)
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are completely realized by Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly, respectively, in “Stan & Ollie,” an unconventional yet memorable biopic that somehow sadly got lost in the madness of awards season.
Directed with a deft touch by Jon S. Baird, “Stan & Ollie” starts out in 1937, where the duo is filming their classic comedy “Way Out West,” but then shifts ahead to the 1950s where Laurel (Coogan) and Hardy (Reilly) are trying to get their stagnant film career back on track while embarking on a live theater tour of Europe.
Coogan feels like a Stan Laurel clone and Reilly completely disappears into the heavy prosthetic makeup to become Oliver Hardy — and you really do feel like you’re watching the real-life duo with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the highs and lows of their brilliant career before it sadly came to an end not long after the events of the film.
Just like the movies of the comedic duo’s films in their heyday, “Stan & Ollie” makes for good, clean family fun, as evidenced by the film’s PG rating, but ultimately it has as many poignant moments as it does funny ones.
Apart from showing how Coogan and Reilly masterfully recreate the comic routines of Laurel and Hardy, “Stan & Ollie” shows that yes, the duo, like practically every creative team throughout entertainment history, did have their share of problems with one-another. Despite their disagreements and sniping, however, Laurel and Hardy also loved each other, especially when they needed support the most with the realization that that their career as one of the world’s greatest comedy duos was coming to an end.
The interesting take on “Stan & Ollie” is that the film chronicles a time in their career that not a lot of people know about with their European stage tour, which shows, furthermore, that they were far from being has-beens. In fact, they were spot-on hilarious until the very end, despite Hardy’s deteriorating health.
And while the film could have easily ended on a down note because of Hardy’s troubles, Baird’s decision to show the courage the comedian displayed despite knowing his days were numbered ends up making “Stan & Ollie” an inspiring tale. It’s a fitting way to end the film considering how much Laurel and Hardy inspired the work of countless comedians to this very day.
Lammometer: 9 (out of 10)
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.
The first movie misfire of 2019 is here with “Serenity,” an embarrassingly bad sci-fi tinged mystery that completely squanders the talents of a top-notch ensemble cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou and Diane Lane.
The set-up seems simple enough. McConaughey plays Baker Dill, an Iraq War veteran struggling to make ends meet as a tuna fisherman off the coastal waters of Florida. His fortunes appear to change, however, when his ex-wife, Karen (Hathaway) turns up on his boat one day with a proposal to kill her new husband, Frank (Jason Clarke), a sadistic drunkard with criminal connections. Even though he’s offered $10 million to do the deed, Baker is hesitant to carry out the task until he finds out the vicious contempt Frank holds for his son with Karen.
AUDIO: Listen to Tim’s review of “Serenity” with Tom Barnard on “The KQ Morning Show.” The segment begins at 3-minute mark.
The strange thing about “Serenity” is that it begins as a potboiler mystery tale, but then takes a hard-left turn into an alternate reality that includes wayward characters who make little sense, as well as revealing scene where McConaughey taking a skinny dip for apparently no other reason than show audiences to show off his bare backside.
Once it becomes clear the direction in which “Serenity” is headed, the film feels like no more than an inept attempt to capture the mysterious vibe of a “Black Mirror” episode – specifically the show’s acclaimed “U.S.S. Callister” tale – but the end result doesn’t even come remotely close. The tone is bizarre, the writing is bad and the acting by Hathaway and McConaughey is especially hideous (in sharp contrast to their polished performances opposite each other in Christopher Nolan’s“Interstellar”).
In the end, “Serenity” is the perfect example of how actors – even Oscar winners – can’t act their ways out of bad scripts. Instead, McConaughey and Hathaway have earned the distinction of being the first two “worst acting” front-runners vying for next year’s Razzies.
Lammometer: 2.5 (out of 10)
AUDIO: Tim reviews “Serenity” with Paul Douglas on “Paul & Jordana” on WCCO-AM. The segment begins at the 11-minute mark.
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for The KQ92 Morning Show,” “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC), WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere.
