Super Troopers 2

If you need a break from the action thrillers and heavier film fare, Writer/Director Jay Chandrasekhar’s Super Troopers 2 is a film for you.

 

It’s sometimes hilarious, sometimes gross, sometimes disgusting, but mostly fun.

The story concerns a wrongly mapped border between Vermont and Canada, that causes the replacement of Royal Canadian Mounties with the out-of-work Super Troopers in a Highway Patrol station.

Seann William Scott, Damon Wayons, Jr. and Kevin Heffernan stand out in the hilarity.

I give Super Troopers 2 a 3.2 out of 5.

Rampage

Director Brad Peyton’s Rampage is an enjoyable “popcorn” monster movie for those who have enjoyed the Jurassic Park adventures.

Dwayne Johnson makes a pleasant hero and Naomie Harris is an excellent match to his bravado.  Malin Akerman is, also, excellent, acting against type, as the evil nemesis.

Here, genetic engineering goes awry in space and sends pathogens to Earth that infect a gorilla, a wolf and a reptile.  These start growing and wrecking the planet, especially poor Chicago.

The monsters are great and the action is also exciting.

I give Rampage a 3.9 out of 5.

A Quiet Place

Writer/Director/Actor John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place is an admirable effort to create a scary horror story. 

 

His actors, including his wife Emily Blunt, as well as Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and Cade Woodward are all excellent and his Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen has created images that are fittingly creepy.

The problem is the story and I don’t thing Co-Writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck have served Krasinski well.

The key to great horror is to have the audience totally invested in the characters so that their suspension of disbelief is fully activated and they become bonded to the characters’ fate.

Here, in the 26^th month of the monsters activities on Earth…monsters that are so attuned to sound and so speedy, they pounce on anyone who makes noise…, the bonehead mistakes the characters make over the 3 days of the film’s story are so dumb, there is no way they could have survived so long.  The characters’ stupidity, therefore, releases the audience from completely bonding with them and getting really frightened.   

Instead, we become dispassionate viewers as opposed to being invested in the characters’ fates.

It’s also rather unbelievable that it’s taken so long to figure out how to kill off the monsters.

So, if you’re not a big horror fan, this film may be your cup of tea. It's not that scary.

Still, I give A Quiet Place a 3.5 out of 5.