Mike’s Top 10 Actor Power  Rankings + Movie Review: They Will Kill You + Trailer Park: Moana

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to give you my top ten actor power rakings. This was such a hard list to put together, but I think I got it. In the movie review, I'll be talking about a horror comedy called They Will Kill You, very Tarantino inspired, one of the most original horror movies I've seen in theaters in a long time. And in the trailer park, we're breaking down the live action Molwanna trailer starring the rock and interns of breaking down that trailer, I'm gonna try to not break down myself. I'm gonna hold it together. I'm gonna get through it. But thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now we're fired up. Let's go, let's talk movies.

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Speaker 2: Podcast Network Movie Mikes Movie Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're coming off the oscar some big box office performances. I wanted to give you my top ten actor power rankings right now. This was a really hard list for me to come up with because there are a lot of my favorite actors that I think deserve to be in the top ten these are not of all time, this is right now. Who I think are the hottest, most in demand, best actors all around? How I came up with this top ten list? Hollywood impact? Have they led a movie in the last year? How well did that movie do that they led at the box office in the last year? What do they have coming up next? Cultural presence? How much are these people googled? Their social media following just general interest in them as humans? Where does that rank? Style influence? I think that's a big part of it, at least for me. I think it is on the red carpet. Are people talking about their looks? Do they have deals with companies? Do they have campaigns where they're promoting some clothing or maybe some shoes overall? If they put something on, are people going to see that and think I want to look like that person. I think about that stuff a lot, maybe just me, but I had to include that in my power rankings list. Audience appeal. How do they do with the box office? Do their movies stream well? Do they not only appeal to me the hyper movie nerd, but also Jim Pop? How much do they just appeal to the average person? If you said their name, would people walking down the street know who that is. Brand momentum was another big deal because it's not just about the greatest actors of all time, it is about who has that momentum right now. Are they coming off a big performance that made a lot of money at the box office, Were they just nominated or do they just win an oscar? And what do they have coming up next that is going to charge them into the next phase of their career. Think of it as a roller coaster that momentum. And then the final thing I accounted for was just how good of an actor are they? I think that is important and that is to me, just raw acting ability. How good are they at conveying emotion. But let's get into the list now. At number ten, I'm going with Timothy shallow May. If I did this list last year, he probably would have ranked higher. His highest rated movie is Ladybird. His lowest rated movie is A Rainy Day in New York. His last box office performance was about one hundred and eighty million dollars worldwide. With Marty Supreme on deck. He has Dune three coming out later this year. He is what I still believe to be the face of young Hollywood. He has the indie cred, but also the blockbuster leads with Wonka and the Dune franchise. A couple of reasons why he has dipped in my list. It is just what he said recently that I think has changed the way that some people feel about him. Maybe it's his true self coming out a little bit. I'm not sure right now, but I really think that dinged his momentum. I think overall in maybe a month, maybe even a few or a couple of weeks, at this point, people will forget about that and move on. Once the Dune trailer came out, I think a lot of people were like, well, who cares what he said? I want to see Dune. But to me, it just left, at least right now, kind of a bad taste in my mouth. So that was a contributing factor of why he dipped in my ranking. But also because I don't think Marty Supreme was as massive as he thought it was going to be, and he campaigned hard for that movie. He did not walk away with the Oscar win he thought he was going to get. Because of that that even I thought he was the front runner going into that, and I think the movie did well with one hundred and eighty million. But for somebody who I believe is in that top tier the top ten actors right now, I don't think that is enough to qualify him as somebody in the top five. While it did pretty well for an a twenty four movie, just his name alone given the subject matter that I think some people had a hard time wanting to pay money to go see a movie about Ping Pong, even though I believe it is so much more than that. I think his name alone wasn't enough to bring in a mass audience to that movie. So for that reason, he is just hanging in there at number ten, and there are some people right there on the bubble that I easily could have put over him. But I do think that Oscar nomination did keep him in this top ten, and he'll probably move up. So at number ten, I have Timothy Chalameh at number nine. Robert Downey Junior at this point in his career, he's almost in this bubble of his own. But you forget how massively worldwide famous Robert Downey Junior is. His highest rated movie is Endgame. His lowest rated movie is Do Little, which he did right after Endgame. Oh that is hovering there in the teens. His latest box office performance with Oppenheimer making almost one billion dollars worldwide, and that wasn't all because of him, but I think because of that Oscar win from Oppenheimer, it really balanced him out where he has been around for so long now and for the longest time in his comeback, we just saw him as Tony Stark and it was that role that kind of solidified him as No. I am also a really great actor on Deck. He's going to be in Doomsday, which is having a massive amount of speculation, and people continuously talk about that movie. He comes out at an award show and people want to see him talk about that movie. He is really leaning into the doctor Doom role, addressing in Green and really teasing people on social media, creating that buzz, creating that excitement, creating what people hire Robert Downey Junior for at this point to bring in the eyeballs. And I think it's his presence in that movie's promotion and him starring in that movie is what's going to make it a success. At the end of the day, Marvel knows they need to go back to their og box office candy in Robert Downey Junior. So you think about his comeback in two thousand and eight, At the time he was seen as a risk to be cast as Iron Man, and then since then he has reinvented himself with that Oscar winning performance in Oppenheimer, And now I think he's only going to boost his career. And now I believe has all this momentum in twenty twenty six leading us to doomsday, and it's good to feed directly into twenty twenty seven with Secret War. So at number nine, he's just a really great actor. At number nine, I have Robert Downey. At number eight, I have Brad Pitt. He is a nog but proved to us in F one that he still has it in a lot of ways and being the leading man and still having that charming Brad Pitt sex appeal and also still getting the critical acclaim with F one being nominated for Best Picture. I highly believe the reason that movie was nominated was because Brad Pitt started in this movie. His highest rated movie is Moneyball, which is fantastic, probably a top three baseball movie for me, because I don't think anything is ever going to be angels in the outfield. His lowest rated movie is Cool World, which I'm not sure I've even seeing that movie, and in speaking about f one, that movie made six hundred and thirty three million dollars worldwide at the box office. On deck, he has The Adventures of Cliff Booth, which if you saw Once upon a Time in Hollywood back in twenty nineteen, that movie was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. This movie serves as a sequel to that movie. Quentin Tarantino is not directing it, but he did write it, and David Fincher, who did Fight Club, is the one directing this movie. It is going to be about Brad Pitt's character, Cliff Booth. I know they did kind of a teaser trailer at the Super Bowl, didn't really give us a whole lot, So whenever that full trailer comes out, I will throw it into the trailer park because I do think it is interesting for a Quentin Tarantino movie, even though he isn't directing it to get a sequel, because he doesn't really do too many sequels to his movies aside from the Kill Bill franchise. So Brad Pitt has proven he is still a bankable veteran He's also done a lot of producing now later in his career. I think, even more so than Moneyball is the movie he was a producer on, Twelve Years a Slave. I think that has the highest rating out of any Brad Pitt project. So at number eight, I have Brad Pitt. At number seven, I have Emma Stone, who kinda is the best of both worlds. The best of both worlds where she can do a movie that brings in a lot of money, which she did probably more early on in her career where she was more in the romantic comedy space, and she can also do a really good art house movie where she can be really vulnerable with her characters, or she really bears it all and what does that do? It gets her Oscar nomination after Oscar nomination. She also just seems like a genuinely nice person who cares about the craft, somebody who, to me, I feel, is the hardest person to hate in Hollywood. Her highest rated movie Isla Loland. Her lowest rated movie, which I will defend by the way, movie forty three, which is a movie that came out and it features a crazy amount of actors, doesn't have one plot, is just a bunch of random sketches that mesh together to create a movie. It is probably my biggest guilty pleasure comedy. I don't recommend it whatsoever, but when I watched that movie, I thought it was hilarious. I don't even think it's one of those turn your brain off and just enjoy movies. It is one you really have to focus in on and know how ridiculous it is going to be, but find something that you enjoy. But I don't even think it's really hard to enjoy that movie. So it's a really hard sell. But it is my guilty pleasure comedy and it features Emma Stone. Her latest box office performance was a Little mid Begonia, which I loved, but it's such a hard sell. And she has been working with director Jorgos Lantimos for a while now with Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things. I think she is about to move on from that. Currently, she is in talks to star in a romantic comedy directed by her husband called The Catch. Chris Pine is also reportedly in talks to co star in this movie, and that is expected to be her next movie, but currently doesn't have anything set for release right now. But she is fresh off another Oscar nomination. Even though I thought her performance was really strong in Bogonia, wasn't as good as Jesse Buckley or maybe a lot of the other people in that category this year. But I still think her star is really bright right now. So at number seven I have Emma Stone. At number six Pedro Pascal. He continues to be dominant at the box office, and even though he is around in everything, I am still not sick of him. His highest rated movie is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which he started with Nicholas Cage, which I really enjoyed that movie, and it kind of came out before his star really rose, so I think maybe if that movie came out now, it would have a little bit more of an impact. But Nicholas Cage plays himself well. There are a lot of fun references to Nicholas Cage movies, and you see prompts that he has inside of his house, but are really over the top fun time. I really enjoy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent if you haven't seen that one, or maybe you missed it. However, his lowest rated movie is Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four, which when that first came out. I defended it, but looking back on it, I think it was because it came out in the year in twenty twenty where we had no movies and I was so excited just to have anything new, and that was one that I remember. We watched it at home. I was so thirsty for a new movie that I printed out a couple of tickets for Kelsey and I just to get that feeling like we were going to the theater again. So we did that. We had our snacks, We tried to make it feel like the movies as much as possible, So I think that experience was memorable. About that, I would even say the first thirty forty minutes of that movie are DC and then later it kind of falls apart. Villain's not that great, Kristen Wigie in that movie not so great, and it was just such a harsh drop off from the first Wonder Woman movie, which I think really wowed a lot of people. So still not as if that's your worst movie. I don't think that is terrible. His most recent box office outing was The Fantastic four First Steps, which made about five hundred million dollars, and on deck, he has the Mandalorian and Grogu, which I really hope is good. And I know that falls into the Disney model, which I won't get into right now because I will talk about more when I break down the Mauana trailer. But I just hope that it's not just the next season of The Mandalorian in movie form, because I think Disney would do that. They would say why put it out on Disney Plus when we could put it out in theaters. I hope that is not the case because I really want that movie to be good. Even though the last season of The Mandalorian was pretty mid but not only is dominant on the big screen, the Last of Us was also really great. I still enjoyed that last season. So at number six, I have Pedro Pascal. At number five, fresh off of his Oscar win, I have Michael B. Jordan after he won, which I was still rooting for Timothy Chalome, but seeing him go to in and out take pictures with his Oscar, with his burger, all the things he said post win, I thought, man, we really picked the right person to win. The right actor won. His highest rated movie is Black Panther. His lowest rated movie is Fantastic Four. His last box office outing was Sinners, making three hundred and seventy million dollars worldwide. On Deck, he is going to star and direct a remake of The Thomas Crown Affair that's coming out on March fifth, twenty twenty seven. He is also in talks to star in a Miami Wece movie, which after his Oscar win, the story came out that he was renegotiating for more money. I think he wanted like eighteen million dollars and some people were saying, you're not worth that. I think winning Best Actor is time to renegotiate for a movie, because I think actors need to make their money, especially while they're hot. And I would probably do the same thing if I just want an Oscar and I was in talks. I don't hate him for that. Secure the bag, because you don't get any money for winning an Oscar. It's nice, it's prestigious, you can brag about it higher actor friends, but you don't win a monetary amount for that award. What you win is that credibility and that ability to raise your rate, because if you want an Oscar winning actor in your movie, you're gonna have to pay more money because forever. You can put that on any role that you do Oscar winning actor actor Michael B. Jordan, and that goes a long way in the marketing. So I don't hate on him for that. I think he also has a lot of cultural relevance. He is a really fashionable dude. He is now in that director of movie star hybrid where he can get behind the camera, he can get in front of the camera, he can do it all. He is also so insanely talented that I realize why he won. I saw him talk about in an interview how much prep he does. He writes journals from the perspective of his characters, leading all the way up to when the movie starts. So he takes the script and then he develops the backstory for his characters. Why are they the way they are, keeps these journals and these logs about their life, lives basically as them, and has all these details of kind of like a road map that he can refer to of like, Okay, if they did this, they probably had this going on in their life, and he knows where to pull from why they are motivated by certain things. That is just next level. That is doing the homework and you think about some actors who are like, man, why have I never wanted? Maybe you're not trying hard enough. Maybe you need to spend some time in the prep department. For some people, it is more than just learning their lines. It is learning their character and living inside that character. Maybe not going as far as like a Daniel day Lewis and making everybody on set call you Abraham Lincoln, but it is knowing your character, knowing the inner workings of their mind, why they are the way they are. At number five, I have Michael B. Jordan. At number four, I have Margo Robbie, who has one of the highest grossing movies of the year with Wuthering Heights. And I think it is because her star power that that movie was so successful. She is a great actor and also somebody that people just can't take her eyes off of. She is so incredibly beautiful that you see her on screen and think, man, she was supposed to be a movie star. But she's also an incredibly smart business woman, has an amazing production company. I can't wait to see more of her work behind the camera. I know she's produced a lot of things, has a lot of things coming up as a big champion of female directors, so I can't wait for her to make her directorial debut because I feel like that is imminent. Her highest rated movie is I Tanya and her lowest rated movie is Terminal. Her last box office performance with Withering Heights, made over two hundred and thirty four million dollars globally. On deck, she is going to start in an Ocean's prequel, which there aren't a whole lot of details out about that right now, but I love the Oceans franchise. Ocean's eleven great movie, so curious to see how they set up the beginning of that. Can't really go further into it. I think they kind of found a good stopping point. And what do you do once you reach a stopping point? You start doing prequels. And I think she is still writing off of that success of Barbie, which I credit to not only Margot Robbie but also director Greta Gerwig for bringing back female led blockbusters. That is what a production company Lucky chap is all about, and I am all here for the rise of that. So at number four, I have Margo Robbie. At number three, I have Leonardo DiCaprio, fresh off of his nomination, even though he didn't win for Best Actor for One Battle after Another. That is also currently his highest rated movie ever. His lowest rated movie is Critters three. I know I saw Critters one, maybe saw Critters two. I don't think I saw Critters three with Leonardo DiCaprio in that One Battle after Another, by the way, made two hundred and ten million dollars at the box office. What he has coming out next is a movie called What Happens at Night, which also stars Jennifer Lawrence and is directed by Martin Scorsese. And I think that is why he is consistently in my top three at times my number one, because he constantly puts out culturally relevant movies, and he has been a noteworthy celebrity now since the nineties, but now every single movie he does is important, and it's always with a really prestigious director like Scorsese, like Paul Thomas Anderson, like Quentin Tarantino, that it becomes even more of an event because those directors' names alone are enough to make people want to go to the theater. But then you throw Leonardo DiCaprio with that, and it becomes one of the biggest Movies of the Year in any given year that one of them come out, oftentimes going to warrant an Oscar nomination, because I don't think he is in the business of just making normal movies anymore. Where if it's not going to get him a nomination for Best Actor, I don't he's going to do it. Maybe the last one that was kind of on the fence but still had some critical acclaim was don't look up. But now I think he is just pounding away and trying to get more than one Best Actor award, which he should have more than one. So coming off of a big movie, going into a big movie, he continues to be a name that is just right there at the top, brings in the money at the box office, brings in movies that stream really well, works with the Krem de la crem when it comes to directors, and gives us great movies that are not only great in the sense like oh yeah, that was a really good movie that came out. They become cinematic not always masterpieces, but pillars of modern filmmaking that even in twenty years down the line, when maybe he decides to retire, these are still going to be the building blocks of American film, and anytime he goes to an award show, you know it's going to be centered on him. You know they're going to talk about it, dating history. He continues to be a person that people are just infatuated with, has been famous his entire life. At number three, I have Leonardo DiCaprio. At number two, I have Zendia, who has really risen into this top five in the last year, and I think it's because she has such a massive twenty twenty six on deck. Her highest rated movie is Spider Man No Way Home, which I think is wild. Her lowest rated movie is Space Jam A New Legacy. Yeah, yeah, I don't really think that was her fault. Her last box office performance was Challengers, which made ninety six point one million dollars. And what really led me to put her high up in this list is I think she is about to have a banner year coming up. This weekend. She's going to be in a movie with Robert Pattinson, The Drama, which is already creating a lot of drama people spoiling that movie for me. I did not want to know. I didn't want to know. Oh. I tried not to click it, but it was just everywhere. Then she's gonna be in Spider Man Brand New Day, which is gonna be massive, gonna be in Doune three, which is gonna be massive, and then she is also going to be in the next season of Euphoria this year. I still think the only reason she's not number one is because I still think, too maybe the older generation, you may still have to explain who she is, even though I think at this point should be undeniable. She is one of those celebrities that any day I go online, there is a data story. People still speculating whether her and Tom Holland are married or not. People are talking about her red carpet looks. She is constantly being spoken about, and she also has this elusive movie star quality to her still where not really on social media aside from doing interviews and not even like long form podcast interviews, just red carpet interviews. But that is really the only time I see her out is when she has a movie coming out that she's promoting, which she has a lot of them coming out at any given time. But she is not somebody who puts her personal life out there, and why she keeps things so secret and not kind of like that, I don't want to know every single detail about all my movie stars. It gives them some aura, it gives them some mystery. It gives me a reason to go see them in theaters because I can't really see them anywhere else. When somebody is all over Instagram and all over TikTok, you kind of feel I can see them all the time. And I think that could be a contributing factor to why some people say, why am I gonna go pay to see them in theater if I could just see them online? And even though they're promoting their things to their millions and millions of followers, does it really transfer into ticket sales. We've seen it fail with even the biggest of celebrities, but she is one of the biggest gen Z stars. Oh Man, I totally forgot the Odyssey. She's gonna be in four movies this year, the drama Dune Part three, Spider Man, Brand New Day, and the Odyssey Wild. So at number two I have Zendeia, but at number one in my power rankings of actors right now, I have Ryan Gosling, coming off of his highest rated movie of all time, Project Hail Mary, his lowest rated movie is a movie called Stay Before Project Hail Mary. His last full box office run was The Fall Guy, which made about one hundred and eighty one million dollars worldwide. Even when he puts out movies that don't perform well at the box office, right now, I still believe that they are good movies. So I still stand by the fact that I really enjoy The Fall Guy and think it's still a great Ryan Gosling movie. On deck, he is going to be in a movie called Star Wars Starfighter, where he plays a pilot who becomes entangled in a crucial mission as a new threat emerges and they find out their journey may alter the future of the Force itself as they rebuild a galaxy. So that sounds good if you're a Star Wars. He's also going to be in a new movie directed by the Daniels, who is the directing duo behind Everything Everywhere, All at Once. This just came out. Everything's still under wraps, but it is expected to start filming this summer. All we know about it. It's going to be a fun sci fi action comedy with a big heart, and it should come out in theaters on November nineteenth, twenty twenty seven, Ryan Gosling, I believe has the most momentum right now, coming off of Project Hill Mary, still coming off The Fall Guy, coming off of Barbie, and I think he is the most prime example of balancing prestige and blockbuster era, which I think it is something we need right now. He is not only somebody who is just a really great actor pound for pound, who can have chemistry with anybody, whether it's a person, whether it's a puppet, whether it's a piece of paper, whether it's a CGHI character. He can have chemistry with anybody. He is so charming, so endearing, and I really love what he said recently. He said it's not on the moviegoers to save the movie theaters. That responsibility falls on the Hollywood studios, say Ladder. Ryan Gosling quote. Six years ago I got the manuscript for Project Hill Mary, the most ambitious thing I'll ever make. It seemed impossible, it was too good not to give it a shot. Six years later we did it. Here we are, we're all back in theaters. It is not your job to keep them open. It is our job to make things that are worth you coming out for. That is what I'm talking about because I think sometimes some people, whenever they have a project fail, they blame the audience, which is the thing you can't do. And if you look at some of the most prime examples of box office hits, talk about weapons, you talk about Sinners, you talk about Project hill Mary, you talk about Superman. Things that have given people a reason to go to a theater. We have done it. You can't keep us away from a really great movie when it generates a buzz, when it generates people wanting to go experience it in theaters with the crowd. And then you try to push out something and say you gotta come watch it, you gotta come support it, you gotta support original movies. I do think it does fall on the filmmakers. It falls on the studios to create those moments, find those movies, find those stories. Not give us the same crap anymore and think, why isn't this working? Why is nobody wanting to go to the movies. It is your job to make those things that are a spectacle, because there are directors out there and studios out there that are going to do it. A Christopher Nolan is going to do it. A Ryan Gosling is going to find a project that is going to do it. So I think he has it all. He has the qualities I want in a movie star. Seems like a great dad. Him and Eimendez seem like fantastic parents. I love how they found a way to make their kids a part of Project Hill Mary. He has I believe, the best filmography. If I could only take one actor's film allography with me to a desert island, I would take Ryan Gosling and I put him at number one because I wanted to declare now that Ryan Gosling is my favorite actor, because that is a question I get a lot, what's your favorite movie, What's your favorite actor? And it's always been really hard for me to have a favorite actor. But when I look back on all his movies, The Place Beyond the Pines, going back to The Notebook, Blade Runner, twenty forty nine, The Big Short, First Man, all these movies that have been a part of my life for so long. Now Drive I didn't even mention my favorite Ryan Gosling movie. He is my favorite actor, and I believe the number one actor in the Power rankings right now, that is my top ten in the Power Rankings. Who would you put in years. Let me know Moviemike d at gmail dot com or at Mike dstro on all socials. I'll come back and give my spoiler free movie review of They Will Kill You. Let's get it to it now. A spoiler free movie review of They Will Kill You. One of the most original movies I've seen this year. What a wild theater experience. I first saw the trailer for this a couple of months ago going to see another movie, and I thought, I don't know what that is not familiar with the director, but it had such high intense violence and blood splatter kind of reminded me of Kill Bill meets Ready or Not meets a little bit of John Wick, and I thought, I have to be a part of that movie and go and see that when it comes out in theaters, and it did deliver what the movie is about. You have Zase Beats character who you may remember her from Atlanta, which I loved her in. She was also in Deadpool two. She did an episode of Black Mirror. She was also in the First Joker, had a small appearance in Joker Too, but her character went to prison, gets out and then gets a job as a maid to go work at this place called the Virgil, which is this really high and kind of apartment style building where a lot of wealthy people live. She is on a mission to rescue her sister, but what starts out as a rescue mission turns into full out mayhem when she stumbles upon this satanic cult that lives within the walls of the Virgil. So it gets crazy in the trailer. I won't spoil anything, but in the trailer you see her fighting a lot of people in her room and it is really crazy stylistic violence. So who this movie is for, it is for me. I love horror movies. I feel like it's had a big resurgence in the last just two years of being one of the most creative genres, and the resurgence has been in the horror comedy space, where you go see a movie and its intention really isn't to frighten you anymore, which I think some people think horror movie is supposed to be scary. Not always the case, especially now, where I think horror is so flexible in what it can give you, whether it comes to the emotions or the actions, And there is this style of movie that is existing right now in the horror space that has a little bit of comedy, which I think is important, has a little bit of action, and then mixes in some pretty dark elements to make it a horror movie. I would probably credit this a little bit to Sam Raimi, So maybe if you saw Send Help earlier this year kind of in that same style, except they Will Kill You is so much more disturbing and bizarre. But I think this movie style is really thriving right now where people want to go to the theater and have a good time and watch a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously but also doesn't paint you out to be a domy as the viewer, which is a really fine line to walk because it is so off the wall if you go into it with a closed mind and think this is dumb, this is ridiculous, This is too cartoonish. This feels like a live action anime, which was one of the things that really stick out to me and what I loved about it. I just got back into one Piece on Netflix, fully loving that it kind of reminded me a little bit of Attack on Titan. If Dragon Ball had bloodshed, it would remind me a little bit more of that. But anything that has a lot of swords and gun violence. That is what I feel is the source material for this movie. So it's just a lot of fun. So if you like horror movies, if you like comedy movies, if you like anime, or if you like video games. Because the other thing that really stick out to me was how all of the levels and different rooms inside of the Virgil kind of felt like a video game level. And I know they did draw some inspiration from Dante's Inferno and the adaptation of that video game. Of the different levels of hell that you kind of experience. It kind of had that feeling of putting you inside of that action. Maybe if you were playing an old school Mortal Kombat game or like a tech and fighting game, one of those old school two thousand maybe even arcade video games, where it is that style of over the top violence and over the top bloodshed that I was craving for as a kid in the nineties and early two thousands. That is what I felt while I was watching this movie. It felt very organic and felt very alive. They used a lot of practical effects. I'm talking crazy amounts of blood splatter and blood clouds, where I think that's what kind of gave me the vibes with like a kill Bill martial arts style movies like back in the Day. I feel like that was a big reference point and inspiration behind a lot of these scenes. So I very much got Uma Thurman inside of Jase Beat's character. But then it kind of takes on this entire mind of its own because it comes to us from a director from Russia who I'm not that familiar with but I find really interesting. His name is Ki Real Sukolov. His story is crazy because he started out as a scientist in college and then started making DIY movies with his friends and decided this is what I want to do. He put out a movie that came out back in twenty nineteen called why Don't You Just Die? That was really successful, really put him on the map, and now he is getting to show everybody this is my style, take it or leave it. This movie is so unapologetic that I loved how much it was committed to the style, which I know it might not be for everybody because it does get pretty twisted, especially in the third act. If you don't like anything that has any kind of demonic presence or satanic cult like Even though It is not indulging in it. It is more I would say, poking fun at it. But some people just don't like watching that type of imagery. I get that because the way it is used in this movie, it's shown as the evil force, and the character of Asia played by Zasse Bates is trying to take that evil force down. But in order to have such a crazy evil force, you have to depict them in this way. So I don't really feel like it's here is this really dark, twisted imagery. I am supporting this. I am supporting the person taking that demonic presence down and taking down all these sick, twisted individuals that live inside this building. The thing I wasn't expecting to work so well and they will kill you was the cast. You have Patricia Arquette, you have Heather Graham, and you have Tom Felton. Oh, Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter, I have never seen him in a movie like this. And you combine all these different personalities and actors that you know from vastly different things, from Harry Potter to Boogie Knights and The Hangover to Severance, and you think, how would there be any world where all these people could exist in one movie and it work, and somehow it does. I think even the style of acting caught me a little off guard in the beginning of this movie, where I did feel it was a little jarring at the start, where it just kind of threw you into this world, didn't really explain a whole lot, and kind of went back and forth between timelines. In the beginning, there was like a timeslate of kind of telling you where it was. But the intro of the movie kind of felt mashed together. Even once the action starts picking up, it kind of comes out of nowhere. But I think because the movie is under ninety minutes and it had a lot of action to fit in there, that was the only way to get the story going without boring you. But I ended up enjoying the way that it played out from the beginning because it didn't waste a whole lot of time giving you the backstory on this building and why it is the way it is, because if they did that, that would have been boring. This building, the Virsil just exists. There's some crazy things going on within the walls. You learn about the details you need to learn about, and everything else you don't need a history lesson on which I find so boring in horror movies when they dig into all the history of whoever lived there back one hundred or two years ago, and there's this big exposition on details you don't really need. The tone shift all the way throughout this movie, where it feels a little bit comedic at times, sometimes within the same sentence, which I found really interesting, where a character will start delivering a line that feels funny and then they kind of snap back into this dramatic tone. Then it feels a little bit more horror movie. It goes all over the place so much so that I kind of feel like this movie was designed for people with the short attention span, the TikTok generation, people who will instantly swipe out of a video, of people who have not made it this far in this review, because at any moment, there is something happening, and if you don't like what is happening within that moment, in about four or five minutes, that scene is going to change, the action is going to develop, there's gonna be another character thrown into the mix. So your brain is just kind of the entire time because there is so much happening and you never really feel like the movie drags at any point because there is no time to and there's so much story to fit in. It just really feels like wham bam, think you maam, and you're out of there, and then by the end of it you're wondering, what in the world did I just watch? Am I gonna have nightmares tonight? Or am I gonna laugh at myself when thinking about some of the most ridiculous moments, like body parts becoming a character within the movie. So I think if you go into this movie with the open mind, don't ask a lot of questions. And I'm not saying that as a way to maybe mask some of the style of filmmaking of Oh, don't pay attention to any plot holes. I'm just saying, don't question every little detail, which I find myself doing. That makes me like a movie less because if I went into this movie with a little bit more cynicism and thought, why is this building here? Why hasn't it been condemned? Who pays the rent at this building? If there are some really crazy things going on, why haven't the police showed up it? To me, it was more like a dark fairy tale that kind of exists in its own world. I don't see this story taking place in our universe. It's kind of like a bizarro universe. It kind of reminded me of one of my favorite Goosebumps episodes from back in the nineties, Attack of the Mutant, where there was this building that would pop up out of nowhere. The kid would go discover it and there was this crazy mutant living inside of it, and then when he would leave the building, it would disappear. I remember the first time I saw that episode, it blew my mind because I was convinced that there was this building out by this lot where we lived that would appear and reappear. It was all inside my head. But that kind of reminds me of the Virgil in this movie of it's this building. Maybe it's there when all this action is going down, but when you go back, it's completely gone again. Also kind of reminded me of the Continental in John Wick, So another parallel there. So if you are a fan of horror, if you like really over the top violence in the style of Kill Bill, it kind of feels like, I don't want to say he was doing a Quentin Tarantino in Press where you can really see the influence of Quentin Tarantino inside of They Will Kill You. For this movie, I give it four out of five eyeballs. It's side to head down to movie Mike Trailer Park. I am trying not to be angry about this because at the end of the day, I know it doesn't matter. This movie is not for me. I've been just since this thing was announced that they're remaking Mowana less than ten years after the original came out. It just doesn't feel right. And now looking at the live action trailer, it doesn't look right. I'm trying not to go crazy here, but this is gonna come out. It's gonna happen, It's gonna be a thing. It is probably still going to make a lot of money. I just find it fascinating how much Disney is dipping into this well. I have so many thoughts on this that I'm just going to get right to playing the trailer and then talk about it more after. But the live action Mowana is coming out in theaters, not Disney Plus. On July tenth, The Rock is playing Maui in a very questionable wig, wearing a full body muscle suit. Oh boy. Before we get into more about this trailer. Here's just a little bit of the live action Mowanna. Fine Maui, We stole the heart of Defichi and save us all. Maui Demi, God of the Wind and Sea, Hero of men. Huh.

00:43:46
Speaker 2: So it goes like this, Maui shape shifter, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, hero of men. Ah, women women too, men and women, thank you.

00:43:59
Speaker 1: Here's got a little bit too excited there. Here's the reason this movie exists. It's because Disney is making so much money off of Mowana. The original movie came out back in twenty sixteen, and it was a hit, but it wasn't massive. It wasn't the best thing that they had ever done. It wasn't something that they instantly thought, this is going to be what we are going to dig all our resources did to make this the best thing ever. Because whenever they were making the sequel, instead of getting a full theatrical release, what they really made was a Disney Plus series that was gonna come out just on Disney Plus, broken into parts. But then they realized that the original Mowana from twenty sixteen was their highest stream movie. Everybody was watching this movie on Disney Plus that they thought, you know what, let's not put out this show on Disney Plus. Instead, let's recut it, put it into theaters across the country and make some money off of it. And what did they do? I ate a lot of money off of it. So in under two years now they are dipping back into the well because that movie came out in twenty twenty four and they are putting out a live action version of the original twenty sixteen movie right around the tenure mark of when that movie came out. And I think, to me, that was the most upsetting part whenever this was first announced. Why are you going to make a live action movie of a movie that just came out ten years ago, less than a decade. There's no nostalgia associated with this movie yet it is simply because it is a cash cow. And I was annoyed by that. But I thought, you know what, if they do it justice, if it looks good, if the rock is Maui because he voices him in the original, he looks good and live action, I'll be okay with it. But by the looks of this trailer, it does not look good. And the issues I have with these live action movies is they blend so much CGI and animated characters. And I understand that you can't make this completely live action or completely practical, because there are things that exist in the world in Mauana that you just could not make. You can't turn a human into a shark with practical effects. You can't create a big lava monster, you can't create this giant crab. I understand that part of it. But I think, if you think about it, why give a movie a live action adaptation that has so many elements that can't be translated from animation. It just doesn't work. And that has been the issue with a lot of these live action Disney remakes, Lin King, Aladdin, a little bit, The Jungle Book, a lot of these movies where you can't recreate these characters. So it's one thing to create CGI characters where it's needed. Okay, And I get I'm not the target demographic for this. There's not going to be some four or five year old who loves Muwan who's going to be like, I'm not going to see that because the animated movie just came out. It's this isn't probably going to affect that audience. So therefore, it's not going to affect their money. I just think overall, when you think about what they are doing, they are just setting us up to be able to get the same thing over and over again and us be okay with it. But if you look at why they continue to do this, it's our own fault because we still go watch them. We still continue to support these movies by giving them our money, whether it comes to paying for the ticket or paying for the merchandise. And then we are not supporting the more original movies. Thank goodness that Hoppers was a success this year, but we are not supporting the movies that are originals, therefore telling them we don't need to invest anymore in original stories. Let's just keep making mowanas, toy stories, Let's keep making z utopias, all the things that work. So from a business standpoint, it makes sense. You're gonna continue to put out the products that people want and that people are paying for. Much like if you're a restaurant, if you have an item that is selling a bunch, it's flying off the menu, You're gonna keep making that menu slight different variations of it, but you're gonna keep selling what is working, what is keeping your business afloat. I don't think Disney has to focus so much on the little things. They can take big risks. They are a giant, huge corporation company when it comes to film and entertainment and all the things. But when it comes down to me having a big problem with this movie, it doesn't look good. It looks so flat. And I'm not even talking about the wig that the Rock is wearing. I think because I just see him as a bald person now, it is really hard to see him in the Maui wig. That there's also this weird effect on all the humans in this movie where it almost looks like they have like this glossy effect over their face, where there's a big disconnect between their skin tone and their hair, and it almost looks like even the wardrobe looks a little bit cgied all these people. And I know the Rock is wearing this full torso bodysuit to make them look bigger like Maui, but even then he doesn't look like how massive Maui is in the animated story. But the wig does not look good. Therefore, it just doesn't feel to me that it has that attention to detail. It looks like they just grabbed one wig and said, Okay, that's it. The Rock only has an hour to shoot today, let's get it in. That's the wig, because we don't have time to find one that looks a little bit better. There's just a big disconnect between the hair and the rest of the MAUI look that it is so distracting that it just looks like the Rock and a wig. It doesn't look like he has really become the character. Even his hair and makeup and the smashing machine, which was a fraction of the budget of what this movie is, looked so much better. That was a true transformation for the Rock, even though he did shed his hair towards the end of that movie. But aside from the wardrobe, aside from the wigs, the problem I have with it is it just doesn't look like it has any depth to it, especially all the scenes out on the water. Some of the villains and the other characters, they look okay. It looks like some of the action sequences will feel just like the animated movie, because all those are going to still be animated and CGI. But there are scenes where the Rock is talking that Someone on YouTube commented that this looks like an SNL sketch, and I can't get that comment out of my mind because that is what it looks like. It looks like it lacks any kind of depth. Everything in the background just looks second rate, where I don't feel like I'm going to this island. I don't feel like I'm looking at anything that is alive and real. It just looks like I'm looking at a big empty studio lot where they just kind of splashed everything in the background, and it feels put together so quickly and so cheaply, when that should not be the case. And I think about one of the greatest Disney franchises out at Water, Pirates at the Caribbean. Those movies hold up so well even the CGI and those movies came out back in the two thousands, where it is so next level compared to what we are getting now in twenty twenty six, that if you went back and watch those movies, these special effects still hold up. All the scenes out at Water look I would say the best of any Disney franchise that takes place out at the sea, where you should feel like you were in this magical place. Those movies hold up. They have great wardrobe, they have great acting. Not the case here. It does look like they are doing the rock hosting SNL and they decided to do a Mawana sketch. And again, this is probably only going to matter to me. I'm not the demographic, so I think this movie is still gonna come out and make a lot of money. It is probably, I would say, at least a billion dollar movie. I don't think the outrage from some people, even though I still I think It's Justified, is really going to hurt the bottom line. It didn't hurt Dutopia two whatsoever, although that was a good movie. It just feels really weird to me to put out a movie that is less than ten years old that is live action, but the only live action element is the humans, and you didn't really do any work to make anything else feel like it deserved a live action treatment. It truly feels to me like it is a cash grab, and that's it, plain and simple. They are just trying to make another billion dollar movie, which they will probably still achieve if the first movie has over one point four billion hours stream. Of course they're going to do a sequel to it. And I think a big driving factor is because the rock wants to be a part of it now when he is in I would say, his second prime of his career, and if he doesn't do this movie now, he doesn't have another five to ten years to wait and do the role of Maui. He kind of needs to do it right now. So I bet that is a big factor and then cranking this out right now. But if that's the case, just pass the torch, give it to somebody else. Because they're also not bringing the original voice of Majana to be a part of this live action cast. Recasted her and a big part of why that movie was so good was because of the voice acting. And I do feel a little bit of a disconnect seeing the Rock do the exact same scenes, but now live action doesn't feel as lively, feels a little bit more flat. But this is just the nature of the Disney model now, so I'm not hitting on the idea. Overall, I think sometimes it can be done right. They did do to me Leelo and Stitch Justice, because I think the character of Stitch in that movie actually look good. But when it comes to the treatment for this movie, I'm just not buying it. But I think they want to strike when the iron is hot. I don't even think they're going for a one billion dollar movie. I think they want to get a two billion dollar movie and to become the most stream movie on Disney Plus. Because I also think what is happening now with K Pop Demon Hunters too. I think Disney is laughing at because Netflix isn't going to get a sequel to that movie until twenty twenty nine. Because unlike Disney, the Sony Animation Studio takes a lot of pride in their process. They don't want to rush it. They want to make it perfect. They want to make it up to their standards, and those movies take time. I don't feel like this movie took that same amount of time. But again, Mawana two is coming out in theaters from Disney on July tenth. And that was this week's edition of Movie Mike Trailer Bars, and that is going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I'm going over to my Instagram DMS and I am shoutout out Jill who sent me this really nice DM. And Jill says, just a quiet message to say that movies aren't really my thing and I don't even watch many, and yet I never missed an episode of your podcast. Really fun to listen to, and I love when Kelsey joins to have a great day. Thank you Jill for listening. I have to say that is the highest compliment I have ever received, Jill. If you don't love movies and you never miss an episode of this podcast, that is an extra shout out to you for this week's listener shout out of the week. And I do tell some people because even though you don't love movies, I still think some of the themes of this podcast and discussion goes beyond movies because when I review them, I do like to try to find a piece of myself to share with you, because I think that is every movie. And just because you don't love going to the movies as much as I do, see movies in theaters, maybe just like watching them at home. I think it's that experience and those lessons you learn and getting a peek into lives that you never thought you would see by watching movies. That is what I love and I like to bring those out and share those here on the podcast. So I try to share things from my life, things from my perspective of my experiences from living on this planet, and adapt them to the movies that I see and share that with you guys, and also connect with you guys about what you like and what you enjoyed, what you thought was good that maybe I thought was bad, or what I thought was bad that maybe you thought was good. That is why I love doing this podcast. So appreciate that, Jill, Thank you for listening every single week, And thanks to you wherever you're listening right now, whether you're a new listener, whether you have been here since twenty nineteen, the start of this podcast, or maybe it just randomly stumbled upon it. I couldn't do this without all of you, so appreciate that. And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you