The 10 Best, 5 Worst and 5 Most Disappointing DC Movies + Movie Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer + Trailer Park: Weapons

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Speaker 1: A little behind the scenes before we start this week's episode. When I sit down to do a podcast, I'm basically having to psych myself up to have a conversation with myself. And how do I do that. I get my voice voice. See, even there, I'm still getting my voice warm. I have to get my voice warm, so I do my evil laugh, which is also my vegeta laugh if you're a fan of dragon Ball. So this is what I do before I record an episode, and that like opens up my throat a little bit, but that's how I do it. Okay, that is a peak behind the scenes. Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. If you ever hear me laugh at the beginning, that's why it's because I do that. I am your host Movie Mike. This week, I'm talking about the best, worst, and most disappointing DC movies. I'm still writing off the high of Superman, which I'll get into later how I'm getting so much hate for that. In the movie review, I'll be talking about I Know what you did last summer, And in the trailer park we'll be talking about weapons that has Josh Brolin in it. That is the only trailer I've watched recently that has scared me, like legitimately not expecting to twenty eight years later, trailer freaked me out, but this one got a genuine reaction for me. It looks awesome. Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. You see, That's why I do it. I'm warmed up. I'm ready to go all right, best, worst, and most disappointing DC movies, DC comics as a whole. I feel when I sit down to read comics, my dumb brain tends to enjoy Marvel comics more because they are easier to read. But DC, I would say, has the more complex stories, the more adult stories. When it comes to the DC titles, I really love. It's the one that are like seventeen plus, which means they have a lot of violence, a lot of blood. And also when it comes to the movies, I'm a Marvel guy. I always have been since I was a kid. That's why Spider Man is tattooed on my arm. So coming up with this list of the top ten DC movies was actually pretty tough, and it was actually much easier to come up with my worst, but I didn't want to do a full on here my ten wordt DC movies. I decided to spread it up and I have my top five worst and my top five disappointing, which I feel are different because some are just so bad. And I would say when it comes to DC, they have the bad of the bad. Marvel has bad, but even Marvel's bad is still watchable. DC's bad is not watchable. It's not worth the revisit. But first, let's kick it off with the positive. At number ten, I have Birds of Prey starring Margo Robbie. It came out in twenty twenty. It's called Birds of Prey, but also had a really long title when it came out, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn is the one character that is unlike every other DC character because she did not have a comic book debut. Most comic book character that's where they debut, and then later they are turned into either an animated show or they have their big screen debut. Harley Quinn's first appearance was in nineteen ninety two in Batman, the animated series, in an episode titled Joker's Favor. She was created specifically for that show, not for the comics, but became such a big part of that animated show that she went on to be one of the most memorable DC characters. And I believe that Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is the same scenario as Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in Marvel as in I do not want to see this character recast. If they ever did recast her, I would not accept that person because I think there are some actors who were just destined to play certain characters who embodied them so much that I could not see anybody else doing it but them. And Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is that. And the reason I believe that this movie wasn't as big of a hit as it needed to be one because it came out in February of twenty twenty, so that obviously hurt the movie. Also, that really long title. Whenever I went to go see it in theaters, I remember them abbreviating it no matter what, and even if you just shorten it to birds of Prey, you still don't really know what that is, not that you're going fully blind to a movie theater, like, oh, I wonder what I should watch today? Birds of Prey have no idea, but still that at some level of confusion, And anytime you add any level of confusion to something meant for the masses, it's gonna hurt you a little bit. So the really long title, even though it was an artistic choice, they should have just called that movie Harley Quinn and I feel like it would have resonated a little bit more. But the actual movie, I believe, was fantastic. It had some great action, it had a great story. I thought it really captured the chaotic, just nature of her character, how rebellious she is. It was also rated R, which I think d C has leaned more into overall, and is really where they have the edge over Marvel is their willingness to put out movies that it's gonna limit the audience a little bit because it's our rated, not going to be appealing to kids, even though I feel like a lot of kids end up watching these movies anyway. But like I was mentioning earlier, with the more adult themed graphic novels and comics. I think that's what d C does really well, and the titles that really excite me as we're going to see on this list. So I really believe that this movie came out at the wrong time. If it would have came out last year or even this year, with what DC is doing with our new slate, I think it would have had a much better chance at success. Still, a really fantastic movie just did not get its fair shake at the box office. So at number ten, I have Birds of Prey at number eight. I'm going to be so biased here and this is gonna be the one that people don't agree with the most, but I still believe in my heart of hearts. Also, it's one of the most watched DC movies for me as far as saw it twice in theaters, have seen it multiple times at home on streaming. It is twenty twenty three's Blue Beetle I Love Cholo made Duena as Jim Reis, and it's because it was the first time I watched a superhero comic book movie where I saw myself in a character, where I saw members of my family. His dad feels so much like my dad, his uncle feels a lot like not my uncle, but more like my brother. I love that this movie committed to the use of Spanish. I love the music and the references to our culture. You have these characters talking about things that I've only talked about with my immediate family and my cousins. So it brought a much needed representation to the big screen. And overall is a great and slightly different origin story than what we've been getting time and time again. But overall, I still love this movie. And if there's one character I hope that James Gunn continues to use because I think he's gonna keep using Harley Quinn. They've worked together before. I think that will happen. But the one character I feel kind of hangs at the balance is Chilama Dee Duina as Blue Beetle. I know they are going to do an animated Blue Beatle show, but I want to see him come back into another DC project. With all they have coming out, which is a lot. So at number nine I have Blue Beetle from twenty twenty three, and at number eight I have twenty seventeen's Wonder Woman. It is astounding to believe when you look at the history of DC. It took until twenty fourteen for Wonder Woman just to get her debut in a theatrical movie, and it was borderline cameo because it came to us in twenty fourteen's The Lego Movie, and then made her live action debut in twenty six teens Batman Versus Superman. Then it wasn't until twenty seventeen that we got our first female led superhero movie with gal Gado as Wonder Woman, which man, I keep seeing her get dragged on TikTok so much for her acting. But I don't think we were saying that back when Wonder Woman first came out, because this movie was so groundbreaking and long overdue. Much like some of the other movies on this list, I think at that time, Diana was the hero that we needed when that was strong, compassionate, and overall just inspiring. Had a really awesome theme, which I still think is one of the best themes in DC. But the movie came out and became the highest grossing female superhero movie and the highest grossing live action movie by a female director. Shout out to Patty Jenkins at number eight. I have wonder Woman. Wonder Woman at number seven from twenty twenty one, I have the Yes, I said the Suicide Squad directed by James Gunn again, See, has always just had issues with confusion and audiences just being like, wait, what who's part of this? Where does this go? And the fact that we had already had a Suicide Squad movie. When this movie rolled out in twenty one, people were confused because it was like, are they remaking Suicide Squad? Well, it's like no, it's a different director, it's James Gunn now, and it's all different characters. But there's also some characters from that because you have Harley Quinn again, but everybody else is new. But what this movie showed me, and now what Superman has showed me, is James Gunn can take something that was crap, that was burnt pieces of rubble and build art out of it. Because this movie was so hymn. It was so bright and colorful. And now as we see more of his work, we are starting to see more of his calling cards and more of his signature style, whether it's animals, whether it's big cosmic colors, whether it's giant monsters ripping through cities that are bare cartoonish and comic book like and out of this world, and things you would never imagine to see in a movie of this scale. And he did also with an R rating, which again I love the R rated movies in the superhero world because you can get real violence, you can get characters with guns. Not so much for the cursing. I don't really feel like that adds a whole lot to me, Like I don't go watch an R rated movie thinking, man, I really hope they say the F word at least seventeen times in this I just feel like it ads another level of authenticity. When you see characters bloody, when you see some characters die in the case of the Suicide Squad, you see a lot of brutal debts, people having exploding parts, heads popping, a lot of wild things that you would never imagine to see on a movie of this scale. It was also oddly emotional, and I think about James Gunn. He can make you feel emotions for characters that are inanimate objects, that are animals like King Shark. Oh man, there's a moment in King Shark where I fell for him so much, and I had to question myself after watching this movie, like why was I so invested in a giant shark who barely even spoke words. So whether it's that, whether it's a giant tree who only says his name, those are the calling cards of James Gunn and I'm more excited to see what he does with other characters as he builds out this DC universe. So this movie was critically loved. I loved it, but again another movie that was financially hurt by COVID, And this was at a time where HBO Max was putting out movies in theaters but also on Max at the same time, so that really hurt this movie as well because it cost one hundred and eighty five million dollars to make and only made one hundred and sixty eight point seven million dollars. So you see that. I'm glad they're not on that model anymore. And as we can see through Justice Year alone, that when movies come out in theaters and people really want to see them, they show up. For a while there in twenty one and twenty two, I started to think, Man, are people just not going to go back to the theater? Have we become so used to having everything at home that that experience is just gonna go Away. I was worried there for a bit, but it turns out we just needed better movies because this year is still on pace for me to be the best movie year since twenty nineteen. But at number seven, I have The Suicide Squad. At number six, I have The Batman from twenty twenty two. This was the detective side of Batman that we had never seen before, because we've seen every other iteration. We've seen the dark, campy Batman with Tim Burton, we had seen Batman with nipples, We've seen really bad Batman's up to this point, but this was darker and grittier, even darker and grittier than Christopher Nolan's Batman. But that was one of the things that they never really leaned into, that Batman is not only great at fighting villains, but he's also really smart and a great detective. And I just remember being so engulfed in flames and rain and car chases during this movie that I literally felt my brain changing as I was watching something that I knew was going to really resonate with me and change me as a person. And it's so hard for a movie to do that. But I remember turning over to Kelsey at the moment between the chase between Batman and the penguin and saying, this is such a good movie. I love this so much. And Matt Reeves has been working on The Batman two now for so long. It looks like we are going to get it at some point twenty twenty seven. I'm not even looking at that day because we were supposed to get it this year. Twenty twenty five is the year where we're supposed to get this sequel. But apparently he has sent the script to James Gunn, who he received that script on the week that Superman came out and didn't have time to read it. Could you imagine getting the script to The Batman two and just being like, I'm not gonna get to that right now. I'll read that later. But it's only because you're so busy talking about your biggest movie right now with Superman. But man, I just hope that Robert Pattinson isn't going to get a little bit too old and not be able to play the Batman anymore. Paul Dana was also fantastic as the Riddler. Everything about this movie was great. I hope they lean even more into the r rating at number five. This is where I'm putting Superman twenty twenty five. This is where the new era starts. I think I easily could have been so much influenced by recency bias and put this movie even higher. But then I started to look at the movies that I've been a fan of for so long, movies that have really shaped DC and again not even focusing on DC as a universe, but even before we even knew what a movie universe was, there were really memorable movies that I believe are so much better than Superman twenty twenty five. Even though it's really all I can think about right now, I get on TikTok and I can just watch anybody break down the movie, people talking about their favorite moments, and I think this movie has just brought a lot of hope for people. And you start thinking about all the things going on in the world where people struggling, people just trying to put food on the table, and all that kind of goes away when you go watch a movie like Superman and you can see people just being united, at least most people, not the people ripping me for loving this movie and feeling like James Gunn has done a disservice to Superman. But the people who just went and found hope in this movie, and we've all just kind of come together around this character, and I think that is what we've needed. That is what a superhero does in the fictional movie world, but also what they can do in the real world by us watching these movies. So this movie was inspiring to me, so I feel really good about it. At five. I also think that maybe a sequel could rank higher once we have more moving parts here of people who can appear in a Superman movie. I feel like we could get another top five entry that's only to come. So at number five, I have Superman from twenty twenty five. At number four, I have the OG nineteen eighty nine's Batman. And at the time this movie was darker because Batman up until nineteen eighty nine had this campier feel to him with the TV show and the Boom Pals and Adam West dancing, and it was Tim Burton who put his dark, quirky style on it. And to think that at that time this was seen as the dark Batman, like this is gritty, this is real life, And looking back on it now, it does feel a little bit more fantasy, and the character has only gotten darker and darker with every decade of us wanting more blood and head bashing. Could they ever get too dark? That's the question. But at number four I have the Og Michael Keaton, who I believe is the best overall Batman, being that both of his parts are up there with a high rating number of him as Bruce Wayne and also hit as Batman, fantastic suit, fantastic batmobile, great villain with the Joker. At number four, I have Batman from nineteen eighty nine getting into the top three. Now at number three, I have Joker from twenty nineteen. This movie was so bold, and this came out and there were headlines about this movie of how dark it was. And again we keep going darker and darker. This is almost as dark as you can go, because really, at its core, Todd Phillips didn't create a comic book movie. He made a movie much like Taxi Driver, much like King of Comedy. Basically was inspired by those two movies and made a movie about a guy just descending into madness, inciting a riot, being a wanted criminal, doing heinous things, having no remorse for any of it. And he did it with some clown makeup to fit into this universe, because really, any connection that this has to Batman as a whole, you could argue that all that is in his head and it really has no connection to Gotham or to anything. And I think that is why I enjoyed this movie so much, is because it just felt like a character study. And this really just haunting villain origin story, the best we've ever had. It really addressed mental illness, class division, identity, just struggling to feel like you belong, also struggling with a medical condition. And I know Martin Scorsese has come out and said that he hates superhero movies. He doesn't consider them to be cinema, but this was the most Scorsese type movie you could get. If Scorsese was to make a superhero movie, this is the type he would make. But think about what a DC version of Goodfellas would be. That would be a great movie, but it would also be three and a half hours long and cost two hundred and fifty million dollars, because that's the only type of movie that Scorsese can do. But at number three, I have Joker from twenty nineteen at number two. I have Batman Returns from nineteen ninety two, another entry from Tim Burton in the top five. This was my Batman movie of my childhood, and this was really where Tim Burton leaned more into making a Batman movie that was him, because I think with the first one he was just trying to make a movie for the studio, give a little bit of his style, but really just make them happy. If that was proven to be successful, he could go on to make the movie he really wanted to make. It was much more gothic and weird. I think to a point they didn't even like that part of it because with the first one it was such a big hit that they were able to sell so many Batman toys and merchandise to kids, and then you have this one that at times has more adult themes. I mean, I felt ways about Catwoman that I probably should not have felt as a kid, had this awakening when watching Michelle Pfeiffer, and they had a hard time marketing this movie. I believe they struggle even getting the toys in the happy meals once the movie came out that parents started revolting. But looking back on it now, man how punk rock was this movie. Danny DeVito is Penguin. It had some real, just tragic moments in it, but also that dark comic book flair. This movie defined my childhood, submited my love for Batman, who is one of my top five superheroes of all time. At number two, I have Batman Returns from nineteen ninety two, but at number one, again, DC is so Superman and Batman heavy. It goes to the Dark Knight. It's the gold standard. I probably talk way too much about this movie because not only do I believe it is the best DC movie of all time, it is one of my top five movies of all time. And I think now in twenty twenty five, I may have to readdress my top ten movie list of all time only because so many great things have come out in the last two to three years. I feel like some of those fives I've given out to work their way up into that top five. But it's because not only is this just a great DC movie, not only is it just a great superhero movie, It's just a great movie period. No matter what. You can't watch this movie and say that's a bad movie, that's not good. You could say it's not for me, which is fine. Not everybody likes comic book movies. Not everybody buys into the idea, like some millionaire just dresses up like a bad guy and goes around fighting crime, Like how does that even work? He doesn't really have superpowers? Like that is fine if it's just not for you. But you cannot watch The Dark Knight and say that is a bad movie. And I'll die on that hill. All right, Let's get to now what I believe to be the top five worst DC movies of all time and number five twenty sixteen's Suicide Squad. I wasn't even that excited going into this movie, and I think it's because this was the first time we saw somebody played the Joker that wasn't Heath Ledger. And what Jared Leto did with the Joker and the tattoos and the ha ha has and the green hair, tried to make them like a punk rocker, tried to make them so weird, really leaned into that reveal being so significant, and it just wasn't. It was just so bad. It was frustrating. It was a production nightmare has one of the worst line deliveries of all time. Like I love when characters say the title of a movie in a movie, but Will Smith saying what are we some kind of suicide squad? That's just terrible writing overall, just a bad movie. At number four, I have Aquaman in the Lost Kingdom from twenty twenty three. I found it surprising that the first Aquaman was as successful as it was internationally. He did really well. I just never really got the Aquaman character, and I think when you do look at DC and see some of these characters that have been around for so long, since since the forties, since the fifties, Aquaman just seems so old school. But I think Jason Momoa does bring a modernist to the character. And even though he does the character really well, I could see them recasting Aquaman if they ever decide to use them again. But I feel like after this movie they are done with it. It still performed decently, but the writing in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was so bad. The acting was bad, the story was terrible, the CGI was atrocious. I feel like a lot of these actors just did it for the payday. There was no saving grace from this movie. There was never a moment that it shined. All the action was terrible. The only good thing I can say about it is the underwater stuff was still unique to it, and aside from that, that was it. This movie sank. It was bad. Don't go revisit it. If you never saw it, don't watch it. Just go watch Aquaman one at number three, I have twenty eleven's The Green Lantern. If you talk about or CGI, this one probably has the worst CGI. If you look at the suit transformations, like just those scenes alone, because that's the only thing worthy of going back and watching. Is bad. CG all around looks terrible. I would say at the time, Ryan Reynolds really wasn't ready for this. Even though he was an established actor, he wasn't as good as he needed to be to make a better movie out of the script, to make a better movie out of all the technology failures that this movie was riddled with. It was totally confusing. Ryan Reynolds now just famously makes fun of the film. It is just on that level of bad movie that the only good thing you can say about it is it's fun to make fun of it. Wasted this character for a very long time up until now, and I feel like for a lot of people, they're just like, I don't care about the Green Lantern anymore, maybe until now when James Gunn created a different version of the character and fixed it, and Ryan Reynolds went on to be all right at least in the movies personal life. Maybe not at number two. I have Joker, fully, I do from last year. I think it's because Todd Phillips hated what happened with Joker won as far as the people who resonated with it. I think he feels like he created a monster. Maybe he didn't like some of those stories that came out, some of the controversy it did created that he decided to have a total departure from that and really take the wind out of the sales for this character. Because that is exactly what he did. And why this movie is not number one is because I do believe still that he made the movie he wanted to make. Whenever it was announced that it was going to be a musical, I was like, let's hear him out, guys. He has to have a reason to do this. And then all the details that came out of it just kept getting worse and worse. Not only is it a musical, it's a joke box musical. It just didn't even feel like the character anymore. Of the story was just so felt like a really bad high school play. There were some good uses of cinematography that had me gripping to that trailer and just wanting to find something good in it, but overall the movie just was not good, downright bad, downright cringey. At times, I've never wanted to leave a movie more that I ended up not leaving. But again, don't even watch this movie on streaming if you haven't yet. It will make you want to vomit just a little bit. But that's at number two, because that number one not only one of the worst DC movies of all time or superhero movies, just one of the worst movies of all time. Catwoman from two thousand and four, And to think that there were plans to make a Catwoman movie after Batman returns with Michelle Pfeiffer, even that last scene they put in the movie where you see her head turn with the moon really big and bright, showing you that, oh, maybe they're gonna bring this character back, there was discussions of making a Catwoman movie then obviously never saw the light of day. To think we went from that to getting halle Berry playing basketball the movie. This destroyed her reputation at the time, even though again she's fine. The only good thing to come out of this movie is that Hallie Berry was accepting of how bad it was. She is one of the only actors on her level who actually have accepted a Razzie, which I think now her and Dakota Johnson have bonded over that honor of them both being in superhero movies and winning Razzies for it. And I remember that I got this movie on an illegally burned DVD from a flea market in Mexico, and I thought they ripped me off. I was like, they gave me a burn dvdal the wrong movie. They probably filmed this thing in their backyard. Lo and behold, it was actually the real movie. So I was like, maybe because I'm watching this in Spanish that it's so bad. No, this movie is just really that bad. At number one, I have Catwoman to close up this episode, I have my top five disappointments, and I don't consider these to be bad. I was just overall dis pointed because I was actually excited about these. At number five, I have Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four because one was so good. This one just didn't pack that same punch. And again, this was when HBO Max was putting out movies. This one didn't even come out in theaters or maybe in very few select theaters because it was late twenty twenty. So the only good thing I can say about it was that Kelsey and I watched it at home and it was like, oh, just nice to get a new movie in twenty twenty. But that's at number five. At number four, it was Justice League from twenty seventeen. That movie just felt rushed. It was fine, we got Wonder Woman in there. The Flash felt cool at that time. In twenty seventeen. The Zack Snyder cut is still better. But even that, I just kind of lose grasp on what that project exactly was going or should have been. It just felt like they were trying to compete with the Avengers and rushed with making a Justice League movie. So hopefully, in James Gunn's world, we're still I would say a decade away from that, because we have a lot of characters we need to build up before that. At number three, Batman Versus Superman Gone of Justice in twenty sixteen, This was the first time on the big screen we were getting Batman and Superman in the same film. But this movie was so boring, so boring. I had to fight to stay awake through this movie. And again, this was DC just trying to do what Marvel was doing with Civil War having Captain America fight Iron Man. They're like, we gotta make our two biggest characters fight each other. How do you put Batman in Superman in the same movie and have it be this boring by including these unnecessary details about Bruce Wayne and the whole thing just looking like a mess. To waste what I would say is one of the better Batman suits, Like I love chunky Batman, like big bulky, like oversized, I love big Batman with the fat logo. To completely waste that. Henry Cavill has just been misused. Man of Steel was good, but in every other project he was just like, man, why are they doing this to you? Man? Why he's been ripped off so much in movies? Speaking of Henry Cavill getting ripped off at number two, I have Black Adhaim I was so high going into this movie, such a cool looking character. I was still a huge fan of the Rock and how much he was promoting this movie on Instagram, just making it look cool. But the Rock sunk like a boulder. The rock in this movie was acting like a rock, Like that's his range. He can act like a rock, he can act like a boulder, sometimes act like a pebble. But his character was just so one dimensional, had no depth to him. And I feel like you wrote in this contract that he wanted to look cool at all times. He didn't want to struggle here, and the movie suffered for it. And they brought back Henry Cavell for this movie and wasted him. And now not even part of DC anymore. He left his job on the Witcher. Yeah, he lost his He lost his job because of the Rock. The movie was so disappointing, But at number one. The biggest disappointment in DC was The Flash in twenty twenty three. Like I was saying earlier, Michael Keaton is the best Batman. They brought back the best Batman and they wasted in. This movie had me hype from the trailer, like Batman saying the famous line, Let's get nuts. And this movie just made no sense. They just threw in random cameos because Marvel again was having so much success with the Multiverse, they thought, let's do that too. Marvel just set all these records with no Way Home. Let's have row no Way Home. The biggest disappointment based on how hiphe I was going into it up until I sat my butt in that theater. This is movie I genuinely thought was going to be good. I had no reason to hate it, but I did. At Number one is the flash come back. I'll get my spoiler free movie review of I Know What You Did Last Summer. Let's get into it now, a spoiler free movie of I Know What You Did Last Summer. This movie is both a sequel and a reboot to the original one from nineteen ninety seven. I really think the franchise that did this best was Stream in twenty twenty two. They're the ones who kind of coin that term of requel where they continue the storyline from the original, but then bring in a whole new cast of characters. And let me say, even before I watched this movie, I thought, how are they even going to remotely make this movie make sense? Given that just by watching the trailer you know that the exact same thing happens to this new group of kids that happened to them in the original What are the odds? Because that's what this movie is also about. Five friends cause a car accident, they make a pack to cover it up. Next summer rolls around, they get a handwritten note I know which it did last summer, and then they have to bring in the help of some of the original cast members from the movie from nineteen ninety seven, Freddie Prinze Junior and Jennifer love Hewitt. But you have a bunch of new fresh blood in this one. So just going into it, I thought, how are they going to make this happen again? How are they going to make it make sense? Because it's a whole lot different than when Scream does it, Because Scream, that person can be anybody. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I went into this movie with a pretty open mind, knowing it wasn't going to be anything super incomplex. But I think what I liked about Scream and the way they did it is they made it a little bit more sinister in those ghost Face was a little bit more menacing. They aged the mask a little bit. Going into that, I felt like I was going to watch a little bit more of a brutal slasher than the ones that were so famous in the late nineties and early two thousands. But what I got, and I know what you did last summer, it just wasn't it. And I think it's because of the acting. I know that horror movies like this slashers are always infuriating because you're like, why are you doing this? Why are you so dumb? But if you didn't have dumb characters in a slasher movie like this, nothing would happen. They wouldn't wonder off by themselves, they wouldn't go hang out with sketchy people. So I understood that. But it wasn't just the dumb things they did in regards to what got them killed and what got some of these characters killed. It was just overall of their interactions and the dialogue just felt so watered down. The only performances I really like were Freddie Prince Junior and Jennifer love Hewitt, because I think they were the best actors. Maybe it's because they had more experience with the franchise, they knew how to play it a little bit more. By the way, they both look fantastic when they were on screen. I was invested in. I would have just watched them two together, And I get you need teenagers, or in this case, they have them a little bit older. They're in college. You need younger people to make a story like this work. But I just would have watched them to get back together and have to deal with this killer again, maybe something more like a Halloween, like how Jamie Lee Curtis keeps returning. I would have been more invested in that. Because everybody in the cast was so insufferable that I wasn't rooting for them to live. I wanted everybody to die. Like whenever The Fishermen was on screen, I was like, take them all out because I cannot stand any one of these people. And I even think it's the way they are trying to keep this secret that had so much more weight to it in the original, like their initial pack, it felt a little bit more realistic. In this movie. Nothing made sense, there were no consequences, nobody was questioning anything. The adults in this movie were also just as insufferable, So it's not just the younger cast, it's everybody in Southport has zero brain cells. The kills themselves were the only things I felt improved from the original one, although in this case it's really hard to take the killer seriously because in the first movie you still believe that it's just a regular person, but in this one, the killer almost has supernatural abilities. They kind of have a Michael Meyer's essence to them, where they're attacking one minute and then the next minute they run away and they're gone, So it's harder to believe that there's actually a person behind this and not somebody supernatural. That part I didn't like, because it almost felt like the person underneath it was just the shape. It felt just more generic horror movie that that didn't quite work for me. I even rewatched the original movie going into this one, just because I wanted to remember all the lore, and I was reminded of how much I rooted for Julie, how much I rooted for Rey, just how much chemistry all those actors had in that original, which was what made that movie significant, which is what made that movie get a sequel. This one. I never want to see any of these people ever again. And I think Madeline Klein is a good actor. I enjoy her in Outer Banks, but this role just wasn't it. I think just the way they decided to write her character just didn't really make you care about her. Her actions did not make sense because one thing happened and the next moment she forgets about it. Her character just didn't learn anything, and you're like, come on, just get with it. And just the interactions between her and everybody else was so forced. And they also made it a point to just give you all this information at the very beginning, to tell you all the dynamics between everybody, to not show you their backstories, but deliberately tell you everybody's backstories and everybody's relationship when it goes from when the accident first happens to then we jump forward a year after, just like it did in the original movie. They're just telling you all this information to try to get the story going, to try to get to the killing. It just really felt like they were juicing an onion by the end of the movie. And even though I don't have a whole lot of good things to say about this movie, for some reason, it was still entertaining. For some reason, I still needed to sit there in that theater till the very end to find out how this thing was going to wrap up, to find out who was going to be behind it in the end and to find out whether or not it was actually worth my time. Just barely was this movie worth my time? I don't want to see them continue on which whenever I saw Scream in twenty twenty two, I was already for the next one after that one, because I started to feel like, Okay, they did a good job at rebooting this and also making a sequel, And I just think that I Know What You Did last Summer fan base just isn't quite as strong as anything else in the horror genre. When you want to start pulling out movies that people feel nostalgic for, I don't think there's that much nostalgia here because the killer themselves is not that interesting. The look of the character is not that interesting. I can't really buy into the hook as being one of the best horror weapons of all time. This suit itself just isn't that memorable when you're starting to put people up there like Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Chucky, like all those great people from Slashers. Not even the best I Know What You Did last Summer movie comes close to one of the worst movies from those franchises. And I think that is saying a lot, because there are some bad Halloween movies, there are some bad Friday the Thirteenth movies. It just felt like they were really justing on that nostalgia. They even make a point in the movie to call out nostalgia, and I love nostalgia. Look at this room around me right now. I live in nostalgia. Nostalgia will probably at some point in my life be the death of me. But it just didn't really bring back any feelings from when I watched the original. They tried to make all of Madeline Klein's fashion statements as impactful as Sarah Michelle Geller's fashion statements. They tried with the cool cars, they tried with the romantic scenes. They tried with the blood, they tried with the guts, they tried with the action, but they did not capture the original energy of nineteen ninety seven's I Know What You Did Last Summer. The only thing that even made me want to go see this movie was the fact that Jennifer Love Hewitt was in it, and I'm glad she was because if she wasn't, this movie would have been a total snooze fest for I Know What You Did Last Summer twenty twenty five. I give it two out of five hooks. It's time to head down to movie Mike Trailer, Paul. When the trailer for Weapons first came out, it had my curiosity, But now that I've seen the second trailer and really dove into it, now it has my attention. This movie looks like it could be pretty good. It's from the same director who did Barbarian, that Kreger, which if you haven't seen Barbarian, I would say it is one of the most dynamic horror movies of the last three years. Because it came out in twenty twenty two, is available on Netflix now, and it was a movie that a bunch of people told me, you gotta see Barbarian, you gotta see Barbarian, and I watched it. I thought it was gonna be a movie I would completely love because I love that style of horror movie. It's not exactly what I was expecting, not your traditional horror movie, but it has some great visuals, has a lot of social commentary inside of it, so it's almost a horror movie disguising itself just a little bit, which I kind of think is going to be the case here with weapons. I think that is Zach Craiger style. There's a lot of interesting history with this movie. Another really famous director wanted the rights this movie, lost out on it and fired his staff because of it. But the movie stars Josh Brolin, who I love, and we'll get into how he was kind of broke for a vast majority of his career. A really famous movie of his came out while he was broke. Julia Garner, who you might remember from Ozark. You also have Olden ahren Reich, who you might remember from the Hans Solo movie. He was also just in Ironheart, which I've been hesitant to say that I was a big fan of Ironheart. Well, maybe not a big fan, but it was a lot better than I was expecting, mainly because I haven't been that into all the Marvel Disney plus shows all those people in this movie. Even though the trailer says this is based on a true story, it's not based on a true story, but essentially, a bunch of kids leave their homes in the middle of the night, nobody forces them, they go somewhere they can't find them, and then all the parents in the town are riled up because they all have a connection to one teacher's classroom, who is Julia Gardner's classroom, and they want answers. So before I get into more about weapons, here's just a little bit of the trailer. We're talking about seventeen kids and one classroom. I want to know what happened in that classroom. This is a true story that happened right here in my tongue. A lot of people die in a lot of really weird ways in the story, but you're not going to find it in the newsroom. Those kids walked out of those homes. No one pulled them out. I'm want divorced them. What do you see that? I don't show me where did you go? There's something very very wrong going on. So this movie, seventeen kids disappear, but it appears that eighteen kids were in the class total. So maybe it is that one child who did not dissiper who we're hearing from in this trailer. The interesting thing about the way they run out of their homes a couple of things. It looks like they all go into the same direction because we see Josh Brolin pull up a map. He's pulling up all this ring cam footage trying to see where they all went, and there's a big red line in his map that all goes in the same direction. They also all run in the same style. If you were going to have a running start to try and fly with your arms kind of out, kind of like when you would play Super Mario Land or Super Mario World, and he would start running like he was about to take off with this cape, just with his arms kind of angled by his side, almost like you're about to fly away like Superman. That is how they are running. So they're not running guarded in any way. They're not protecting themselves. They don't really seem to have control of their body. And you have to remember the title of this movie is weapons, So to me, it feels like some force is turning these kids into weapons in some way, because what we see later in the trailer is some of the adults starting to harm themselves. We see two adults standing at the edge of a hallway, which that has me just confused that have everything because you see one kid walking down this hallway towards them and there's almost this line of salt in between them. But the two adults are standing at the edge of the hallway and they look like they could be dead. They're just standing there with like blood on their face, and you get that weird sound effect as soon as the kid places his foot over that line of sand. That is the part I don't get, because if these kids are used as weapons, is that what they are doing or are they turning the adults into weapons once the kids are gone, Because we also see some other members of the community running through the streets in complete daylight with a bloody face. We see another older gentleman stab himself in the face. So a lot of creepy things are going on here. As the voiceover said from the kid, a lot of people die in this story in really unusual ways. It also kind of reminds me of the Power Readers movie whenever Ivan News ooses all of the parents and has mind control over them and they all essentially become his minions and they have no control over their body and they're just mindless zombies doing whatever he wants them to do. Could we have that type of situation? There are a lot of little subtexts in the classroom. If you look at some of the things written on the wall, it looks like they were being taught a lesson about parasites, so it did something specifically infect all of these kids inside of this classroom. If you look at the time of day, which I am always fascinated with any horror movie that shows a clock. Going back to me watching movies like The Conjuring or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, you learn about things like the devil hour, that there are certain times of the day where these evil spirits come out, where bad things happen. In the Conjuring, at a certain time of day, all the clock stop, or not day, but overnight, all the clock stop, and then they smell this rantid meat. In this trailer, you see the clock at two seventeen, which is a very specific time to put into a trailer, So there has to be some roote in that. I always pay attention to the Diamond Day because for some reason, demons till time. Maybe a devil has a rolex or something. I really like Josh Brolin in a role like this. He is a fantastic actor, most famously probably Thanos. That was his biggest payday for me, my favorite movie of his, even though I love Himsstanos. It has to be No Country for old men. The wild thing about Josh Brolin. I mean he got his acting star back in the eighties. He was in the Goonies in nineteen eighty five. I feel like everybody knows that. But because he's had such a long career, you forget that. He broke out in the late eighties, had success in the nineties and two thousands, obviously with being in No Country for Old Men, but probably has made a majority of his money from playing Thanos in the MCU. But he said that he spent twenty two years of his life just trying to work, and whenever No Country for Old Men came out, he was broke. He only made thirty thousand dollars for his time on No Country for Old Men, And even though that movie went on to win Best Pictures, sometimes you don't make a lot of money off of movies like that. Because after No Country for Old Men, he thought he was broke. He thought he was done. He just had all this success and thought, man, I'm gonna have to go back and just find a normal job. He was in a panic in his life, and then he received a call from his lawyer who said, you got some back end pay from American gangster. And he's like, all right, maybe this will get me rented for another month. And he got a number from his lawyer which he thought was sixty thousand dollars, which he thought, Okay, that's a pretty good payday. And it turns out he missed the zero and he actually got six hundred thousand dollars in back end pay, and that number brought him to tears. He thought, man, I could live the rest of my life off of six hundred thousand dollars. But then whenever he played Danos an Infinity War, he made eight million dollars for that role. There's no official number on what he ended up making for endgames. Some say he probably made another eight million. I feel like some people probably got paid the exact same because they filmed those two movies at the same time. So I was like, all right, you're gonna spend all this time here you get eight million, and since we're all just kind of filming it all together at once, we're gonna pay you kind of the same thing. I really hope he had some kind of deal where he got some money off that back end, which I really feel the people who made the most on that movie, well, number one is easily Robert Downey Junior, who made millions and millions off of playing Tony Stark. But Van also is such a big part of that world. You can't imagine how he wouldn't make at least something closer to Robert Downey Junior. But we even see that now with David Cornsweat and Nicholas Holt making vastly different salaries for Superman. Because Josh Brolin is still listed with having a net worth of about twenty five million dollars, we were talking last week about movie maths and actors not making as much as you think. I would put Josh Brolin in the upper one hundred million range, but Internet has unlisted at twenty five million. But that's not always completely accurate. The other lore of this movie is apparently Jordan Peel was involved in the bidding war for the script to Weapons. He wanted this movie so bad because Zach Gregor was already attached to it. Barbarian was already a hit. So this is what happens. A director delivers a hit and then everybody wants a piece of their next movie. So Jordan Peele's production company was trying to win the bidding war, but it ended up going to Newline for thirty eight million dollars, which New Line Cinema is a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, who is putting out this movie. Now. They won the Bidding War. They have the movie coming out on August eighth, and allegedly Jordan Peele fired his management after losing that Bidding War, and I believe Jordan Peele at the time, him and Zach Gregor had the same management, So maybe that was just a whole awful situation. But that's how competitive Hollywood gets. And that also leads me to believe that this is a really great story and it has a really great second and third act that we're not seeing just in this trailer. Because if it's something that Jordan Peele wanted this badly, it has to be good. So, like I said, it added my curiosity, but now it has my attention. I mean even just the sound design, like this is kind of what got me in the trailer, that really made me feel it, that freaked me out a little bit. I love it when trailers use this kind of sound. Oh that got me. But again, Weapons is coming out next month on August eighth, And that was.

00:50:33
Speaker 2: This week's edition of Movie Line tramor bar and that is gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast, But before I go, I gotta get my listeners shout out of the week, and I promise I'm not always trying to pick the negative responses and dms and messages.

00:50:50
Speaker 1: But I've been getting them a lot more frequently lately, and I came to understand that for Jurassic when I don't like a movie, I get a lot of pushback of people say, how'd you not like this movie? A lot of fanboys, die hard fans will hit me up and call me stupid things, tell me to never review again, which I shared with you last week. But this past review, when I talked about Superman, I had people hitting on me because of how much I love that movie. So again, I'm not trying to highlight all the haters here, but this is just what's been coming in more frequently. If you want to combat this a little bit, I would appreciate it if you maybe sent me a more positive message or just tag me in your Instagram story listening to that week's episode at Mike Distro on Instagram. I'll repost that and make you next week's listener. Shot out of the week just so it doesn't become the hater line. But this week's listener shout out of the Week, aka the hater shoutout of the Week, is to Joseph Scott, who sent me this on X and said, wait, movie, Mike, like something mediocre, You don't say Superman was a two? It best? Same James Gunnfield. Every single thing he makes Superman was not a too at best, at worst, at worst, even at worst, even if you have no soul and don't like anything fun at worst, that movie could be was a three because it's in no way mid a two point five, no way less than mid. It is even if you're the biggest Superman hater, the biggest hater of James gunn At minimum, that movie is a three unless you're just really finding things to hate about movies, or you have some completely different agenda going into it and you wanted to hate it. I just can't find what people hate about this movie, and most times I can, and most times I can really have a grasp on my fanboy noess, But I wasn't even a fan of Superman going into this. I would have rated it lower if it truly made me feel that way. So I have no reason to overhype it, which I do get that. It is hard when there is so much hype for a movie and people go see it opening weekend and it has really high rotten Tomato scores, everybody talking about it at buzzing about it, and I think, what we're gonna see now more so going into this week and the next week is all the people who went to see it because of the buzz. No matter what, when something is overhyped, you're gonna have those people go see it and be underwhelmed. This is what everybody was hype about, and I hate that. But I know in order to get that, you have to have something so great like Superman, that is inspiring people, that is fun. I have seen a lot of what Joseph here on X is calling out people saying that all of James Gunn's movies have the same formula and they're all the same movie that is terrific. Is much like y'aw doing all these things, which that was the only thing I kind of looked back at a little bit more after watching it, after hearing more about what other people had to say. But if you have a formula that works in storytelling, of course you're gonna go back to it if it makes a great movie, and at this point in his career, that's how you tell superhero stories from him. I don't think you can hate it for that. I don't think he needs to reinvent that just yet. But I guess if you didn't like his trademarks, I could see what you think. This is a lot more of the same. But again, I still think even if you hate all those aspects, a minimum of three. But I appreciate the feedback, Joseph. I know not all people like this movie. I'd like to open myself to everybody's opinions. But again, if you want me to not bring another hater next week, send me. It doesn't even have to be positive, just send me a different opinion. Thank you for listening, Thank you for being subscribed. Hope you have a great rest of your week, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.