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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE PROGRAM’
Place at the Table The Program is a highly embellished glimpse at the perils of big time collegiate football. The prioritization of wins over the actual molding of young minds is at its center, but so is football’s innate ability to form lasting bonds. The men who take the field put their bodies on the line for each other. It’s a brotherhood. It nails both of those aspects. The shadiness of the folks in charge is omnipresent; and the central cast of characters is relatable. Their foibles, as cliché as they may be, are distinctly human. You’ve got the young upstart running back Darnell Jefferson (Omar Epps), whose education entering college…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘LAST MAN STANDING’
No, Not the Tim Allen Show Last Man Standing is the American reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), though it wasn’t the first reinterpretation. The Spaghetti Western A Fist Full of Dollars (1964) had tread this ground before—a man with no name caught up in the exacerbating violence of warring gangs. Unlike the Italian-produced film, Last Man Standing was given Kurosawa’s blessing. Unfortunately, it can’t replicate either of its predecessors results. Directed by Walter Hill, it’s a movie that struggles mightily to present a coherent story. Sure, it revolves around Irish and Italian mobsters vying for bootlegging dominance in a remote Texas town, but what happens around that is often nonsensical. That is no fault of the…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘HUDSON HAWK’
Scat Burglar Hudson Hawk is as bold a movie as an A-list star could possibly choose to make. And that’s a compliment. Bruce Willis, most famous for playing gruff cop John McClane, stars as cat burglar Eddie Hawkins—the titular Hudson Hawk. He’s tasked with stealing artifacts crafted by Leonardo da Vinci that are capable of turning lead into gold. On the surface, that sounds like a fairly standard action-centric plot. What it actually entails is anything but. Hudson Hawk boasts a deluge of slapstick tomfoolery; dynamic duets between Willis and Danny Aielo, who plays his partner Tommy Five-Tone; a secret com device crafted out of a crucifix; and a gaggle of candy-themed thugs—one…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘COP OUT’
Bruce is Too Old for This S**t Cop Out is a humorless retread of the buddy cop trope. Directed by Kevin Smith, though not written by him, it lacks the key ingredient to this tried and true formula—charismatic leads. Bruce Willis, as Jimmy, sleepwalks through the entire film. Tracy Morgan, as his partner Paul, tries dutifully to carry his lifeless husk across the finish line. But, alas, he cannot. No amount of improv or overacting can inject life into the flat script. More than likely, Willis’ on-set tantrums and open disdain for Smith’s direction played a role in Cop Out‘s failures. He just didn’t commit to the material, which forced Morgan to…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE SUICIDE SQUAD’
Passion Fruit Starfish James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which is a pseudo-sequel to 2016’s film, is an unapologetic, Troma-inspired, super heroic gore fest. And it is glorious! This is Gunn’s superhero magnum opus. He dives deep into DC’s bag of obscure characters to assemble a ragtag group of expendable heathens. Make no mistake, many of these oddballs are here to die. And they do so in a series of grotesque ways. This is a hard R, folks. Unlike Birds of Prey or Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which could’ve curbed their foul language to earn a PG-13, The Suicide Squadbasks in the magnificence of its unfettered violence. Bullets are sprayed, a man is murdered with his…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD’
A Good Day to Davai Die Hard is arguably the greatest action movie ever made. A Good Day to Die Hard, on the other hand, is a soulless husk that’s related to the prior entries in name only. Certainly, the character of John McClane, Bruce Willis, became progressively more absurd with each sequel. He’d gone from isolated cop, surviving on instinct and guile, to literally a super human battling a fighter jet on a highway. In A Good Day to Die Hard, that trend continues. Worse, though, there’s just no story or a compelling villain to balance it out. The plot of this movie makes no sense—not even a semblance of it. It’s so…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘F9: THE FAST SAGA’
Space Cars! F9: The Fast Saga—as utterly absurd as it is—is the natural progression of a series that’s always running on overdrive. Dominic Toretto, Vin Diesel, and co. were destined for this film’s convoluted, bloated, and baffling narrative. Now, those may sound like knocks against it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I just don’t care how illogical the plots of these films have become. They are just too much damn fun. Dom has a secret spy brother? Sure. Why they hell not?! Magnets! How do they work? Doesn’t matter. Just bask in the awesomeness of the high octane action! Han, who was killed twice technically in cannon, returns out…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘LEGEND’
Glitter and Bubbles Legend is a bizarre fantasy fever dream—one rife with an excess of pollen, bubbles, and glitter. These things are literally everywhere, folks. They flood the beautiful scenery and are unrelenting. Also unrelenting is the film’s glaring lack of plot. If you kill the unicorns, the world will be cloaked in darkness. That’s the movie. Jack o’ the Green, Tom Cruise, must atone for his mistake of introducing his crush Lili, Mia Sara, to the wonderous creatures by killing the Lord of Darkness, Tim Curry, and taking back the severed alicorn. It’s pretty to look at, wildly dumb, and almost entirely remembered for Curry’s dazzling turn as the Lord…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘KRULL’
Murder Frisbee Krull is a pseudo cult classic. It’s got some kick ass box art and a host of ideas that nostalgia clouds as being awesome. But when revisiting it, neither of those two things amount to much. Why? Well, Krull is chock full world-building. It’s got a Cyclops, a cannibalistic crystal spider, horses whose speed creates a trail of flame, and so much more. But none of them are fleshed out all that well; and most of it is just ripped from better properties. And that’s because Krull was a cash grab—meant to capitalize on the popularity of those other IPs. Fantasy, in particular space operas, were kind of a thing in the late…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘CONAN THE BARBARIAN’
What’s Worst in Life? 2011’s Conan the Barbarian is as bad of a reboot of a classic film as you are going to find. It’s just a mess, folks. Its script is often witless, contradicting itself multiple times; and its cast—as distinguished as some of their careers may be—just don’t fit the roles. Worst of all, Jason Mamoa, who plays the titular hero, just didn’t appear ready to bear the weight of Conan‘s broad sword. As much as the filmmakers purported they wanted to channel the writings of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, it more shamelessly robs better films. It should come as no surprise then that this was a massive flop.…
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