Drive Away Dolls

I thought Madame Web was going to be my least favorite movie of the year and it didn’t even last a week at the bottom rung.

I’m skipping my usual Recommended Expectations for “Drive Away Dolls” because a pet peeve of mine is when people who clearly don’t like a genre review a genre film. In this case, one of my least favorite trends in film right now is talented filmmakers intentionally churning out B-movies. I have no problem with “Drive Away Dolls” being a goofy romp but it’s just not well made and revels in not being well made. It makes a film like “Bottoms” (which I really enjoyed and recommend checking out instead of “Drive Away Dolls”) look like high art. If I did Recxpectations for “Dolls”, it would be to expect a student film. It’s that shoddily put together. The editing seems like someone trying out every transition in the AVID and there are drug-induced interstitials that seem like someone trying to be weird as opposed to truly being off-kilter.

The Coen Brothers film it most closely resembled for me was “Burn After Reading”. My friend described that film as a long way to go for a simple punchline and “Dolls” felt the same. I’ve never checked my watch as much in a film, which is saying something as this one is only 84 minutes.

Anyway, the premise for the movie is: “In search of a fresh start, two women embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, Fla. However, things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.” “Fresh start” is doing a lot of work there as the premise is pretty shoddy.

Four years ago, I saw an evening of one-act plays from Ethan Coen; it was a hit-or-miss show but the one thing was clear, Coen loves writing different dialects and, when he misses, it’s basically because he just likes to hear his own dialogue. In “Dolls”, every performance is stilted by design as the actors try to perform Coen’s unrealistic writing. It doesn’t help that all of the characters are one-dimensional. This is not a film concerned with depth.

In the end, I guess my main beef is that this is a film that both felt try-hard and lazy. It had tics more than it had style. It was showy but had nothing to show off. The fact that it got a fairly wide release just shows how bad the start of this year is and how the strikes limited what Hollywood has to offer right now.

Rexcpectations: Madame Web

Recxpectations are my Recommended Expectations for where people’s heads should be when they go to see a movie. I believe that having the right expectations is key to enjoying the filmgoing experience. Expect greatness, and a good movie might seem disappointing. Go in expecting nothing and a hokey film can be entertaining enough. I try to keep these expectations as objective as possible; this isn’t a review, it’s a heads-up.

DON’T EXPECT: a good movie
Now I’m sure some people will see this and say, “So much for being objective!” but again, this is about setting expectations. I'm sure there are some people out there who’ll enjoy the movie but I think EVERYONE will be best served if they walk into the theater expecting a lousy flick. I don’t think there will be many people who go in with high hopes and walk out saying, “Mission accomplished!” Set your expectations at the lowest possible level and the odds of you having fun will be increased.

EXPECT: a Final Destination sequel
To best enjoy this movie, don’t go in expecting something comparable to Spider-Man or The Marvels or even Morbius. This movie is more like a straight-to-DVD Final Destination cash-grab sequel. The one caveat to this is that you shouldn’t expect any scares. Midway through the film, I thought, “This could actually have been a pretty good horror movie,” but, alas, they didn’t go that route. Still, in terms of quality, “Madame Web” feels surprisingly low-budget. The villain spends a good chunk of the film in his fairly empty apartment. His “guy in the chair” is Zosia Mamet, who probably filmed for one day and never got out of said chair. The main characters spend an inordinate amount of time in isolation - first in a car, then in the woods, and then in a hotel room. The amount of bad ADR (dialogue replacement) is embarrassing. The score is so generic that it feels like they blew the music budget getting Brittany Spears’s “Toxic.”

EXPECT: an impossibly hacky script
My prediction is that Sony will eventually reveal that they had AI rewrite the script. I honestly don’t think a human being could put together a screenplay this formulaic and dopey. (And only a robot being trained by movies from the 80s could come up with the Pepsi product placement.)
And, again, “dopey” here is objective. You have to prepare yourself for a film that features everyone’s favorite expository classics such as our hero: talking to her TV, talking to a stray cat, reading out loud, and - my all-time favorite - an overheard voicemail from a phone that clearly doesn’t have the kind of answering machine that would play messages out loud while they were being left.
The amount of ADR in the film does seem to point fingers at execs meddling in post-production and making demands for additional on-the-nose dialogue (and if anyone in the filmmaking process could be replaced by AI, it’s the execs) but, again, you have to go in expecting a script on par with low-budget horror films - all the way down to the girls, who are being actively stalked by a killer, deciding to take a break to dance all sexy for some random fellas.

DON’T EXPECT: a range of emotions
The acting in this film is weirdly muted. Detachment is kind of Dakota Johnson’s character’s main trait so it makes a little sense for her but everyone in the film undersells the threat level and tension. If there’s a word to describe the emotion of the movie, it’s “nonplussed”.

DON’T EXPECT: tears from Dakota
There are a couple of times when Dakota Johnson needs to get emotional and, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t look like crying on cue is in her acting arsenal.

DON’T EXPECT: good CGI
I will give the editor credit for trying to cut around as much CGI as possible. I wish there would be more creative shooting and editing to limit how many effects shots are needed because it’s become painfully obvious that mainstream films as asking for more than they can competently handle.

DON’T EXPECT: the meme line from the trailer
After the trailer came out, a clunky line about how the bad guy “was in the Amazon with my mother before she died” went viral. I’m not sure if it was just a line recorded for the trailer or if the ridicule made the studio switch things up but the line does not actually appear in the film.

Recxpectations: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

When I first heard that Amazon was making a TV version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, I was fired up. Two great voices coming together to remake one of my favorite action films. (And if you haven’t had a chance, check out the dueling commentaries on the DVD - one by the producers who struggled to rein in Doug Liman, and one with Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg, who kind of revel in what they got away with.)

When Phoebe dropped out of the show due to creative differences, I wasn’t too phased. Her and Donald were kind of an odd couple and I had faith that Glover and Maya Erskine would work better.

When the show finally dropped, I ignored my usual advice - I went in with sky-high expectations and, well, sadly, the show just isn’t for me. I seem to be in the minority on this one (it has a 77 on Metacritic and the general vibe I’ve gotten on Threads is people really enjoying it) but I’ll still try to give my objective Recommended Expectations.

Synopsis: “John and Jane Smith become secret agents for a mysterious organization. Their work puts both their skills as spies and their relationship to the test. The two have to deal with a world full of dangers.” (from Google)

DON’T EXPECT: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Premise-wise, I could argue that Amazon’s “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is almost closer to “Charlie’s Angels” or “The Scarecrow and Mrs. King” than it is to the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. The show is about a couple of strangers, forced to work together for an unknown boss and pose as a couple, coming together to carry out their various risky assignments. The entire hook of the original film - the fact that John and Jane didn’t know that their partner was an assassin - is gone.
I understand the draw of naming the show after a popular IP but I also think it puts unfair expectations on the new show since it isn’t even trying to be the same premise.
So from the jump, viewers should realize that this is a remake in name only.

EXPECT: a relationship drama
The core of this version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the evolving relationship between John and Jane. The missions are episodic and mostly throwaway storylines; what will hook the audience is the chemistry between Glover and Erskine.

EXPECT: a selection of episodes
For me, the weirdest part of Mr. and Mrs. Smith is that it feels like a selection of episodes from a larger series. There are time jumps between every episode that make it feel to me like this was a 20-episode show but we only got 8 of them. After I started episode 3, I actually paused and looked back to make sure I hadn’t skipped an episode. To give you an idea of how quickly the show moves, John and Jane meet in episode 1 and the title of episode 5 is “Do you want kids?”

DON’T EXPECT: clever spycraft
As I noted before, the missions in the show are pretty much forgettable and there is almost nothing clever about John and Jane’s methods. It’s what I call “blunt force cinema”; there isn’t much style or inventiveness to the proceedings. For instance, in an expensive-looking car chase, the big plan to get away is to shoot at the bad guys, get some distance, and then take an off-ramp while the bad guys keep driving straight ahead. The first episode features the closest thing to problem solving and even that one is pretty basic and requires some suspension of disbelief.
In fact, for the most part, we don’t know any of the motives behind any of the missions so the stakes are always just “Will the Smiths fail?” (Maybe this changes in the last two episodes but I tapped out after the sixth.)
And when it comes to the undercover element of the show, Jack and Jane’s clandestine abilities rank maybe one notch below James Bond introducing himself as Bond, James Bond to every single person he meets. For the most part, it’s such a non-issue that when John bumps into another John Smith at a busy outdoor market, they almost immediately start talking about how they are both undercover spies.

EXPECT: an indie vibe
The movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” was infamously excessive when it came to spending. For example, Doug Liman and the producers went back and forth on the ending so much that they built the set for the final battle in a full-size, fully stocked Target-type store, then they tore the set down completely after deciding to go in a different direction, only to second-guess the change, go back to previous ending, and had to fully rebuild and restock the Target-sized set.
Amazon's “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” clearly wasn’t working with that budget. Again, this is a relationship drama, not an action film, and while there aren’t any full-on bottle episodes, you should expect to spend significant amounts of time in dialogue-heavy, single-location scenes.

DON’T EXPECT: much insight
It’s unfair to compare this show to “Atlanta” but Donald Glover’s involvement is going to make that impossible. But whereas “Atlanta” felt like we were getting an inside look at a world that Glover knew well, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” offers no such insight. Honestly, it doesn’t even seem like there was much research done into the spy genre. To be fair, it’s not like the original felt like a John le Carré novel but I was expecting a bit more from Donald Glover and Co.

I’m not sure if there will be a season 2 of this but if there is another Mr. & Mrs. Smith made - and again, I know I’m in the minority on this - I’m hoping it’ll be Phoebe Waller-Bridge getting a chance to bring her vision to the screen.

Recxpectations: Argylle

My explanation for Recommended Expectations aka Recxpectations is here and I’m going to do my best to be objective about “Argylle”.

SYNOPSIS: “Reclusive author Elly Conway writes best-selling espionage novels about a secret agent named Argylle who's on a mission to unravel a global spy syndicate. However, when the plots of her books start to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, the line between fiction and reality begin to blur.”

EXPECT: an intentionally stupid movie
This is a big, dumb, goofy movie. In fact, I wouldn’t be stunned if the original script was attempting to be a parody of action films. The film toys with being meta and campy at times but for the most part, it’s an over-the-top, cartoonish, "dumb fun” action-comedy.

EXPECT: a Kingsman-esque film
If you didn’t like director Matthew Vaughn’s “Kingsman” movies, you probably won’t like “Argylle”. Liking the “Kingsman” movies isn’t a guarantee that you’ll like “Argylle” but the odds are better that it’s in your wheelhouse. This is admittedly reductive but “Argylle” feels like a more feminine take on the Bro-y Kingsman franchise.

DON’T EXPECT: quality special effects
A lot of people seem to have strong feelings about special effects nowadays so it’s very important to lower one’s expectations and accept that you’re walking into a film with lousy CGI. In some cases, it is probably intentional, to help play up the campiness of certain moments but, yeah, just go into the movie expecting cartoonish special effects.

EXPECT: a film that is 2 hours and 19 minutes
And that’s just the movie. That doesn’t include ads and trailers. For the most part, the film motors along at a pretty good pace but there’s one slog of expository dialogue in the middle and, when it comes to the final act, this is one of those flicks that will. not. end.
As I left the theater, my feeling was that the film would have been better as a limited series or maybe broken up into a couple of films. This movie is supposed to launch a franchise and it feels like they threw all of their ideas into this one and didn’t leave much room for future films.

EXPECT: probably enough moments
Film critics seem to ignore a large segment of the moviegoing public. The overlooked segment is the people who, when you ask them how they could like a bad movie and point out the problems with the movie, shrug and say, “Yeah, but what about…” and then list off five or six scenes they thought were cool or funny. For many filmgoers, there is little-to-no demand for a full, cohesive film experience. Give them a handful of fun/cool scenes and they’ll walk away happy.
Now I am not one of these filmgoers (save for “Fast 5” through Furious 7) so I’m not sure if “Argylle” definitely has enough fun to go around but the women sitting next to me seemed to eat it up and even after the section in Act 2 that is an absolute slog of expository dialogue, they were quick to hop back on the bandwagon when the next fun moment rolled around.

EXPECT: a bewildering score
I’m sure there’s a logic behind that score and it isn’t as haphazard as it felt to me but this is a film that starts with pop music in big scenes and then midway through kicks into a generic, overbearing orchestral score. Part of me thought that maybe it was part of the joke but the score was just so generic and slapped on that it felt like it was a temp score and they ran out of money to replace it so they just left it in.

DON’T EXPECT: a movie that should have cost $200 million
Even people who like this movie probably would agree that $200 million was way too much to invest in this. This would have been a long shot to make its money back pre-COVID when more people were going to movie theaters. Apple+ was basically betting that Vaughn would be able to earn more than all three Kingsman movies combined (they grossed about $260 million domestically) or they were hoping to rely on overseas audiences to carry this to profitability.
I also think that a studio is setting itself up for failure if it spends that kind of money on an original film that’s supposed to launch a franchise. You have to expect that your first film is going to find a large chunk of its audience post-theatrical run. Austin Powers is a great example; the original film - which everyone and their mother was quoting back in the day - only made $53 million in the US. But since the first film cost just $16 million to make, it was a hit and the sequels went on to make over $200 million each domestically.

Speaking subjectively, I wouldn’t recommend this movie unless people really loved the trailer or were big fans of Vaughn’s “Kingman” movies. For the general moviegoing public, I’d recommend checking out Vaughn’s “Layer Cake” instead. “Layer Cake” supposedly helped Daniel Craig get the role of James Bond. It’s also kind of funny that the film is very cool and stylish but features a blowhard, trigger-happy character The Duke and it feels like Vaughn’s career has gone that way instead of trying to conjure up more sleek, grounded fare.

Recxpectations: How to Have Sex

For film reviews, I think there needs to be two distinct camps.
REVIEWS - which help people decide whether they should go see a movie and
CRITICISM - a breakdown of how someone received the film and their take on whether the film succeed or not. Criticism is probably going to need to include spoilers to truly and fully discuss how the person interacted with the film.
What we have now in mainstream film “reviews” is a weird middle ground - a kind of watered-down form of criticism, that often follows the same basic format - a paragraph or two lede that gives the hot take on the film, then a few paragraphs describing what happens in the film (all while trying not to give too much away), and then a few more paragraphs delving deeper into the reviewer’s feelings on the film.
For me, it just feels like half-baked film criticism that doesn’t really serve the audience since it’s so based on the subjective.
What I try to do is give Recommended Expectations aka Recxpectations. I sit back, look at the film as objectively as I can, and give my take on what the best mindset is for an audience member to have as they walk into the theater. Through this approach, I feel like people can figure out whether or not they want to check out the movie at all.

That being said, let’s get to the recommended expectations for “How to Have Sex”.

SYNOPSIS: “Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday - drinking, clubbing, and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.”

EXPECT: a slice-of-life film
”How to Have Sex” drops you into the action - three friends have come to Malia (which seems like a low-rent version of Ibiza) to party. This film does not have a plot, there’s not a ton of story or character development. Some reviews complain about the lack of insight into the characters but I liked that it didn’t stop down for the usual (and often stilted) Getting-to-Know-You conversations to spell out who everyone is. The screenplay drops little facts here and there so you can get a feel of who the characters are in a way that feels natural and real.
In general, this film is more observational than narrative. This isn’t someone telling you a story as much as you’re simply witnessing a moment in time unfold.

On this same note:
DON’T EXPECT: the film to teach lessons or take sides
New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote that the film “seems weirdly insensitive toward Tara” but that, to me, was part of the reality of the situation. The world is rarely a sensitive place and you don’t always get the time to stop down and absorb what’s happened to you or your friends.
I usually hate lack of communication in films but here, the silence isn’t there to work as a plot device, it’s there because that’s what often happens in these moments. Bad things happen; reckonings or even recognition that they happened isn’t always in the cards.

EXPECT: one character focus
“How to Have Sex” focuses almost completely on Mia McKenna-Bruce’s Tara character. We have small glimpses into the other characters’ lives - and all of the performances work perfectly IMO given the naturalistic feel of the film - but everything revolves around Tara.
In short, Tara arrives at Malia a virgin, and her friends seem to think this is the week she will finally have sex. Again, there are barely any conversations about it; it’s more about watching Tara navigate the hyper-sexual environment.

DON’T EXPECT: to immediately love Tara
I got very nervous at the start of the film because the three friends are kind of screechy, over-the-top girls whom a lot of people would probably hope to avoid while on holiday. I’m not sure if Tara’s raspy voice is the definition of vocal fry but it’s close enough to remind you of some people you might be annoyed by. '

DON’T EXPECT: much fun
This film is kind of the anti-MTV Spring Break (and oof, I’m just realizing what a dated that reference is.) But on MTV, they’d show all of the fun and good times of Spring Break. Even when “Hot to Have Sex” is partying, it doesn’t spend a lot of time on the fun. We see people drinking but quickly flash forward to the vomit or passing out or headaches in the morning. Writer/Director Molly Manning Walker seems to know that we’ve all seen hard partying before and we can recognize that we’re in a kind of hedonistic environment so we don’t need to spend too much time on that. Also, the POV is Tara’s so there’s often a level of questioning or discomfort with her surroundings that the film makes palpable.

EXPECT: to be uncomfortable
Any kids hoping to go on Spring Break or on a summer trip to a party resort town should pray their parents don’t watch this film because I can’t imagine any mom or dad would feel comfortable sending their kid away after seeing this. Not only is the debauchery of Malia worrisome for parents but it also shows how you can’t always trust the people you’re around; even your closest mates might not have your best interests in mind.
”How to Have Sex” falls squarely in the genre of film that you appreciate more than enjoy. You leave the theater impressed by the craft on screen and affected by it but you aren’t feeling all that happy about it. This is an end-of-the-night movie, not something you watch to kick off the evening.

My final take is that “How to Have Sex” is a well-made movie that should help launch some careers but if you’re looking for an escape or story/character pieces, you’ll probably want to hold off on this one.