Jarhead 2: Field of Fire

“Jarhead 2: Field of Fire,” released in 2014, spends time on gunfire montages. Jake Gyllenhaal never fired his gun in the first “Jarhead,” which was the point.

The leftovers of “Jarhead” stays, despite they do so as a limited look in the psyche of Marine Corps soldiers stationed in Taliban-ruled areas. Matt Paprocki said in his review, “However, this in-name-only sequel is less about the grind, pressures, and alluring promises hoisted upon our youngest recruits than it is a tale of sagging heroism mingling with bullet fed patriotism.”

Paprocki continued, “Mostly ignoring the mental toll, that which made Jarhead a captivating and purposeful non-spectacle, is egregious. Spinning into recruitment video level jingoism is an outright illegitimatization of the concept.”

What’s left for Don Michael Paul to direct is way out from studio areas. Paprocki said, “Universal demanded a war movie soaked in blood squibs more than internal turmoil. In that sense, Jarhead 2, in spite of heinous bro chatter dialog, is a drooping if effective war drama.” Josh Kelley enters in to take over an available Corporal post as Merrimette, taking down orders from Stephen Lang whose roughness is really evident.

Story making throws Merrimette and his team in dangerous Taliban country after a car accident, showing a series of fights with Afghan rebels meant to make up this stuff for a wider audience. It’s a usual way of modern cinematic militarism, filled with sacrifice and bravery without any context.

Paprocki said, “Jarhead 2 slinks past any potential flare ups of boredom; there’s enough desert-born bullet trading to ensure it.” However, there is also no substance. Afghanistan’s difficult existence is taken down to a single native woman who is just there so show that she is a damsel-in-distress in a finale than just give a reason for her country’s chaos.

Paprocki said, “So much of this feature is inter-cutting between B-level, shaky cam close-ups of M-16s and nondescript men in turbans flailing as they’re hit. I’s a wonder if most of this wasn’t stock material welled up in Universal’s library. Jarhead 2’s statement is only to prop up currently held belief systems of superiority.” This is cliché and obsolete, nothing like the exaggerated posters, showing helicopters blowing up villages in the name of democracy – however in plan, “Jarhead 2” is not far off from a difference from that look.

As you might have guessed, this movie is bad. What could you expect from a direct-to-video sequel? Why did they feel to make a sequel to “Jarhead?” Was there any good reason? Did the first one even leave off with a hint that there will be a sequel? Just avoid this one, if you loved the first one.

Look out next week for the continuation of the downhill slope of “Jarhead Month.”

Jarhead

For the month of November, I thought that I would review another war franchise, specifically the “Jarhead” franchise. Let’s start off with the very first film, “Jarhead,” released in 2005.

This is a war movie that goes above the war and tells a soldier’s point of view. It shows the urgency and emptiness that every man’s stories have, because if something happened to us, then it is important to us regardless of how apathetic the world is.

“Four days, four hours, one minute. That was my war,” the Marine sniper Tony Swofford says. “I never shot my rifle.”

The movie is weird in its effect. It has no heroism, little action, no easy laughs. It is about men who are tired, bored, isolated, trained to the point of insanity and not given a chance to use their training. Roger Ebert said in his review, “The most dramatic scene in the movie comes when Swofford has an enemy officer in the crosshairs of his gunsight and is forbidden to fire because his shot may give advance warning of an air strike.”

His spotter, Troy, goes crazy: “Let him take the shot!” Let him, actually, kill one enemy as his revenge for the torture of basic training, the midpoint of the desert, the sand and heat, the pain of months of waiting, the look of a highway traffic jam made of burned vehicles and fresh burnt corpses. Ebert mentioned, “Let him take the shot to erase for a second the cloud of oil droplets he lives in, the absence of the sun, the horizon lined with the plumes of burning oil wells.” Let him take the gosh darn shot.

The movie is based on the best-selling 2003 memoir Jarhead by Anthony Swofford, who served in the first Gulf War. It is not like most war movies where it mainly tells the personal experience of a young man in the middle of the military process. At one point, Swofford, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is being interviewed by a network newswoman who asks him why he serves. He has already given two or three usual answers. She continues, and finally he looks in the camera and says: “I’m 20 years old, and I was dumb enough to sign a contract.”

His best friend is his spotter, Troy, played by Peter Sarsgaard. Their small unit of scout-snipers has gone through training by Staff Sgt. Sykes, played by Jamie Foxx, who knows why he serves: He loves his job. Ebert said, “Others in the group include borderline psychos and screw-ups but mostly just average young Americans who have decided the only thing worse than fighting a war is waiting to fight one -- in the desert, when the temperature is 112 and it would be great for the TV cameras if they played a football game while wearing their anti-gas suits.”

Ebert said, “"Jarhead" is a story like Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, in the way it sees the big picture entirely in terms of the small details.” Sykes informs them about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the Kuwait oil fields, but says their main duty is to guard the oil of “our friends, the Sauds.” They do this by killing time. The narration has this one verse that sounds like it came straight from the book, where Swofford lists everything they do through their time: They train, they sleep, they watch TV and videos, they get in pointless fights, they read letters from home and write letters to home, and mostly they satisfy themselves.

Ebert noted, “These are not the colorful dogfaces of World War II movies with their poker games, or the druggies in "Apocalypse Now."” They have no smart remarks, we don’t see drugs, they get drunk when they can, and there is a Wall of Shame covered with the photos of the girls back home that broke up with them. They go on patrols in the desert, looking for nothing which doesn’t look like any place, and their greatest tension comes when they encounter eight Arabs with five camels. They think it’s a trap and their fingers are on their triggers. They are in formation to attack. Swofford and one of the Arabs meet on neutral place. He comes back with his report: “Somebody shot three of their camels.”

Ebert noted, “In a war like this, the ground soldier has been made obsolete by air power. Territory that took three months to occupy in World War I and three weeks in Vietnam now takes 10 minutes.” Sykes warns them to expect 70,000 casualties in the beginning of the war, but as anyone remembers, the Iraqis surrendered and the war was over. Now we are involved in a war that requires soldiers on the ground, against an enemy that no longer wears uniforms. Ebert says, “Yet many of its frustrations are the same, and I am reminded of the documentary "Gunner Palace," about an Army field artillery division that is headquartered in the ruins of a palace once occupied by Saddam's son, Uday.” They are brave, they are skilled, and dying comes suddenly from unseen enemies in the middle of routine.

“Jarhead” was directed by Sam Mendes, and it is the other side of the story of David O. Russell’s “Three Kings,” also about the Gulf War. Ebert noted, “If Russell had Catch-22 as his guide, it is instructive that the book Swofford is reading is The Stranger by Camus. The movie captures the tone of Camus' narrator, who knows what has happened but not why, nor what it means to him, nor why it happens to him. Against this existential void, the men of the sniper unit shore up friendships and rituals. Their sergeant is hard, not because he is pathological but because he wants to prepare them to save their lives. They are ready. They have been trained into a frenzy of readiness, and all they find on every side, beautifully visualized by the film, is a vastness -- first sand, then sand covered with a black rain, then skies red with unchanging flames 24 hours a day.”

It is not often that a movie does exactly what it was like to be this person in this place at this time, but “Jarhead” does. They say a story can be shown by how its characters change. For the rest of his life, Swofford informs, whether he holds it or not, his rifle will always be a part of him. It wasn’t like that when everything began.

This is one of those movies that is a must to see. If you haven’t seen it, then you should. You will love this movie because it really shows the realism of being a soldier in the army. For those who are or have been a soldier, you will relate to these characters.

However, the rest of the franchise just got worse, like the “Jaws” franchise. Look out next week to find out in “Jarhead Month.”

Finding Forrester

Recently, we lost quite possibly the coolest actor ever, Sean Connery. Seeing how I had reviewed almost all of his movies that I have watched, there was one that I didn’t review since I was trying to see when would be the right time to review it. Now I feel I can complete that by reviewing it now, “Finding Forrester,” released in 2000.

Movies about writers are extremely hard to pull off, since writing by its nature is not cinematic. “Finding Forrester” avoids that problem by giving us a man who wrote one good novel a long time ago, and now doesn’t write: He has now become isolated and is scared to leave his own apartment. This is William Forrester, played by the late Sean Connery, who looks out on his Bronx neighborhood by using binoculars from his apartment window. “The man in the window” is seen by black teenagers playing basketball on a court below, and that becomes the turning point for Jamal Wallace, played by Rob Brown.

Jamal is a smart student who has no one to share his intelligence with. At school he hides his learning because, as an adult says, “basketball is where he gets his acceptance.” He gets C’s when his SAT scores say that he is an A student and is the leader on the high school team. Once night on a dare, he sneaks into Forrester’s apartment, is scared by him and begins a weird friendship. Jamal gets someone to read his writings. Forrester gets someone to make him get out of his apartment.

“Finding Forrester” was directed by Gus Van Sant, written by Mike Rich, and shows some similarity with Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting,” also about a working-class boy who’s smart. Roger Ebert said in his review, “The stories are really quite different, however, not least because Connery's character is at least as important as Brown's, and because the movie has some insights into the dilemma of a smart black kid afraid his friends will consider him a suck-up.”

The movie has at least two looks into writing that are right on point. The first is William’s advice to Jamal that he does not wait for ideas and just start writing. Ebert said, “My own way of phrasing this rule is: The Muse visits during composition, not before.” The other true point is a subtle one. An early camera shot goes across the books next to Jamal’s bed, and we see that his reading likings are diverse, good and assorted. Every book is worn out, except one, the paperback of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which looks brand new and has no creases on its spine. That’s the book everyone buys but no one reads.

The scenes between William and Jamal are the main parts of the movie, and it’s a joy to watch the chemistry between Connery, who was in his 50^th year of backing, and Brown, in his film debut. Forrester gives the kid different types of helpful advice about being a writer, including the tip, “Women will sleep with you if you write a book.” That’s something Jamal might have figured out for himself, but Forrester is even more encouraging: “Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.” Jamal gets a scholarship to a private college (his SAT is high enough that it’s not an athletic scholarship, despite the board wanting him to play). On its faculty is the cynical Crawford, played by F. Murray Abraham, who is also an old enemy of Forrester’s, who just doesn’t believe an African-American basketball player from the Bronx can write the way Jamal does. Ebert said, “That sets up the crisis and the payoff, which will remind some viewers of "Scent of a Woman."”

Ebert continued, “I was reminded of another movie, a great one, named "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962). In both that movie and this one, a disadvantaged young man simply refuses to perform like a trained seal, because he knows that will be a lethal blow against his adult tormentors.” In a movie where sports is an important theme, Jamal’s important decision is the best parts of the story about his walk through two worlds.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you should, especially if you were a fan of Connery. This is truly an inspirational movie and is one that shows that you can always have someone out there who will support you and inspire you to chase after your dreams. You should never underestimate yourself and always try your hardest at what you’re passionate about and what you excel at. Check this one out and have a good time.

Rest in Peace Sean Connery. You were definitely an actor that we all adored and loved, especially in bad movies where you were the best part. You will certainly be missed good sir, and thank you for giving us so many films to watch and so many memorable characters.

Thank you for joining in on my review tonight. Look out this Friday to see what I will review this month.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” released in 2017, is a lively action comedy that continues the journeys of Captain Jack Sparrow, reprised by Johnny Depp, and his extravagant pirate crew. Devesh Sharma said in his review, “It's the sort of leave-your-brains-behind film that doesn't care for any sort of continuity or timeline or for that matter, originality.”

The film tries to recreate the original duo of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) with their son Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina Smith’s (Kaya Scodelario) romance. Like the past films, it also has a British naval officer who wants to free the oceans of pirates, an onslaught of undead people like the first three films, an enemy who wants to kill Jack because of a personal issue and a mysterious island that no one can find – the entire “On Stranger Tides” had that story – plus a curse that can be broken if a mysterious object is found, just like every film in the franchise. The timelines probably have it the worse. If Henry Turner is around twenty, than his parents are probably in their forties and that means Jack Sparrow is possibly in his sixties. However, he and his pirate team do not look like they have aged a day. Sharma noted, “He's the same spry guy and as much a ladies' man as he was in the first film.”

The story is basically Henry searching for Poseidon’s legendary trident that is told to have the ability to break every curse that is on the sea. He wants to break the curse of being the undead captain that The Flying Dutchmen put on his father, Will. For Henry to succeed, he goes to Captain Jack for help, who is being tracked by another undead captain Armando Salazar, played by Javier Bardem. Barbossa, reprised by Geoffrey Rush, and Carina also want the trident for their own reasons and how this oddball crew succeeds in their mission is basically the story of the film.

Sharma said, “One department where the intent of directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg can't be doubted is the visual imagery. Whether it's at the beginning where a whole house is pulled around a village by a team of horses or the climax where the sea is literally parted into two halves, the visual spectacles are staggering. The ghosts ships, the undead sea monsters – all contribute to a colourful bonanza that goes on and on and takes you on a fantastic journey.”

There is no doubt about Depp’s, Bardem’s or even Rush’s acting talents. They fall back into their roles and Brenton and Kaya really work off of one another. There are no complaints there either.

The franchise was supposed to be done after the third film but now, since Bloom and Knightley seem to be back, it looks like we will have more sequels in the future. Johnny Depp is in his mid-fifties and he looks good. This means that he can continue playing Jack Sparrow for quite some time.

Now this was the only other movie in the franchise that I had seen in theaters. I really enjoyed it, even though I did notice some obvious CGI effects and the slow-motion was used a lot, but I still had a fun time watching it. If you enjoyed the other films in the franchise, even though you acknowledge that the sequels are not as good as the first one, then you should see this one. Just don’t mind the fact that the sequels suck, just see every film in the franchise and judge for yourself. I think every film has enjoyment in it, and I enjoyed every film in the franchise. See this one and have a great, fun time.

Thank you everyone for joining in on “Pirates of the Caribbean Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed this month, as I enjoyed talking about how much fun these films are. Enjoy Halloween night. Since I don’t think trick-or-treating will be happening this year, just enjoy the candy on your own and watch some good Halloween related movies.

I will see everyone next month for the next franchise that I will review.

Gerald's Game

Today, I finished watching “Gerald’s Game,” released in 2017, on NetFlix, which is another movie that I was watching while I was exercising. Seeing how this is a Stephen King adaptation, it was perfect to watch for Halloween. Want to know what I mean?

There is an old trick, which is what the movies say, where someone goes through torture. They don’t just hurt them; they show exactly what they’re going to do first. That’s when the audience gets an idea of the fear that is going to happen. Instantly there is a slash and you wait for that part when you finally get hurt, possibly, really bad.

Mike Flanagan understands this story like the back of his hand. The beginning of “Gerald’s Game,” based on a Stephen King novel, tells everything of the film’s trappings with stylish malice. Suitcases are packed, with one having a nightgown and the other with handcuffs. There is a very long drive to a desolate cabin that has a dirty, starving dog walking around. The door is left open and a little bottle of a man’s medicine to help him get started for an exciting night.

This scary setup of bad timing and unfortunate events ends with Jessie (Carla Gugino) handcuffed to a bed by her husband, Gerald (Bruce Greenwood). Things were going nicely, and then things went worse with Gerald having a heart attack and dying, with Jessie still handcuffed to the bed alone and not having a lot of movement. No one is around, including the neighbors, phone or water. All we see is Jessie, Gerald’s corpse, and (gasp) the starving dog.

William Bibbiani said in his review, “What an exquisitely Hitchcockian nightmare scenario we have in Gerald’s Game. But of course, these kind of gimmicks have been disappointing before. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in showmanship and forget that however weird the situation is, a movie is still a story, and the story needs to be told, not just shown off. Too many filmmakers yell “Look, ma! Watch me dive!” and then bellyflop it.”

Bibbiani continued, “Fortunately, Mike Flanagan is evolving into an incredibly classy filmmaker. Gerald’s Game is a malignant escape room movie, a sort of LucasArts point-and-click scenario where every tool at Jessie’s disposal must to be used to ensure her survival, and not necessarily for the purpose they were originally intended.” How she figures everything out is smart, regardless if you’re able to think of them before she does.

Bibbiani said, “But those are just nuts and bolts. What they build is a dramatic scenario in which Jessie, going very quickly out of her mind, must rummage through her whole life and summon not just the will to live, but the right way to do so.” With the help of Gerald’s ghost, who won’t stop talking to her, and a open-minded version of herself, Jessie watches how she become who she is, accepting everything that she has gone through, how she ended up the way she is, and what she needs to evolve into at the moment, before the worse happens.

“Gerald’s Game” knows when to have the audience stuck on the bed with Jessie, and when to flashback all over her traumatizing past. Bibbiani credited, “The film glides from chilling to cheeky almost effortlessly, earning its dramatic revelations. Even when Gerald’s Game seems to go off the rails for a few scenes, right towards the end, we discover that this was all part of a greater design.” Without these parts, without the dialogue, without the reveal, as surprising as it looks, the movie would not have as big of an impact.

Bibbiani ended his review by saying, “Gerald’s Game is a set of tightly wound gears that cranks out dread. Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood are as superb as they have ever been, relishing in the opportunity to ask and answer all the big and little questions about Jessie, within the confines of an exquisite, simple, torturously suspenseful thriller.”

In all honesty everyone, this is a very scary film. If you have liked any other Stephen King adaptations, then you should see this one, because it fits for Halloween. You will really get scared with everything that happens in the film and you will be rooting for Jessie to get out of the handcuffs. I’m not going to say how it happens, but you will feel every impact this film throws at you. See it on NetFlix and get a good scare.

Thank you for joining in on tonight’s review. Look out this Friday for the conclusion of “Pirates of the Caribbean Month.”

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Captain Jack Sparrow is out on the ocean again with “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” released in 2011, but how does this work without Gore Verbinski on the team?

Gone are the curses, dead men’s chests, or world endings, so Captain Jack Sparrow, reprised by Johnny Depp, continues to seek out the location of the legendary Fountain of Youth. Sadly, trying to rescue his old friend Gibbs (Kevin McNally) has him fighting with the English crown now being worn by a privateer named Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). This looks like the Spanish are fighting to find the fountain first, and what’s worse, someone pretending to be Jack Sparrow is hiring their own crew to find the fountain. When an old girlfriend (the beautiful Penélope Cruz) ends up being in the hunt, it doesn’t take long for Captain Sparrow to become unconscious and imprisoned on the Queen Anne’s Revenge, captained by the pirate that every pirate is afraid of, Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

With the amount of money that this franchise has made, a fourth film was predictable. Kevin A.Ranson said in his review, “As another chance to visit our favorite characters again and see what they’ve been up to (other than the happy ending of the original three), On Stranger Tides bursts at the seams with plot, almost to the point of collapsing in on its own weight. Ian McShane’s Blackbeard is, sadly, wasted (as is much of that plotline except as a catalyst to put Jack at odds with Cruz’s character), but the remaining focus on Sparrow and Barbossa continues not only the tale of their rivalry but also why (and how well) they ever worked together to begin with.”

Even though fans of this franchise met Sparrow and Barbossa so long after they had their differences, the two look like they could have been anything but enemies. Ranson said, “On Stranger Tides challenges that notion, a grand subplot interrupting a perfectly entertaining masterplot (and this is where the problems come in). Depp and Rush are so in tune with their characters at this point that they could probably take a request from the audience and burst into an impromptu scene, but by the time the film ends, the perfect balance between these pirate rivals is struck at last to something resembling an accord, but time will tell.”

Ranson noted, “An issue with all of the Pirates films has been a missing sense of where they actually are at any time, and this film is the worst by far (are they in Cuba? Florida? Another island? Tell us… show us! The Caribbean isn’t that big).” Introducing the Spanish into the cast gives the series many places it can travel to. Even though the main plot is surpassed by subplot, the production in its entirety looks like it has been designed to both reboot the franchise without Gore Verbinski and giving new oceans to sail. Ranson mentioned, “Many of the new characters are welcome additions, including a zombie seer, a kind-hearted clergyman, truly monstrous mermaids, and the Queen Anne’s Revenge herself (or maybe it’s just Blackbeard’s sword…hmm).” Until the predictable fifth movie, here’s hoping both captains play nice with the winds and every ocean.

This was a very enjoyable film in the franchise. I missed the chance to see this in theaters that I ended up rented it from the library and watching it while I exercise. I personally think that if you have enjoyed every film in the franchise, don’t miss you chance to see this one. You will love it if you enjoyed the other films in the series.

Look out next week when I finish up “Pirates of the Caribbean Month” with the most recent film in the franchise.

The Witches

Tonight I checked out “The Witches” adaptation that was released on HBO Max, so I will talk about both adaptations, starting with the 1990 adaptation that I saw a little of in third grade but didn’t see entirely until a while back.

The best children’s stores are the scariest ones, because to kids they seem most likely to have the truth. A lot of stores end with everybody living happily ever after, but they’re boring stories if they have a good chance that awful dangers must be faced as they travel to the ending. Roger Ebert noted in his review, “Roald Dahl's children's stories always seem to know that truth, and the best thing about Nicolas Roeg's film of Dahl's book "The Witches" is its dark vision - this is not only a movie about kids who are changed into mice, it's a movie where one of the mice gets its tail chopped off.”

The film starts in a dark way in Norway, with Luke (Jasen Fisher) being told stories about witches by his grandmother (Mai Zetterling). She tells him that they’re real and they are all around us. However, you can see them if you get a good look at them, because they have square feet. They’re also bald and have pointy noses, but the important thing is, they’re not made-up. The grandmother has even heard about a Grand High Witch who is the leader of the crew, and is the most terrible out of everyone.

Suddenly tragedy happens when Luke’s parents, played by Darcy Flynn and Vincent Marzello, are killed in a car accident. He travels with his grandmother to England on family business, and they stay at a seaside hotel that is hosting a convention of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Somehow when you see the leader of the crew, Miss Ernst, played by Angelica Huston, you don’t feel good about you avoiding cruelty if you’re a child.

Ebert noted, “Huston, whose energy dominates the film, dresses like a vampire vamp with stiletto heels, a tight black dress, a severe hair style and blazing red lipstick. Roeg often photographs her using lenses that make her leer into the camera, and she's always towering over everybody, especially little boys like Luke. Wandering through the labyrinthine hallways of the old hotel, Luke stumbles upon a private meeting one day, and discovers to his horror that the Society is actually a convention of witches - and that Huston, the fabled Grand High Witch, has plans to turn all of the children in England into mice.”

Suddenly Luke is seen while eavesdropping, and becomes one of the first children forced to drink a secret potion and become a mouse. This is where the mastery of the late Jim Henson is shown, as Henson and his special effects team makes a place where large pieces of furniture hover the little boy-mouse and his friend Bruno, played by Charlie Potter, as they try to survive cats and extermination and save the children of England.

Some of the parts are predictable form other movies about people who shrink to a size that you cannot see with your eyes. Others are new, including the way Luke is finally able to convince his grandmother he is her grandson and not a mouse. Lucky for him she believes in witches already. The movie turns into a saving mission, good against evil, and Roeg doesn’t let his young audiences go of the evil acts in the story.

Ebert noted, “This is the first so-called children's movie from Nicolas Roeg, that most unorthodox of directors, whose credits include "Don't Look Now," "Eureka" and "Insignificance." He almost always expresses a twisted, sinister sensuality in his films, and in this one that sensibility expresses itself in his willingness to let the child-mice face some of the real dangers of their predicament.” What happens is the movie might be a lot for children audiences (despite some of them currently being too soft for anything). However, “The Witches” is an exciting movie, motivated and innovative, and almost worth seeing just for Anjelica Huston’s obvious enjoyment in playing a completely uncompromised villainess.

But what can be said about the 2020 adaptation, which came out on HBO Max today? This isn’t the first time the book has been adapted. Brian Orndorf said in his review, “In 1990, director Nicolas Roeg and co-producer Jim Henson had their way with the source material, combing nutty Euro filmmaking sensibilities with glorious Henson-y practical magic for their take on evildoing inside a luxury hotel, with mice making life difficult for dangerous witches.” It was a very dark adaptation of a very dark book, and now 30 years later director Robert Zemeckis and co-writter Guillermo del Toro try their take with a second adaptation, and one that’s mainly CGI-heavy in the finale. Orndorf said, “While the thrill of puppetry and makeup effects is gone, the new version of “The Witches” doesn’t take it easy when it comes to the demented activities found in Dahl’s work, and while the endeavor is more adrenalized with chases and near-misses, it remains an entertaining sit for brave young audiences.”

Losing his parents to a car accident in 1968, Charlie (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) moves in with his Grandmother (Octavia Spencer) in Alabama, starting a new life. Even though the two get close, there is evil lurking, with Charlie dodging an early encounter with a witch who offers Charlie a special piece of candy. Reacting quickly, Grandmother moves Charlie to a remote hotel for safekeeping, hoping to use her healing magic to take control of the problem. Also at the hotel is The Grand High Witch, played by Anne Hathaway, who books in for a weekend even with other witches, making a plan to destroy the children all over the planet by using a special potion that will be added in chocolates that will turn them all into mice. Charlie, with pet mouse Daisy, voiced by Kristen Chenoweth, learns of the plan, soon turned into a mouse himself by The Grand High Witch. Running for safety with Daisy and another victim, Bruno, played by Codie-Lei Eastick, Charlie goes back to Grandmother, with the four going out to stop the witch convention.

Orndorf said, “Charlie is introduced as an older character at the beginning of “The Witches,” with Chris Rock becoming his most Chris Rock-iest as the character (he’s an unnecessary addition), taking on narration duties as the tale dials back to 1968, where the boy was put into his guardian’s care.” The screenplay (credited to del Toro, Zemeckis, and Kenya Barris) inserts the work to help the relationship between Charlie and his Grandmother, with Charlie learning about the healing magic of music and food, and Daisy gives him animal friendship. We also are told more about Grandmother’s history with the witches, as she says in a flashback (Miranda Sarfo Peprah) where one of her good friends (Ashanti Prince-Asafo) was turned into a chicken, leaving Grandmother to be scared of stranger women offering candy. Grandmother gives the warning signs of a witch, helping Charlie to look out for large nostrils, reptilian cheek slits, and special glamour to help hide their true face.

Once the danger is made, the action moves to the hotel setting and stays there, following Charlie and Daisy as they accidentally go into the ballroom with the witches, where the evil make their horrendous plans to expunge children. Orndorf noted, “It’s here where Zemeckis begins to unleash CGI and wirework, transforming The Grand High Witch into a violent creature with a wide bite and scarred head, also showcasing extending arms and talon-like feet, giving Hathaway (who’s having a ball here) a full creature makeover, embracing the threat of the character by keeping the camera tight on her flesh-tearing freakouts. “The Witches” doesn’t soften Dahl’s imagination, preserving menace and bodily harm, but the 2020 adaptation is definitely a slicker production, animating mice, witch transformations, and a cat, while the director’s appealing preference for lengthy tracking shots remains intact, following a transformed Charlie, Bruno, and Daisy around the hotel as they make their way to safety and, later in the feature, execute special attacks on the convention attendees (armed with the special mouse potion).”

Orndorf ended his review by saying, ““The Witches” maintains a ripping pace and offers compelling set pieces for younger audiences, with the mice and Grandmother creating all sorts of chaos around the property. While the wonderful textures of the 1990 version are gone here, Zemeckis maintains screen energy, offering lighthearted adventuring and sinister witch visitations, coming together with spirited performances and the director’s longstanding interest in wicked encounters. “The Witches” remains quite fun and in line with Dahl’s imagination, even when it branches out to sample other areas of this world with newfound cinematographic fluidity.”

The original 1990 version is definitely a dark film, as it came out during a time when PG did used to scare children. However, it is still a good film that I think everyone can check out and get a good scare while watching it. That’s not to say that the 2020 adaptation is in any way bad, even though reviews of it don’t look good. I still think Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer are amazing in the film and the effects, even though they are CGI, are still pretty scary for kids today. Also, the new adaptation tries to follow the book more, although I cannot say how good of a job it does, since I never read the books. However, check the two adaptations out, since they are good movies to watch around Halloween time.

Thank you for joining in on my reviews tonight. Look out tomorrow for the continuation of “Pirates of the Caribbean Month.”