'Rules Don't Apply': A disappointing return for Warren Beatty

When a Hollywood legend returns with their first project after a seemingly self-imposed 15 year hiatus from acting and directing, it only stands to reason that there would be an expectation of greatness.

Warren Beatty, one of my personal movie-making heroes, has earned a reputation for meticulousness, pickiness, and fierce intelligence, and so while he has certainly made his fair share of bombs I had somewhat high hopes for his Howard Hughes-themed 2016 film Rules Don't Apply.

For decades, Beatty had been wanting to tell Hughes' story -- and that should surprise no one who's followed his career.

Like Hughes, Beatty was also an eccentric playboy who achieved astonishing success at a fairly young age. Hughes' descent into madness has made him both a glamorous and mythic figure and any number of fascinating films could be inspired by distinct periods of his life.

Martin Scorsese's infinitely superior and more focused The Aviator chose to portray Hughes at his best, an obsessive, driven man with a passion for innovation. That film showed glimmers of his downfall, too, but wisely told a fairly simple story with style and panache.

Beatty's advanced age has put his production in an awkward position. I imagine had he made this film in this prime the resulting film would have resembled The Aviator a lot more than what he would up with, which feels much more like an afterthought than a decades in the making passion project.

Warren Beatty

The film is nominally about a younger couple, played admirably by up-and-coming actors Alden Ehrenreich (the future Han Solo) and Lily Collins, and the complicated, blossoming romance between them during the golden age of Hollywood. The trouble is their courtship is far less interesting than Hughes' story and while the film captures the spirit of old Hollywood well, it's pacing and storyline are impossibly dated.

Meanwhile, Beatty does show flashes of his past brilliance but he also feels tentative and unsure. Is his Hughes a wily and perceptive charmer or a doddering bully, or both? Much of his performance is shot in darkness and I have the sneaking suspicion has more do with Beatty's vanity than character development. And the timeline is so murky that it's hard to grasp at any given time whether he is too old for the part of not.

He can still attract big name actors for this films, but the talents of his wife Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Candice Bergen are all wasted here, and as the film enters its second hour it becomes increasingly disjointed and clunky.

It's hard to understand who the intended audience for this film was, especially since this terrain has already been traversed so affectively (and more accurately) by The Aviator. It's too light and frothy to be a real awards contender, but unlike Beatty's last great film 1998's Bulworth, it's not raucous or rambunctious enough to be consistently fun.

Tragically, Beatty's most memorable recent moment -- involving a Best Picture announcement debacle at the Academy Awards -- has not only eclipsed this film but what could have been a resurrected cinematic legacy.

This legacy, which includes classics like Bonnie & Clyde, The Parallax View, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy and Bugsy, has faded in the memories of many in this Netflix and Chill era, and that makes me sad.

And unfortunately Rules Don't Apply won't supply any positive new memories.

'Never Seen It' - Episode 16 - A 'Kraken' at 'Clash of the Titans'

"Release the Kraken!"

Even if you've never seen the cult classic 1981 fantasy film Clash of the Titans, or its big budget reboot, you probably have heard that famous line. But what else is worthwhile about this movie?

My wife and I had never seen it until this weekend. Not being a fan of the genre and being conscious of the fact that both versions were reviled by critics, I didn't have high expectations.

But this movie does have a following, it certainly was a staple of a lot of Generation Xer's childhood.

And it introduced the world to a future Sexiest Man Alive winner, Harry Hamlin.

But is the movie any good? Check out the sixteenth episode of our "Never Seen It" podcast below to find out what we thought of it:



PREVIOUS 'NEVER SEEN IT' EPISODES:

Episode 1: Some King of Wonderful
Episode 2: XXX
Episode 3: Varsity Blues
Episode 4: Xanadu
Episode 5: An Affair to Remember
Episode 6: Blue Steel
Episode 7: Spy Kids
Episode 8: The Frisco Kid
Episode 9: Rising Sun
Episode 10: The Conjuring 2
Episode 11: Zootopia
Episode 12: Fear
Episode 13: The Cell
Episode 14: Nocturnal Animals
Episode 15: Kindergarten Cop

Stay tuned for more!

#RIP Roger Moore: Beloved James Bond of my childhood is gone

Roger Moore

Roger Moore will always hold a special place in my heart.

The actor who was most famous for playing James Bond from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s died today at age 89. He was the Bond that got me hooked on the series as a kid and the series itself helped turn me into the addictive movie watcher I am today, so I owe him a lot. I had no idea that Moore's sillier, campier Bond was always held in less esteem than Sean Connery's (even by Moore himself).

When I was a kid, his 007 movies were the fun ones, the ones I would watch over and over again.

While my brother and father were more hooked on Connery's more serious, Cold War-centric entries, I was drawn to Moore's playful smirk, ability to drop a devastating one-liner with ease and his more lascivious nature when it came to the ladies.

Critics have not been kind to Moore's seven Bond outings over the years, with a couple of exceptions. But there has been a bit of a re-evaluation and a warming up to his interpretation among fans more recently. I think that is in part because for the all the ruthlessness and intensity of the Daniel Craig 007 films, they are largely missing the wit and good-natured charm of the Moore movies.

Moore was the actor who chose not to take Bond too seriously, to own the absurdity of this series about a virtually indestructible British secret agent and to revel in the role. He always seemed to be having a good time playing James Bond and his joy was infectious for viewers.

It took him a couple movies to fully blossom into the part, but by the time 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me rolled around he had totally made it his own. And he would star in two more of my favorites -- For Your Eyes Only (a gritty, scaled down Bond movie, which my wife and I consider one of the most underrated entries) and Octopussy, which is terrific despite its silly double entendre of a name.

Sure, there were missteps. The Man with the Golden Gun may be one of my least favorite Bond films, and although there are elements of A View to a Kill that are a lot of fun, Moore was pushing 60 when he made it and his age showed.

Still, no one was more self-deprecating about his deficiencies as an actor than Moore himself, who not only parodied his persona in movies like The Cannonball Run but openly talked about being "the fourth best James Bond."

Ironically, real Bond aficionados think Moore's posh and proper Bond was actually closer to Ian Fleming's original conception. And I would also argue that he is solidly the third best Bond after Daniel Craig and Sean Connery.

But it really doesn't matter where you rank him. The point is that he was a delight as an actor and as man and he will be sorely missed.

'Fate of the Furious' quickens your pulse, but tries your patience

Charlize Theron and Vin Diesel in The Fate of the Furious

The Fast & Furious franchise is a truly fascinating commercial phenomenon to me. Clearly, there are plenty of moviegoers who earnestly enjoy these movies at face value without hesitation, and there are viewers like me (and the folks at How Did This Get Made?) who have become enamored by their sheer absurdity and who have grown to embrace everything that is inherently terrible about them.

The last few entries have actually flirted with critical acclaim, and from an action perspective this new film, like most of its predecessors, really does deliver bang for your buck. There are some spectacular set pieces in this one -- including an elaborate chase set in New York City where driverless cars are being launched at our team of heroes.

Let's excuse the fact that the whole scene and scheme motivating it makes next to no sense. It's effective. What isn't effective? A lot.

I mean Vin Diesel tries mightily to act in this entry, and he's given a lot to do -- since the plot of this one forces him to collude with the villain (a campy, unblinking Charlize Theron with godawful hair) for convoluted circumstances. But he continues to mutter in his annoying monotone about family.

MVP of the Furious franchise

Meanwhile, Ludacris and Tyrese's bickering is getting really tiresome, and is their friendly feuding over the gorgeous but bland tech sidekick Nathalie Emmanuel is also a drag. Characters are always spouting meaningless techno mumbo jumbo, while inexplicably being able to communicate calmly to each other while driving amid mayhem and nearly all their behavior always defy reason and gravity.

But with action this consistently entertaining you mostly forgive it, mostly. Certainly, every time Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Jason Statham show up on screen a smile came to my face. Not only are they very credible and charismatic in fight scenes, they are damn funny together and the rumored spin-off with their characters already has me psyched.

Those two capture what this series does best, a sort of winking self-awareness. This movie is like a McDonald's fast food meal. You know it isn't good for you, it's not something you want to make a habit out of, but every once and a while it really hits the spot.

Still, this series is eight movies in and some of their tropes -- the endless additions of new characters, the sanctimonious speeches on family, the sudden resurrections of supposedly dead characters, gratuitous shots of underbutt,  the co-opting of former villains into the hero fold -- are getting really cliched and too silly to support.

To use an awful pun, I'm not too sure this series has that much gas left in it. I spent a lot more time groaning during this one than I did during the seventh film, which had an element of pathos because of the death of series regular Paul Walker prior to the movie's release.

Without that gravitas, this one feels like a little bit of retread, while there is something endearing to me about its big, loud stupidity, there's nothing resonant about it either.

'Alien: Covenant' is competent but it's no classic

It's never a good thing when you start wondering why a movie needs to exist beyond pure commerce, but that thought occurred to me as I watched Alien: Covenant, a competently made, diverting but also very flawed new entry in the Alien franchise, directed by the legendary Ridley Scott.

The first Alien was a bonafide masterpiece -- there had never been a sci-fi movie like that before. Keep in mind it came just two years after Star Wars, and it took the genre in a totally different, darker direction: it's violence was shocking, its scares were legitimately heart-pounding.

Seven years later, James Cameron managed to expand on the strengths of Alien, by focusing his story on the great find of the original film -- Sigourney Weaver's skeptical and resolute Ripley -- and he made a thoroughly satisfying sequel. Alien 3 is even moreso Weaver's film, and while it has its imperfections, it at least takes the saga in a different direction.

Every other Alien film since has been lacking for me. I think the franchise suffers from the same affliction as the Jurassic Park films -- diminishing returns. Eventually, we start anticipating the jump scares and even become numb to them. Those films are essentially slasher films with dinosaurs, and in this case it's aliens committing the carnage.

This is part of why Prometheus -- Ridley Scott's ill-fated, 2012 would-be prequel to Alien -- had so much promise, It was meant to help flesh out the why of his 1979 original, which for all its power was short on context. But that opportunity to tell a fresh Alien tale was squandered on a portentous script that was lacking in character and compelling action.

It was a great looking nothing of a film, so much so that when this new film tries to make nods to it I found myself struggling to remember the details of it. And while Covenant is considerably more thrilling, and better drawn in terms of character, it still suffers from some of the very same defects.

It opens with a plodding bit that might have been a deleted scene from Prometheus and then it goes about setting up developments that have become all-to-familiar to fans of this franchise: Humans woken up unexpectedly from hibernation, which then leads to a pattern of poor decision-making -- from exploring mysterious planets to bringing clearly infected people on board which will only put others in peril.

These plot points, which felt fresh and organic in the original Alien films, feel forced here. I rolled my eyes just about every time a character insisted on investigating the disappearance of another crew member ... alone. It's all too easy for the alien(s) to kill in this movie, but more on that later.

Covenant does take greater pain to imbue its human characters with more, well, humanity than Prometheus did. However Katherine Waterson, who was so sexy and vibrant in Inherent Vice, comes across as a wimpier Ripley and is saddled with a horrible, unflattering haircut. Danny McBride fairs a little better but the real star of this movie is a holdover from Prometheus, and that film's only resonant character, a cyborg played by Michael Fassbender.

Channeling a young Peter O'Toole, Fassbender is great here -- even though some of the motivations for his character feel murky. At times Scott seems to be conflating this story with his 1982 masterpiece Blade Runner, with its meditations on the nature of humanity and its relationship to machines imbued with human characteristics.

At times, this film doesn't seem to know what it wants to be -- does it want to be a serious, mind-bending sci-fi film or a traditional scary horror movie. It definitely revels in gore -- with new and particularly vivid variations on the original film's chest burster scene.

But the blood and guts started to numb me at a certain point, so much so that when two characters (in the middle of the mayhem. mind you) decide to engage in some sexy shower time you find yourself waiting for the inevitable alien massacre.

As for the alien -- Scott is hit or miss here. In early scenes Scott makes the unfortunate choice of having the alien rendered as a pale, rubbery type figure where the limits of CGI are very apparent. In the last act, the alien takes on an incarnation that we're more accustomed to, and many of those scenes are quite effective from an action point of view.

But unlike the first few films, this movie doesn't really have anything to say. It's not about corporate malfeasance -- it's about perpetuating bloodletting and at a certain point that feels very empty and cynical.

It is an entertaining movie to be sure, but it doesn't add much to what these kinds of films can be. There are a few moments early on that suggest that this Alien movie could take a different tact than films past, but ultimately it follows the beats you know and love: crew gets picked off one by one until our heroes blow said creature into space.

Now, to be clear, I didn't hate this movie. And it was head and shoulders above Prometheus, although that's not saying much. Clearly, at 79, director Ridley Scott has still got the ability to deliver the goods in a mainstream blockbuster, which is saying a lot. But the movie itself feels inconsequential, just a "greatest hits" retread of tropes from previous films.

It'd be one thing if this film truly expanded upon an established universe (like the new Star Wars films have done) or used modern filmmaking techniques to improve upon an existing template (see Mad Max Fury Road). Instead, it just plods along from set piece to set piece. It's effective filmmaking but I learned nothing from this film.

Michael Moore may go 0 for 3, but I'm still psyched

Donald Trump and Michael Moore

Can a movie move an electorate?

It was just revealed this week that polarizing liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is going to come out with a Trump-themed follow up to his smash 2004 hit which took on the George W. Bush administration, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Just like that acclaimed movie, Moore's new film -- Fahrenheit 11/9 (a not to last year's election day) -- will be distributed by the Weinstein brothers and according to the director himself, the film's stated aim is the topple the Trump presidency (although it looks like the president is already doing a pretty good of doing that all on his own).

“No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t worked,” Moore has said in an official statement. “No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts, reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and keeps going and tweeting. That all ends with this movie.”

That's amusing hyperbole -- even if the fact is that no movie has ever elected or defeated a presidential contender.

Back in 2004, when Fahrenheit 9/11 captured the cultural zeitgeist and grossing the kind of dollars that big budget action films usually do, it was being positioned by Moore specifically to motivate voters to turnout and vote Bush out of office after just one term.

Bush enjoyed a historically narrow re-election victory, but he did win. Fahrenheit 9/11 would win top honors at Cannes, an Academy Award, and make Michael Moore a household name -- but in terms of its real goal, it failed.

Just last fall, Moore tried again with his scaled down Michael Moore in Trumpland. That film was even more overtly partisan, it was essentially a one-man show (starring Moore) about why voters should get behind Hillary Clinton.

That film, like his new one, was made largely in secret and considering Moore's enthusiastic support for Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primaries, one would think it could have persuaded a few fence sitters, but its brief run in theaters and lack of distribution likely diminished whatever impact it could have had.

Undaunted, Moore is stepping up the plate again. And as one of the few prominent figures to accurately predict Trump's victory in historically blue states like his hometown of Michigan, the director now has earned more cache and gravitas with a mainstream press that had largely dismissed him previously as a far out lefty.

Indeed, many of his documentaries were ahead of there time. His breakout film Roger & Me now reads like a prescient predictor of the toll automation would take on blue collar workers across the country, Sicko's arguments in favor of protecting patients with pre-existing conditions have gone mainstream, and Bowling for Columbine could easily be resurrected amid any modern debate on gun control.

Right now, there is no official release date for this Trump-themed film, nor are their specific details about the themes the film intends to tackle. With Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore focused with laser beam like precision on the Bush family's shady business dealings and how they potentially played a role in the run-up to war in the aftermath of 9/11.

Given the daily revelations about Trump and the shear breath of his alleged corruption, Moore's broadside against the Bush family may feel like small potatoes now. And while I seriously doubt he will unveil anything that will dramatically reframe the political narrative or partisan loyalty,  I am still excited to see what he comes up with.

Moore's last proper film -- Where Do We Invade Next? -- was one of his greatest, and it suggested a more open-minded, optimistic mindset from the director which wasn't present in his previous work. Can Moore find a silver lining in our country's choice to elect Trump -- a man who has been notorious for racism, sexism, xenophobia, greed and unbridled narcissism?

We shall see.

How should fans of 'The Room' feel about this?

The Disaster Artist

About three years ago, when I first caught wind that James Franco was planning to adapt Greg Sestaro's behind-the-scenes account of the making of the worst film ever made (Tommy Wiseau's The Room, in which he co-starred) I was worried that a great cinematic treasure was about to be ruined.

It didn't surprise me that the material would attract someone like Franco, who has shown a predilection for camp and whose career at times seems to exist in air quotes, but for a diehard fan of The Room like me (it's become a regular viewing experience for me and my wife, even a poster for the film hangs on our apartment wall) I was apprehensive at best.

Then a funny thing happened with The Disaster Artist. It started getting really positive buzz. It was rapturously received by audiences at the SXSW festival in March, where it reportedly received a standing ovation. And now it's reportedly being positioned to be a potential awards contender this year.

James Franco

It's being released by A24, a company which has boasted a terrific record as of late, in fact they were behind three of my favorite films of last year -- 20th Century Women, Green Room and the eventual Best Picture winner Moonlight.

This most likely means that The Disaster Artist will be much more than the broad comedy many of us might have expected. With the exceptions of 127 Hours (for which he was Oscar nominated) and Milk, Franco has mostly played comedic versions of himself on screen, and I would never in a million years pictured him as Wiseau. His brother Dave Franco made even less sense to me as Mark, but perhaps these two have pulled off something expected here.

There was some poignancy in the book version of this story to be sure. Sestaro clearly has a lot of admiration and sympathy for Wiseau, who comes across as a loyal and dedicated friend, if albeit a woefully inept filmmaker and performer.

Many great films have been made about doomed dreamers like this -- Tim Burton's Ed Wood comes to mind. But will any of this matter to the uninitiated?

The Room is at best a cult phenomenon -- most audiences are unaware of it and very few would necessarily embrace its comic appeal. For those of us who do appreciate it, its genius is that Wiseau thought he was making a masterpiece.

Franco and company have a much harder task, they are trying to sell a good film about the making of a bad film without condescending to their viewers or their subjects.

I must say my early ambiguity about this project is starting to give way to full-scale anticipation.

In fact, the suspense if tearing me apart!

Watergate yielded some amazing movies, will Russia-gate?

Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor

The current White House's 'struggles' to explain its actions as of late, especially when it pertains to the various investigations into its ties to Russia and potential collusion in an effort to influence our country's presidential election last year, has led a lot of pundits and political observers to draw comparisons to the Watergate scandal.

That is perhaps unsurprising. Pretty much every major political scandal of the last 40 years has been compared to the 1972 break-in into the Democratic Party's headquarters, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in disgrace, two years later.

It's too soon to tell which direction the ongoing scandal enveloping the Trump administration will go. Certainly, what is being alleged -- treason -- is a far more serious crime than burglary, bribery and obstruction of justice. But with a Republican majority in both the House and Senate, the FBI's director unceremoniously fired and Trump appointees running the show at Justice, as well as the CIA, it seems unlikely that we'll see the president booted out of office anytime soon.

In the meantime, I am curious as to whether the current toxic political climate will start the effect the movies -- the medium that is often the most telling pop cultural temperature taker.

The Parallax View

The paranoia and mistrust of the Watergate era definitely had an impact on Hollywood and produced some of the most memorable and compelling films of that or any era. Between 1973 and 1976, really prior to the debut of Star Wars, there were several big hit films that trafficked in moral ambiguity and cast shady conglomerates and political operatives as the villains in an notable nod to Watergate.

Obviously, All the President's Men, which detailed the reporting on the saga itself is the probably the most famous of these films, but Robert Redford's other thriller Three Days of the Condor has a similar -- 'no one can be trusted' ethos. I'd also strongly recommend the terrific, under-seen Warren Beatty political assassination drama, The Parallax View.

Even though its set decades earlier, Chinatown's portrayal of bureaucratic corruption and literal incest is hard to separate from the events of the year of its release -- 1974 -- the same year Nixon finally stepped down. The masterful Godfather Part II shows Michael Corleone morphing into a Nixonian type figure himself, humorless and scheming, while alienating everyone he supposedly cares about.

Even sci-fi started to reflect a certain moral ambivalence. Films like Soylent Green and Logan's Run set up seemingly benign totalitarian regimes which are revealed to have sinister plans for the masses, it's hard to believe that either of these films would have take such cynical stances had it not been for national Watergate fatigue.

So far, only Get Out -- which went into production long before the November election -- has felt like a movie that feels emblematic of the times in which we are currently living. But if this administration continues to chug along and amid this much turmoil, Hollywood would be derelict in its duty not to reflect that. I for one am fascinated to see what brooding movies the Trump era inspires.

Questions raised and answered by new 'Blade Runner' trailer

With the exception of the follow-up to The Force Awakens, the movie I am most excited about this year is the long anticipated Blade Runner sequel. We have already been treated to one excellent-looking teaser, but today a full-blown trailer dropped -- and like many a fanboy, I am giddy about this one.

First off, kudos to the filmmakers for making a trailer the right way -- giving you just enough but not so much that you feel like you've seen the whole movie, while dropping enough hints that it doesn't feel like watching one of those old, inscrutable Mad Men post-episode promos.

Here's a few things we know for sure (and some things we don't) after watching this epic deeper dive.

No matter what it's going to be gorgeous - Regardless of the quality of the movie (although considering the pedigree of the actors and behind the camera team, I am expecting good things) there is no doubt that it will be a visual feast for the eyes. Not since I first saw the trailer for Mad Max Fury Road have I seen a big screen thriller look so distinct and beautiful. Cinematographer Roger Deakins (best known for his work on Coen brothers films and Skyfall) appears to have outdone himself again.

The visual aesthetic is similar but also different - There are several homages to the groundbreaking and incredibly influential special effects and set design of the original -- from flying cars to overwhelming advertisements poking through a fog and rain drenched cityscape. But modern technology and a substantially bigger budget suggest that this Blade Runner will be an even more ambitious production that will be more expansive than the claustrophobic 1982 masterpiece.

Ryan Gosling is a 'cop' - Little is known about the plot or details of this film, but what is clear from this trailer is that Gosling plays a cop (and perhaps more specifically a blade runner) just like Ford did in the original film. What plot the new trailer does reveal also seems to revolve around secrets pertaining to Gosling's identity, he is told that he is "special" and that pages from his story are missing. Hopefully these reveals will be surprising and illuminating instead of gimmicky.

Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049

Harrison Ford kick ass -- but is he human? - It looks like the Harrison Ford renaissance which began with his comeback as Han Solo in The Force Awakens has continued here. He looks great and grizzled as presumably his same character from the original -- Rick Deckard. I'm excited to see that his role will be more than a glorified cameo and that he too will mix it up in the action scenes, but I am also nervous, because how this film justifies his presence will go a long way towards either enhancing the ending of the original or tarnishing it.

Is Jared Leto the new Tyrell? - This new trailer gave us our first glimpse of a very creepy looking Jared Leto as a new manufacturer of replicants (as well as Robin Wright as perhaps Gosling's superior officer). I am curious if Leto's character will be linked to the megalomaniacal villain from the original -- Eldon Tyrell -- who winds up a victim of his own hubris. Leto is an actor I run hot and cold with, but he at least seems more restrained here than he was in the dreadful Suicide Squad.

Is it going to be more accessible than the original? - I pose this question as not necessarily a good thing. While the 1982 original Blade Runner certainly had its thrilling moments, it was almost aggressively uncommercial. It was slow-paced and brooding with a difficult to interpret ending (which was clarified significantly by the superior Director's Cut). Blade Runner has become such a cult classic and critical darling that it is often overlooked that the original was a big, fat flop.

Audiences at the time were expecting an escapist Star Wars-style movie and wound up with a brilliant but arty treatise on the nature of humanity. Blade Runner 2049 looks to be very action-packed, which may satisfy newcomers to the series, but could suggest a less heady offering for hardcore fans.

Same old, same old 'Guardians of the Galaxy'

My quibbles with the new Guardians of the Galaxy are pretty much the same ones I had with the original. This being a bigger, bloated and highly anticipated sequel -- it manages to exacerbate what I didn't love about the first one, and it's put me solidly in a the very small camp of viewers who isn't totally sold on the series. I find the characters charming and, at times, adorable. I went into this film thinking that the "Baby Groot" conceit would grow cloying and annoying, but the character is actually used to great effect here and I must admit the joy of the child seated next to me, who giggled every time he appeared on screen, was infectious.

There is a lot of good humor in this film and the performers (especially David Bautista as the no filter Drax) really throw themselves into the movie with glee and abandon, but for me, the movie collapses under the weight of too many special effects, too many characters, too much plot -- and stereotypical Marvel excess.

This won't turn off diehard fans, who will flock to this regardless of reviews or quality. And there are some very nifty, visually dynamic action set pieces here. I will also throw this movie a bone for trying to reach for more emotional payoffs than the original, although few of those notes actually land and instead can feel clunky when juxtaposed with the film's plethora of jokes.

And this film is also lathered in catchy, lovable 1970s music and the air of nostalgia permeates nearly every frame (as does the cast, featuring 1980s throwbacks Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, who are unfortunately both misused and wasted in their roles). But this is part of what has always irritated me to some extent with the Guardians films, they want to have their cake an eat it too.

They want to pose as a break with Marvel tradition -- a quirky mix of bizarro creatures and planets, mixed with a bickering but endearing cohort of misfits (although their feuding feels more tiresome this time around) but the films never put as much time and energy into their stories as their accoutrements.

I much prefer a film like Captain America: Civil War which ratcheted up real tensions and stakes between its core characters and set up a much more engrossing plot. Not unlike, the original Guardians, the story here is diffuse at best. There is a theme of fathers and sons but I wouldn't describe the movie as particularly tense or exciting, it's more bemusing throughout.

If there is a Vol. 3, and presuming this movie performs anything like the original, I don't see why there won't be -- the series would do well to field a very imposing and truly scary villain. These kinds of films are always elevated by a great bad guy (think Loki) and these films really cry out for one.

For now though, they seem content to be cute and insubstantial. And while perhaps the filmmakers' fidelity to a certain kind of analog aesthetic may be heartfelt, it's an uneasy fit for a film that bombards you with all manner of computer generated 'stuff.'

But of course this 'same old, same old' I'm describing is precisely what fans love the most about the Guardians series. I get that people love these movies because of their humor and upbeat tone, so I may just not have the right sensibility.

For instance, there are people who swear by Deadpool, which I felt was a sort of cynical co-opting of a certain kind of cool attitude that just didn't feel real to me. And nothing about this film feels genuine either, although I did genuinely enjoy parts of it as I watched it.

I just can't shake the feeling though that I was just watching an elaborate device to sell toys, t-shirts and future movie franchises.

Flashback 1977: My top 10 favorite films from 40 years ago

The year 1977 was an interesting one -- beyond the Son of Sam and blackouts -- it's the year my older brother was born. It also the year that President Jimmy Carter was sworn into office. It's the year of Saturday Night Fever, and the beginning of disco fully consuming the mainstream of pop culture.

It was also, perhaps most famously, the year of Star Wars -- and appropriately the latest installment of that series, which has now become known as a franchise is coming out in December, with Mark Hamill bookending his breakthrough performance as Luke Skywalker 40 years ago as an older, wiser character in The Last Jedi.

It was a year of fantasy and escapism, and it was hard to narrow this list down, I had to leave off Charles Burnett's haunting Killer of Sheep, badass thrillers like Rolling Thunder and Black Sunday, and quirky comedies like The Late Show, Which Way Is Up? and The Kentucky Fried Movie.

That said, I am pretty happy with this list...

10) 3 Women - Robert Altman's strange, dream-like film is really largely about two women (played in tour de force fashion by Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek) and that's just the start of its open-ended questions. It's at times a bizarre character study and in some passages it feels like a horror film. Altman himself seemed not to be fully sure of what his film meant in its entirety but its mercurial nature is part of its power. A film I like more every time I see it -- it's an unsettling masterpiece.

9) Pumping Iron - Not only is this body building documentary a fascinating window in the profoundly weird world of the Mr. Universe competition, it's also an amazing expose of the egomaniacal, but also pretty damn likable, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Here he's a young, aspiring wannabe superstar, who likes to mentally manipulate his new competition (a sweet and bashful Lou Ferrigno) in between boastful interviews. One of the great sports films ever made is cringe inducing at times and funny as hell.

8) Slap Shot - I have no idea if this hilariously profane hockey comedy is an accurate portrayal of what the world of minor league sports is really like, but I do know that it's an infectious riot and contains one of the loosest and best performances of Paul Newman's career. A movie that relishes its political incorrectness and anarchic spirit. It's remained a cult classic for years because of its tribute to a certain kind of unapologetic masculinity, but its got a lot of heart too.

7) Eraserhead - The movie that put David Lynch on the map. It looks years to make and you can see a lot of the painstaking detail on the screen. Like most Lynch films, it defies easy categorization -- it's nominally about a socially awkward man living in a dystopian city and saddled with a mutant baby to care for. Delightfully strange and absorbing, the movie is a triumph of production design, sound and visuals. It has proven to be incredibly influential on the art films that came in its wake and remains a symbol of how 70s cinema could stay risky even amid the rise of blockbusters.

6) Suspiria - Never has gore looked so gorgeous. This horror film from Italian master Dario Argento is short on story but makes up for it with some unforgettable visual aesthetics. His use of color is sublime in this strange scary movie set in an all girls dance school. I remember I first saw a particularly grisly scene from this in high school and I never forgot it. Not for the faint of heart,  but a real find for horror fiends.

5) Sorcerer - William Friedkin's remake of the legendary French thriller The Wages of Fear was a flop upon its first release, but has since become recognized as a seminal work in its own right. Roy Scheider headlines a strong international cast in this gritty look at desperate men hauling nitroglycerine thorough a treacherous (unnamed) country. Some stunning sequences and documentary-style realism in this one.

4) The Spy Who Loved Me - Many James Bond aficionados consider this the best entry of the Roger Moore era, and there is a good argument to make for that (although I have a very soft spot for For Your Eyes Only). It's a fun ride from start to finish -- introducing the classic blade-toothed villain Jaws, some terrific gadgets, and one of the most gorgeous Bond girls of all time, Barbara Bach. But most importantly, this is the Bond film in which Moore made the character his own. He plays the comedy beautifully but includes just enough intensity to keep it from becoming too camp.

3) Close Encounters of the Third Kind - This is vintage Steven Spielberg at the peak of his powers mixing both the personal and the grandiose to make a smart, epic film about aliens touching down on planet earth. Using a terrific Richard Dreyfuss as his stand-in, Spielberg makes the audacious decision to portray the alien visitors as genteel instead of monstrous, and the final result is probably the smartest sci-fi film since 2001: A Space Odyssey.

2) Annie Hall - Woody Allen's most accessible and sweet film, which is probably why he hates it so much. This Best Picture winner kicked off a particularly successful run of more serious comic films from the polarizing but prolific filmmaker. His ace in the hole here is Diane Keaton giving her most iconic performance as the loopy but fully realized titular character. I constantly return to this film's self referential wisdom in my personal life and it remains arguably the most signature work of Allen's long and varied career.

1) Star Wars (a.k.a. A New Hope) - Is anyone really surprised? The film that changed the nature of movies forever (for better or worse) is still a genius game-changer. What is often lost in its groundbreaking special effects and revolutionary impact on the box office, is the swift and adept storytelling on display here (with plenty of homages to George Lucas' inspirations like Akira Kurosawa). Alec Guinness lends gravitas, Harrison Ford brings charm and sex appeal and the movie itself is undeniable candy for the kid in all of us.