One Guy Rambling

In a beige and sterile looking future London, addiction to a new drug is rife. The only people who look happy with this drab existence are those on the ads that pop up in the background of last every scene saying how happy the drugs have made them. As with almost all advertising though, the reality is very different.

Grieves is a hardened cop who loathes the drug, and indeed his own addiction and the impact it has had on his family. He is pursuing a lead that the bigwigs behind Ambro, the biggest provider of pharmaceuticals around, might be more than they seem, with the key being a pretty young junkie from off the grid.

Shades of Blade Runner, Dark City and The Matrix, with a hint of Looper arriving late, only again serve to highlight how much better those other films are by comparison.

Narcopolis is an all too apt title, as here is a film that almost effortlessly puts you to sleep.

Final Rating – 6 / 10. A decent enough twist near the end is wasted by a moribund first hour. It’s apt that this film ends in the ‘Grey’ area…

So a year or so ago I wrote this about the original Ride Along:

“I was totally ready to dismiss Ride Along and move on with my life. Then a funny thing happened; not only did I not hate this film, I kinda liked it.

The premise doesn’t help explain my enjoyment. Ben (Kevin Hart) the college security guard who thinks that videogames are his life, wants to impress his girlfriend and her surly brother by being accepted into the police training program.

James (Ice Cube) is the surly brother. Already a seasoned Atlanta cop, James wants no part of yappy and annoying Ben, and he wants Ben to have no part of his sister. He decides to call Ben’s bluff, organising a ‘ride along’, where Ben will accompany him for a day’s police work. The twist being that James plans to engineer it so that this particular day will paint an awful portrait of what being a member of the Atlanta PD actually entails.

Kevin Hart is running this ‘over confidence until confidence is required’ thing into the ground – just as Pauly Shore ran the adorable gibberish stoner thing and Rob Schneider the fish out of water klutz before him. His mix of bluster and bluff works in interviews and small parts, but expecting it to be rolled out in film after film is patently foolish. I am already at the stage where I hear his every line as “yap yap yap… Scream“, and I can’t be the only one. The menacing quizzical expression sported by Ice Cube in the face of his nonsense must have been some of the easiest acting of Ice’s career, which to be fair hasn’t really involved much ‘acting’ since Boyz ‘N the Hood.

The centrepiece of the film, in which Ben must do Grown Cop work, is especially excruciating, highlighting his every deficiency for alleged comic effect. Fortunately for the film though, there are enough other funny bits to make the film momentarily distracting in a positive way.

If, like Ben, you just give in to the silliness and settle in for the ‘ride along’, there are jokes to be had. The fact that many are at the expense of Ben is expected, but still satisfying. This leads me to believe that Hart’s career will go for as long as we can still derive pleasure from his suffering.

EDIT: Ride Along shouldn’t expect to be considered alongside Lethal Weapon or even Rush Hour as an action comedy, but it is OK’

Final Rating – 7 / 10. A 7 would be a ride with Cube in the car. If it were exclusively Hart is would be a 4.”

Back to the Present: I present; Ride Along 2

So now it seems they did it again. Rather than rewrite all of the above please feel free to replace ‘Atlanta’ with ‘Trip to Miami’ and realise that in this one Olivia Munn plays a streetwise Miami cop and Kevin Hart wears some ridiculous outfits.

The rest is exactly the fucking same, only slightly less so. All flash, no function.

Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. A copy of a copy of a great many copies. This Kevin Hart shtick is fading quick.

Never saw the first film. Now here’s Ouija 2…

When a family of sham psychics find that even their elaborate (and especially unlikely) shtick isn’t fleecing enough customers to keep the bank from threatening to take away their home, they pray for something more.

‘More’ arrives in the form of a store bought Ouija board that fortuitously grants the youngest daughter special ‘seeing’ powers. Suddenly thief once fabricated foretellings become accurate and the shows more impactful, what with the young girl able to channel the dead and everything.

The fact that she very well may be inhabited by a demonic presence seems to be written off as a cost of business. As the famous saying goes; You can’t make money without letting evil spirits have their way with your daughter’s soul. Or something.

What the film does well is picking the right young girl to possess, this enables us to overlook the ridiculousness of it all. Mostly. I mean a speed writing Ouija board? A mother that doesn’t seem to fret when her daughter passes horrific news direct from the undead? The fact no one seems to think it odd that any of this is possible in the first place?

Ouija 2 is the usual collection of rips and cliches but it performs its work better than many. It progresses like an office Christmas party, starting out quietly and with some dignity, before getting noisier and slightly more embarrassing for all involved near the end.

At least there is no need for the ‘walk of shame’ after this one.

Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. If the original Ouija is as good as this one… well I probably still won’t bother looking it up.