Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island
aka Planet of the Ape
The movie opens with an aerial dogfight between a P51 and a Japanese Zero in 1944, which is
not at all what I expected. They shoot each other down, and manage to parachute on to the
same stretch of beach on an island in the Pacific. Both men land, unholster their sidearms and
unload at each other. Nobody gets hit. The Japanese pilot then pulls his tanto sword and chases
the American pilot. Somehow, they end up in a jungle on a cliff. The geography of this island
already doesn't make any goddamn sense. How the hell did they chase each other from a
beach to a jungle cliff? I feel like we've skipped some steps. Anyway, as they're rolling around
trying to kill each other, Kong peeks up from over the cliff, stopping the fight in its tracks.
We're then treated to a montage of nuclear progression, research and escalation, including
footage and newspaper headlines concerning nuclear bomb tests on an island, presumably the
same island we've already seen, fading in to an anti-Vietnam protest outside of the White House
in 1973 on the eve of the stand down and withdrawal from Vietnam.
John Goodman and Dr. Dre from Straight Outta Compton wander the halls of Washington D.C.,
ending up in the office of Senator Richard Jenkins (the dad from Stepbrothers). Evidently they're
from a government program called Monarch (which probably has a shitty backronym), and
Richard Jenkins controls their funding. But he's tired of their shit, and doesn't want to fund them
anymore. Goodman tells him about an island that's never been mapped that might have
resources on it, and says that the Soviets are also mounting an expedition to the same island.
So his argument to the Senator is, "Don't you want to be patriotic and beat the Reds to the
island?" After Goodman lays out how cost-effective it can be to do so, by piggybacking on an
expedition by a company called Landsat that's already going, and by getting a ride and support
from a helicopter squadron that's preparing to leave Vietnam, the Senator gives in.
Smash cut to Da Nang. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel L. Jackson commands a helicopter
squadron that's spinning down and preparing to head back to the States. He's malcontentedly
drinking a Budweiser, so you can tell he's unhappy with how the war's turned out for him. Dr.
Doom from the 2015 Fantastic Four is his right-hand man, who's worried about Jackson's
mental well-being. Jackson gets a call from his superior, offering him one last mission before he
rotates back home, and he quickly and blindly accepts, just itching for purpose.
Goodman and Dre land in Saigon to find a jungle tracker to hire. They find Loki in a half-assed
opium den. He's a former SAS operative, just weary of the world and everything in it. Dre throws
money at him until he accepts the job, but Loki isn't terribly confident they won't all die.
Goodman also hires a photographer off-screen, who ends up being Brie Larson (the mom from
Room). She's an award-winning anti-war photographer, so there's bound to be some friction
there.
During the mission briefing, the basic plan is laid out. The island is perpetually surrounded by
Helicopter in, and some of the guys from Landsat land to set up seismometers. Everyone else
will chopper around and drop aerial bombs to shake the ground. This will continue for three
days, and then the team will meet up with a resupply team on the North end of the island to
leave. Why you would resupply on the day you leave is beyond me, but let's move on.

After the briefing, Loki catches Brie sneaking around in the hold, photographing crates and
munitions. They both agree that there's a larger goal behind what they're being told.
The day of the mission, the leader of the Landsat part of the mission, the Sheriff from Aliens vs
Predator:Requiem, sees the storm surrounding the island in-person, and wants nothing to do
with it. Sam Jackson and John Goodman double-team and overrule him, and they mount up and
fly in. Boy is that storm unnatural, red and electrical-looking in nature.
They make it through unscathed, and come out on the other side to an apparent Paradise. They
set down the Landsat folks, let them set up, and start dropping bombs. Everything does
swimmingly for a bit, but then they're somehow surprised by a 100-foot-tall ape: Kong. I'm not
sure how a 100-foot-tall sneaks up on a dozen helicopters in-flight, but he does. He proceeds to
rip the shit out of all the choppers, who open fire on him to no effect. Kong takes some wounds
to his arm and hand from the rotors of a few of the choppers, but ultimately takes down the
entire squadron, and actually eats one of the men.
After Jackson's chopper crashes and explodes, he stares down Kong, who is somehow at eyelevel with him. There must be a tremendous amount of vertical relief on this island for Kong to
be standing in a hole deep enough to stare down Jackson. Anyway, this sets up the driving
conflict of the movie.
There are basically three groups of crash victims: the group with Loki, Brie and Dre, the group
with Jackson and Goodman, and the group with Doom, which consists solely of himself.
As the various personnel recover and regroup, we spend some time with the pilots of the
choppers. One of them is played by Eazy-E from Straight Outta Compton, another is played by
Eli Thompson from Boardwalk Empire, and a third is played by Thomas Mann, the male best
friend from Beautiful Creatures (an underrated movie, btw). Eazy and Eli are with Jackson's
group, and Mann is with Loki's group.
Eazy is eager to do his job and go home, and Eli seems indifferent to the whole thing. Eazy calls
him out on his indifference, and Eli's reply is, "That WAS an unconventional encounter."
Meanwhile Jackson is angry about the loss of his men, and losing a battle. He pulls his sidearm
on Goodman, and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't tell him what's going on. Goodman
comes clean, telling Jackson that he believes that there are 'thin' spots in the world, where
monsters of old that used to rule and roam the earth can cross over to our world. He formed this
theory initially because he was on a destroyer in World War II that was sunk by a Massive
Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (or MUTO, firmly placing this movie in the same cinematic
universe as the Godzilla movie of 2014).
He believes that this island is one of those places, and that Jackson can make his men's
sacrifices worth it by making it out alive with proof of Kong's existence. Jackson buys this, and
let's Goodman live.
Jackson is able to radio Doom, whose crash site has most of their ammo and munitions with it.
Jackson formulates a plan in his head to make it to Doom, collect the munitions and high
explosives, and use them to lay a trap to kill Kong. That's not what he tells his team though, He
tells them that he just refuses to leave Doom behind.

Meanwhile, Loki and Brie are walking along a body of water, and encounter a massive water
buffalo. When I say massive, I mean goddamn massive. It's gotta be at least 40 feet high at the
shoulder. It approaches them briefly before disinterestedly wandering away.
As Jackson and Goodman travel through a bamboo-ed area, some of the bamboo starts moving
about. One of the shoots gets picked up, and then shoved through the head of one of Jackson's
men. Everyone looks skyward to see a MASSIVE spider; the bamboo shoots are its legs. They
light it up and kill the shit out of it.
Flashing back over to Loki's group, he's located some ancient stone ruins, indicating human
civilization. As they marvel at them, camouflaged natives jump out with spears. As their group
prepares to shoot them up, John C. Reilly shows up and makes peace between the two groups.
Reilly is apparently the pilot from the opening scene, and he's been living among the natives for
the last twenty-something years.
We then cut to Dr. Doom, patrolling a perimeter around his crash site and the precious
munitions. He stops at a river to fill his canteen, and encounters Kong, washing out his wounds.
As Kong is cleaning up, he's attacked by a giant octopus, a real Kraken-looking motherfucker.
Kong struggles with it for a minute before ripping it apart and eating calamari for supper.
Loki and Brie are given the nickel tour of the native colony, which appears to be built around a
beached naval destroyer, a large part of which has been converted to a shrine for Kong. Reilly
explains that Kong is the protector of the island, keeping carnivorous lizards who killed Kong's
ancestors at bay. Kong attacked the choppers because the explosives they were dropping could
have woken the large lizard, which Reilly has named Skullcrawlers.
Reilly shows them a powerboat he built over the years with the Japanese pilot he was trying to
kill in the opening scene, who he evidently became friends with eventually. It doesn't run, but it's
close, and Loki and Mann are convinced they can get it running in short order. It's mostly
constructed of parts from their respective planes.
We then cut to Dr. Doom, still patrolling the area. He drops his pack and takes a rest on a log,
only to discover that its not a log, but a large mantis-looking creature that looks like a log. He
panics and unloads a mag in to it, only for it to not give a shit, but stalk away anyway. Right after
this, Doom is eater alive by a Skullcrawler.
Loki and Brie are spending more time together in the evening, to the tune of watching Aurora
Borealis (AT THIS TIME OF YEAR. AT THIS TIME OF DAY. IN THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY.
LOCALIZED ENTIRELY WITHIN YOUR KITCHEN...May I see it?). There seems to be a lot of
scenes with them spending time together that don't really move their relationship or the plot
forward. Looks like a half-assed love story shoehorned in.
The next day Goodman and Jackson's group is hiking along, and they see a large, bloody
handprint left by Kong. Jackson then channels Schwarzenegger, stating, "If it bleeds, we can kill
it." One of his men sees the same thing, and asserts, "This is beyond us."
Loki's group gets the boat running, and they have a tearful goodbye with the natives. I am
genuinely curious as to their fuel source. As they pull out, the natives, demonstrate a fairly

advanced water gate to let them out. I find an intricate understanding of mechanics and physics
to be odd skill sets for a people who haven't mastered shelters.
So they're cruising down the river, when a bunch of pterodactyls go flying by. Their collective
wonderment is interrupted when they swarm the ship and carry off the last Landsat scientist,
bisecting him in the air while he's still alive.
Right after that, the two groups link up. Jackson insists they head West to collect Doom and the
ordinance with him. Reilly says that's a bad idea, because West is the direction of the
Skullcrawlers' nest. He's overridden, and they go West, young man.
Heading West, they land smack dab right in the middle of a graveyard filled with the carcasses
of Kong's parents, and methane vents. Also, the fucking Skullcrawlers. The whole group hides.
One of the Skullcrawlers vomits up a pile of bones and offal, including a set of dog tags. Loki
picks the tags up, and realizes they're Doom's. Then one of the group gets noticed by one of the
Skullcrawlers, and all hell breaks loose.
Their small arms seen ineffective, and Randa and several redshirt soldiers get eaten before
someone thinks of using a flame unit. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out, and the flame unit
blows up. The machine gun crew sets up on top of a triceratops skull, but it also has no effect.
Loki lures the Skullcrawler over a methane vent and sets off explosions, blowing it to shit.
The group forges on until they find Doom's discarded kit. Loki tells Jackson that Doom is dead,
and loses his shit at how dumb this trip West has been. Jackson clears leather, but his men talk
him down. Loki volunteers to lead the civilians back to the boat, and head to the Resupply
Rendezvous. Jackson continues on to the ordinance cache with his men.
Jackson sets up a trap for Kong, setting off a large explosion to lure him in. He then sets off a
napalm bomb, making Kong faint. He falls down, and Jackson sets a series of explosions
around his head. Before he can set it off, the Big Skullcrawler rises up and roars.
Despite the appearance of the bigger threat, Jackson insists on blowing up Kong. His men
break rank and run, Kong tries to get up, crushing Jackson in the process, but he falls back
down.
Meanwhile, The Big One proceeds to chase the surviving soldiers, eating and eviscerating them
one by one. Eli Thompson decides to sacrifice himself to give the others time by popping
several grenades and trying to feed himself to The Big One. But TBO doesn't fall for it, and
swats him in to a mountainside, where he explodes harmlessly.
As the survivors are about to be eaten, Kong shows and and battles the shit out of TBO,
eventually ending up in a sunken shipyard. There's not a lot review here, just a big battle
between two huge monsters. There is a point where Brie shoots TBO in the face with a flare,
She then falls in to the water. Kong is tangled up in a series of ship's chains at this time, but
breaks free to save Brie, and then cuts TBO's head off with a ship propellor attached to a chain.
Even Kong likes a pretty girl.

After the fight, Kong puts Brie down, and trundles off in to the sunset. The survivors make it to
the rendezvous and make it home safely. John C.Reilly gets to go home and meet his fully
grown son for the first time, and reunited with his wife.
There's also a post-credits scene that sets up more monster movies, including Rodan, Mothra
and Godzilla.
It didn't hit me until the end, but I think this movie was set up to be an allegorical retelling of
Apocalypse Now. It demonstrates the different effects the Vietnam War had on soldiers. Some
men got lost in war, like Jackson, and some were beaten down and resigned to their fates, like
Eli. Others were able to find a form of peace, and move on, like Loki. Other guys were just
interested in serving their time and going home, like Dre.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie way more than I figured I would.
4/5 Cursed Monkey Islands.

Episode 169 - Scythe

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss...

• Morph and wife finally watch Deadpool
• Scythe the board game

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Episode 168 - Logan vs Old Man Logan

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss Logan the movie and then Old Man Logan by Mike Miller. What is the same? What is different? Tune in and find out.

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Get Out Movie Review

Preface: I am a middle-aged male of mixed ethnicity, but I look white. There are a lot of things I
take for granted, and situations I can put myself in with little to no thought or concern. Having
spent a significant amount of time growing up with my Mexican cousins, i have experienced mild
reverse racism, but nothing that has made me feel ill at-ease or concerned for my well-being. I
had a hard time relating to the fish-out-of-water scenes of this film. I am not a racist, in that i
dislike everyone equally. I get that different colors and cultures impart different cultural
experiences and touchstones, but i can only write from my experience. Having said that, let's
get started.
Get Out starts with a black man in the suburbs, just walking down the street at night, talking on
the phone. The first clue that he feels out of place comes when a white Porsche starts cruising
him. He about-faces, relating his unease via his phone conversation. The unnamed protagonist
eventually turns to a confrontational demeanor when the Porsche, which i can only assume is a
metaphor for wealthy white privilege, reverses course and stops next to him. He takes his eyes
off the vehicle for a moment, and when he turns around and starts selling wolf tickets, he sees
that the car is empty, and the driver's side door is open. There's a 1920's song called 'Run
Rabbit Run' playing on the vehicle's sound system. He's then blindsided by someone in a gimp
mask, knocked out and loaded in the Porsche.
We then smash cut to the main character, who was also in the Black Mirror episode about the
Britain's Got Talent show, named Chris Washington. He's a photographer who exclusively works
in the black-and-white medium (the symbolism here seems hacky and heavy-handed to me, but
we'll go with it). He's currently packing for a trip with his girlfriend, one of the non-descript white
girls from HBO's Girls (one of the ones not Lena Dunham), here named Rose. Evidently they're
going upstate to spend the weekend with her folks, who don't know she's dating a black man
(the central conflict reveals itself!). He's apprehensive about springing that kind of information
on her parents, but she seems unconcerned about it. She goes out of her way to state that
"He's the kind of guy who will be sure to make it clear that 'he would've voted for Obama a third
time, if he could've,'" which just feels like the most pandering shit ever, but we'll see.
Chris doesn't have a driver's license, so Rose drives them up there. While going down the road,
Chris is talking on the phone (on a WINDOWS phone nonetheless (does anyone actually use
those?)) with his best friend Rod, a TSA agent. I feel like this will become relevant at a later
point in the film.
Later, Rose hits a deer with her car, flinging it off the road and in to the woods an unreasonably
short distance. There's also remarkably little damage to her car. They somehow manage to stop
at exactly where the deer landed. If any of you have ever hit a deer, you know this entire
confluence of events effects is nonsense. Either the deer would've kept going, landed much
further away or gone through the windshield. The vehicle would've been more damaged, and
there's not a chance in hell that she could've come to a stop exactly even with the deer. Daniel
is extremely affected by watching the deer wheeze its last gasps, becoming visibly upset.
A cop is called out, and he takes an incident report before asking for Chris' ID. He states that he
wasn't driving, and Rose emphatically white knights her way into the situation. She doesn't think
that the cop needs to see his ID since he wasn't driving. The cop states that he doesn't care if

he was driving or not, he wants to see his ID. Rose stands her ground, and the cop relents and
sends them on her way.
Eventually, they make it to Rose's parents' place, a secluded estate on a lake. Rose's mom is
played by Catherine Keener, otherwise known as Steve Carrell's girlfriend in The 40-Year-Old
Virgin. Her dad is played by the White House Chief of Staff from The West Wing, Bradley
Whitworth, who goes out of his way to be uncomfortably patronizing. Yes, he gets in the line
about voting for Obama a third time. He also refers to Rose and Chris' relationship as "this
thannnnnnnng."
Catherine is a psychiatrist by trade, and Bradley is a neurosurgeon, which explains the nice
estate. This definitely feels like old money. They give Chris shit about being a smoker, and
smoking around their daughter. Catherine offers to hypnotize the nicotine, to which Chris politely
declines. It is then revealed that this weekend is the family's Rich White People Party. It's the
same weekend every year, but Rose has somehow forgotten that this is the weekend in
question.
As Chris settles in, he notices that Rose's family have a black groundskeeper and a black
housekeeper. Bradley apologetically points out how 'cliche' it is, but then quickly moves on. Boy
does that feel racist as fuck. Later, Chris is talking to the housekeeper, and she freezes up midconversation, gets a nosebleed, and then continues the conversation as if nothing happened.
At dinner, Rose's brother shows up. He's played by Banshee from X-Men First Class, and
apparently is attending medical school in an effort to follow in his father's footsteps. However,
Banshee can't hold his liquor, and drunkenly boasts about his MMA, judo and jujitsu prowess to
Chris before insisting they have a go at each other at the dinner table. Chris politely declines,
infuriating Banshee, who makes a thing of it before angrily stalking away.
As they prepare for bed, it sure does look like Chris and Rose will be sleeping in the same bed,
which is a ballsy move in your parents' home, especially since they've only just been introduced
to their daughter's girlfriend that day. We then smash cut to both of them naked in bed, so I
guess they fucked, which is even ballsier, both literally and figuratively.
Chris goes out for a post-sex smoke, and is surprised as shit to see Walter, the groundskeeper,
blindly running laps around the property. He gives up on the smoke and heads back inside,
where he runs in to Catherine Keener. She hypnotizes him with a teacup and a literal silver
spoon, and gets him to relive the day his mother died.This is a weird story, so buckle the fuck
up.
When Chris was a lad of ten, his mother went out to to the store to run a quick errand. Whilst
out, she was struck by a hit-and-run driver, and left for dead. Chris recognized that it was taking
an awfully long time for his mother to return home, but elected to sit and watch tv instead of
calling 911, because I guess he somehow knew his mother was in need of an ambulance? This
doesn't make any sense to me that someone is going to carry this much guilt over their inaction
in this situation. There's no logical reason for him to have assumed that his mother was the
victim of a hit-and-run.

Anyway, because he's hypnotized, Catherine forces Chris to focus on his feeling of
helplessness in this situation, and tells him to sink in to the floor. His psyche sinks in to the floor,
and in to a void of consciousness and paralysis Catherine calls 'The Sunken Place."
Smash cut to Chris waking up in bed. Apparently it was all a dream? Chris checks his phone to
find it dead, and unplugged from his charger, which is odd. Anyway, Chris goes about his day,
but when he thinks about smoking a cigarette, he wants to vomit, so I guess it wasn't a dream?
While wandering around, he runs in to Walter, who's chopping wood. He tries to have a
conversation with ol' Walt, only to be greeted with the most old-white-man sounding vernacular
uttered since Calvin Coolidge was President. Walt is also weirdly complimentary of Rose.
We're then in for the main event, the Rich White People Party. Chris is shown around the party
like a prop, where we learn that Bradley LOVES Tiger Woods (again, in a weirdly
condescending way). We also learn that all of the friends and family gathered think that black
people are just all the rage and so IN FASHION, dahling.
Eventually, Chris politely backs out of the conversation, and spots another black man at the
party. Relieved to no longer be a Token, he walks up to introduce himself. The other man turns
around, revealing him to be the guy that was abducted by the gimp in the opening scene, and
boy is he talking like an uptight old white man for some reason. He introduces himself as Logan
King, and also introduces his wife, an elderly white woman. When Chris goes in for the fist
bump, he ends up with a stick shift, and Logan goes for a handshake and really sticks to his
guns on it. Logan confusedly stumbles his way through the conversation, talking like an old
white man the whole time, until his wife pulls him away.
Confused, and rightly so, Chris disengages from the conversation and wanders off on his own.
He comes to a gazebo with chairs around it, and an old white man who ends up being Milton
from Office Space. Milton, in this film, is a blind art dealer who owns a gallery Chris adores. It
turns out that Milton knows who Chris is, and says he thinks he's a good photographer, judging
by how people describe his photos to him.
Chris walks around some more and pulls Rose in to the house, through a mass of people and
upstairs to their room. As they ascend the stairs, the entire mass of people downstairs comes to
a screeching halt, as if they were merely pantomiming the entire party for Chris' benefit.
Chris fights with Rose, relating his unease and discomfort with the whole situation. Rose
defensively asks him to lighten up, but agrees to shorten their trip and leave in the morning.
After Rose leaves the room, Chris picks up his Windows phone (I cannot stress this enough. A
goddamn Windows phone. I've only ever met one person ever that used a Windows phone, and
he fucking hated it and got rid if it as soon as he could) to see that it is yet again unplugged, but
was able to charge a bit. With the limited battery he calls Rod and relates his odd experiences,
especially with the black people he's met. Rod is convinced he's stumbled into a sex cult and
should get out ASAP.
Chris goes back downstairs with his phone in-hand, and tries to surreptitiously take a picture of
Logan, the other black guy. Unfortunately, he has the flash on, on his goddamn Windows phone.
Logan freezes and then his nose starts bleeding. He proceeds to scream "GET OUT" (hey that
could be a catchy title for a movie) at Chris, until being subdued by white people and carried
away. Cathrine Keener performs some emergency hypnosis to calm him, and then Logan

refreshedly tells Chris that he's fine and apologizes for any inconvenience he may have caused.
He further says that he must have had a seizure, and tells Chris not to worry about it. Chris has
known someone that suffered from seizures in the past, and openly doubts the story he's fed.
Rose takes Chris by the hand and they go down to the lake for some privacy to discuss their
relationship. Chris is extremely uncomfortable, and wants to leave immediately. They declare
their love for each other, and agree to leave once packed.
While they're love-birding out, the white people are holding an auction, presided over by
Bradley, complete with rich people paddle boards that signify a bid. The shot pulls out to show
us that they're bidding on Chris. They're holding an auction for a black man. Milton, the blind art
dealer wins. What the actual fuck?
As they're packing up, Chris calls Rod to tell him that he's coming back, and Rod informs him
that the picture of the other black guy Chris sent is a picture of a guy name Dre, who knows a
guy that Rod knows. Rod tells him that Dre went missing a few months ago, and is further
convinced that Chris has stumbled in to a weird sex cult that values black men. Chris's phone
dies at this particular moment, freaking Rod out. Evidently this entire movie is an extended
commercial for the poor battery life of Windows phones.
As Chris finishes packing, he notices an attic crawlspace that has never been shown to this
point in the film, inexplicably left open. He snoops in it, and finds a stack of 5"x7" romantic
photos of Rose with various men, all black. This contradicts her earlier claim to Chris that he
was her first black man (I bet she tells all the boys that). There are also romantic pictures of her
with Walter the Groundskeeper and Georgina the Housekeeper. This upsets him even more,
and he tries to hustle Rose out of the house at breakneck speed.
As he bounds down the stairs, with Rose in tow, Banshee moves to block his way with a cricket
bat (because that's what rich white people have on hand). As Chris shouts for Rose to give him
the keys to the car, Banshee takes a few swings at him. Chris easily knocks the cricket bat from
his hands and disarms him. Finally Rose finds the keys, but then tells Chris she can't let him
leave, revealing herself to be in on it. The bitch was a honeypot! As Chris tries to fight his way
out, Catherine hypnotizes him with that damn teacup and spoon.
Chris wakes up lashed to an easy chair in the weirdest White People Rec Room ever. The walls
are wood paneling from the 70's, with a CRT TV from the 80's as the centerpiece of the room.
There's also a football table and a billiards table, and the jankiest buck shoulder mount ever,
which also has a camera mounted in the eye. The TV starts playing an expository video,
narrated by Rose's grandfather. He was also a neurosurgeon, and he pioneered a technique to
transfer human consciousness from one brain to another, via surgery coupled with hypnotic
therapy. Speaking of hypnotic therapy, Chris is put under again with a video of that fucking
teacup and spoon.
Meanwhile, Rod is freaked out, and can't get ahold of Chris. He goes to the police, laying out his
theory about the sex cult. He is promptly laughed out of the police station, despite his TSA
credentials.

Rod leaves and calls Chris' phone again, only for Rose to answer. She tries to dissuade him
from pressing the issue, and to just forget about Chris. When that doesn't work, she accuses
Rod of wanting to fuck her, and he panics and hangs up.
Chris reawakens in the basement to Milton talking to him over an intercom. He explains that he
bought Chris's body, because he likes his photographer's eye, and want's to be able to have
that himself, what with him being blind and old and all. He also explains that he was targeted
because 'black people are fashionable right now.' He explains the process Chris is about to
become a victim of. Phase 1 is the sedation, and Phase 2 is the mental preparation, both
accomplished through hypnosis sessions. Basically, Milton will control Chris' body, and Chris'
consciousness will be stuck in "The Sunken Place" he was in earlier forever. At this point, Chris
is literally scratching holes in the chairs armrests, exposing the cotton stuffing within, before he's
teacupped under again.
This seems shortsighted on several levels. First off, what with the Rich White Men social circles
you almost certainly run in Mr. Milton, racism is still rampant as fuck. I seriously doubt you'll be
able to be a member of the same country clubs you're a member of now, regardless of money.
Second, how are you going to efficiently and discreetly transfer you assets to Chris? Thirdly, in
this age of omnipresent social media, especially for a young man like Chris, how are you going
to explain the sudden disappearance?
Milton is being prepped in an operating theater that is also somewhere in this house's
basement, begging the question as to the size of this fucking house. Seriously, these are NOT
small rooms. The rest of the house has not really given hint to the size of the house being this
goddamn big. Chris wakes up in the other room as Banshee brings a wheelchair in to transfer
Chris to the operating theater. Banshee plays the video of the teacup, and Chris appears to go
under. As Banshee turns his back on Chris, Chris breaks loose and bashes Banshee in the
head with either a croquet ball or billiard ball (I didn't get a good look). He then reveals that he
had stuffed his ears with the cotton from the chair armrests, which evidently let him avoid the
hypnosis.
Chris makes his way down the hall, wielding the buck mount. He spies Bradley coming out of
the operating theater, and rushes him with the buck's rack in front of him, impaling and killing
the shit out of him.
Chris goes upstairs and surprises Catherine. She dives for the teacup, but Chris beats her to it
and shatters it. She then dives for a pair of scissors, but it doesn't work out for her, and Chris
kills her.
As Chris makes his way out of the house, Banshee apparently wasn't dead because he tackles
Chris and puts him in a headlock. Really showing off that fancy fighting shit you were talking
about earlier dude. Chris breaks free, knocks Banshee down and curb stomps his head. He's
probably dead now, right? Right. If not, he will be soon, as Chris set the house on fire in the
scuffle.
Chris finds the keys to the white Porsche in Banshee's pocket, apparently making him the
abductor from the opening scene of the film. He gets in to leave and finds the gimp mask,
solidifying this inference. As he pulls out, he runs over Georgina. Apparently that hypnosis didn't

do shit to ease his guilt over his mom's death, because he loads her up out of some fucked up
sense of duty.
As he's escaping, Rose is shown with her headphones in, Bing-ing "2017 NCAA Basketball Top
Prospects." Racist as fuck. Also, who actually uses Bing? This is nonsense. She finally smells
the smoke from the fire downstairs, runs downstairs to find her dead mom and brother, and
grabs a lever action rifle. She makes her way outside as Chris is pulling away, sees Georgina in
the car with him, and mutters, "Grandma." So apparently Georgina is her dead grandma, stuffed
in a black woman's body.
Georgina, of course, suddenly comes down as Chris is a quarter mile down the road, and she
attacks Chris, screaming that he ruined her house. Chris crashes the car to stop her, which is a
bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see how it works out for him.
Rose drives up to the scene of the crash with Walter in tow, and the rifle at the ready. She find
"Grandma" Georgina dead in the crash, and Chris beat to shit. Chris drags himself out of the
car, and tries to escape. Rose shouts, "Get him, Grandpa!" at Walter, revealing that bit of trivia.
As Walter stalks a fallen Chris who is trying to crawl away, Chris takes his phone out of his
pocket. When the hell did he get his phone back? Anyway, as Rose is monologuing, Chris uses
the flash on his phone to snap Walter out of his White grandpa mode, and back in to his right
mind, Somehow, Rose misses the flash, and hands Walter the rifle when he says he wants to
kill Chris himself.
But then Shyamalan! Walter gut-shoots Rose, and then domes himself. Chris crawls over to
Rose and tries to choke her to death as she pleads for her life. Just then, a cop car pull up.
Chris lets go of Rose's neck and backs off, as she cries for help, like she's the fucking victim.
But NOPE! It's ROD TO THE RESCUE! He tells Chris to get in the car, and they leave Rose to
bleed out.
As they drive away, Chris asks Rod how he found him. Rod replies, "I'm TSmotherfuckingA."
Overall, I enjoyed the film, and would recommend it to horror fan aficionados.
Four silver spoons out of five.

@NormFromCheers

Episode 167 - Zero Dawn

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss..

• Horizon: Zero Dawn
• Psychonauts
• Pillars of Eternity II
• Children of Zodiarcs

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Twitter: @geekvice and @kipkillagin

 

Check out this episode!

Episode 166 - Horse Thieves

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss...

• Kip gives a DnD update
• Some Logan small talk
• Morph plays a lot of board games.

If you can't get enough of Geekvice here are some other places you can find us.
Facebook: facebook.com/geekvice
Youtube: tiny.cc/geekvice
Twitter: @geekvice and @kipkillagin

 

 

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The LEGO Batman Movie Review

Norm From Cheers

First thing's first: I hate the title of this movie. It feels excessively wordy, but I can't really think of a way to shorten it. I'm terribly vexed.

I honestly don't hold out a lot of hope for this, as Batman (voiced by Will Arnett), by nature, is a dark character. LEGO, by nature, are not. Trying to mix two non-similar types like that is how you get Mr. Freeze played by Ahnold spouting terrible ice puns for 2 hours and 5 minutes. Boy do I hope this isn't that.

Maybe I was worried for nothing. The trailer for Cars 3 seems really dark for a Pixar movie, so perhaps that's what the kids are clamoring for nowadays. Maybe they sell grey Play-Doh now.

The opening monologue is a pretty funny bit, as Batman goes on a vainglorious, self-righteous rant about the gravitas of his (this) film.

The first action of the movie takes place on Macguffin Airlines. Well-played. Obnoxious, pedantic sumbitches like me will get that, but I'm not sure the average movie-goer will.

Anyway, Joker (voiced by Zach Galifinakis) boards an airplane in mid-air to steal it's cargo, a shit ton of LEGO explosives, which i didn't realize they made. I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for them in the future. As he takes over the cockpit, he threatens the pilot, telling him his entire plan of blowing up the power plant and splitting the city in twain. However, the pilot seems non-plussed. He points out that Batman has always foiled Joker's plans, including the time he held a parade with Prince music and poison floats, or the time with the two boats. Joker emphatically states that THIS plan is WAY better than the time with the two boats.

Joker flies the plane to the Gotham Power Plant and drops the explosives in to the plant, where every member of Batman's Rogues Gallery is already waiting, from Bane (dressed like Batman & Robin Bane, but voiced like Tom Hardy), to Two-Face (voiced by Lando Calrissian), to such characters as Calendar Man and Clock King. They assemble the explosives in to a "Super Bomb," and place it at the base of the power plant.

Batman rides in on a ridiculously impractical LEGO Batmobile, and utters the most memorable line from Tim Burton's Batman: "You wanna get nuts? LET'S GET NUTS!" He then proceeds to beat the hell from every single Rogue present, before breaking in to LEGO Batman: The Musical.

As Batman defuses the bomb, Joker asserts that Batman waited until the last second to defuse it because he wanted more time with Joker, because he's his favorite person. Kind of a bunny- boiler way to look at things, but coming from an indigent man with myriad crippling mental health problems, sure, why not?

Unfortunately, Batman doesn't feel the same way, rejecting Joker in the most sociopathic way possible. He tells Joker that he "means nothing to (him). No one does." Which is the kind of shit sociopaths that can't feel empathy with anyone or anything. Joker takes it hard, and vows the 'ultimate revenge,' as he escapes.

After leaving the power plant, Bats stops off at an orphanage to hand out swag. One of the orphans is Dick Grayson (voiced by the aggressively Caucasian Scott Pilgrim), who is just infatuated with Batty McBatBat.

Batman makes his way back to the Batcave, verbally recapping all of his possessions and 'war trophies' on his way in. He throws Joker's Super Bomb on to a literal pile of bombs, and goes to find his supper, lobster thermidor (a running gag) in the microwave. After eating, he roams his manse in solitude, stopping at a collage of family photos.

He stares at the photos for a while, before we get to see Bruce's parents die for the millionth time. I think the Waynes are running neck and neck with Uncle Ben, Kenny and Bill Murray in Groundhog Day for most onscreen deaths. Alfred (voiced by Voldemort) happens upon him whilst he's reflecting, only for Bruceman to violently deny that he was staring at said photos, childishly dancing about while doing so.

We next see Bruceman the next day at Jim Gordon's (voiced by the concierge from Pretty Woman) retirement party, which is open to the public, attended by a shit ton of orphans and held at an outdoor skating rink. Bruceman sees Barbara Gordon (voiced by the gal from The Rundown) and is immediately smitten, having apparently never seen, heard of or met her. She is taking over for Ol' Jimbo, and BOY does she not agree with the way Batman beats the crap out of the mentally ill. Her plan is to beat crime with compassion. When she announces this, Bruceman is incensed beyond coherence, and accidentally adopts Scott Pilgrim.

Fortunately, Joker shows up with the same army of Rogues from earlier. They flood in to the ceremony area, where Joker promptly surrenders to Lady Gordon, baffling Bruceman and incensing him further. Joker effectively ends all crime in Gotham, making Batman obsolete.

Upon his return home, Alfred informs Bruceman that he accidentally adopted an orphan, so he's locked him out of his Bat-Computer (referred to as 'Puter, which also works on iOS's Siri), Alfred suggests he bond with Scott Pilgrim instead of worrying about Joker.

Bruceman, however, becomes obsessed with Joker, filling his time with ponderings on his intentions, motives and plans. Finally he settles on "Meh," and decides he needs to throw Joker into the Phantom Zone just to be safe. To do this, he needs to steal the Phantom Zone Projector from Superman, who keeps it at his Fortress of Solitude. Deciding it's a two-man job, with one man being expendable, he gives Scott Pilgrim a Batsuit and calls him Robin, like the small, defenseless bird.

Bats and Pilgrim make their way to the Fortress, and prepare to sneak in, distract Superman (voiced by Magic Mike), and steal the Phantom Zone Projector. As Mike opens the door, it becomes apparent that there's a bit of a rager going on inside, meaning that 'Fortress of Solitude' is a bit of a misnomer. It turns out that Mike is having the whole Justice League over, but didn't invite Batty. There's no real need for a distraction, so instead we get some awkward conversating between Bats and Mike. Scott gets the Projector and they make their way out.

Batty breaks in to Arkham with Scott in order to use the Projector on Joker, and does so successfully. He sends Joker to the Phantom Zone, whose residents also include Sauron, Germlins, Godzilla, Bruce the Shark from Jaws, King Kong, Daleks from the Who universe,

Agent Smith from The Matrix, Voldemort (which has got to be awkward for Alfred), and a Kaiju Pacific Rim. So, full house.

Barbara is disappointed and disgustipated by Bats' actions, so she locks him and Scott up in Joker's old cell. While she's doing so, nobody is watching the Projector, and Harley Quinn (voiced by Mona Lisa Saperstein from Parks and Rec) sneaks in and steals it. She sets Joker and everyone else free from the Phantom Zone, and they all band together for the hell of it to attack LEGO Gotham.

Babs realizes that she needs Batty McBatman, and sets him and Scott Pilgrim free. She then dresses up as Batgirl, and Alfred dresses up as Batdad. They try to band together, but Batman insists on handling this shitshow alone, abandoning everyone, locking them in a broken Batwing and setting out on his own.

For some reason, Sauron (in Eyeball Tower Form) can spout magma, and is really fucking the place up.

Bats gets to Wayne Manor, which has been taken over by Joker and turned in to Six Flags Over Crazy. He tries to have a final showdown, but Joker decides that he's still unappreciated, so he offhandedly transports Bats to the Phantom Zone, and continues running amok.

In the Phantom Zone, Batman gets cozy with the Intake Officer of the Phantom Zone (voiced by The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), who makes a deal with him: Bats can leave if he promises to bring back all the other prisoners. Batty agrees, and gets sent back to LEGO world.

His first stop back is to to apologize to Babs, Oskar Schindler and Scott Pilgrim, reuniting the team. They proceed to go megaton on everyone again, until it becomes apparent that Joker is going to bomb the City in a fashion that will split it in twain. Bats then bands the villains together too, after they recognize that Joker wants to destroy the City, and they LIVE in the City. However, Batman fails to stop the bomb from detonating.

The City splits in two, and starts spreading and falling down. Batman finds Joker, and convinces him that he's realized how much Joker means to the definition of Batman. In a change of heart, Joker literally bands together with the other citizens and Rogues to 'bridge the gap,' stopping the spread of the City.

Everyone comes together in a Coke commercial moment, before Bats zaps the villains back to the Negative Zone. As he prepares to zap himself back, in order to fulfill his promise, Kimmy Schmidt shows up and tells him nah, he's good.

It's at this point that I notice there's an awful lot of Michael Jackson music in this movie for being a kids' movie.

Batman decides to let the Rogues and Joker go, so he has something to do in catching them again, and the movie ends.

Overall, i enjoyed this more than I expected to, but I don't feel they had to shit on all of the Batmovies that came before it.

3/5 Batarangs

As always, you can find me on the Tweeter @NormFromCheers to tell me how wrong I am