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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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.

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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

Episode 165 - Sausage Religion

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss...

• Sausage Party
• Morph catches up with DC TV shows
  • The Flash
  • Arrow
  • Supergirl
  • Legends of Tomorrow

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Check out this episode!

John Wick 2: Wick Harder (Burning the Wick at Both Ends)

Norm From Cheers

The movie starts with a regaling of The Legend of John Wick (a recap of the first movie). This regaling is related by Peter Stormare, also known as Standard Russian Bad Guy #235240, who is apparently the head of the Russian mob after John Wick killed the ever living shit out of most of them in the first film.

During the regaling, we find that for some goddamn reason, the surviving Russians kept John's car, and he has finally tracked it down.

As John breaks in to the vehicle holding area, we see a metric fuckton of mysteriously ornate wooden boxes,, gold bricks, pedestrian piles of cash and lots of drugs being shipped in various clandestine containers, such as used motor oil (everybody ships used motor oil from time to time, right?). Stormare then tells the audience and his right-hand man (who apparently hasn't been paying attention to this massive undertaking being executed in the same building where he works) that it's just cheaper and safer to abandon all US operations and GTFO, rather than try to reason or appease John.

While the regaling turns in to a voiceover, we see that John Wick has apparently gone to war with a livery union, but the only livery union on the planet that doesn't own guns. Since they don't own guns, they proceed to try to commit vehicular homicide on John, as he ribbon dances his way to his car with a garrote, pausing every so often to shove lit cigarettes in to men's mouths, cherry-first.

Finally, John find his car - Eleanor. He tries to quietly get away (as quietly as you can get away in a muscle car inside a warehouse full of cabs), but is spotted and chased. The geniuses chasing him, who haven't read the company memo stating that the Russian concern is pulling up stakes, crash in to his beloved car. It's at this point that John visibly decides 'Fuck it,' and plays bumper cars with the cabs, just absolutely destroying his beloved car in the process (and shattering several windshields several times). Eventually, Eleanor is too beat up to still use to try to kill people with, so John gets out and proceeds to do some ol' fashioned a-murderin'. And boy does he decide he likes knee kicks. I lost count at six, but he kept going with them.

After there are no more Russians to kill, John lets himself in to Pete Stormare's office, pours them each a drink, and toasts to the Russian Space Station Mir, which is also evidently Russian for 'peace,' according to the subtitles. Who knew? John then walks out, and the introduction to the film is concluded, and the title card comes up.

John limps his now-busted hoopty home, parks it, and goes inside to spend time with his new dog, which doesn't have a name (this is a running gag throughout the film). As he winds down from his day of killin', he bags up all of his physical accoutrements that go in to wearing the "John Wick" costume, takes them down to his basement, and throws them in a hole he busted in his floor in The Legend of John Wick. He then patches the concrete, doing a fairly serviceable

job from what the camera showed. Personally, I think he's got real talent at this whole masonry thing, if his day job ever falls through.

As he sits in his basement, literally watching concrete dry, his doorbell rings. John goes to answer the door to see Italy's answer to Robert Downy Jr., Roberto Downy Jr. He invites Roberto Downy Jr in for some coffee and small talk, which inevitably leads to Roberto producing some fine jewelry from his pocket and telling John he needs him to go back to work. This is evidently a physical representation of a literal blood debt John owes Roberto, in connection with the Impossible Task John accomplished all those years ago that allowed him to retire.John politely refuses, and then begs Roberto to not ask him to come back to work (my suspicion is that he, too, realizes that masonry work is his true calling).

Roberto seems upset that John has found a hobby to pass the time in his retirement, but politely leaves. After he leaves, Roberto drives down the street and shoots Johns house to hell with a grenade launcher, which seems like a fair bit of hardware to just roll around with to me. I mean, if someone rear-ends you when you're on your way out to 7Eleven to get more Skittles, that seems like it'd be a largely indefensible way to die. It also leads me to believe that Roberto isn't actually as even-keeled as he said he was.

The first explosion, of course, blows John and his dog clear of the rest of them, despite the fact that if the explosion were actually forceful enough to lift a grown man and a dog and fling them about 50 feet, their innards would be liquified.

As the fire brigade shows up to contain the blaze, before it can spread to the surrounding lake water, Jimmy, the Cop from the first movie shows up, and asks John if he had a gas leak, John plays along, coyly answering questions as to whether or not he's "Working Again."

Now homeless, John makes his way back to the Continental, the assassin's waystation from the first film. He walks up to the front desk, still manned by Charon (side note: this is an awesome name for this character, given its origin). John tells his dog to STAY at the front desk and goes to see Ian 'Winston' McShane, the Manager of the Continental. Winston is examining some Gold Coins (the preferred currency of assassins in this world), and places them back in a mysteriously ornate Wooden Box, similar to the ones Petey Stormare had at the beginning of the film. Winnie is evidently brunching with the jeweler (or sculptor? I'm not sure what you call a metal carvist) who made the coins, which is abruptly ended with John's arrival. Winnie relates the (judging from his exasperated demeanor, what should have already been apparent) facts of John's situation. If he kills Roberto, John dies. If he runs from Roberto, he dies. If he refuses Roberto, he dies. John leaves in a huff, asking Charon to board his dog whilst he goes on another killing spree.

John then locates Roberto at the MOMA, where he's busy disinterestedly curating his late father's art collection. Before John can see Roberto, he is aggressively frisked and sexually harassed by his head of security, Ruby Rose, who some of you may recognize as the aggressively Australian sniper from the recent xXx sequel. She finger guns her way out of the frisking process after attempting to finger John's anus, and then he has a sit-down with Roberto, who explains that his father was one of the members of the High Table, a shadowy organization that implicitly runs all of the crime in the world worth criming. WHen his father recently died, he willed his seat to his daughter, Roberto's sister.

I have several questions about this, chiefly being how exactly does one's will read when bequeathing a seat of power on the executive board of an ethereal crime organization that supposedly runs the world (this feels like where the Lizard People come in to the equation)?

Anyway, Roberto decided that he could do a better job of criming than his sister, so he wants John to kill her. John silently agrees, and goes about kitting up.

His first stop is a Hasidic bank, where he angrily gets dressed in to his John Wick costume. He then makes his way to the Continental Rome. This implies that the Continental is a chain hotel, presumably with convenient locations all around the world. I wonder if they have a rewards or loyalty program.

The Continental Rome has the exact same staff as the Continental New York. Everyone has their doppelgänger, from lady Charon (wo)manning the front desk to the Manger, played by The Most Interesting Man in the World, if Dos Equis is to be believed. His first question to John is to ask whether he's in town to kill the Pope, which is, admittedly, a unique conversation starter. After John assures him that is not the case, The Most Interesting Hotel Manager in the World gives him his room key, and John goes about his business, which includes a trip to a tailor, a librarian, and the hotel sommelier.

Now I'm not sure if I just don't know what a sommelier does, or if this is a special sommelier, but this guy has all the goddamn guns in the world. They repartee back and forth, as John orders guns using double entendres that could refer to guns or wine. I don't know why they use the double entendres, as there is enough small ordinance on display to level a small army. Even weirder, in the context of the scene, the sommelier's true passion seems to be blades. Also, he's played by Simon Pegg's roommate who isn't Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead.

So after John gets gunned up, he goes to see a tailor, whose offices are concealed in a Chinese sweatshop. John is measured for and orders two suits with 'tactical' lining. This lining is supposedly cutting-edge bulletproof material, but it doesn't seem to have any rigid structure. The logical problem with this is that even in regular body armor, existent in the real world, you'll break ribs with a direct hit. You won't get shot by the bullet, but the impact dispersion will still beat the hell from you. This concept seems dubious and suspect to me.

Finally, John goes to the librarian's shop. There, he is given a lesson on the architectural history of the Downy Jr. ancestral home, from the beginning of time to present day. He is also furnished with a key ring containing four keys that look older than time itself.

After he's all kitted out, John goes to break in to the Downy Jr estate through the catacombs that are apparently unguarded and poorly locked and monitored, yet underlie and spider throughout the entire estate. While breaking in, he is surreptitiously spied on by Ruby Rose. As he works his way in through the catacombs, he leaves party favors and big guns lying about, in case of a hasty and noisy retreat.

Once he gets to the heart of the estate, it becomes apparent that someone is hosting an Illuminati raver whose headline is the Italian Enya. There is just a tremendous cacophony coming out of this largely stone structure, and there's not a chance in hell that you wouldn't be able to hear this noise throughout the entire city of Rome.

As ItaliaEnya sings her version of the Miss America theme, the presumed Downy Jr Sister walks down the aisle, gland-handing and meet-and-greeting the whole way. We also see that her head of security is rapper Common. His furniture-design competition reality show must not have panned out. He really did that - I swear on my whiskey bottle I didn't make that up. It was called "Framework."

As The Carpenter Formerly Known as Common politely but firmly guides Lady Downy Jr through her various appointments on this, the most Illuminati Raviest of Nights, she decides to retire to her private quarters in the middle of this, as previously established, massively loud rave. When she does, she sends Common away to build a chair or something.

As Lady Downy Jr primps in a mirror, John Wick appears in the reflection like a goddamn street magician. She immediately recognizes him, and I felt it was insinuated that they used to bump proverbial uglies. She realizes John is here to kill her, and asks who sent him. When she hears it was her brother, she disgustedly warns John that he will try to take over New York for some unspecified reason.

To spare John from having to kill her, and to go out on her 'own terms,' Lady Downy Jr strips down, gets in a conveniently pre-filled tub that's shaped like a cross, and slits her own wrists. John holds her hand as she enters the final boarding process, and then puts an insurance bullet in her head for good measure.

On his way out of the Illuminati Rave, John runs in to Common, who has apparently finished building his chair. They recognize each other, and John regretfully informs him that the Rome Downy Jrs have one less family member.

Common then initiates a shootout with John, along with every other armed guard at this soirée, all of whom apparently had their thumbs up their collective asses until this very second. Somehow, despite all the bullets flying, not a single person in the surround throng of people catches a stray round or a through and trough.

John finally gets away in to the catacombs, only to run in to Ruby Rose and a gaggle of Redshirts. She curiously pantomimes tying up loose ends, and then rains holy hell on John. My first though during this scene was that holy shit everyone in this gun battle would be outright deaf after this. They let off a lot of ordinance in what's basically a small rock cave.

John takes several rounds to the suit, holding up the lapel like a Poor Man's Dracula, or your dad acting like his coat is Captain America's shield. John fights his way to the weapons he's staged previously, including an AR-15 and a Benelli M4, both of which, again, would be absolutely deafening in such enclosed, tight quarters. It's a near thing, but John escapes the catacombs and loses Ruby Rose.

As he walks back to the Continental, Common hits John with a car, and the gets out, firing wildly. They both run out of rounds, and proceed to wrestle through the street of Rome. At one point, they both go tumbling down the longest flight of stairs in cinematic history. I mean, it was positively Kubrickian in length.

Eventually, they throw each other through a window in to the Continental. This is a pivot point in the fight, because one of the two rules this cinematic universe has introduced is that One

Cannot Spill Blood on Continental Grounds, on penalty of being thrown out of and blacklisted from said Continental and/or death.

When The Manager points out to them that they are on Continental Grounds, they stop fighting. The Most Interesting Man in Rome then suggests they get a drink at the hotel bar (way to upsell the in-house services, dude). As they sit down to their drink, John explains how he had no choice in the acceptance of his task, and Common says he understands, but will still hunt him to the ends of the earth, or the movie, whichever comes first. This seems kinda of like a dick move on his part, considering it was him that failed to replace the locks on the goddamn basement doors for the last 9,000 years.

Anyway, they have a 'I'm gonna kill you first!, No I'M gonna kill you first!' dick-measuring competition, and then Common leaves. The camera pans over then to reveal that Ruby Rose was sitting there THE WHOLE TIME!!!11!!1! She starts speaking to John in sign language...wait...is Ruby Rose supposed to be mute? What the fuck? I guess i haven't heard her aggressively Australian accent all movie, so apparently so. That's a weird narrative choice on the movie maker's part, but okay. There is no explanation or reason given for her muteness the rest of the film.

By the way, in the catacombs, John killed 42 guys. I counted.

As John retires to his room, we see that at some point, while being shot multiple times, his phone screen cracked, so now he can't morosely watch videos of his dead wife on a beach. I feel like this is a good development for the narrative pacing of the film.

Roberto calls John on the antique rotary phone (note for you youngsters: ask your parents what this means) that's part of the hotel furnishings, and informs him that as revenge for killing his sister, he has put out a contract on his life for $7 million. John characteristically hangs up mid-conversation. I don't think this man has had a full phone conversation in his life. He always hangs up mid-sentence.

Let's take a minute to talk about how Roberto put out a contract on John. This seems to be a needlessly complicated system, with many montages of antiquity and high-tech confusingly meshed. Roberto calls a woman who identifies herself as "Switchboard." She's in a room staffed entirely by Suicide Girls, all identically dressed as candy stripers/pinup girls. They don't appear to ever venture outside of this room they work in, so I'm not sure what the point of the costumes is, but whatever. The room is evidently a communication hub from yesteryear, as all calls are routed through an old-fashioned phone bank, and all communications out of the room are done through vacuum tubes, like a 1950's mailroom. Switchboard takes the 'order', writes it down on a form, passes the form to another Suicide Girl, who types up the form, sends it somewhere for approval, and then returns it to the room to be disbursed via a machine that appears to be a combination TeleType/RoboCaller. It blasts the order to a series of inept B-level hitmen, who are all conveniently stationed throughout New York City for John's return.

As John aimlessly walks the streets of New York, just waiting for people to try to kill him, they start to oblige him.

The first genius to step up to the plate is a large man who looks like he has trouble negotiating a mid-length flight of stairs. This boy's gotta be in the 500-lb range, he initially tries to shoot John

and...you know what? This montage is kind of boring. Just know that several inept assassin's take a swing at John, but only one gets a good shot in, presumably where his appendix would be. The best part of this montage is when he demonstrates how to kill multiple people with a pencil,

The boss level of this portion of the movie is Common again. Only shitty video games that need to length pad reuse boss characters, so I was worried this climax would suck, but boy did it not. At one point, they prettily snipe at each other with suppressed pistols while traversing a crowded subway station. Throughout, John kills several more shitty hitmen, or 'Shitmen,' if you will.

They both end up on the same train, near the end of the line. The proceed to Steven Segal Knife Fight their way through the last two stops on the line, before John stabs Common in the chest with Common's own knife. He tells Common that the knife is stuck in his heart, and that he could pull it out and keep trying to kill John and die, or he could leave it in and maybe live.

John debarkes from the train, only to see two more Shitmen after him. They somehow knew he would be in that particular subway station at that exact second. John's pretty busted up by now, so he find a hobo, passes him a gold coin, cryptically tells the hobo to take him to see somebody, and passes out under the hobo's tarp. The hobo rattles the gold coin, and then shoots the last two Shitmen to death. Thus concludes John's Shitmen killing spree, capping it at 6. Hobo Batman had an assist with 2.

John comes to in a boiler room, where the hobo and his hobo pals are burning the bodies of the Shitmen the hobo killed. He's been patched up and is receiving IV fluids to help with the no doubt crippling blood loss, which is mighty nice.

The hobo takes John to meet with Morpheus, reuniting the best duo from a computer-themed film released in 1999. Morpheus is evidently now King Hobo, and he tends carrier pigeons as a hobby.

Morpheus relates that he once had his throat cut by John, many, many years ago. He learned how not to be snuck up on because of that incident, but was grateful that John let him live, Still, John DID cut his throat, so the reception is chilly at best.

John asks Morpheus for help in tracking and accessing Roberto, because evidently hobos know where to find multi-millionaires crime lords. Morpheus walks him through the hobo armory, which is inexplicably stocked with RPGs, further forcing John to watch him change in to a silk robe and explain what he would gain by helping Neo. Surprisingly, the 'I know Kung fu' argument doesn't make an appearance. John's argument is pretty much, "Look, Roberto's gonna roll in here and gentrify the shit outta your outfit. Help me help you." Morpheus buys this argument, but he's still a little sore about John slitting his throat all those years ago, so he gives him a gun, but only provides one magazine.

John sneaks in to the museum, where Roberto is evidently having yet ANOTHER Illuminati party. Didn't he learn his lesson from his sister's debacle? Evidently not.

As John locates Roberto, they smolderingly gaze in to each other's eyes until the crowd notices the sexual tension and parts, like Moses through the Red Sea. Strangely, Roberto's head

bodyguard Ruby Rose is nowhere to be found, and the cheesedicks that are attending his at this event don't start shooting until John does, significantly shortening their shelf lives.

Roberto runs in to a needlessly bougie exhibit, consisting entirely of mirrors and mirrored surfaces, which just seems...Jesus, why?

For some reason, Ruby Rose is still nowhere to be found (probably off doing mute shit somewhere), so John just decimates anybody with a gun that comes at him. He kills 42 more redshirts, and manages to throw HIMSELF down a flight of stairs at one point. Also, at one point, John has a guy in a gogoplata and shoots him in the head. I'm pretty sure this would've blown his own foot off.

Eventually, Roberto runs out of redshirts, so Ruby Rose literally drives up to the museum to rescue him. She tells Roberto to flee while she stays behind to take care of John, but she says it in sign language. I still can't get over what a weird fucking choice it was to make her mute. They duke it out in a fairly abbreviated scene, making it clear that John is bigger, stronger and meaner than her before he kills her.

While all that jazz is jazzing it up, Roberto makes his way to the Continental, demanding that Winston excommunicate John from said Continental. Winston laughs in his face, but allows him to take advantage of the perceived sanctuary, since nobody can kill anybody on Continental grounds.

John makes his way in to the hotel to find Roberto smugly eating a steak dinner, obnoxiously espousing how clever he is by hiding in the Continental for the rest of his life. John pulls an Indy and shoots him halfway through his speech, to Winston's shock and chagrin.

The Wicker Man then makes his way back home, or at least back to the burned-out shell that used to be his house. He digs through the ash and rubble until he finds his dead wife's necklace, then he reclines in a melted pile of chair, reflecting on his actions.

Charon shows up to collect John and put a stop to that introspective shit. He gives John and his dog a ride to Central Park to meet Winston, where he learns the bad news that Roberto's surviving family has doubled the price on his head to $14 million, and opened the contract to the international crowd, meaning that all sorts of people are going to be gunning for John. Winston also informs John that he is now excommunicated fro the Continental and all of its services (including, apparently Aurelio).

Historically, when Winston has excommunicated someone, that someone generally ceases to be in fairly short order. When John inquires if that will be his fate, WInston does a pretty neat demonstration of his reach. He gives a nod, and every body in the park area stops and turns to John, before turning about and getting on with their days. Winston tells John that he likes him, so he has an hour before the whole world comes down on him.

As John runs for his life, everyone around him receives a text message, as Winston's orders are spammed to everyone at once.

The End?

Obviously not. This clearly sets up a third and possibly final film. So, John killed a bunch of people, lost his house to a gas leak set off by a grenade launcher, and is just bruised to shit after the last few days he's had.

Overall, I immensely enjoyed this film. A thought i had the other day was reading this film series as a religious parable, with John as the devil/fallen angel and Winston as God.

Surprisingly, I think I've run out of words about this movie.

If you want to tell me how wrong I am, you can find me on Twitter @NormFromCheers,

Episode 164 - Matt Damon vs Aliens

In this episode Kip and Morph discuss...

• Morph finally watched Suicide Squad
• The Great Wall

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