Triple Feature: Blade Runner 2049, The Babysitter, Thor Ragnarok

I'm tired, it's late, and I've just seen a ton of movies that I want to talk about.


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These past few weeks have been murder, no ifs or buts. Between the four year anniversary, my annual Top 20 villains list, and doing a major Batman retrospective on top of reviewing one of the biggest games of the season, I'm not gonna make any big speeches. Let's just dive right in and cut to the chase.

Blade Runner 2049 (October 6th, 2017)

I wasn't really a big fan of last year's token sci-fi epic Arrival. Sure, it was fine by a technical point of view, but the main twist didn't resonate with me and it felt like a lot of build up with little to no payoff. The same director, Denis Villeneuve, went and directed Blade Runner 2049 in the same style as Arrival. It was bleak, with very little emotion, and a lot of silence involved. However, it worked perfectly in the world of Blade Runner 2049 and became easily one of the best movies of the year.

It does have a bit of a slow start I will admit, but once the main plot gets going, it really does get going. By the middle of the movie, I was watching because the film commanded me to watch it. I felt like I was seeing something larger than life that deserved my attention and my time. It does pull a lot of the same technical tricks as Arrival, but it all works better because we're able to get a sense of the world in 2049. We spend a lot of time walking around the cities, seeing how the world works, and getting to know a lot about its history. I was so compelled by this world that I actively went out and saw all of the prequel shorts created just for this release.

It may be a 3 hour behemoth, but it never felt like it was that long. This is one of those few times where I wished I saw it on an IMAX screen because the sheer scope of it would be worth it. There are moments where it does drag, and given that it's a 3 hour movie having just a little extra editing wouldn't have hurt the movie in the long run, but other than that it's hard to say anything that is definitively wrong with it. It's just an extremely well executed sci-fi movie that I wished did better than it did. It pretty much bombed, which is a shame when the overall product is as good as it is.

The Babysitter (October 13th, 2017)

Netflix has been pushing a lot of its original content in recent years to the point where I associate it more with its original content than the shows and movies it gets from other studios that liscene out to them. I don't really like to review Netflix movies though because I just feel like there are other movies that deserve to be talked about. Most Netflix movies don't have to worry about box office numbers and I would much rather convince you to go see a movie that deserves it than to see a movie that you get with hundreds of others for $8 a month. It's the difference between supporting a mom and pop store for your groceries or doing via Amazon Pantry. You still get your groceries, and one is infinitely more convenient, but you know that you money can probably make more of a difference elsewhere.

Enter The Babysitter, a horror-comedy that I saw because I wanted a good laugh for in the waning months of the year. The Babysitter is a pretty decent movie overall. It's not high art or anything like that, but it's a movie that feels like it takes the ridiculous tropes of 80's slasher movies, mixes it with Home Alone, and dial up the lunacy to Sharknado proportions. By all accounts, this movie isn't engaging and is pretty obvious. There's an evil babysitter, her group of friends, and only the kid can stop them from trying to kill him. Add incredible amounts of gore, stupid deaths, and just enough bizarre moments to keep me engaged, and you have yourself a pretty fun horror flick.

The best way I can describe The Babysitter is that it's a "HELL YEAH!" kind of movie. You know the kind. It's the kind of movie where you watch it and you just go "HELL YEAH!" at what you're watching. You're laughing, talking with your friends, making fun of it, and just having a good time overall. It's not all that long, and if we're being perfectly honest the premise is pretty dumb and a lot of the characters are raving psychopaths because why not, but trying to make sense of a movie that knows its a joke it a pointless task. Just turn off your mind, sit back, and get some popcorn.

Thor: Ragnarok (November 3rd, 2017)

I really wanted to like this movie. I really wanted to come back and say that I fell in love with Tho: Ragnarok and all of its goofy, space viking glory, but when I left the theatre, I felt the same way I did whenever I left most Marvel movies. I felt indifferent. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad, but it met all of my expectations and did nothing to exceed them. It tried to imitate Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of setting and tone, but it doesn't understand that what made that movie so compelling was the cast of characters and how they bounced off each other. Thor is entertaining, and Hulk is great, but Valkyrie, The Grandmaster, and even Loki all felt average.

I get what Ragnarok was trying to do. It wanted to inject life and energy into the Thor movies, which are pretty much agreed upon as being the weakest movies in the MCU, but it did so by trying to be something it wasn't. It tried to be a crazy space gladiator tournament, but it wasn't. The best parts of the movie were on Sakaar when Thor was fighting against Hulk, or just seeing that world, or just hearing the witty dialogue and seeing characters act out of character. Thor being afraid of losing his hair was great, as was the Hulk acting like a child. But every single time we got to see a bit of Sakaar and the Contest of Champions, we were whisked back to Hela attacking Asgard. Everything that happened on Asgard was not interesting, period.

I will say that this was easily the best Thor movie. I mean, the competition wasn't all that stiff to begin with, but it was still better than watching the Dark Elves be moody or Thor be an ass in the first movie, and I will acknowledge that putting Thor in space was a pretty cool idea at the end of the day. Plus, extra marks for including elements of "Planet Hulk" in a Thor movie. But even with good ideas and good intentions, the biggest problem with Thor: Ragnarok was that it was a Thor movie. When you get a Thor movie, you have to get huge sections dedicated to Asgard, and those bits were the weakest parts of the movie. So combine a good middle with a lame beginning and ending, and you get a true blue, ho-hum Thor experience.