The Quick and Dirties: Young Dudes Doing Stuff

The Quick and Dirties are back. This time they return to having a more unified theme. As you can see from the title of the post, we're talking dudes still trying to make it to adulthood. Some are more successful than others at delivering a good movie. Let's see who does what.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

(2016)

Ricky (Julian Dennison) has bounced around from one foster home to the next for quite some time. They never work out because he's more than a bit on the unruly side. However, things are different when he's placed in the home of Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill). Ricky finally finds a place he wants to stay. When Bella dies unexpectedly, the authorities plan to come collect Ricky and move him again. He wants no parts of that, goes on the run, and convinces Hec to go with him. A journey through the woods ensues. Right from the start, the film is downright hilarious. Early on, it's lifted by the excellent performances and chemistry of Te Wiata and Dennison. Te Wiata is only in the film briefly but is just magnificent. Later, Sam Neill steps in. He and Dennison display a fantastic chemistry of their own. The writing provides a perfect foundation for the seamless transition from Ricky's interactions with Bella to those with Hec. The movie is consistently funny, cute, sweet, and all sorts of heartwarming. Still, it maintains enough edge to never feel cloying. This is how feel-good movies should be done.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

(2016)

Rafe (Griffin Gluck) is the new kid at his middle school, and of course, doesn't have any friends. It doesn't help matters that he was kicked out of his previous school. Things appear to be looking up since he meets Jeanne (Isabela Moner), the girl of his dreams, and found a friend in Leo (Thomas Barbusca). However, Leo gets Rafe into all sorts of trouble. That means daily run-ins with Principal Dwight (Andy Daly). We watch as Rafe tries to navigate through this rough year while behaving mischievously. He accomplishes things he would probably need the help of a movie crew to pull off in real life. I'm talking things like covering every square inch of the school in Post-it Notes. Yeah. Anyhoo, the whole thing is a collection of cliches and feels like a rejected script from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise. The twist at the end is more inspired than the rest of the film, but even that's been done, and done better, by other films. That said, it does keep the film from being completely terrible, elevating it to somewhere between that and below average.

Morris From America

(2016)

Thirteen year old Morris (Markees Christmas) is an American kid living in Germany with his dad Curtis (Craig Robinson). Dad works long hours so Morris is often left to his own devices. He's struggling to fit in. Matters aren't helped by the fact he appears to be the only black kid in the entire city of Hildenberg. Morris soon meets and develops a crush on Katrin (Lina Keller). Her getting him into all sorts of trouble ensues since she's living life at a much faster pace than he. The story pulls you in because we really feel that Morris is a good kid, just being thrown for a loop by his status as a fish out of water. Christmas is rather charming in the role. As dad, Craig Robinson is better than I've ever seen him. Far from the antics of the Apatow canon and other raunchy comedies, Robinson delivers a powerful, yet nuanced performance. The persona we see in those other movies are present, but only a small part of a much more fully realized human. The plot requires his character to make some questionable parenting decisions in order to work, but thanks to how much heart the film has, it does work. It's part love-letter to 90s hip hop (Morris fancies himself the next Biggie), part fish out of water, and all sweet coming of age story.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

(2016)

Because the Michael Bay produced craptacular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made a ton of money back in 2014, we're force-fed this sequel. I guess force-fed isn't really the right term. I technically didn't HAVE to watch it, but in my world movie buff equals glutton for punishment so here I am. Anyhoo, not only are the turtles back, but so is Shredder (Tohoru Masamune). He's out to do the most idiotic thing movie villains try all too often. He wants to unleash someone bigger and badder than himself on the world. In this case, it's an alien warlord named Krang (Brad Garrett). He's also a disembodied brain with a face that stuffs himself into a walking robot thingy that might be alive on its own. I dunno. Let's move on. Bay is again just a producer with Dave Green in the director's chair. Green's only other feature is the nearly as rotten E.T. rip-off Earth to Echo. After seeing both I have zero faith this dude has an original thought in his head. This means Out of the Shadows is able to fully embrace its Bayisms without having to take the time to introduce our heroes. So yeah, more jokes, more action, more of the camera revolving around its subjects seeming to only change directions when vertically surveying the body of a twenty-something young woman dressed as a high school girl. I think it's ever-so-slightly better than the first, but that's debatable. And doesn't make it a good movie.That is, unless you thought the first was a good movie. It's not. It's terrible. And I'm blaming you for making me watch this. What?

The Weekend

(2016)

Just home from college, Derrick (Joivan Wade) reconnects with this old buddies Malcolm (Percelle Ascott) and Tyler (Dee Kaate). They're just hanging out at Derrick's house trying to figure out a way to get into some trouble since his parents are away for the weekend when the means to have a bigger blast than they've ever had falls into their lap. They discover that one of Derrick's bags had been switched with someone else's. The bag they have contains boatloads of cash. Since boys will be boys, they go on a spending spree and decide to throw a huge party. There's just one problem. The money belongs to a gangster named The Butcher (Frankie Clarence) who has managed to track them down. Once he does, he gives them a very limited amount of time to recoup all the money and give it back to him. Hijinks and shenanigans ensue. Unfortunately, it's a predictable, overly derivative, and not very funny brand of hijinks and shenanigans. It tries desperately to follow in the footsteps of early Guy Ritchie films yet lacks the writing acumen to pull it off. We're left with a story that holds no surprises told through a series of mostly recycled jokes. On occasion, the camaraderie and high-spiritedness of our heroes shines through to give us a laugh, but it's not nearly enough to save this dreck.

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