Mentions Mentions: American Star, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire & Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
American Star (2024)
Directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego. 2/5 stars.
Gonzalo López-Gallego’s American Star isn’t quite a disaster, but even the might of the great Ian McShane can’t’ save it from its ultimately unsatisfying fate. Its first problem is its “aging hitman takes one last job” premise, a trope so played out I think I’ll vomit if I ever see it again, but that’s actually the least of its worries. Where it truly falls apart is in its many plot holes, head-scratching character behavior, and nonsensical motivations. As a tired and surly tough guy, McShane is as good as he ever was and fills the screen with a pleasant mixture of aloofness and menace, but he isn’t given much to do but sit around and look at the scenery. I don’t expect Al Swearengen amounts of violence and curse words every time I see the grizzled actor, but I would like to see him do something with his well-established talents.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Directed by Gil Kenan. 2/5 stars.
While there might not be anything to actively hate about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, there isn’t anything to love about it either. For somebody who only really liked the original 1984 film to begin with (I did not like the 1989 sequel at all, was reasonably entertained by the 2016 reboot, and was “meh” about 2021’s Afterlife), I wasn’t expecting Frozen Empire to be a five-star classic, but I was expecting more than this. Part of my issue is the overuse of the original cast, namely Bill Murray. Where Dan Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson seem genuinely happy to be reprising their famous roles as Ray Stantz and Winston Zeddemore, Murray’s Peter Venkman seems like he might fall asleep at any moment. Further, when your film’s best characters are part of the side plot (in this case, Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt as the heir to a magical legacy and a reclusive occult expert librarian, respectively), you’ve got problems beyond the questionable inclusion of legacy stars. Ultimately, Frozen Empire simply doesn’t have much to bite into, leaving it feeling empty and devoid of depth.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Directed by Adam Wingard. 1.5/5 stars.
I’ll let you in on a secret: I love Godzilla. Seriously, that legendary atomic super-dinosaur is one of my favorite things in all of filmdom—that is to say, on the rare occasions when his movies have a coherent plot and plenty of political subtext backing them. The big man himself has been in 38 movies since 1954, and I love exactly three of them. That’s just under 8% of Godzilla movies I find worthy of praise, versus the other 92% that are borderline trash. Guess which category Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire falls into. Instead of wasting your time telling you why you shouldn’t bother with this mess of a movie, I’d rather tell you about the three fantastic ones you should bother with. For quality Godzilla, look no further than the original 1954 film, 2016’s Shin Godzilla, and last year’s absolutely spectacular Godzilla Minus One. The Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is also (surprisingly) not half bad, and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island (no Godzilla, but Godzilla-adjacent) is actually much better than it has any right to be, proving that the Warner Bros. “MonsterVerse” is capable of quality; they just stink at maintaining it.
