Abnormal Attraction

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

(2018) Horror Comedy (Random Media) Malcolm McDowell, Leslie Easterbrook, Nathan Reid, Melanie Iglesias, Jason Leavy, Michael Buscemi, Ron Jeremy, Gilbert Gottfried, Tyler Mane, Bruce Davison, Jim Hanks, Carly Brooke, Krista Ayne, Bethany Watson, Courtney Baxter, Rebecca Ruber, Michael Barra, Nicole Balsam, Michelle Taylor, Renae Geerlings, Lesleh Donaldson. Directed by Michael Leavy

 

Prejudice is deeply ingrained into out culture. That which is different than us is generally regarded with deep suspicion, whether a different race, religion or even political affiliation. What about creatures that aren’t even human? What could be more different than that – and how likely would it be, if such existed, that they would be regarded with the most suspicion of all.

In the world of Abnormal Attraction the monsters of myth, legend and literature coexist alongside of humans. Vampires walk the streets at night; werewolves howl at the moon and yeti sell snow cones from ice cream trucks. Nick Lane (Re.id) doesn’t really care about all that; he’s a therapist who deals with interspecies relationships. He’s also engaged to Catherine (Iglesias) although the relationship has hit a bit of a rocky patch. He needs to spend some time with her and he asks his colleague Dr. Stanley Cole (Davison) to take over running an AA meeting for him in order to do that.

But AA doesn’t stand for what you think it stands for – unless you thought it stood for Abnormal Attraction. It’s a 12-step group for humans who are obsessed with other species. Dr. Cole is totally unprepared for the type of stories the participants in the meeting have to tell! In the meantime, Madame Hildie (Easterbrook) and her partner-in-crime the Boogeyman (McDowell) have plans to make the human race go the way of the dinosaur – and monsters will at last rule the earth!

If this sounds like a big budget studio movie with plenty of special effects, well, maybe it should have been. The monster make-up ranges from decent to downright WTF (like the Purple People Eater which looks like a really bad case of the measles) and the Cyclops (Mane) who let’s just say that his curtains don’t match the drapes.

The horror comedy mostly revolves around the scatological and the sexual with the latter dominating. My notes read that this feels like a movie made by 12-year-old boys for 12-year-old boys; Police Academy veteran Easterbrook probably felt right at home. There’s a whole lot of raunchiness and slapstick humor which may or may not appeal to you personally; humor is a highly individual thing and if you like your humor highbrow, this is definitely not the film for you. Truth be told though, I found some of the sequences really funny, like when Frank Stein (Hanks) explains why he doesn’t like to be called Frankenstein. Maybe not comedy gold, but at least comedy bronze.

But the movie’s heart is at least in the right place – there is a message of tolerance and of being non-judgmental that some movies with more intellectual appeal than this failed to get across as well including the most recent Best Picture winner. You could do a lot worse for entertainment value than this as long as you keep your expectations low.

REASONS TO SEE: You can’t fault the filmmakers for lack of ambition, only lack of budget.
REASONS TO AVOID: The humor seems aimed at 12-year-old boys.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity, sexual innuendo and sexual slurs.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While on the festival circuit the film was nominated for 24 awards, winning nine of them.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/5/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Cast a Deadly Spell
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: The Wind

Advertisement

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Michelle Yeoh finds that checking out books at the Ancient China branch of the library can be problematical at best.

(2008) Action Adventure Horror (Universal) Brenan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford, John Hannah, Isabella Leong, Chau Sang Anthony Wong, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, David Calder, Jessey Meng, Tian Liang.  Directed by Rob Cohen

Movie monsters may come and movie monsters may go, but you can’t keep them down for too long. That, at least in my estimation, is the lesson generated by the first two movies of the Universal Mummy reboot.

The third installment of the series starts off very promising. Evil Chinese emperor (Li) plans to take over the world, but falls in love with sorceress Zi Yuan (Yeoh) who only has eyes for the emperor’s right hand General Ming (R. Wong), which cheeses off the emperor enough to kill his best field general. The emperor apparently never learned not to piss off a sorceress, so on the pretense of making the emperor immortal she instead curses him and his soldiers to turn into clay, and as such they are entombed for four thousand years.

That is, until Alex O’Connell (Ford) comes along. A young, promising archaeologist excavating in China stumbles upon the tomb, one of the most important finds of the 20^th century, but in doing so accidentally awakens the emperor who has plans to resume his world domination scheme after a slight delay. Those darn Chinese emperors!

Alex’s parents, Rick (Fraser) and Evelyn (Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz who chose not to return to the role) have been living in wedded bliss for more than a decade since the events of The Mummy Returns. However, they are both unspeakably bored and who wouldn’t be? Anything after a life of danger, adventure, exotic places and of course the undead would seem a bit dull by comparison.

Given the opportunity to return a rare gem to the Chinese people as a gift from the British government, the O’Connell’s head to China to reunite with their son, choosing a bar in Shanghai owned by Evelyn’s ne’er-do-well brother Jonathan (Hannah), which is a mistake in itself. There they are attacked and helped out by Lin (Leong), who turns out to be the daughter of the sorceress and General Ming who inherited her mom’s immortality. Thanks mom!

After witnessing the truly evil nature of the mummy and his human henchman General Yang (C.S.A. Wong), the O’Connell’s realize that they are the only people equipped to deal with yet another outbreak of mummy-ism. They are in turn aided by the sorceress and her yeti pals. This all leads to a big battle by the Great Wall in which the emperor’s soldiers are opposed by the slaves they murdered to build the wall (brought back to life conveniently by the sorceress) and the emperor, who morphs himself into a formidable fire-breathing three-headed dragon. The odds are against the O’Connells and their allies but if you know mummies like they know mummies, you won’t be worried about the whole day-saving thing.

Cohen takes over from Stephen Sommers who helmed the first two movies and does adequately. Cohen is no stranger to big movies, having directed xXx and the original The Fast and the Furious among other things but he doesn’t get to use Vin Diesel here.

Instead, he gets Brendan Fraser and the actor utilizes his considerable charm to make Rick likable despite being a bit of a whiner here. The chemistry between Fraser and Weisz is sorely missed and although Bello is a terrific actress in her own right, she really isn’t right for the role. Quite frankly, her English accent is a bit too upper class for Evelyn, and she comes off as a bit phony. She does look good in the fight scenes at least.

Alex O’Connell has gone from an annoying child in The Mummy Returns to an annoying adult here, so the less said the better. Hannah provides comic relief nicely, but for me the real attraction here is Li and Yeoh. Li is one of the greatest martial artists ever in movies and while he doesn’t get as much time demonstrating his prowess (he’s much too busy being a CGI mummy or dragon), he shines when he does. Yeoh is in my opinion an incredibly gifted actress who is shamefully underrated here in the States. She is, as always, one of the best reasons to see this movie.

There is plenty of eye candy to go around and the action sequences make the movie at least palatable. However, a lot of the sparkle and gee-whiz fun is missing from this movie where it was present in the first two. You get the impression this was just a paycheck for most of the people involved, who are sufficiently talented enough to make this entertaining, but without the spark that would have made this amazing. It’s one of those things where you have good talent, a great concept and skilled filmmakers but it doesn’t add up to the great movie it should have been. Instead, it’s merely adequate.

It’s not good form to compare a movie to the one that you think should have been made, but the movie disappointed me so here you have it. It’s certainly worth a look if you haven’t already seen it, but don’t expect to have your socks blown off. Your footwear is quite safe this time.

WHY RENT THIS: Spectacular effects and some amazing fight scenes. Any chance to see Li and Yeoh is worth taking. Fraser is as charming as ever.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Bello is miscast somewhat. The story is a bit weak compared to the first two movies.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some action movie-type violence and a few disturbing monster images that might be a bit much for the younger set.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The tomb and the terra cotta warriors are based on the actual tomb of the first emperor of the Qin dynasty in Xi’an, China. The excavations have been going slowly for decades, partially because of traps left by the builders of the tomb, some similar to the ones depicted in the movie.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a featurette on the actual terra cotta warriors, as well as a trivia track and a U-Control feature called “Know Your Mummy” that compares this movie with the previous two Mummy flicks, the latter two being only on the Blu-Ray edition.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $401.1M on a $145M production budget; the movie made money.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Beginners