(upbeat music) - Hi folks, welcome to episode of Movies in the Meal, a podcast where we talk about movies and other things while we eat Keith here. This is what I was joined by Ben. - Hey. - And Brad. - What's up? - This week we have three movies on the menu. First up, Brad will catch up with Twisters. Next up, I will take a look at the new Michael Keith moving Max goes away on the Max. And then finally, Ben and I will take a look at Ben Night Shyamalan's latest offering, Trap. So first up, Brad, you're catching up with Twisters. One of this summer's big hits. What do you think? - It was a good movie, I enjoyed it. I was surprised not that the movie was good. I was surprised Box Office when I saw it 'cause it had already been out two weeks. Deadpool and Wolverine had come out. And I saw it that Sunday after Deadpool and Wolverine came out. And the movie theater was three quarters full still. So on a lunchtime on Sunday. So that surprised me a little bit. As far as performances in the movie in general, I love Daisy Edgar Jones. It was amazing as Kate Carter. And Glen Powell brings the brash charm as Tyler Owens. It's good to see Anthony Ramos. We'll be talking about him down the line here as Havi. He was supporting cast. Movie had had some heart and had some plot and had a lot of summer movie goodness. Music was great touch. Always loved it when they bring in the country music. Country rock, country pop music. And the CGI was seamless with the movie. The one nitpick I have on this, and I think I've said it to you all before. In the final scene, I won't spoil what happened, but. - I mean, you can't and we've been out about it. - We've always, we've always bore you. - We have. - In the final scene where Tyler's standing out there and you see Kate just walking to the airport, somewhere or somehow they should've said, you're the reason God made Oklahoma. That should've been playing somewhere. - You say it's on the nose. I say it would've just been enough cheese to make this another summer cheese blockbuster movie. - Okay, so what'd you give it? I gave it a three and a half out of five. - Okay, that's what I gave it. - That's what that is. - I think Keith was three and that was a three and a half. - Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy it, it's a summer blockbuster, man. It's like Top Gun Maverick. It might not be quite as good as Top Gun Maverick, but it's still a real good movie. Surprise, there's really no big connections to the original movie, but. - That's fine. We don't need it. - Yeah. - Not everything needed. - It didn't hurt. - It didn't hurt not for neither, so. - It was almost like Easter eggs instead of. - Yeah. - It was just in subtly. - Yeah. - Rather than him or someone who had the distance to see. - That, I mean, that is the unfortunate drawback of the MCU and how successful it was. It just like, not everything needs to flip and connect. - Yes. - It does not hurt. - Yeah. - Okay, so I think we're caught up on Twister, so let's go on to the next movie and Brad, why don't you do the summary for, what's it? Well, you can say the title 'cause you're gonna be the summary, so. - It's Knox Goes Away. And the summary, courtesy of IUDB, when a contract killer has a rapidly evolving form of dementia, he has offered an opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son. - I never thought I'd get to the point that I'd say there are too many film doors being made, but this year is kind of stretching it. The, it's kind of losing the definition of what they are, but that certain doesn't mean there are some great ones out there, and this is one of them. Top of list this year, Richard Linklater's Hitman and Rose Glasses love lies bleeding, but you can add this second directing effort from Michael Keaton to that list too. He's earned the right to direct himself, and thanks for Knox surprisingly great in Knox Goes Away, despite a few wrong turns. So what is Knox Goes Away all about? As a meat hit band John Knox, Keaton of course, he's a hit man at a crossroads. The kind of movie we've of course all seen before. As a meat in the coffee shop, talking with a fellow hit man, played by one of my all time favorites, Ray McKinnon, you can tell something's off. I'm not revealing too much to say Knox is suffering from a rapidly devolving and incurable strain of dementia, putting his life on a clock. From there, all you need to know is this planned final job goes way wrong, and it's from there that Knox Goes Away really takes off. It's a layered performance from Keaton on top of this game, and with Cinnam Todd from Marshall Adams, they film Knox's decline with a style that verges on over the top, which manages to come together completely hook the viewer. As Knox settles his books and takes care of those who will be left behind with a scheme that constantly tests its fading mind, who made a cast of colorful characters that's truly worth the title of Noire. James Marston can grate as Knox's estranged son, but as somewhat subdued Al Pacino, as Knox's handler and best friend is great, and even better is Jonah Koolig, as the Polish prostitute was visited Knox every Thursday for the last 10 years or so, and of course, notices his decline. The surprising thing about Knox Goes Away is that it's a meditative film, but if you're thinking of watching this one on the Mac, don't let that scare you. With Keaton starring on both sides of the camera, he managed to make this a touching human drama that led on action, raising a well-corey air boost that just make them hit that much harder. In this second effort directing himself, following 2008's The Merry Gentlemen, Keaton has evolved, and he gives Knox Goes Away hypnotic feel as his crib from Gregory Porier has been racing against two clocks at once, the race to pull up his final scheme for the cops to get picked wise, and also, of course, the clock on his life. So for a film, The War, that also mixes in touching human elements and offers a satisfying low-key thriller, I'll give Knox Goes Away on the Macs three and a half stars and say, "Watch it for sure." - It's rotten tomatoes, critics and audience. Keith, what's you thinking? - You know, I think I like this one more than the critics anyway, and I think a little less than the fans, so I will say 60 on the critics. I'll go as high as 90 from the fans. - Well, you're close on both of them. Critics have 64%, 74 reviews. Audience 84%, 50+ reviews. And the critics consensus, courtesy of rotten tomatoes. Michael Keaton directs Michael Keaton and Knox Goes Away and gets a terrific performance out of himself, albeit one that's left stranded, by an underwhelming screenplay. - I can't totally disagree with that, but I did like resolving what you've done in life, and that added a nice touch up to me. But you're right, the plot's a little crazy. You have to get into that if you like Phil Noir. I think you still watch it. - Why don't we move on to the third movie? - I'm like Shyamalan's Trap. - Yeah, okay, so then it came out a couple weeks ago. Did you have a summary if you don't? - I did. - Then we're gonna go. Okay, so go ahead and do the summary. - I got summary tomatoes and crystallences, so a summary courtesy of my MDB. A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event. - Okay, I might Shyamalan, or your lover hate him. He definitely puts out a lot of movies. I feel like he puts out one at least once a year. I feel like-- - I looked at it, he's made 16 that he directed. So yeah, just about. - This one, kind of terrible. The Shyamalan brand is about twists, right? And so we saw the trailer and the trailer kind of outlined what the movie was gonna be. So I was naturally drawn in because I, okay, maybe there's a twist on this. And then it turned out to be, which is fine, but I just felt like a lot of times it stretched the, just my circle of credibility. It felt like, Brad will get this. It felt like a level of like a hitman game on Easy where Josh Hartnett's person was a protagonist and he's walking around. All the people that he interacts with are kind of, again, on a video game terms. NPCs who are just there to deliver information or where he can kind of stealthily acquire whatever key card or catchphrase he needs to continue his video game mission. It gets a little bit past the premise of the concert and it goes in a couple twists, but again, the competency of the police officers in this is terrible. It just, it really pushed it for me, which is sad because I like Josh Hartnett. You know, there's a guy who was a Hollywood star, up and comer about 20 years ago. Kind of stepped back just because he felt like it was too much and he wanted to live a normal life. So hats off to that. I mean, you know, Alice in Pill, who, you know, we like and the original, the original parrotrap, Hayley Mills, the original Good Morning Miss Bliss, the precursor to Say By The Bell was in this movie, but they just not given a lot and I just was left unsatisfied by this movie, unsatisfied by the ending and trap his app description of the movie 'cause I felt trapped for two hours like wondering when does this movie gonna end and why, why it's happening. So, Keith liked the better than I did so here, Keith. - By, yeah, by degrees, you know, I am as guilty as anyone of coddling M night. I just like that he does his own thing, but Ben is right. He hits as often as he misses or misses as often as he hits, either way, this is a miss. I will say that calling it trap is ludicrous. Ben is right. Coincidence can be a crutch, but the way Josh Hartnett works his way around that arena is just insanely bad. You know, not knock Hayley Mills, but she's given, no, no, nothing at all as opposed to the expert profiler. I did enjoy the concert angle of it that much as far as father and daughter bonding. I did like the pop star, you know, Shyamalan takes care of his own, you can call it nepotism, but his daughter, Celica Shyamalan plays. You know, Ben and I were talking about it, and she's kind of an oligo-rigo kind of pop star. I did like that whole atmosphere, but, you know, without spoiling too much, to call it trap is insane because he eludes these people so easily, even as good as Josh Hartnett is. And what happens after the arena? I don't want to, I don't want to say anything else except that to that for me was even worse. The way he continues to get out of things is not just coincidence, it's stupid. I thought there are bad movies I can laugh at, but this is not one of them. I will say just the final thing. Kid Cuddy, love him. I like that he's a hustler. That is one of the worst performances we'll see all year as a so-called R&B performer in this movie. It's just one of the many reasons this movie was a miss. - The movies are just not believable because they're so bad at their job. At the end, I'll spoil part of it. You know, there's a scene where Josh Hartnett is kind of confronted by the police and they're hitting with tasers, and he must be like the Hulk, he's not going down. They're hitting with like four or five tasers. And so he charges one police officer who unfortunately kind of gets their eyes gouged out. It's unnecessary, it should have never gotten there. I think at this point, you know, he's dangerous. I would say, you know, lethal force authorizing, he's killed like 12 people already. He killed, he already killed one police officer, I think it's admitted for it because that's another reason why he got away. So I don't know. - And even that, you know, there's one thing beyond that where they let him do something that is even stupider. That's the final act. - Yeah, we'll reveal that because if there's a twist, I guess that's it. It comes in the last five seconds. - Yeah, we won't spoil that. - But it's just coincidence piled on coincidence that makes this, you know, truly a bad movie. - Okay, I'm going to give my review some, I'm going to stick to my original guns. I think I soften my opinion a little bit because some of the nitpicks I've softened, but I'm still going to give it a one and a half. We have all applied the Brad Universal mandatory half star if you've finished the movie. So there's that. I'll give it another half star for the cast. Again, Josh Hartnett, Allison Pill, the girl who played Josh Hartnett's daughter, she was solid, Shyamalan's daughter, also good. And Hayley Mills, she was okay, she was okay. And then-- - She's nothing to do. - And then I have star for a premise that was interesting, that was not fully capitalized on, but one and a half for me. - I will go to, and only because, for the reasons I mentioned, I did enjoy the concert part of it. I enjoyed that whole family angle, but really, that's it. And just to show you, you know, that I am a, I can't be an M night defender. These are the five that I love, and it shows you how far all he's fallen. Unbreakable, the sixth sense, signs. Those were all by 2002. Split and knock at the cabin. So, you know, when you put up 16 to 20 movies, even I as a defender, I only love five of them. - I don't know. Maybe we're just, we're a little bit more cynical about his game and what he brings to the table. - Yeah, I tried to look at people who liked it on Twitter, and those people only liked it as a laughable, bad movie that you could watch, you know, with a beer, but there are movies that I could watch like that, but this one is so poorly made. I can't even appreciate it for that. - Yeah. - Okay, so one and a half for me, two for Keith, and I think that's good to segue to Rotten Tomatoes. So, Brad. - Oh, critics and audience, Ben. - I'll go first. There are some people who actually enjoyed it, so I can't say it's, you know, it's not going to be like a world record like loads. And I'll go for Rotten. I'll go 50 for the critics. Audience might be a little bit more forgiving 'cause they kind of like Shyamalan. I'll go 67. - I think Ben's pretty much spot on, but I will go a little higher with the critics. I will go 58, and even a little higher with the fans. I'll go 75 'cause MI has a cult. - Well, y'all could split the difference on the critics. - 54% for the critics, 167 reviews. Audience, 65%, 1,000 plus reviews. - So, we were pretty much in the ballpark. - We understand it. - So, tell me about the critics consensus? - Critics consensus, Garcia Rotten Tomatoes. An arch-thriller given some grounding by Josh Hart and its committed performance, Shyamalan's trap will snare those who appreciate its tongue-in-cheek style while the rest will be eager to wriggle out front. - Yeah, that's probably-- - That's a pretty good summary. - Is it tongue-in-cheek though? I feel like it was kind of earnest. See, that's the problem. I think it was earnest. So, to watch it through that ironic lens, you're putting a layer on it. I don't think that Shyamalan did it all. - As far as the weekend box office, trap did not make it. - It's in second week, correct? - Second week, a trap did not make-- - Well, it might have made fifth, I don't know. I don't have five, so I got the top four, so-- - Top four, number one, Deadpool Wolverine. - Yeah. - Closhing you a thing, but $54.6 million this week, a three-week total of $494.7 million. - Okay. - How bad? - It ends with us opening this weekend, one of the two openers that made the top four. $50 million this week in an opening weekend, so just eat that by Deadpool Wolverine for first. - Wow. - Number three, we mentioned it in this podcast episode. Twisters, finished in third with $15.4 million for a four-week total of $222 million. And then number four is the other opener this week, the Make It Borderlands, $8.8 million in its opening week. And not very good reviews either, so. And Keith, I know you've mentioned this. Cuckoo, it might have made fifth, but I didn't see an official on that. It made, I think, $3.7 million, I think, at memory charging rates, so-- - Yeah, even by indie horror standards, that's not good. - Yeah, so yeah, that's our weekend box office. - Let's wrap it up, because behind the scenes, we still got in the episode record, so. - All right, well, you can reach the folks that move us in the mail. O-G-A-G mail.com, moves in the mail on X or Twitter, X/Twitter, and give us a listen-on at the podcast, Spotify, or if you find your podcast. - Okay, so for this episode of Movies in the Mail, I'm Ben. - And Keith, spread, peace! (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
