October 26, 2020\
One morning, single mom Rachel Flynn (Caren Pistorius) was driving her 15-year-old son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) to school. At one intersection, the pickup in front of them did not move right away after the light turned green, so the annoyed Rachel honked her horn repeatedly. The driver Tom Cooper (Russell Crowe) drove his truck alongside Rachel's car to apologize for his delay, but requested Rachel to apologize back for honking at him. Their encounter took a very ugly turn when Rachel refused to do so.
Russell Crowe was made to put on a lot of pounds and belly fat for this role. This look of his made him look a lot like John Goodman in many scenes, which can be a humorous distraction despite the violence he is capable of. Crowe's Tom Cooper was an over-the-top crazy killer here, and this was established from the very first scene. He was only in a single-mode through out the film -- angry and angrier. Pistorius did what she can with her role as Rachel, who fortunately had driving skills to match her annoyingly stupid decisions.
This was a very disturbing film about road rage that went beyond the usual roadside outburst. Rachel's abrasive mood unfortunately clashed with a psychotic man in a worse mood, escalating what should have been a minor traffic altercation into a city-wide car chase. To make things more alarming, the rampaging Cooper also vented his anger on Rachel's family and friends as collateral victims. Director Derrick Borte made things quite frenetic, heart-pounding and unbearable. Pretty B-movie stuff here, but that was all they aimed for. 6/10.
After the events of the first film, Borat Sagdiyef (Sacha Baron Cohen) returned to Kazakhstan in shame and was sent to languish in prison. Fourteen years later, Borat was released to fulfill a vital mission to bring a gift of a Kazakh celebrity monkey to US Vice President Michael Pence in order to restore good relations between the two countries. However, when he got to the US, stowed away inside the monkey's crate was his 14 year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova) instead. So, Borat had to get Tutar ready to become a worthy gift to Pence.
Just like the first film, this sequel also had Borat do and say unspeakably shameful things with typical ordinary American citizens, this time with his daughter Tutar in tow. With the naive and culturally-misinformed character of Tutar there, the main focus of this film was for upholding women's rights. However, Cohen delivered that message in the bold, outrageous and insulting gags and pranks ever caught on film, yet somehow still coming across as incisive social commentary, yet still with his sense of dark humor very much intact.
I actually liked the comedy in this one better than the first one, maybe because I am more aware of Cohen's ironic style of comedy now. There are very timely issues tackled here, with the Coronavirus pandemic (that maskini!), as well as the current POTUS himself and his staunch Republican supporters. Cohen's absurdist writing and performance was sharp and on-point, despite being so crass on the surface. The genuine (?) reactions of the common folk or even politicians (notably Rudy Giuliani) were quite uncomfortably revealing. 7/10
Because of the chemicals released by these bombs detonated to avert an asteroid disaster, all cold-blooded creatures were turned into giant monsters which soon wiped out all but 10% of the world's population. Joel Dawson (Dylan O'Brien) was in one of these survivors and he is the cook of his underground bunker community. One day, Joel was able to talk to his girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick) on the radio. Despite his tendency to freeze up in terror, Joel resolved to go to the surface to seek out Aimee's seaside colony to reunite with her.
While he was attacked by a giant frog, Joel was saved by a scruffy dog named Boy, who later became his travelling partner. Along the way, Joel met a monster-savvy old man Clyde Dutton (Michael Rooker) and his child companion Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), from whom he learned important information about surviving and fighting against the monsters and other dangers in the woods. Overall, the film was very entertaining and well-paced by director Michael Matthews, although for me the momentum sort of petered out a bit by the time it reached the climax.
One of the cool things about this film was how they reimagined insects, crustaceans, amphibians and reptiles as man-eating monsters. 29 year-old Dylan O'Brien (best known as lead character Thomas in "The Maze Runner" films) gave a solid and engaging performance as Joel, that you'd root for him to succeed in his quest for his first love. Rooker and Greenblatt were also a very likable characters, reminiscent of Tallahassee and Little Rock in the similarly post-apocalyptic "Zombieland" films. 7/10.
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