The COARD: Dark Phoenix and Secret Life of Pets 2

The current iteration of the X-Men universe comes to a close with Dark Phoenix. Does the final installment leave the series on a strong note, or do the X-Men limp off into the sunset? 

Cody: The answer is...Charles Xavier being dragged down a hallway level of limping. I'll start with the good. The action sequences were visually strong. The intentional choice to tone down the grandeur and destruction after the world altering absurdity of Apocalypse was the right one. Seeing some of the most iconic of mutants doing their thing is just plain fun. I got a strong helping of Nightcrawler moments, so my personal fandom feels well served. It basically all goes downhill from here. One thing almost every X-Men movie has in common is a strong ensemble cast, yet the performances here were mostly flat. Nick Hoult perked up at times. McAvoy and Fassbender continue to display an effortless chemistry, however, they shared limited screen time and lacked punch elsewhere. Dark Phoenix heavily referenced the familial bond of the X-Men, but the necessary emotional connection was lacking. As a result, the stakes of the plot didn't seem all that high. We just saw another superhero chapter closed expertly well in Avengers End Game. That bar is unrealistically high, but it's a shame they couldn't close out this generation of X-Men with some similar level of grace.

The face we were all making watching this movie

Roy: There are definitely actors in this franchise that are good anytime they are handed a script. That list includes names like, McAvoy, Fassbender, Hoult, and Chastain. Jennifer Lawrence continues her streak of either being really good or really annoying with zero ground in between. Since her name was not included in the above list, I will allow you to intuit where she lands in this film. However, it could have been the writing at fault here and not Lawrence. Every line she was given in the movie was combative. Not to mention the fact that more often than not, her figurative venom was aimed at Professor Xavier. A character, whom I felt was largely misunderstood throughout the story. Most of the conflict rose around a choice he made, and even with all of the hindsight this story gives us I do not believe he made a bad choice. Rather he allowed the consequences of his choice to linger too long. It's hard to say more than that without jumping into the spoiler section, so I am just going to stop right here.

Cody: I unfortunately cannot bring the perspective of a professional filmmaker into this discussion, but I imagine they spend hours upon hours poring over the scenes of a movie before calling it final. It's what makes movies like this so frustrating and confusing. Dark Phoenix underwent re-shoots and still wound up a disjointed mess. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the production room because I have a hard time believing nobody voiced a question about whether or not the plot lines were sufficiently established. Maybe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were on hand and assured them it all made perfect sense. We'll never know.

Roy: Can we discuss how little we got of the always fantastic Evan Peters? For no other reason than the franchise painted themselves in a corner with getting the perfect Quicksilver, but making his gimmick extremely time consuming and expensive, and the best way to side step that in this film is to just, sideline him for three-fourths of it? The studio wants to make sure we all understand that this film did not do well because of franchise fatigue. Wrong. It did not do well because they hurt their time-lines early on and then pretended to fix it so they could move on instead of just telling us all they were starting over fresh. This franchise should go down as one of the most mishandled group of films in recent history. Full stop. And that's saying something. Yes, DC. We are looking at you.

Semi-superfluous spoiler warning. We've been attempting to hold back here on specifics. We'll now really go for the jugular so turn back if you for some reason still want to see this and don't want to know which plot points were the worst just yet.

Cody: Oh I planned on mentioning Quicksilver. They did my man dirty. Okay, sure, Jean's Phoenix powers are advanced that she can react to Quicksilver during his super speed mode. It's a good way to establish her strength, but did he really need to sustain such serious injuries that he appears on screen for about seven seconds the rest of the entire movie? The Quicksilver slow motion sequences have consistently been the most fun sequences in this film series. What a microcosm for the entire movie that just when you think you're getting a thrilling scene, they pull the rug (or in this case, house debris) right out from under you. It's in this same scene that Jennifer Lawrence's Raven (whose Mystique powers seem to be completely irrelevant at this point) meets an early demise. Remember for later that Jean is 100% responsible for Raven, who has been established at this point as the captain of the X-Men, dying. First, the implications of that death. In the absolutely delightful Days of Future Past, it is well established that this X-Men universe (established in First Class) is connected to the original series that started in 2000, where Mystique is very much alive and central to the plot. Now she's dead in 1992 with zero explanation as to how this affects the future timeline. Was the justification that it's the last movie in this generation, so who cares? Or did they not even think back to the movie they made just three years before Dark Phoenix started filming?

It's not all bad news for Sophie

Roy: I personally believe that they looked around and said, "You know what? Disney is moving in. So, who cares?" It's the only explanation for such a blatant disregard of any kind of continuity in this series. While I was irritated that Raven's death completely unraveled everything Days of Future Past fixed, I had a difficult time feeling anything other than joy. Because she died, I wouldn't have to hear her whine and sew discord against Xavier anymore. Charles mentally walled off an 8 year old Jean Grey from the truth that it was her fault her mother died and that he father was so scared of her that he sent her away to X-school. And it was the right thing to do. She couldn't handle that burden as an extremely powerful child. If he can be blamed for anything it might be that he should have told her once she reached young adulthood and had a handle on her power. Once Raven discovers this, she treats Charles like he had been locking children away and torturing them for funsies. It made no sense. Then she begins to poison Hank against Charles. I'm really happy that Sophie Turner married Joe Jonas and appears to be super happy with her life. Because her last two jobs have been completely torpedoed by bad writing.

Cody: The assertion by Raven that Charles Xavier was helping humans for his own personal recognition rather than protecting the mutants he's dedicated his life to was totally baseless for that character. The commitment to the anti-Charles story line continues until the end of the movie when he *checks notes* retires into a self-imposed exile while the school he created is renamed to erase his existence. That's more than a bit extreme. This brings me back to Jean/Raven. For sake of exercise, let's accept that they've decided to rename the school. Would you pick A. the fearless captain of the squad who was murdered with her reputation intact or B. the person who murdered a team member and nearly destroyed all the good will toward mutants that Charles Xavier worked so hard to foster. Sure, Jean stopped the...uh...I guess they're called the D'Bari? Wow, I had to dig to figure out who the alien villains were in this. Outside the quick flashback to their world being destroyed, we really got nothing on these characters. Anyway... I tried for two days to explain this plot to you where it would  make sense. I failed. This movie beat me. It's so bad it made me dumber. Suffice to say Jean could have fixed everything using a modicum of common sense and instead she was caught in the middle of a mutants vs. alien war that could have been avoided with like, one conversation. Jean Gray is the second worst choice for namesake of the mutant school. The worst would have been Scott Summers. Because Scott Summers is the worst in any context, always.

Roy: Every version of him is just awful. At this point our only hope is for Disney to completely start from the beginning and give us the X-Men that we have always wanted. Here is a good question. Is the only thing that Fox ever got right with X-men, Wolverine? Was it Hugh Jackman who kept us coming back for more? He was a large part of the last really good X-Men movie. I'm inclined to think so. The only thing I know for sure is that I am glad this iteration is over. I can kick dirt on it and stop being disappointed when a new movie is released.

Bonus Review: The Secret Life of Pets 2

We disliked the first one so much that we decided to come back for more torture purely for the benefit of you, the readers. The above photo matches our initial expectations for this movie perfectly.

Everything that follows will contain spoilers.

Cody: Illumination is nothing if not consistent. The Secret Life of Pets 2 follows the exact same path set its predecessor forged so brazenly. A promising first-third filled with charm and–maybe not laugh out loud but still funny–humor gives way to absurdity and bottom of the barrel gags. In the infamous word of Michael Bluth, I don't know what I expected. A series I once renamed The Implausible Life of Pets lived up to it's faux title. It's good to see that not only was Roy's moratorium on pets driving not honored, but we now have pets driving multiple types of vehicles! I counted no less than 10 egregiously implausible moments. Some highlights in no particular order: Several pets understand how to use and communicate with walkie talkies, Daisy the shih tzu uses keys to unlock a cage without opposable thumbs, Snowball beats a human in a video game. That last one wasn't even necessary for the plot! I've put my...thumb...on what ultimately bothers me so much about these movies. There's a key difference between these and a couple other animated movies which may or may not make an appearance on The COARD this summer. In a Toy Story movie, the toys are all tasked with maintaining the secrecy of their aliveness. The Lion King features talking and singing animals but exactly zero human beings. There are humans all over The Secret Life of Pets and the pets have zero concern for how said humans might react to their behavior. Shouldn't the evil circus guy be

concerned that a freaking dog jail broke his tiger? Wouldn't somebody notice a guinea pig driving down the street in a toy car while operating a walkie talkie? How incompetent are the humans in this universe?! Given this, it should be no surprise my favorite scenes were between the three dogs on the farm where Harrison Ford taught Patton Oswalt to embrace the uncertainty in the world, which just makes total sense if you think about it.

Dogs pretending to be cats.... and one cat,
pretending to be a dog who is pretending to be a cat.

Roy: This movie is good when it makes light of the things that pets do every day. I've never owned a cat, but I assume every cat owner laughed when the fat cat sat on their sleeping owner and pawed their face until the owner got up and fed the cat. The dog's excitement over playing fetch or going for a walk, these things are amusing. But everything takes a turn to the absurd so fast. We have parents in New York city allowing their toddler who can barely walk to be mostly parented by his two dogs while going on an outing in the city. When the child almost gets hit by a car but is saved by the dogs and the parents are completely unaware of what just occurred... you've lost me. I will say, Harrison Ford playing himself as a dog worked. This guy is an all-time great curmudgeon who plays an old curmudgeon farm dog that has little patience for the city dwelling morons he now has to keep an eye on. But that was it. Literally everything else was awful. Didn't we have a scene in the first movie where Daisy had to be trained to be a cat? If so, why did this happen again? Speaking of cats... Apparently 87 of them working together can drive a car all around New York. Guys.... I can't with the animals driving thing. I don't understand why this needs to happen. Can't professional writers, you know.... write a story where pets don't need to drive? Why can't they all hop on a roof of a bus and ride where they need to go? That at least would be somewhat believable. I went in knowing this would be a hate-watch. I just didn't realize how much I would hate it. Don't see this movie unless you have to because you have small children. Even then, you won't enjoy it.

The COARD: Booksmart

Week 2 brings us to the coming of age comedy Booksmart. Will Oliva Wilde's first attempt in the director's chair be a raging success, or would we all rather she just stay in front of the camera? The only way to know for sure is to read on ahead. Welcome to The COARD. We like movies. 

Roy: What is Booksmart about? That is an easy question but a difficult answer. It is not because the movie is everywhere and tries to do too many things instead of focusing on its strong points. On the contrary, Booksmart has layers to it, and all of them are strongly represented on the screen. Wilde deserves to take a bow for this. It's not just good for a first time actor turned director. It's good by any definition of the word. At its heart, it is a story of two high school graduates realizing that the path less traveled is rewarding, but also boring. Molly and Amy spent their entire high school career focused on getting into exclusive colleges, and as a result never experienced the fun that the weekend party scene has to offer. Cramming four years of partying into one epic night goes about how you would expect it to, and our main characters learn some valuable lessons along the way. If that formula sounds familiar to you it's because a genius named John Hughes perfected it. However you shouldn't allow that to stop you from seeing Booksmart, which does not come across as a hollow attempt to achieve the same Hughesian success. It pays homage to a legend in film making by taking his formula and adding everything you'd expect a 21st century director to add. The result is something every age group will enjoy.

Cody: This really was an expertly done modern take on the classic teen coming of age genre. Any concern I had about having, "seen this movie a thousand times" was quickly erased by the sharp screenplay, and the excellent chemistry of the two leads, which shined through almost immediately. The heartfelt moments sprinkled throughout all landed well because Kaitlyn Dever (Amy) and Beanie Feldstein (Molly) were excellent together. And then there was the comedic side of things. I have not laughed that often or that hard at a movie in quite some time. At certain times you could see a joke coming, and yet it still somehow left me in stitches. The plot and general arc of the film may feel familiar, but man do the cinematography and soundtrack make the ride worth it. I am traditionally far more impressed by moving original scores than I am the creation of a playlist of existing music. Booksmart was a rare exception to that rule. Nearly every song seemed the one true perfect choice for the moment for which it was the backdrop. Extra bonus points for finding a way to incorporate LCD Soundsystem. I'll be hitting play on this soundtrack on Spotify on many a weekend night this summer.

Don't steal her weed, or cross her in any way. 

Roy: Besides Wilde's skill as a director, I was most impressed with the individual performances of this film. Everyone brought their A game. I'm sure that Jason Sudeikis got his role as the principal/Lyft driver because he's married to the director, but can you recall a time when Sudeikis has ever disappointed you? Because I cannot. Kaitlyn Dever brings so much to this movie, and I would like to note that I knew this kid was destined for great things when she played the role of Loretta McCready in Justified. At the age of 15, Dever was stealing scenes from Timothy Olyphant and Margo Martindale and making it look easy. And if we are talking about scene theft in Booksmart then look no further than Billie Lourd. She plays the mystical Gigi perfectly. Lourd would appear on screen, hit her joke, and then disappear in a bit that never got old. Lastly, please do not overlook Skyler Gisondo. The best thing about Santa Clarita Diet getting canceled is that hopefully we get to see more of him on the big screen. His character Jared tried so incredibly hard to impress everyone at this school and failed miserably. What his surfeit of money could not do was finally achieved when he took the time to be honest and have a real conversation.

Cody: When you can make a strong impression while sharing the screen with esteemed character actress Margot Martindale, you know you've got a future in the acting business. I did find it really funny that Sudeikis made his way into this. Was he doing a favor for Wilde or was she doing a favor for him? Hard to say. I'm sure the answer is that they just enjoy being around each other, but I like to envision Sudeikis begging his wife to let him play a role in her movie. This movie got a lot right, and it got some wrong (which we'll get into shortly). It's not perfect, but that's obviously an unrealistic bar. One of the core messages is something of which we humans should regularly be reminded. People aren't just what they appear to be from an outside perspective. We're all a little more alike than it seems. You can likely empathize with that [nerd/stoner/jock/superficial girl/rich boy] if you just look a little deeper, and while you're digging deep, it wouldn't hurt to cut yourself a little slack too.

This is the point where we speak of spoilers. You are officially on your own.


Roy: Full disclosure: I was a Lyft/Uber driver for about a year and a half. So the scene where these two young ladies shared way too much personal information with a strange pizza delivery guy hit close to home, and was an excellent reminder of an obvious lesson. We need to do a lot less blind trusting of strangers. If any of you knew the amount of rides I gave home to minors who spent most of the drive telling me no one was home.... Let's just say as a father I did a lot of internally screaming for those 18 months.  But I digress. Not only did the pizza guy scold our gal pals for their poor choice, explaining that he could be a sick murderer, when we found out he was just that later in the film it really paid off. But seriously, don't bring a stranger to your home and say that no one is there!

Cody: I'm glad you brought up the pizza scene. It was one of the few times where the writing took me out of the moment. These incredibly smart and responsible girls have decided earlier this same day to party for the first time in their lives. It's a big leap from there to using their hair as masks in a sad attempt to "rob" an address out of a pizza delivery guy. Maybe the point is that despite all their smarts, they're still just teenagers. Regardless, it came across as forced, as did the teacher (conveniently named Miss Fine) deciding on a whim to risk her career to have a fling with a student, even if he was a 20 year old student. Because of moments like these, Booksmart is a movie balancing itself between the realistic and emotional and the fantastical and absurd. Perhaps there is always going to be some element of that balancing act in a teenage comedy (Superbad's police officers spring to mind). The difference here is that Booksmart was doing so well with its realistic character moments, both dramatic and comedic (one eyed panda, anyone?), that the over the top stuff was superfluous.

Roy: As a teacher, watching the behavior of the students during the last day of school hurt my soul. Understanding first hand how chaotic things can get is one thing, watching a movie where the behavior is completely unrealistic is another. Having said that, I understand the point of those scenes were to show that it was the last day of school and that no one cared. Yes, that is a real occurrence. But I kept seeing the behavior and thought, "Where on earth are all the teachers and how are they allowing this? They must all be terrible at their jobs." It was over the top. Thank you for bringing up Ms. Fine... Her hooking up with a dumb graduate made no sense. They establish early in the film that she is smart and cool, and then completely abandon her character development for an ending they wanted to force... I haven't seen writing like that since Game of Thrones season 8.

Are we absolutely certain that's not Miley Cyrus?

Cody: Obviously there were some pieces of this movie with which to quibble, but I want to pay respects to one of the scenes that was great from start to finish. And that scene is simply everything that happened to Amy and Molly in the climactic party sequence. Subverting expectations has become a running joke, but this was a masterclass in how to do so correctly. Separating the two characters to let them appear to be finally living out their fantasies involving their crushes was such an excellent build up. Everything crescendos with stellar camerawork following Amy through the pool, full of hope and expectation, before the ultimate deflation of seeing her crush (who I swear was Miley Cyrus pretending to be a different actress) canoodling with none other than Molly's crush. In a teen comedy, which is as saturated as any genre in 2019, risks have to be taken to bring something unique to audiences. Booksmart took a lot of risks, and should be lauded for having the vast majority pay off. Only time will tell if this makes it into the zeitgeist of coming of age stories, but it wouldn't surprise either of these writers.