Welcome everybody to the polarized podcasts.
Happy holidays.
Ho ho ho.
All you Jack J.K Simmons is out there.
Welcome.
Welcome to the podcast about polarizing movies, polarizing the sense of Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Sometimes audiences love it and critics hate it and or vice versa.
Those are the movies that we discuss on this pod.
We are wrapping up a three month long.
So this is your first episode.
Wow.
Three month long saga of the underworld series and in celebration of the holidays, this is
going to be a twofer.
So you don't want to eat if it is your first app to listen to us.
What a treat for the holidays.
It's a twofer.
So today we're going to be discussing the it's not the final installment of underworld,
but you know, it could be.
World Awakening from 2012.
The score of that movie is 25% tomato stinky by the critics, 62% audience.
So yeah, I mean, not really.
Yeah, you get it.
And then we're also in light of the holiday is going to be covering the I think pretty
insanely popular at the time of this record holiday movie on streaming.
Episode one came out this year of our Lord 2024.
The scores for that is 30% tomato stinky by the critics, 90% certified hot, hot, hot popcorn
by the audience.
I, yeah, my name is Brandon.
I'm one of the hosts here on polarized man, polar kingdom.
This is our time of year.
Let's rise like the Likens and, and get at some, get at some movie discussions.
I alone will not be, it is a discussion.
So therefore two people will be talking and they usually are, well, they always are.
I mean, I guess usually I don't know where that came from.
I would like to introduce now my co-host.
Sometimes we refer to him as the forever guests, Mr. James Lindsay.
Hey, hey, it's me.
It's a rise of the James rise of the forever guest because I'm a furry like in rare.
You're a furry.
He comes out on this man.
This episode, I feel like it's going to, I didn't mean that, but you know what?
You know what?
I'm sticking to it.
Yep.
I like the idea that if I were a fur fur, that's what we call ourselves.
I don't know if that's why you're already using lingo for me.
Yeah.
But the thing with me is I don't go cute.
I'm not a cute furry.
I am a movie accurate, like in fury.
Yes.
And I'm not, and I'm not even a furry.
I'm a fury.
Oh, wow.
You're a fury, right?
Cause of how much anger and violence you're usually, uh, you know, a participant in.
Yeah.
And you know what, Brandon?
I'm not only movie accurate to the underworld franchise, but specifically underworld awakening.
I get prosthetics, I get stilts, and I turn into the big fucking genetically modulated
big lichen.
I'm a big lichen.
You know what?
I loved, I loved the big lichen.
I'm a fan of big lichen in this.
Yeah.
Big lichen.
The bummer is I just felt a little short change because they established that there's levels
of lichens now.
I really wanted somebody, this, an anime would have done this to Ignatium already, but would
have liked them to describe like while it's happening, like this is level four, you know,
something like that.
Well, you're mixing in a lot of red one, uh, mythology where, you know, you get out, maybe
you get a lichen that can shrink on command, you know, maybe you get a level four, level
four naughty lizard.
Yeah.
No, maybe I should, maybe I should pump the brakes on that.
Cause these poor underworld people that have been with us for three movies, they're like,
I wasn't prepared for a red one discussion.
So maybe I shouldn't be so, so heavy on it, but God, can you imagine whoever is with us
from that all the way through this God bless you on this holiday?
Bless you indeed for joining us for this ride.
Cause you're right.
I was like, has it really been three months?
And I believe we recorded the first one, like at the end of October, two months and change.
And it's like, what a journey, you know, what an absolute journey.
Thank you guys.
I know we were a little more, uh, less, uh, consistent with our release times, but you
know, this is, this is the beauty of our podcast is it, uh, it's, uh, it's the, it's that kind
of casual sort of nature that you get our very best versions because we are not forcing
ourselves to show up on a day.
Maybe we don't feel like, uh, giving you the best show and we're here to give you the best
show today, folks.
It's a double, it's a double do.
Sir Brandon, it's a double do sir.
You know what?
So it's like, yeah, again, we're just bringing the holiday cheer with us.
Um, big, like, yeah, just understand.
I mean, but at the same time, it's like, we've been releasing episodes once a month for years
now at this point.
I mean, we did have, we did have like a month lapse overall, but I mean, yeah, I don't know
the, I like our pace.
I think it's a good pace.
I like our, I like our pace.
It's a good pace.
Like, I mean, yeah.
Okay.
So we covered, uh, four movies over the course of three months.
I mean, that's good.
And it's higher franchise over that time.
Yeah.
We'd never, I didn't know.
I hadn't, I didn't only watch one of the movies before and we just reached our 125th episode
as well.
So cheers.
Cheers to yours.
Brandini on rise of the Lycans was our one 25 on this, uh, this, uh, probably, yeah,
this is the final up of 2024.
So cheers to you on that.
Here.
See you on that.
And what a, what a, what an episode.
So it's been, uh, it's been interesting times here in the polarized kingdom.
And I think, I think there's rises, there's falls much like the, the Lycans, you know,
but wow, what a, what a turbulent time for those Lycans and all of their existence.
Like, I mean, all, all of the, everyone, every active member of this movie is whatever is
a fine way to start the discussion, I guess, if you're, if you're ready or if there's any
other opening steps, double duty today here.
What's the double duty like the Lycan journey of existence is just so much term like subjugation
and everything.
And yeah, this one is like, I guess, yeah, the turn is them trying to rise again, you
know, in their own near future sort of way rather than a ancient way.
But this is a, a great, you know, microcosm really of so many faults of this movie in
my mind is this idea of like, the Lycans are a subjugated race that is kind of the, um,
is representative of something interesting in the overall lore that we've seen in the,
in the first, in the three.
Um, I would, yeah, really consider the proper three, right?
Cause this definitely seems you wouldn't, yeah, you wouldn't include this.
I would say in, I don't know, when you tell people about watching the underworld series,
I feel like there's three movies to watch.
And this is the first one where really goes in a direction, a lot of different new directions.
Um, tacked on.
Yes.
And one of those turned tacked on, I might, I might say for this one where it's like,
they very much had an idea of the world as they've said in the war.
And this one feels like you can just tack it right onto the, to everything already happening.
Yeah, but it just, but it also posits so many things that have happened and posits so much
lore of the world that we never hear anything really about.
It is just barely mentioned throughout it.
Like it was, I took a lot of notes for this one.
Cause like, cause I did not, for some reason, um, like people were mentioning a cleansing.
There are, there have been two purges, two purges, yeah, two purges.
And then there's just this overall, like whole industry that the like Finland is a part of
because of the necessity to fight this virus.
That is what the, like the world has been told has happened.
Right.
It's non-humans are like, uh, the result of a virus that we're, you know, that we can't
let spread and all of that.
Right.
It's so brushed over that shit, which that should be like the whole movie.
That should be the whole movie.
Like in it, in it, oh man, it's, it, this movie commits like a million and one sins in my
opinion on like, I, God, I could really like every step of the way it makes in my mind
the wrong choice in what it should be going on, what it should be focusing on.
Like it's also just visually too, because again, we, uh, both of us were such, are such
huge fans of the, the, uh, a lot more of the practical stuff.
And this of course gets so much more CGI and, uh, yeah, it just, it, uh, it wants to be
like, uh, it wants to be these things that are popular at the time.
And it does none of them.
Well, it wants to be like a David Fincher type of like police thriller.
And then it also wants to be this matrix sci-fi like post-apocalyptic movie.
It's extremely noir.
This movie, but it's trying to, it's trying like in terms of like the rest of the movies,
the first one kind of has those elements as well.
The second one straight action, third one, like medieval fantasy action.
Then this one has like a real noir element with like the, the guy chasing the leads and
everything and that, and that being like a big through line with him and, and just a
lot more of uncovering the case.
Definitely, definitely an element of the first one as well, but structurally, like right
off the bat, it is putting you in a strange position with the Scott Speedman character,
Michael, like puts you, puts you in a strange position there, which makes you think about
movie making, which is bad in a bad way, because you're like, why isn't he in this?
And what is the reason why in narratively?
And they don't give you a satisfying reason whatsoever.
In my mind in this movie, they give you like a little snippet of, of what's going to happen,
you know, or like what happened in the past and how that's going to affect in the future
and everything of them going, this explosion underwater between the two of them, but it
is so vague and it just puts the audience in a place of just like, don't worry about
it and not respecting the audience enough to give them a straight answer because Scott
Speedman had scheduling conflicts or whatever.
And they literally put his character on ice, Brandon, literally.
Like it's not even a subtle fucking joke.
Like I'm not even smart for having think, thought of it.
I really feel like they're like, what if we just put him on ice?
And they do.
It's crazy.
Like just, I can't, I couldn't believe that they couldn't find a way to just kill him
in an emphatic sort of interesting way when you've done that to your two best guys already,
you off Michael Sheen, you off Bill Nye, you know, and your own sort of Bill Nye is very
satisfying way getting, you know, heads chopped in half.
But to put them in this weird limbo when you have subject to, which we'll get into very
soon right there, which is essentially the same thing.
Like why even tease him or like give him a satisfying end if you're going to move on
or run with that character, which you can't cause he's not available to shoot.
So you're doing subject to, which is the exact same fucking storyline as one.
There's a hybrid, except there's more in like genetic interference in a lab.
That's the only real difference here, right?
Is there's, there's a little bit more noir and there's a little bit more of like lab,
you know, sort of experimentation, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I just, to settle on the Scott Speedman thing, do you have anything to add for like the Scott
Speedman of it all?
Cause that's like, that already put me in a weird place.
It felt like they didn't work that out at all either.
Like, like you're saying with the whole idea of the story, there's no way that was a part
of the plan.
Totally.
Yeah.
I have tons of thoughts on the Scott Speedman because it really seemed like he was CGI and
maybe he got the credit for it because of like, Oh, absolutely.
It was a stand in for sure.
Michael Sheen was a stand in in evolution.
Right.
Absolutely.
It was a stand in because the face looks so weird.
That was mapped on probably.
Yeah, it was mapped on and it, yeah, James, I mean, what a great, another, like it just,
again, we're going to, I'm, I can already feel it.
It's going to be just thing after thing with this movie because it just does so many things
poorly.
And yeah, with the Scott Speedman.
So he represents the combination of the two.
Right.
So then subject to is essentially him.
So they do have to, they do have to put him away because if you want to do anything with
the subject to character, then what she represents is the same exact thing that Scott Speedman
would because Scott Speedman like her is a combination of two things, which was the promise
of the
A lab she was born of it, like whatever there's an element of that, but still can, yeah.
And he, so his, him being a hybrid represents the future, but they want to map on this future
where there's this totalitarian government that's oppressing the vampires and Likens,
but there's none of it is explained how they're doing that.
I don't even know how much I can really get into this because it's not like we get any
real like interior to the Covens really, we just show up there.
Then they have a discussion and then we're gone.
Like this movie couldn't give a fuck about like focusing on a thing and making and like
drilling down and going like, Oh, this is an interesting idea.
Let's, you know, this adds to the, like the, the underworld lore.
This adds to the, you know, the world and makes this, this franchise unique.
And God damn it.
It's like you already are introduced to the villain and you know, he's the bad guy.
And then it, okay, now I'm, well, what's frustrating about that and like to not, yeah, to try to
stop myself as well, but like that the antagonist, the guy from V for vendetta, whatever his
name is, who is doing this American accent for some reason, just have him do his British
accent.
I don't understand why they have him do an American accent.
His son is, we don't even know what the city we're in.
Yeah.
And his son is British.
His, his son has a, has an English accent.
Just make him fucking like, why that makes it even weirder that they have different accents.
It's a son and he is, it's his natural accent.
James, this movie is dripping in sons.
Yeah.
The son, the sins of our fathers.
This movie has a lot of son stuff in it.
It really was kind of shocking at a point where I'm like, wow, it's really a lot of
like parental stuff is all is, is like kind of emotional.
Mothers and daughters.
Mothers and daughters and fathers and sons.
Yeah.
But my, like my original point with that guy too is no, no, that was, we got to, I had
to, we had to go there, but was he was supposed to represent the humans, which was a big deal
in this movie at like at the beginning, like, right.
Which evolution gets a little bogged down with having to represent everybody and get
into everyone's little nitty gritty thing.
But this one really just doesn't bother because they don't even mention whatever that Illuminati
sort of fact faction is, but also all of the human, like some sort of representation of
the human ideal to eradicate these monsters.
There was no representation of that in a figurehead of that ideal, whether it be one character,
whether it be new snippets of a fucking, you know, there was only a little, the very beginning
of just like, you know,
How do the human beings feel about this?
We have no idea about how other human beings are reacting to this.
Are they for it?
Cause I would assume some of them are probably for some of this exchange.
Like, you know, as long as the vampires don't kill people or whatever, like I guess, you
know, they're, you know, that can be something.
You only get two and they're extremely like sympathetic characters.
You get the detective who's like, you know, like arguably almost, almost like,
Yeah.
So everything is very general, vague, broad, and this shit, but like he's, he's represents
some sort of like heart and goodness in humanity.
And then there's the assistant who, when she sticks up for what's right, she gets immediately
off and then that's the true reveal of them being Likens, which in turn is a twist and
reveals the Likens, but then undercuts the antagonists completely.
Cause that antagonist was the humans.
So now you're telling me it's the Likens that are not, they have all this genetic engineering,
but then this is purely just to come up with a whatever silver nitrate free, whatever sort
of way of like not having super healing.
Yeah.
They're all there.
It seems like both factions in the senior future are trying to deal with their, you
know, the things that have their weaknesses or whatever, and trying to overcome them genetically
cool ideas, but, and the humans trying to eradicate them kind of cool idea too, but
it's amazing how you folk, yeah.
The spotlights on the wrong thing in a weird way.
In every which way it was.
Okay.
So something similar and I know I'm jumping ahead, but we got to move through this.
I like our cruising.
Yeah.
No.
So the, when we get to the coven, so just to real quick is Selena escapes because she
was captured.
Her daughter, we find out later released her that's 10 years ago, which I always kind of
hate that in a movie when it starts and then it's like 12 years, 12 years immediately in
the future.
It's like, maybe just start the movie there.
Like, I don't know.
Like if you're going to do a huge time jump so quick, it's so soon into the movie.
Like, no, you get cut in every single movie on her brooding on the top of a church.
And then one of my kind of least favorite tropes as well is like a montage of news clips
to tell you what's going on.
Yeah, totally.
I understand it's necessary sometimes, but man, it's just like, so there's a flashback
and then there's the news news clip.
Right.
You're just not.
And again, it's like, oh man, lack of confidence, right.
And the writing, like just have people say and do things that are in response to the
world around them.
Like you don't need to tell us about that.
Just have them fucking talk about it.
And it's just the way I totally get that too, where it's so, it's so hockey.
It's like adding the talking floating head in the first, in David Lynch's Dune.
It's like, just this thing where it's like, or like Blade Runner narration or whatever.
So you've got to like, you gotta just explain it to them.
And the thing is, is that we're in the fourth fucking movie of a franchise.
Why are we doing full recaps?
Like what are we doing here?
No, like, I'm sorry, but no one, the percentage of people who are going to blindly walk into
underworld four is so, so small and I'm sure they're probably that even that particular
group of people is brought in by somebody who can easily go like, okay, so this is what
happened in the first one.
And then just enjoy the movie for you.
There's no one blindly just listening to our underworld for podcast, Brandon.
If they are, they're getting quite a treat.
I will try.
I should include the timestamp for when red one starts, if anyone is interested in that.
But no, man, it blew my mind.
A movie that going in, I knew was a toy to 90, a toy 90.
It was like 88, 88 minutes.
And then when I started first, like five to 10 minutes flashback, montage of newscasts
and then I get to the end and it ends with like another like 10 to 10 to 12 minutes left.
Yeah.
I was like, this movie was 70 minutes in.
Just don't make the movie.
God damn it.
Like, yeah, it's obviously you didn't.
Oh, man.
There's also got speedmills available if that's really what's in the plan.
But I don't know.
I don't think that would have fixed it.
Oh, the coven thing is OK.
So yeah, like we established that there's this girl who is Celine's daughter.
That whole reveal happens pretty quickly.
And then they go to run away from the Likens and hide away in a coven that then is like
revealed as, oh, the guy that brings you in, Theo James from season two of White Lotus
is like, oh, that's who he is.
You know, this is actually my father and this was my coven.
But I was, you know, I'm kind of an outcast renegade type because.
I want what is his goal?
Tell me, OK, here's goal is he is the.
What is his motive?
He wants to say, OK, I'm going to just skip by that because the movie doesn't care about
answering my question.
He's the most basic ass character, man.
And he's just dude.
He's just man.
Dude, man, dude, man.
So we get to the coven and the point that I'm trying to get at that was relating to
what we already said is this idea of there is zero like time spent to understand both
sides of like what Charles Dance wants and what Theo wants.
And it is it was hilarious to me to for them to then go, we have to uprise and make a decision
on who's the right and who's the wrong here.
And you don't we've never been like introduced to his like Theo James should have like a
right hand man, you know, or like three buddies or like leaders of the rebellion faction within
the coven that had a.
Clearly like clearly communicated agenda.
No, it's just like are attacking us again.
We have to fight them in interchange with your dad.
You're too conservative.
I'm trying to take us in this new modern direction.
OK, fine.
We got to fight the like ends.
Let's put our stuff aside and then move on.
And it's just like.
Why is there that covenant?
What is the at this point?
In the in the series, that's where we're at is more information about how covens are interworking
with each other, maybe in the US or maybe across the world.
Like we need more of the politics of covens because.
Are the vampires doing well in this post apocalyptic, oppressive like regime or like?
I don't know.
It's just it's so unclear of what the fuck is going on with anybody, man.
It's just trying to be thinking about it.
I was losing my goddamn mind watching this movie being like.
All you're doing is pausing a thing and then moving briskly onto the next thing.
And I barely understand what people really want.
And I guess I didn't have too much of an issue, though, with like what's happening, though,
I guess.
Is that's relatively simple because they're just really running around like it's really
just like run away.
The like ends are getting us.
And then there's the whole new war detective stuff.
Oh, it's got its babies first noir.
I mean, it's it's it's but there's a vibe that has the vibe of a noir with a detective
and everything.
Yeah, it's awful specifically because we know who the there's no mystery he's uncovering.
No, no, there really isn't.
No, there's no mystery.
What is he like every step of the way?
They're like, yeah, it's these guys.
It's more about just waiting for Kate Beckinsale and him to connect and share the information
that they know with each other.
But even then, it's it's it's just a matter of when the like and reveal happens.
And I guess we're off to the races like I don't know, like.
So disjointed because because the the sharing of information is so dependent upon timing
things out in a way of certain characters knowing things and the audience knowing things
as well.
And one of those is like whether Scott Speedman is alive or not, like that's really the thing
that she's worried about a lot of the time, too, of whether of what she remembers.
And then she uses the the truth blood of subject two to find out.
And then is, yeah, like all of this is to what end?
And the writing really is just a genre that is delicately like placed on top of what already
exists as an action, a big dumb action movie.
And then they put the delicately placed these little sort of, you know, noir things in.
But you're right.
There really is no core mystery.
The subject two thing is like as you're like, oh, that's got to be her daughter.
Like she's like, yeah, I'm your daughter.
Oh, yeah, of course.
OK, so then now we're dealing with her and the mother daughter thing, which is interesting
because there's a moment where, yeah, I don't know, keep back and sales like crying and
it's really touching to a degree.
It's just I feel so bad for her, man.
That's that was kind of a prevailing vibe of mine is like, man, she just seems.
Is like in a such a shitty movie right now.
And this movie is doing her dirty and I really don't.
I mean, it makes her look awesome still.
Unfortunately, there's no point to it.
And when Theo James comes in.
It's just there's no reasoning to it.
He just shows up and it's just automatically like, oh, you will be the guy in the movie.
You will be hero man, dude.
And that and that coven scene was just trying to highlight, I guess, the genetic sort of
makeup of subject to and the fact that she is a little different than she was never,
you know, she never she was never bitten or anything.
And she has different properties beyond that.
They get into this drama of Charles Dance and his son.
And I get what they're doing is they're bringing in an esteemed British act, elder British
actor to give the movie gravitas and give it, you know, certified sort of bad ass attitude
that Bill Nye gave.
And he fucking kills it.
Of course, I think it's I think it's hilarious seeing him wear big, dumb, fake vampire teeth
and still kill it, even though he's like, what do you want?
He can't even like speak correctly, but he's like such a consummate professional that he's
like, I'm going to fucking kill it.
Even the gift Theo James, those big dumb teeth.
See how he fucking nails it.
I don't know.
But that action scene, is that the is that the best of the action?
I guess there's that set piece.
And then there's the last set piece in between the two.
The car chase is interesting.
I think I like this.
Which one?
The car chase.
Yeah, yeah.
Where there's just a van that's unlocked and they just get in and then she uses a knife
to start it when she stabs the knife into the ignition and turns it, you know.
Right, right.
Yeah, there's some fun like.
And there's like a van chase and then the Likens are jumping on cars and it looks terrible
in a lot of ways because there's the you can be clearly tell that obviously the CG Liken
is mapped onto the physical action of the car.
And so there's just this like.
It doesn't quite land on things the way that it needs to for it to look fluid and good.
It's just like it's very like lightweight.
You know.
And there was some stuff that was cool about the van because there's like the way that
they shoot it there.
It's there's genuinely some striking stuff there.
A lot of like, yeah.
Yeah, I thought that part was cool.
There's a fair amount of like car stuff because, yeah, there's that chase in the first set
when the first set pieces and then at the end, it pretty much takes place in a parking
garage and there's a lot of cars being thrown around.
And one of my favorite moments is when there's a van driving out and Kate Beckinsale just
body checks the van and pushes it and she just fucking rolls over.
There's some other thing where like she like slides underneath a van and then uses her
feet on one to like push herself back underneath or whatever.
I can't describe it with my words.
Good enough.
But it just looked like so cool.
The physics of it made it actually like kind of make sense, even though the rest of the
stuff is like floaty and it's hard to tell like depth perception sometimes between the
fake like in CG like in and the real person that's like, oh, I can't even tell who's in
front and who's behind because the perspective is weird.
But there is every now and like there's a use of big rubber dummy like and still it's
the fact that like there's and in that you have the coven too.
There's still parts there where there's often was cool.
I love the set design on the coven.
I mean, one of my notes was it was reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
There's because the because the girl is she gets her own room, but it's like so cavernous
and to the extent that there's like a hole in the wall that like goes through.
And I want to see that there's like stalactites and stalagmites and there's like a little
pool just like in the eye was so cool.
I really dug the vibe of the coven, but we spend very little time there.
Oh, you know, because they get there and then the like it's attack and then we're into like
in fighting.
And at that point, we get introduced to the big like it, which is the first appearance
of a Gollum ask like, I like that.
I like a big like and I like I like some of the weaponry.
Theo James has this knife sword thing.
He has got that wit.
The whip is cool.
You wrap it around, wraps it around a wapsie to wound a wiken.
And it's a webbing hunting season.
I was really hoping he was going to like decapitated with, but you know, he fucking strangles it
with like the chain whip and there's like, yeah, that that's sword knife thing.
But then he gets taken out.
And then what happens is is a rise of Skywalker situation.
Something we I don't.
Right.
Yeah, we I don't think we knew that she had this power.
No, this is a rise in Skywalker situation, Brandon.
It's like, oh, you could just heal stuff.
Ray Skywalker.
Wow.
You could do well.
Well, it's really it's so metal to a degree, right?
She's like, I like it.
He sticks her hand in his chest and bumps his heart.
Dude, I do like it.
And it is kind of like Chekhov's ability to go inside.
Comes back later where he opens it up and puts a grenade in there.
I fucking love that.
That was good.
I dug the shit out of that.
That was sick because that was a moment in where I was engaging with the movie where
when she did that, I was like, oh, she's going to grab his heart and make it explode.
And then she doesn't.
And he's just like, you know, I fucking heal really quickly.
She's like, I was planning on it.
And then she's speaking on it gives him like the needle, the pen or whatever.
Yeah.
Great moment because I'm talking at the movie.
I'm engaging.
I'm like, oh, what is she doing?
Well, oh, she's going to make it harder.
Oh, she put the grenade in there.
Oh, she put the grenade.
Yeah.
You know, or like the other one was was it Westbrook?
Spentley, I think his name is who's a he's an interstellar and like other shit.
He's like pushed up against the glass in the building and she's in kind of a noir element
to of this interrogating for information.
It's not so quickly.
Intense, dude.
Yeah, I really thought he was going to be like, he was going to be like a mole or something
or some sort of form of information moving on or something.
But she's like getting in the information, gets the information and it's holding him
over.
And he's like, let me go.
I did that for you or whatever.
He's like, oh, what is it?
What is it?
I fucked it up.
He's like, let me go.
I did that.
He's like, yeah, I'll do the same for you.
I forget.
I don't know.
I let you go.
And she's like, oh, I'll do the same for you.
And then she let him go.
I'm sorry.
I fucked it up.
And then she does.
She lets him go and then jumps off.
And then he fucking explodes into a hill of blood on a car as he's screaming, careening
to his death.
And the greediest thing that's happened in this whole franchise, arguably, I don't know.
It's pretty fucked up.
It's really upsetting.
I've never seen her have like such a care, like less of a care for life.
Oh my God.
Right.
Yeah.
She's always seemed so like calculated.
It's I'm killing out of necessity.
And it's just like, fuck you.
You're going to you're dead because he did kind of stick up for her on her way out of
the lab.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
It was so brutal that she did that because he let her go.
Mm hmm.
So just the same for him.
Such a terrible person.
Just for that setup of the line.
That's all.
That's all it was for.
All that it is.
Yeah.
And then it's it's really like her and her daughter, which is like, I don't know, in
my mind, like it seems like a logical place for the franchise to go.
But for whatever reason, it doesn't really satisfy me too much.
Still, man, still, I don't know what it is.
I don't know why it's so hard.
But like, give me a satisfying hybrid of fucking like in vampire.
I don't know.
I don't know how it can be so difficult to just like, like, go over the top with it.
Like fucking crazy.
Like I like like the wolf bat.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Wings and for wind wolf, wind wolf, something like it with wings.
Shit.
But no, Scott Speedman's skin goes like obsidian.
And then subject to looks like fucking a goth girl.
I don't know.
Yeah, like the grunge girl.
I don't understand how it's it's so hard for in a movie like this to just be like, fuck
it, dude, like, yeah, she does look like a grunge girl, too.
I mean, it just it looks like a Tim Burton fever dream or something.
But the funny thing, too, is it was just really inconsistent.
There were some times where she was like more white black circles.
And then it was just like all these like weird versions of that.
It was never consistent on her.
Yeah.
Sometimes it was CGI, too.
It was really bizarre to just like not commit to what that like that.
Yeah.
Look of her being in that state is what you just like solidify that and go like, OK, so
every time she does this, it's going to be this.
It's like on the day you're like, do this.
It's so wild.
It's never enough.
Yeah.
There's the truth blood thing where you get the first vision of her like just looking
in the mirror.
And I feel like that was pretty CGI of like, well, what do we what are we looking at here?
But that's such like the truth.
But it's such a plot device that's so convenient when it's needed.
But get careening, I guess, feel like I feel like to this final set piece, I can go over
some of them.
I took a little bit of notes before we move on to part two of the of the Ducer is, yeah,
is this final battle, I'd say, in the reveal of of what's his face being a lichen.
It just didn't have the intended effect.
However, I feel like there are some moments in this battle that are kind of fun.
But I feel like that then being lichens didn't do anything to me.
I was just like, oh, OK, no.
Yeah.
Right.
So again, there's no clear objective that of what having these evolved lichens would
really do outside of like a general, like they're more powerful.
But again, it's like, well, then what's over?
That was the only thing that the guy mentioned.
Yeah.
Sure.
But if it go out during the day.
Yeah.
Right.
But like, they can get blown up.
So I mean, I don't know, again, again, like there just always seems like there could be
that's that's not a solution to an agenda we really don't understand.
It's like insult to injury.
It's I I don't really understand.
Like I don't understand it in a lot of ways.
Like now I'm thinking about like, so the the doctor, the guy from V from Vendetta, like
so he OK, say he it all goes to plan.
So is he like, is he seeking power?
Like I don't like again, is he just doing it again to support a revolution?
I who knows?
So this is what antigen antigen is the company who knows that he is in charge of antigen
and is a lichen that would have any sort of consequence over that meaning anything like,
oh, actually, I'm a lichen.
I don't like within the story of the movie.
Yeah, that's that is of consequence to us who's rooting for our main character, Kate
Beckinsale, but to the world around us of a world that is controlled and ruled by humans
in which there's been two purges of these monsters.
You're telling me there is this guy who is a lichen in charge of this thing called antigen
who looks this big company.
Let's see some of the fucking intrigue there.
Let's see some of the espionage and the noir elements of like, what would it take to run
a shadow corporation that genetically experiments on lichens to remove weaknesses from them?
And like, if do the humans know about this?
Do they not?
Is there another cute coup situation like the first one in the in the first and second
one?
No, it's more the first one where I feel like it was almost bursting at the seams with ideas
where like they needed to focus in a bit.
And now seeing them kind of have the ability to run wild with it.
It's like really disappointing.
Yeah, when it just doesn't pan out in the way that it that it should.
I just Yeah, I feel like that's that whole that whole thing.
I feel like I've said in multiple different ways this this episode of just what the relationship
between the humans and lichens are, because that was also something that was fascinating
about the rise of lichens and the other ones.
Yeah, and even evolution.
The movie that was my least favorite so far was like the Luminati there.
I thought that was interesting too.
And then rise of lichens.
It was like the village people.
They were subjugated by the fucking vampires and they were looking to the lichens to help
overthrow them.
Cool.
Interesting.
There's like a weird three piece sort of power grab that's sort of going on.
Anytime there's a coup or something.
I like I like that.
This one has just like these little breaths and wisps of those some things with like
barely any follow through.
And they're just like, Yeah, you get it.
You get it.
Yeah.
And other movies like this.
Yeah.
What the hell?
Yeah, you get it.
You get it.
Here's here's more of that shit.
You already know.
I don't know.
And all they say is like, actually, those humans that you thought were humans were actually
lichens and we're going to shortchange both lichens and humans by doing their narrative
choice with that and then provide satisfactory answer to either.
And in my mind, if I had to rewrite anything, not that I want to rewrite it, but but just
like or what I do it, what I assumed that it would be when I was watching it as I was
watching it was that dude antagonist was a human all along.
Yeah.
And he was experimenting on lichens for his own, you know, sort of advantage.
And he has some sort of coup as a human with the lichens and some other human in charge
that benefits both or something that you found something that can cure human cancer or some
shit, some bullshit, you know, make it some fucking stupid.
I know that sounds stupid, but whatever it's like, oh, it cures silver.
It makes you immune to silver nitrate and also cancer cells.
I don't know.
Like 100%.
We really needed the villain to have a villain speech to go like, this is why I'm doing
this.
This is why I'm, you know, feel this way.
And and this felt like his assistant.
He was just poo pooing you the whole time.
It's such a miscasting because this guy is too muted.
He's always he's he is served well in V for Vendetta because he is a cop.
He is a detective.
He is supposed to be very measured.
And we don't want why would we want the evil doctor like a doctor that's making super
like ins to be this like not a crazy person.
Yeah.
I want you know what?
I wish Charles Dance was that guy and the rules were swept.
We're reversed.
Sure.
Yeah.
Or man, I watched Bones and all again recently, whatever that guy's name is from like Bridge
of Spies and stuff.
I forget whatever that guy is.
That guy is awesome.
I don't know.
It just I see some semblance of an idea and it's just a bummer that it's so watered down
and and then it's still just peppering the Scott Speedman thing along.
So by the end, you're like going to the lab and you're like, oh, this is where oh, and
then you see him.
Oh, it's fucking Scott Speedman.
He's on ice.
He's just here.
And we can't talk to him and we can't interact with him, but he's around.
It's just like such a representation of what what's going on behind scenes.
It's a call.
Corbin sickle Corbin sickle.
There's also this whole thing like I feel like there is one when that first that miss
was poured in on her when she was trying to escape.
It was like Fentanyl mist distributed.
It was like, oh, that's just Fentanyl and all that fucking.
Holy shit.
Oh, shit.
So cool.
Gnarly.
So fucking yeah, so bad.
But that guy does turn into a werewolf at some point, which I thought was interesting.
And then you get this duel that I thought would have been reversed where, you know,
older one would be fighting the older one like it'd be Kate Beckinsale versus a guy
from V for Indetta, the younger guy versus subject to.
But no, it's it's reversed.
So he is fighting.
I got to find his name.
And then the big, big like in this fighting Kate, his name is Steven Ray, Steven Ray.
And I guess it kind of because like it is kind of Kate Beckinsale is kind of prime.
And then like big like it's kind of prime.
But there's some cool stuff that happens.
Namely, dude gets his jugular ripped out.
That shit was awesome.
I loved that.
That was sick.
Yeah, that was great.
There's a couple of things like that, too, where subject to like rips like splits like
it's in.
Yeah, it was awesome.
It was in the middle of the car chase.
Yeah, it just drops his body off the off the car.
Yeah, this movie does have a couple of those moments that I get.
That's that.
That's the that's the good stuff.
Give me more.
Yeah, like weird weaponry like that chain with a spiky whip, like more weird, cool,
spiky long knife swords that are just going to go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it just came back and sail just like miss aiming completely.
But do we'll be down the hallway just like she's missing every shot.
Sometimes she was in an air duct and she's shooting it all around it.
And then she throws a grenade at the fan, doesn't destroy the fan, but the fan blows
silver particles towards the like.
And this genius genius.
Oh, I just remembered something, too.
But you got we got a homage in this movie with the same thing.
It's bullets.
Yeah, it's the it's the she shoots.
Yeah, that's the same thing.
I was thinking.
So it was in the first one, she shoots a circle below her and then goes down this one.
She shoots a circle above her and then the elevator falls.
Oh, my God, they're doing it.
Holy shit.
It was great.
Oh, cool.
That blew my mind, dude.
I couldn't believe what they were doing.
I was like, why is she shooting at the is the guy in the elevator?
Does she think he's in there?
Oh, wait, I see what's happening.
Oh, wait.
Yeah, he can a whole.
That's a good callback.
I like that.
So a lot of callbacks are not good, but that one was a good one.
I like that.
Yeah, I like that one a lot.
All right.
So yeah, we get jugular rippage and then we get a grenade in abdomen.
And then he like it's one explosion and he's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
like slowly expands almost.
And then just kind of grisly seeing all the all the best blood and everything of that
one.
I like it.
I liked it.
You know what?
I liked it.
You know, 10 out of 10.
And then how does this movie end?
It doesn't.
It just stops.
It's what?
Yeah, it just stops.
Right.
In my mind, that's how you like it.
So they like punctured Scott Speedman's little cells to like let him dethaw.
Yeah.
And that.
OK, that's it.
It really does just end.
It just ends.
Yeah.
You're like, because there's no again, there's no motivated like we nothing was solved.
There was nothing fucking solved in this movie.
We literally go back to like, OK, I guess she's just OK.
I'm Scott Speedman.
You might be OK.
And we're back to where we started.
It's a full circle.
We got you know what?
It's one of those movies where if it just didn't exist, nothing would have changed.
I mean, for real, like all it means is that all I got out of this is instead of Scott
Speedman being the hybrid, it's subject to who is a different kind of hybrid.
But rather than removing Scott Speedman from it, they made it all messy and they kept him
on ice.
And now whatever movie is going to be next is going to be there's going to be two hybrids.
Who fucking cares?
I don't know.
It just it's it's muddying the waters of something that is fun and simple and great.
And you're just like, I don't know.
It's it's yeah, like to the base point of just like it's a movie about humans having
to eradicate everything.
I get it.
But.
Period.
I mean, you just skip that.
I don't know.
It's amazing that you just skip showing that because that seems like an interesting thing
to get more into and having human characters.
Just like it's just the one detective.
It's the one detective.
It's one detective.
And you know, just looks like, oh, OK, well, oh, his his one little thing before we wrap
up is that what his his wife turned into a vampire.
That's right.
And then they were knocking on doors.
And then she gets.
Yeah.
She incinerates herself.
That's why we care for him.
All right.
My notes for Underworld Awakening was syringe and eyeball.
That was fucking.
Yeah, right.
Man, every single time.
That's a terrible.
Yeah.
And he's like, I've been taken to myself, actually.
I'm like, well, show me you doing that to yourself, motherfucker, because that looks
really tough.
It's like a David Lynch movie at that point.
Oh, oh, I'd watch that.
David Lynch.
I would love to.
I want to see what happens when vampires fight like a lot.
I would love that so much.
David Lynch directed it on just just a straight, like almost like like.
Yeah.
A solo entry into the franchise.
Really?
Yes.
Underworld six surprise move, the last entry in David Lynch's long illustrious career on
the throws of his mortal coil.
It will be directing six.
Eraser.
Blank into the like, into the like.
Yeah, into the like.
And that's way better.
Driving with the green screen at one point, we looked really bad.
Him hurt the detective and Kate Beckinsale in the car together.
You could see the fuzziness around their like profile, where their face began and the green
screen ended.
Everything looks so fucking blurry.
Oh, it was so bad.
I couldn't believe how how they did that.
The lights flashing in the lab.
I hated because they were like trying to make it seem like it was on the fritz, I guess.
Like you know, like, oh, alert, alert, evacuate, evacuate.
I love that there's a guy that was like picked up the like a microphone and he's like everybody
of vacuole levels.
I mean, it was amazing.
I forgot that.
There's this one guy that's his dolt job in this like really brutalist building.
It's all just like everything's so stark.
It's just like impressive, yeah, I'm going into a tomb.
What is color in this world?
I do not know.
There's there's like no pops at all of any sort of any sort of color, even when yeah,
like nevermind.
Yeah, the lights are just like going in such a rhythm that it's kind of annoying.
It's such like a set.
It just feels like a set.
Yeah, it doesn't feel real because it's just it's like the lighting designer just like,
you know, timing it's like a little too well.
It's not like when an explosion happens on the building, the lights just start to it.
It's like very rhythmic.
It's like sequence.
It's like, yeah, it was like a hallway and it would like go from back to back.
I mean, it looks fine, but that would never happen.
Maybe there's a lot of like blowing up the building.
Oh, yeah, we I think the elevator.
Yeah.
The cop car cop cars are really down.
Yeah, the elevator in particular, because it blows up that like portion of the building
again, I guess to what avail whatever.
Yeah, it's just that one column where everyone every looks like shit too.
Yeah, it looks really good.
Explosion looks awful.
It's like so again, like papered on there.
It's like here.
Here's the shot of the building.
And then it's like fake explosions on the side.
You're like, oh, yeah, I really want to like the silver grenades to or explode the like.
Yeah, but it was a little yeah.
Yeah, seems like the fog that was just perfectly covering her naked body as she emerges from
her cell.
And then there's just perfectly placed fog.
Yeah.
It's so bad.
So bad.
Yeah, those cop cars are like these big dumb peas on the side and just like I don't know,
they're very badly designed.
I thought Michael's on ice this movie shooting hole in the elevator.
Lol.
Yep.
Okay.
Yeah.
Body checks.
A car.
Yep.
Said that and jugular rippage.
Cool.
Okay.
Those are my notes.
I'm not sure if they're part, part musical.
Actually, you know what?
Can I go?
I'm going to go pee real quick.
Take a walk and pee pee.
Okay.
All right.
We'll be right back.
All right, we are back.
Let's check out some of these reviews for Underworld Awakening, Underworld for the Awakening.
What's being awakened, Brandon?
It's a good question, James is I guess we do see Celine awake.
Yeah, it's gotta be it.
From putting on ice for a bit.
12 year slumber on ice.
What did you say?
She was, it's fentanyl.
No, I mean, she's yeah.
Once you emerges and then she starts to escape the like getting the stream, she's like, and
then someone on the intercom, probably the guy who was like, ishkate room level seven,
it was like, okay, initiate fentanyl smog, and then all the smoke starts coming.
That's all just like fentanyl smoke that's supposed to stop her.
Okay.
2012.
What a time.
Underworld Awakening in 3D got a 25% from the critics, got a 62% from the audience
is let's check out some thoughts from the critics.
One out of five from Matt Singer from Time Out Chicago.
Also missing most of the so I guess this is a carry on from his review.
Most of the so called likens who their appearance and if you respectable action sequences, not
withstanding are now nearly extinct.
So was this franchise.
Ethnel if you get a bad review from Matt Singer from Time Out Chicago.
Tom Russo from Boston Globe says it's the most generic entry of the bunch.
David Hiltbrand from Philadelphia and choir says there's not much to this movie beyond
a slick procession of dark gleaming violence.
Peter Howell from Toronto star.
Beckinsale's leaning violence.
Dark gleaming violence.
There's not much to be honest like procession of dark gleaming violence.
That's the name of my hyper pop album.
Oh, I want to hear that.
An underworld evolution sounds like a good name to just see if you out of context.
You had no idea what it meant.
Peter Howell Toronto star says.
Beckinsale Celine is back with a vengeance that famous black cat suit and two fully cox
pistols having wisely set out the wretched the wretched third down.
Holy shit.
Who is this?
Two fully cox pistols.
Brandon who's who's the reviewer?
Peter Howell Toronto star.
Wow.
Having wisely sat out the wretched third installment of the franchise.
Don't expect much more than this.
One and a half.
Really hated that third one.
Damn dude.
Nick Schaeger box office magazine one and a half out of five with awakening the vampires
versus werewolves underworld franchises finally decayed beyond the point of repair.
And then from Rob humanic slant magazine point five out of four.
The only thing that manages to outpace underworld awakenings ineptitude is is it is its utter
soullessness.
Well, they're vampires.
So yeah, I'll do one.
What do you want man?
Tell me what you want man.
Of course they don't have souls.
God, what an idiot.
Yeah we're good on the critics.
Let's see some audience members with some positive reviews for all underworld awakening.
Let's check out in the five star range here.
On our trusty source.
Little box.
All right, let's see.
We got five.
Let her buy.
Yeah, dude.
Check it out.
We check your little box.
Little box.
And we're doing strictly strictly five stars.
All right, what do we got?
James Borrelly five stars.
How do they keep making these masterpieces?
Each one gets better and better.
Nightfall five stars underworld meets umbrella corp.
Okay, that's kind of an umbrella situation at the end.
Michael stack five stars.
This one was so wild, I can't even handle it.
And the Evanescence song during the end credits is a lovely bonus.
I'm having an amazing time.
We listen to that song.
I don't remember the song being that interesting.
I remember immediately laughing at the fact that there was still like 10 to 12 minutes
left in the movie.
I was like, this shit's already over.
That's crazy.
It was an hour, 28, not an hour, 18.
And the whole beginning was like 10 minutes of flashbacks.
This movie was an hour long.
That's crazy.
I just watched Red One.
That was two hours of bullshit.
Okay, save it.
From Parker Penn, 95 stars, my heart is not cold.
It's broken.
Underworld Awakening revisionism starts now.
I could go on and on about how dizzyingly dizzyingly perfect and exciting.
This is a native 3D masterclass, but I won't because I'd be here forever.
The mother daughter thing in these action movies is certainly a bit of tired trope,
but who cares?
It gets me every time.
So he is an honest to God character in this.
And it's some beautiful shit.
The most geeked I've been watching a movie in a long time.
Take me back to the native 3D era.
I seriously don't know what to write, man.
This just did everything for me.
Ray Kat Soup, five stars, cool dark haired woman with crazy eyes, with guns and all leather
in a trench coat.
Please, man, please.
Wow, Jaylene five stars, one of the best ones.
Everything was slash is amazing.
Plus Theo James like, wow.
It's Eli's favorite underworld movie.
Five stars.
Claire F says it just keeps getting better somehow.
Karen says, so who keeps spandex and core sets in a freezer for 12 years?
I like the new edition of Theo James.
Another fun rewatch.
On to the last one.
I think we're good.
I'm happy with you.
I'm happy.
I can't believe we've got through four underworld movies, let alone talked in long discussion
about each.
And I also can't believe this website is advertising the conversation board game, Gene Hackman in
the conversation board game.
Wow.
What a world that's being in this.
The website knows that I love the conversation and board games.
It's got me.
After we do our reviews, let's rank these bad boys to.
Oh, that's a good idea.
Yeah, I could.
I could do that.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Do you want to kick off?
Yeah, final.
Yes.
Let's do it.
This movie is not good.
There's very.
Yeah.
No, this movie is not good.
Reason it's not good is because it is poorly written.
Some of the action sequences I think is really the highlights for me.
And even then it's like everything just is like.
Yeah, it's.
It's the problem with a lot of modern action movies where it's the.
People's motivations are convoluted, not fleshed out or too simple or whatever.
And you just really don't understand why we're doing this.
And yeah, sometimes where the action is obviously going to be like how good an action sequences
is going to be brought down because there's no good layup in context to it.
And yeah, man, there's we've talked about.
I don't want to.
Yeah, I'm not going to be the dead of worse here.
I did not care for this movie.
Man, this franchise, though, is so much there.
I am would love anybody to try to pick up the mantle of the underworld franchise and
get into it.
Wow.
It's there.
David Lynch, get on it.
And I want.
Yeah, I.
I am bought in on underworld.
I'm glad you say that.
Does the world a disservice?
And I don't like it a lot for that.
My score for this movie is going to be a 11 percent.
Whoa, wow.
Did not care for Underworld Awakening.
Yeah, this one, I think for me and this franchise, it's always been about potential versus reality
when I actually sit down and watch the movie.
And I think every single one has some element of disappointing me, unfortunately.
But the one that really just gives me what I want is Rise of the Lichens and the fact
that it is very simply vampires versus werewolves versus lichens in a medieval setting, acclaimed
actors hamming it up, having a good time, fun action, practical effects.
And it's done by a different director that invigorated the franchise in my mind in a
different way, maybe not to certain critics, because critics have always hated this shit.
And this one, yeah, I guess it's something we didn't mention was that there was a new
director in this one.
And what did they offer?
I feel like it was very stale.
You know, it being in a lab and everything, it was it was just very what's the word I'm
looking for?
Sterile.
And I was frustrated.
It's the frustration with the potential of the idea.
So when it makes me think of when when we're ranking things and everything, like Underworld
Evolution had kind of the greatest potential in a way, in a lot of ways.
I was like, yeah, Underworld, the first one is set up a lot and it had all that had this
coup and it had all this backstory of what happened in the past.
And it made you so curious about it.
And evolution had a big task to satisfy something that would take that story and move it forward.
And it and it pretty much.
It was so lukewarm.
It didn't completely fail, but it was so lukewarm and it didn't do what I wanted it to do.
And that was upsetting and frustrating.
And so Rise of Lycans was kind of a home run in its own way for this franchise, like I
just said.
But then moving on to this one, what is it?
It's it's kind of like a repeat of evolution.
In like an even worse way, because all it does is even worse way.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Am I right?
Don't say you.
You did in the front.
Hey, what do you think?
What do you think?
Doesn't land there.
I live up to expectations.
Am I right?
I mean, come on.
So I think that's like my biggest disappointment with this of you are not pushing things forward.
You are taking a past plot point that was the biggest part of this whole franchise of
the fact there was a hybrid.
You're adding on near future to the to essentially 12 years and some it's like then whatever
near future.
And you are adding this sense of like the humans eradicating, but giving them no sort
of representation or any sort of identity or any sort of antagonistic value and attributing
that to what ends up being like ins that are really just trying to find a way to remove
their weakness that makes them subjugated to these vampires.
It's like they're kind of not that bad.
They're just so wanted.
Like they've been subjugated by vampires for how fucking long and they just wanted not
be fucking weak to silver anymore.
Please.
Yeah, I don't know.
And it's like, I wasn't that like a lot of this franchise about how like like ins like,
you know, should have some.
The wrong end of the stick and like this one, it just hits them as like fucking like monsters
too.
And to to no end, like whether they're still subjugated by humans or they're just trying
to find their freedom, there's just like a weird black and white, not only with the visuals,
but with like the characters that doesn't feel earned.
And that's extremely upsetting and they don't pay off the hybrid thing well either.
So yeah, I didn't think this one was a great one for whatever reason.
Yeah, I don't think I'll go as low as as Brandon, but I totally get why you would do that.
I think this was like still in a weird way, like had watchable elements for a for a dumb,
like go on the sci fi channel sort of action movie.
But it's not.
Yeah, it's not good.
And it's the weakest of the franchise for sure.
I'll go into the 31 one range.
I'll be a 31 boy.
I'll have it because I was like, yeah, they've been like 60, 70 so far.
And I feel like this is kind of like a shadow of the best of what what could be.
I feel like there's real earnestness to the past entries.
And this one has a sense of kind of just pushing it along a little bit further, not feeling
committed because they got to just wait for Scott Speedman to get back or whatever.
I hate that.
I hate that they kind of just like fucking I just just kill Scott Speedman in a really
cool way like I don't understand which they set up.
I mean, if you were to tell me that he died in that explosion, whatever grenade thing.
Fine.
Done.
Yeah.
And you already had his DNA to fucking manufacture.
Yeah, we're done.
We're done here.
We're done.
We're going to pull the ripcord on us on this.
Yeah, this sucks, dude.
All right.
So now rankings you first.
OK.
So rankings are rise of the Lichens, number one, the first one, evolution.
And then this one.
Same.
Right.
Yeah, same.
It's the same.
Easy.
Yeah, easy.
Evolution.
It's a thing again, like that'll be like my life will put this to rest.
But like, like my whole review is like evolution sounds like it should be the coolest movie.
I hate that.
I hate that evolution is not the coolest one.
It really should be.
It had everything going for it.
And they had they complain about like, oh, we were trying to set up all this stuff and
like getting to all this other other stuff in the sequel and all the lore and everything.
It's like that was your opportunity.
You had so much goodwill built with that first one and you fucking absolutely a lot more
money to.
And yeah, like it's it's so funny because you brought this up earlier is like a problem
of evolution is is that we needed speed men to turn into like a bat wolf and like a very
big, cool monster.
Yeah, because this movie has been filled with monsters.
The Marcus, the Vanduja son.
Very cool.
Very creepy.
And also William, big, giant white like it.
I want to like it is the white like it.
Love that on the poster of this movie, by the way, when you look at Underworld Awakening,
there's a white like it on there.
I don't understand why there's not an albino like it in this one, too.
Ah, Brandon, help me.
We're not doing it.
OK, we're not doing it.
Are we jumping right into Red One?
Do you want to?
Yeah, let's do it.
Breaks.
No, what's the do you have the score for Red One still?
Yeah, I do.
OK.
Oh, we do a live watching of this this trailer while we're at it.
Yeah.
Ho ho ho.
What's the tagline for Red One?
Do they got one?
Uh, but one time.
Let's play the look it up on the internet.
Let's play the guess what the Red One tagline.
What Red One tagline would you come up with?
I'm about to take a red two.
It is.
Yeah, you should call your doctor.
If you had a red number, do you should or a red number one?
You should call your no taglines.
They don't do those anymore.
Yeah, this one doesn't have a tagline.
Well, that's this.
That's not opportunity.
That's not it's not fair.
It's not fricking fair.
All right.
Here we go.
You ready for Red One trailer?
Brandon, are you ready?
I am ready.
Are you ready for our very first double app, a double do, sir, if you will.
What is this like?
I don't even know what it's like to do a double do, sir.
Let's find out.
Rocking around Christmas tree.
Every Christmas.
God, these guns and what they do.
Hi, Jack.
Who plays?
Welcome to the Malay.
Right.
First thing I saw.
I was almost like, does she look even better?
You're the best tracker in the world.
You're going to help us find him.
I work alone.
You used to.
Do I need to watch the Sherlock Holmes show with Lucy Liu?
Is she play Watson?
I forget.
Right away.
Out of everyone here.
I like you the least.
Garcia.
I'm afraid we're going to have to.
Oh, God.
I suggest you get going.
We're doing some last minute Christmas shopping.
Toy stores.
I love this.
Supply closet.
Do you think?
This trope of trailers is dying.
Just to be clear.
I'm not going to get into that.
No, it doesn't work on everything.
No, you can't try it.
No, you can't drive.
No more questions.
Let's do a creepy slow version of a song and add that like a slow...
Whoever took McEase.
They're extremely dangerous.
Think if you don't need me here, I might just go back to the car.
We are 24 hours to Christmas.
Do you need to find him?
Let's save Christmas.
Oh, now we repeat the same line and make it...
Say it.
It's like a DJ drop.
Things are about to get real.
Things are now about to get real?
Cover us.
Are you kidding me?
You weren't real before?
We got Snowman!
Snowman!
Oh, shit.
What happened?
She just got a popter.
Well...
Get her gear and stuff.
It was nice to meet you, Cal.
Good luck with everything.
It's so weird.
I was like, oh, you just got to pop the carrots.
I feel like he was...
He was not doing that originally at the beginning of the fight.
No, he finds out during it.
He finds out...
Chris Evans finds out.
Oh, but the Rock seemed like, oh, duh, that's like what you do.
No, I think the Rock found out.
Oh, he does find out. OK.
Yeah, and then shows Chris Evans.
And he's like, oh, you just got to take off the gear.
You just got to pop their carrots off.
That was...
I don't know.
I feel like that was part of
some of the humor that I had with this movie was
the matter of fact logic to the more
wacky sort of
fantastical things that have to do with
with how you would logistically enact Christmas
and how their logic of just like, oh, this is how it works.
And let me tell you, I would get a lot.
I got that's a lot of humor that I got out of this movie was
that was kind of like...
The bureaucratic elements.
Yeah, exactly.
You're like, tell me the inner workings of MRA.
Exactly. Yeah, that's it.
That was some of the joy.
I mean, like,
I guess I'm making this point early, but it did remind me in a way of
of a way bigger budget version of Fat Man
meets like the Santa Claus a little bit.
A movie we did on this podcast, Fat Man,
was taking Santa Claus and making it like real, you know, like,
yeah, what does it what did it take for for Santa Claus to actually do this?
And what reminded me...
But also have like Marvel level, like creatures and
the scope of of of this whole universe that exists.
It is very superhero.
Ask this this movie in particular.
But the thing that reminded me of it beyond just those little trappings
and themes or whatever, was there's a moment early on in this movie
where the Rock is saying.
People there for the first time in history,
in history, and he's been around for like 10,000 years or something like that.
Santa's been around for a lot of wars,
a lot of slavery, a lot of a lot of stuff has happened on Santa's watch.
But only till now has consumerism overtaken the naughty list
to the point where the Rock is a pessimist, a cynic,
and he has given up on humanity.
And he no longer he no longer sees humanity's inner child.
And mind you, this is a guy before the cynicism set in,
was almost like had more Christmas spirit than Santa Claus himself.
Wow.
Like, just mind you, these guys are but him and Santa, too.
They work out together.
Yeah, they're bros.
They have their own fucking huge jam.
Oh, yeah.
They're both by their physiques are spending so much time in.
Santa is getting ripped for the holiday season.
And one of the biggest things with him do his job, you can see why
he needs to be. Yeah, you can totally see why.
Because it's yeah, he oh, man, he gets the job done.
Yeah, the big one of the biggest takeaways of this movie is
we got to talk about it is Jack to J.K.
Jack's J.K. Yeah.
Jack's it's so funny how it doesn't like it did not need to be there.
There's no there.
To me, it's we know the Rock as a guy who like it's
almost like public knowledge, like everybody in America almost knows
that when the Rock works on a movie, he has like a two million dollar
set up that has to go with him.
He works out all the time to the point that he's late to shoot
some of all the time.
And then it's in this movie.
It's a fucking just go to set.
There's a gym on set.
The Rock, you don't have to bring your own one today.
We got a gym. Here's the gym.
It's the set. You can use it. It's a real one.
Come to the set, please. We got a gym.
There's no reason for him to say it to be Jack,
because you know what's so hilarious is that Santa gets put in a glass
cafe, which is the German word for the snow club.
She's going to whip that shit out there, Brandon.
He's trapped in a glass of V.
OK, of course.
And so Santa the whole time is like
laying in a chair like he doesn't.
There's no reason for him to be jacked.
So to me, it's so funny of like.
It I couldn't separate like the
the two between Dwayne the Rock Johnson as a person and this character.
There's no difference whatsoever.
Callum Drift, like it's not.
There's no character being played there.
It's like literally we see the Rock as a bodyguard type person.
And then the next scene is them going to a gym.
And it's like this is just what the Rock does.
Like we're not like he's getting paid how much to just do what he's.
Just say, you know, you spot people.
What do we I mean, you want to know what like the fatigue
that's happening with the Rock is because of that shit.
It's like Callum Drift is.
I'll give it the script has some interesting stuff of like him
being this like going through this.
The this ideological conflict in this like or, you know,
he's at a breaking point, like all of that stuff is kind of interesting.
And he handles it OK, but again, it's just so much of like.
Stoic, just like.
Like straight to camera.
It seemed like there's no yeah, there's no mustard.
There's no acting, really.
It's I'm showing up, I'm reading the lines and I'm out the door back to Jim.
Like it's really boring, right?
His humor only comes in the deadpan serious.
I'm taking this very seriously and like
the only human human humorous beat that he has is that it doesn't really change
throughout the movie, he doesn't really have different options
as far as his his funny bone goes and his capacity to to have a have a jokey moment.
It's really just so yeah, stoicism, straight and deadpan.
And just that's where the humor comes from.
And it's a little few and far between.
There are some moments where I chuckle at how committed he is to it.
But for a character that is your main character.
I mean, I guess it's a buddy thing, I guess it's a two hander.
It doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't really give the heart that like
in something like a lethal weapon or something like you get to see Danny Glover or something.
I guess would be the parallel I can make of just having
a little bit more reason to have his humanity besides the fact that he's
essentially an immortal being that's been around forever that has lost his Christmas spirit.
But I guess the the sun is attributed to Chris Evans and that's his whole thing.
Yeah, we can. But Jack, I mean, yeah.
Jack J.K. Simmons. That is so funny that you bring that up because it's like
you could have easily had any other guy play Santa and be a normal Santa
and just be like, yeah, it's because of magic.
I can fucking bench press however fucking much because I put two in my
movie at all. I would go even further.
It's like, why? We don't even see Santa bench pressing, but I don't know.
I guess that's his only scene, though, really, like before he gets taken is him
throwing down with the rock. And that is a very that's such an important scene for this movie
because it sets up everything that is the crux of what the rock has to go through on his little mini
arc, even though he is the main character, is not seeing the child anymore.
And then Jake in people and J.K. telling him that like everybody is a is still that child and has
that child has that child inside of them. You know, their their inner being and everything,
which like got me kind of close to an emotional sort of resonance with with the movie.
It got me kind of close. But what can what goes on to happen is that the rock is
going to happen is, you know, like set piece after set piece of kind of.
Just monsters, using them, plants, plant stuff.
Yeah, to the point where it's like, I don't it's a lot of chasing the MacGuffin.
Yeah, right. It's the whole like got to find the MacGuffin
and then use the MacGuffin to get to the boss.
Well, the MacGuffin is awesome. I mean, the MacGuffin is Santa.
And I guess Santa's already been got. And so they just got to get Santa back.
It is very much MacGuffin, but it's just the villain has it early on.
And it's just such a fucking like little breadcrumb piece sort of way of telling the
audience of like what the villain is doing and the reveal of the villain and then her plan
and who she is is so straightforward. And like I get that it's Christmas.
It's fine. But off the bat, I'm like, oh, it's it's Lucy Liu.
It's Lucy Liu for sure. She's like actually that deep voice
that's on the other side that's hiring Chris Evans.
It's there's a little bit more espionage here in the sort of spy thriller that they're trying to
cater to dads at Christmas time. Like, hey, the whole family can watch this one.
Dads included. They can. It's a it's a spy thriller.
Sure. But it really is so, so simple that by the end, I was like, oh, no,
this isn't like Tom Clancy. This is Kevin Feige.
This is a superhero thing. This is like this is so, so marveled out.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting to think about.
Yeah, dad's taking their, you know, teenage son, like our preteen son to or I guess watching this
at home, but like them having that the movie to watch for the Christmas season. I love that idea.
Yeah, it's the bummer is that kind of the lack of fun and how serious this is,
it really that tonal stuff is rough to me because could you imagine watching like this with your
11 year old son and then there's this whole like he's an absentee father, but it wants to be that
and is actively being kind of making a point with his son that he doesn't want to be in his life.
Almost like, you know, doing certain things to like communicate. Hey, I, you know, I really
don't want to be involved in these things that are happening to you. That's now your new dad's.
So, ah, it's so weird. Because like it makes me think of other Christmas movies and it's
like Jingle All the Way, for example, is I get this idea of
complicated relationships between like, you know, father and son and wanting that to be
part of a Christmas movie like that. I get. But man, to have your dad be this
dark web dealer like mean to his son person is weird.
There's a couple of points that I thought it was like I thought it was kind of funny how over the
top they were being clear about this guy is a fucking stinker. Yeah, the biggest little stinker
that you could ever imagine. And my God, the biggest old stinker. And that is how the movie
starts is right before the title card as he's doing his little stinker isms and enacting his
plan to show you who he is a person is as a person, he steals candy from a baby.
And then the and then the movie starts is like off of him, seemingly candy from a baby, which I got
like half of a mini chuckle out of just like how obvious they're trying to make him be like,
you know, a bad guy. But it is interesting. He doesn't give a fuck. It's like the Deadpool.
A little he's just causing him. Yeah. And it's like, I understand that he's trying to steal
information from this place, but he goes through all of these elaborate things to just create mayhem.
And then the button is the stealing the candy from the baby. So yeah, this the tone of this movie is
really wild because something something there's plenty of examples in another movie like the
Santa Claus where or Jingle All the Way and, you know, us being 90s, 90s, 2000s boys of like,
these are the kind or even a Griswold, whatever, maybe a Griswold. But the sort of idea of like a
of a dad that's that isn't always there. But in his mind, his ego is telling him that he's
he's going to do better or like hook or something. I don't know, like that. Yeah, sure.
That he's like, he's setting an example, good example by working so hard and that he's reassuring
himself in this way. And then he worry that he tells himself that he's like, Oh, I just got to
get this next big promotion and then we can be together and all this stuff. But no, this guy
is like, I don't give a fuck about any of that. And when the kid is like, like it gets, it's pretty
dark when he's just like, I like when he starts going into his logic of like, it would be better
if I was out of your life, your life and how his logic works within that is really dark. Yeah.
It's very dark and he's explaining that and it's so like upsetting and hard to watch the conversation
he has with coffee girl from It's Always Sunny. Right. Waitress, waitress, waitress. Yes. Sorry.
No one ever learned her name.
No, she is just giving such a real performance of like, come on, dude, come on. Like you gotta do,
like, hey, man, this kid wants you to do like to show up for these things. And don't you want
to show up for these things? And then, yeah, his, his response to her. And I don't,
I don't get the sense that she is asking too much.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Okay. You know, very little information going in of the dynamics
of this, but he is being so squarely a douche. Yes. Just a mega douche. Yeah. And it's not subtle
about that at all. Like, and she, and he's like, why? He said he didn't want me to come to his
resettlement. I'm not going to come. He's like, well, fucking dumbass. Like he's, of course,
he's going to say that. Like. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. It's unsurprising that the son then just
expresses how much he doesn't care. He's mirroring his father. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
And again, yeah. Also bizarre. And so this, and that's the thing is like, this is B plot that
we're talking about. So there's just this weird thing that's happening throughout this movie with
Chris Evans and his son. And that is intertwined. But again, the emotional heart of the movie
is mainly a guy being a fucking douche. He's the worst kind. And then like, so,
so that's like his, like the deep emotional arc of him, but then how that plays out when the movie
happens and how you have to deal with that character on a scene to scene basis is also not fun.
Really not fun. It's also not really that fun. And that's, that was what I was really nervous
about with the trailer because all it is, is Chris Evans. When I saw this trailer, I forget what
movie it was like fucking, I don't know, Furiosa some shit. And I was just like, so saw it right
in front of twisters twisters. Nice. And it was no, and then Nora, Nora. Yeah. And I might've been
something past or Furiosa, but I just remember thinking like, I'm crying. I'm like halfway in
for this silly, serious action movie with the rock. I don't know. Like even when watching this
trailer now it's like, Oh, Jumanji. I was surprised how much fun I had with those Jumanji remakes.
Those are like not, not too bad. And these are actually funny. They're actually funny. And
there's this is not an adventure and there's a dynamic within the group that is a, has a good
back and forth. But what happens? Yeah. Like with, with this one is Chris Evans in that trailer. I
just remember every single time it would cut to him after like a big, Oh, outlandish Christmas
action movie thing would happen. Like a big polar bear come in and he's like, really? You guys got a
polar bear. Somebody kidnapped Santa Claus. And then when, as I watched this movie, it was like,
Oh, those are a little bit stretched few and far between as much as it's all condensed in the
trailer. But a commonality that I noticed in the dialogue within this movie was one character would
say something, the rock would say something. And then Chris Evans would repeat the very last line
in a sarcastic way. Like so many times in this movie, you're like, we have to go to Krampus.
He's a Santa's brother and, and he created the naughty part, right? You're telling me that Santa
has a brother? What else is that? If he's like, yeah, I got this crew. It's called ELF, whatever.
And it's like, especially large and for, and formidable to you or whatever. He's like, ELF?
Are you serious? Every single like new piece of information, which was kind of fun. I was like,
again, the bureaucratic funny sort of, uh, inner workings of the North Pole. Interesting. I could
watch a whole movie about, uh, just the delivering part at the end. I could watch a whole movie just
about how we got, we got a soul. Hold on that. But, uh, that's, that's all. It was just that
is just that between those two and it is kind of a drag. I know that they have to have their back
and forth and everything, but it gets old. Um, so yeah, there's Krampus, but before that, I mean,
anything about Aruba Aruba was before that. Yeah. Aruba was before that, um, with Nick Kroll,
right? Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to find the location of,
do we know about the winter princess yet? I don't know. It's intertwined in there because
what we find out, cause that's winter, which the winter, which is the step up from Nick Kroll
because Nick Kroll hired Chris Evans. Right. And then, so he's going up the chain of command
and then the, yeah, this fuck, what's her name? What's the, um, Christmas, which is, which are
which, oh, uh, Kiran something ship. Yeah. Something like, yeah, that's fine. Um, I could
find out a car, I worked with her and said, she's like the nicest person in the world, Kiran and
Shipka. Carl, my lovely wife said she is the nicest person in the world. So that makes me like her.
I first saw her, like, I'm sure most people, um, Sabrina in Mad Men. Oh, oh, she's the very
young daughter. Right. I didn't, yeah, I never finished Mad Men and I always meant to go back,
but that is another discussion. I guess we'll stick with the Aruba and then we can talk about
Winter Witch, but Jack O'Malley. Jack O'Malley. It reminded me of me trying my dumb O'Malley
impressions from Aristocats. That guy's voice is the best. Oh, O'Malley. I caught myself cause
any, anytime they said in the movie, his full name, cause it just has that like presenter,
you know, kind of like, I dunno, yeah, sound to it. Jack O'Malley. Jack O'Malley.
Um, right. So we're in Aruba, uh, very straight performance by Nick Kroll cause he looks like a
character. And it was, it was so interesting for him not to be, yeah, but then it would be very
stereotype and they, that would be not cool, but then it's just not funny. It's so serious. They
like go there and they're like, he's almost like, I'm going to kill it. Like really, uh, drug lord,
uh, behavior type, uh, yeah. Type character. And he does start the scene with like,
let me deal with these two guys and then we'll go get some boba.
He's always talking about how these hot ladies want to get boba.
That is funny. We'll go get some boba.
But no, he's, he's playing it very straight. I almost was expecting him looking at his outfit
and everything to be, I forget that character from comedy bank where he like is just so over the top,
like, uh, like radio DJ. Yeah. But then he gets possessed by the winter witch and he goes full
to level 11 Nick Kroll where he was like a really deep voice and he's going full, like
his body crazy stuff. He's like, it was almost too much. And I realized that's my experience with
Nick Kroll always is just like, sometimes you're super funny, but other times you're just too much,
too much, too much. Tuna is a good example of too much. Um, yeah. Aruba, the boat,
Jamaica, come on, pretty mama snow snowmen snowmen. Yeah. Uh, Mr. Freeze technology.
God, all of the monster stuff. Yeah. Worked for me. I do like that about this movie,
especially because we're about to get into my favorite part of the movie, which is the Krampus
stuff. I dug the out of that. I was like, Oh, practical stuff. There's like tons of different
types of demons to there's like easily like 50 or types of demons and you can like kind of close
ups and stuff. And Oh man, it's like they're in hell almost, but it's so that the teleportating
stuff is weird because they have like, Oh, you don't like the rules. Oh, I'll, oh, you don't
remember. Let me tell you the rules, Brandon. So every toy store in the world, if you were to go
into their supply closet, that is a portal to any other supply closet of a toy store anywhere else
in the world. Yeah. Makes complete sense. And any other toy. So you go to a toy store and you stock
up on any tiny little thing that you see there. And then you go straight into the supply closet.
You're in another place. Your mission is set. You got everything you need. You got wheels,
you got a tiny chicken for distraction. You're set. Stuff with like transforming toys into
usable items. It's just, it's also car based. Yeah. There's really only the chicken and the
rock and sock robots that gets them out of the Krampus situation. But it's one of those rules
or it's like, once you see that it's a possibility or it's like, well, why don't you use that for
everything? You know, but I do like when he gets, he, he is, his wrist thing is removed in the
Krampus thing, which is a cool thing, I guess. And then he gets it put back on for Krampus
Slop.
This cites me out so much because like, Oh God, it must've been almost closer to the start, like
maybe the start of the year or maybe even last year, but there was this trend on TikTok that
the guy from UFC was trying to get started this slap competition and it got banned very quickly,
but they were, they like did tournaments. I've seen videos. Yeah. And I like, it's really like,
a, oh man, it's, it's addicting to watch just some, we just like get slapped so hard that they
just game over. They fall to the floor. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. Why they canceled it.
But I know those videos, it's like burly strong dudes just slapping the shit out of each other
and just like taking it. And then some go like,
like seize up. It's so bad. And then there's so much like he getting up preparing. And then
I thought they did that pretty well of like a practice one, two, three. Yeah. I was like,
Oh cool. He's yelling at it. That's a good reaction from the lot too. He's like, Oh my God.
Oh my God. Krampus looks sick as shit. Who played Krampus? I don't know. I saw,
I was looking for his name at the end as well because he was kind of MVP for me.
Yeah. I think he might've been just straight up like Norwegian or Icelandic or,
Oh, okay. Yeah. Just a big guy. A big guy. Really big fucking nailed it. He kind of felt like a
Hagrid that actually played Hagrid. Oh no, here it is. Oh, I see who it is. It was a, what is he in
Game of Thrones? A fucking Tormund. Is it Tormund? The guy who is in love with Brienne. Oh, Giants Bane.
Giants Bane. Tormund Giants Bane. That makes complete sense to me now. Oh cool. Christopher Hivju.
Hivju. Okay. Yeah. Total MVP. Total MVP. Krampus. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. The mythical stuff was
cool until it got to the, the Christmas witch. Okay. Wait, before we get into the Christmas
witch, cause yeah, we do need to start moving towards the end. Okay. The Christmas witch is
planned. Can you explain it to me, James? Okay. So the winter witch wants all of the naughty listers,
like she wants them to have permanent retribution. And the retribution that she has chosen
is to be stuck inside a snow globe and to be imprisoned forever. I guess. Because the long,
because the long-term plan I'm not so sure about, but the short-term plan seems to be,
she needs Santa's power to do so. And she needs Krampus. What does she need Krampus for, for the
list? And where she gets the snow globe from somebody as well. The power of the snow globe.
Is that from Krampus? Oh no. Oh shit. Who is, okay. Cause that's the glass. Those are the, those are
the variables that is in, that she needs for her plan is somehow she needs the Santa Claus juice,
which I thought that was a little, a little vague as to how she was using that. But it seemed to be
that that was the juice that was needed to mass produce the snow globes that had the power to
imprison the naughty, naughty, naughty listers and also naughty Nellie's. Yes, of course. And
the way that they tie that in with the Krampus thing and the Chris Evans, I guess, whatever it
creates some semblance of a full, full plot and everything. I was just really looking for that
backstab. I was really looking for someone to be backstabbing. Cause I thought when I, when I
figured out it wasn't Lucy Liu, I was like, Oh, well it's fucking Mrs. Claus. It's MC for sure.
MC is sitting there. And then, yeah, I was like, there's got, I've just seen too many spy, spy
movies. But the, when they saw MC or when the rock saw her on a North pole zoom discord, he's like,
what are you making over there? Oh, I just made some macaroons for Santa. Okay, great. Talk to you
later. We're compromised. What does he say? Oh, he says the North pole is taken.
That was my favorite. It was one of my favorite lines. The North pole is taken. He just turns
around. It's like, it's fucking over. It's like Terminator two. It's like T2. It's like,
uh, what's your dog's name? What Chester? It's like, can you say hi to Wolfie for him? Is Wolfie
okay? Wolfie's fine. Your parents are dead. It was the same thing. It was so funny.
Santa hates macaroons. And then he comes back dressed as like the shapeshifters or whatever.
He dresses like the shapeshifters or come back and like, no, they're onto us. Um, so her plan,
yeah, because it's real as sons, right? They're all there. The shapeshifters. Yeah. She's a,
she's a 19 foot tall ogre or whatever. 50 foot tall ogre with 19 sons or whatever it was. Yeah.
Two tails. Uh, but yeah, her plan, I guess is to use Santa's power mass produce those snow globes
and the naughty listers, uh, in prison in the snow globes. But after that, I guess she just is going
to keep them in prison forever. Right. Is that your question or what? No, no, no, no. Your question
answered. Thank you. Um, it's just so funny to think if she were to remove that many people out
of the population, it was like things are, it's a real Santa situation here. It really is. It's like,
it's over half. Oh, now there's, oh, now the, the, now the nice lister suffer.
Yeah. Yeah. What's, Hey, you're shooting yourself in the foot of your
gree law. Yeah. It really speaks to our prison system, huh? Brandon.
Rehabilitation is good. You shouldn't just put people away and forget about them.
Yeah. And then, right. Which that also then is how you beat this whole movie is an indictment
of the prison system. Brandon. Sorry. Uh, I'm so sorry. She's so, she's so dogmatic. I'm sorry.
She's so dogmatic about being naughty or nice. Yeah, she is. Cause yeah, it's an old way of
thinking about things. Right. James, you're either right or you're wrong. Whether you're jaywalking
or stealing or murdering. That's what they say. You're, you're fucking stuck in that snow globe.
So in a sun and a sun gets trapped in the snow globe, which is ties in the B plot. And then,
so now we're, you know, conveniently all coming together plots are here and now we just fight this
big witch on like the top of a building. I, it's a bridge. This whole,
it just was like my brain immediately shut off. I don't remember. I don't remember the rest of the
movie after this point. That's fine. No, it was just, uh, the, there was a, she falls and it's
like, oh yeah, she's going to become the ogre. They've been fucking foreshadowing that for
so long and especially Krampus and everything. Uh, it was like, oh, I, yeah, I like that story.
Like the story of like, oh, we were, we were great one day. We used to just take, just fucking tear
across the countryside and take all the naughty listeners and then, yeah, I was like, I'll see
that movie. Yeah. The ogre and Krampus. I mean, but no, there's the ogre rises. Uh, yeah. Show
them off. Oh, ogre rise. The ogre. Uh, ooga chaka just starts walking down the bridge out of the
darkness, pretty good effects. And then Krampus comes on the light of the third day, like a fucking,
yeah, $200 million movie. So like, that's kind of what I'm curious about with this movie. When you
propose it as the double deuce was like, this is an expensive movie and I would like to see where
all that money went. And it went towards the rock being late, uh, every day, at least 50 million of
it, apparently. Um, but beyond that, yeah. Effects are pretty cool for the ogre. And then Krampus
comes to like be a distraction, but then one thing leads to an ex and she like falls into a whole
truck bed. That's like full of the snow globes and then gets absorbed into one of them. I, yeah,
it was a part of me. I'm like, what happens now when you fall into a whole bunch of them to be
pieces of you go into different parts of the like we get like, and by dissected into all these.
Now she just gets put into a little, little globe and then, uh, they make fun of her and
everything is, uh, everything is resolved. I can't even, I can't say what happens after that.
It is a, okay. It's really, I feel like I really let go at a certain point with this movie as well
because yeah, this is a two hour situation and it feels every, every part of it, as opposed to
underworld awakening, which is just squeaking by on that 90. Um, but I don't know. I overall,
like before I get to my notes, like I wasn't super upset with this movie and I didn't like hate it.
I didn't hate this. Yeah, but it was, uh, there were definitely parts that I, I didn't like,
there were definitely parts that I was annoyed with and like, Oh, I got over it at certain points.
You know? Uh, yeah. I, again, my brain just started to show off too. Yeah. Yeah. Especially
once we got towards the end. So like all the real like, okay, climax of the movie, I'm like,
snooze get me out of here already. Cause yeah, the, just the realization of what is about to come
is, was just already uninteresting. Like, Oh God, okay. Um, but there's parts of this movie leading
up to that. I, yeah, we're now getting into our thoughts. So I'll say that I'll say that let's,
is there anything else about this movie that you want to talk about? He was like driving and then
he finds a snow. Yeah. And that's like how the him and the son get together. Who cares? Yeah. I was
just, I was thinking about that, that moment and anything else we miss, but I really feel, I feel
good about it. I'm just kind of taking a glance at my notes here. Um, yeah. What does stinker mean
to babies? The goat Santa it's the goat Santa. That's three more guy that rolls up and JK Simmons
just likes to go to malls and have, uh, you know, do the old classic Santa thing and have kids come
up, you know, tell them what he wants for Christmas and on his lap and everything. And this is why I
do it. It's good to get out of it. He's doing it like before Christmas and everything. That was
kind of a nice way to kind of enter the, I thought, you know, um, Santa's chill. That's yeah.
Mistletoe hydroponics. This is what I'm here for. Brandon. This is where this movie kind of like
gets me. I'm like, yeah, she'll be like the inner workings of the North pole, the big city, the big
city. Okay. Yeah. The big city. It was very Wakanda, right? Oh yeah. Like with all the super advanced,
uh, features technology, right? It's a bunch of it's all in this invisible bubble and it's a
hyper advanced city. And I love, yeah, I did dig the idea of, but it's just so CGI, man.
I know. Wouldn't it be cool if it was like Blade Runner? Oh shit.
Vangelis is just playing as you just like,
yeah.
The years 2024, the naughty list is overtaken.
I have to work with the naughty, the naughty listeners are essentially
androids. They're trying to decommission the androids. They're trying to decommission
naughty list or level fours or whatever. And the rock is essentially, uh, yeah, he's Harrison
Ford. It's, it all makes sense. Um, the trolls have a trace. I like that. There's a point where
they're like trying to figure things out in the control room. And the alliteration just got me.
The trolls have a trace and there's trolls and like mist and like goblin type creatures that like
work in. Yeah. That's awesome. Again, all of them. Ah, that I do like that part of this movie a lot
is the creatures. Yeah, that's, and that's, there's a part I really enjoyed about wicked as well
that I forgot about the musical. I've seen it enough, but I'm like, when I watched the movie,
I was like, oh yeah, all this animal stuff is really interesting. It's cool. Um, go see wicked.
There's a list. The size of Rhode Island is how big the list is. I love that. Uh, death Mercs,
uh, fucking death Mercs in this movie. Um, yeah, we didn't talk about his powers. I don't know.
Little rock, you got a little rock going to big rock and back to little rock.
You don't want to talk about that at all. I didn't really care for it either.
I hated it. Little rock, big rock.
God stupid. I hate it. Let's not. Okay. I don't care about it either. Just got to rip off their
carrots. You just got to, I like how he said it just so like, yeah, pop off their cards.
There's a little bit of lay of a little bit of lay being played at one point. I like that. Cause
Brandon and I were hanging out recently in the mountains with some friends for a birthday and
Brandon put on some lay of a and it was very, felt very Christmasy. So that was, that was a fun,
fun thing to hear. Yeah. Yeah. She's a 900 year old, 900 year old ogre with 13 sons.
We got the Krampus Shlop was a lot of fun. One of my favorite lines. Oh, Mally just got globed.
Hell yeah, dude. Fuck yeah.
Just got globed.
Yeah. And I think that's it. Cause I look into my next note and it says jugular
ribbage. And then I realized I'm back to underworld. What a, what a double feature.
What a, what a double deuce. There was no jugular ribbage in that one. I had to remind myself.
Could you imagine? Wow. Red one. All right. Well, I guess I'll kick off the final. Oh no,
we got to do reviews when I'm at the reviews from the critics. What do we got here? Um,
did you, or did you have any other final thoughts? No, go for it. It is a 30, 90,
a 30 from the critics and a 90 from the audience. This is extremely polarizing and extremely a new
movie that is when I was looking it up today, I was like, Oh, it's still playing at the theaters
down the street for me. So it's still out there. It's, it's fun to jump on something that's, uh,
pretty relevant, but it was a prime prime movie, prime video movie. So you can find it on there.
Uh, if you've gotten this far, I'm sure you figured that out, but it was, uh, I guess a couple
articles I saw today was like, it was a big deal for their streaming services. Gotten gotten a lot
of people watching the movie Christmas time. I'm sure it's exactly what they wanted. So, um,
it's just interesting. Yeah. Thanksgiving time and then streaming services, Christmas time while
still being in some theaters as well. So it's, I feel like it's very strategic. Uh, that is a good
approach though. Is it not? It's very strategic. I agree. Yeah. It's like, it's, it seems like a,
an approach that they're trying to cover the base of the holidays. Uh, the best people are out
shopping at malls. I mean, movies are the best. Like, yeah, it's, we'll get into our thoughts,
but I mean, yeah, I think that's the critique. I think both of us will probably have is just like,
going to see this with your family members. And this is what, you know, some of the stuff that's
in this movie. Yeah. I don't know if everybody's gonna like it. It's already on prime video now too.
Yeah. So it's like, why not just, you know, throw it on during Christmas time. Why not? Why not?
That's the world. Yeah. Why not? Hey, for streaming, I think for streaming. Yeah. For the,
my review, the theater going experience, mine won't be too far off. The theater going experience
will just be a lot more to get out there and do it. But when you're like browsing after a bunch of
Christmas dinner to look for something, you know, why not? Why not? Uh, Jesse Hesinger from AV club
gave it a C minus, uh, is how they review things. Jesse says the aggressively secular and gift-based
systems of red one are almost enough to prompt a moist-eyed holiday wish for more piously churchy
seasonal entertainment. Yeah, I get it. That's that winter, which being very dogmatic. And then
you got to accept the forgiveness of Santa Claus into your heart folks is what you got to do. Yeah.
I mean, he's very godlike character. Mark Kermode, Kermode and Mayo's take on YouTube is a top critic
on Rotten Tomatoes. Let's hear what he has to say. This is the big American blockbuster of the week
and it is absolute crap.
Yeah. Yeah. Stellum. Bill Bridge. Bill Goody Koontz.
Oh, Bill Goody Koontz.
Bill Goody Koontz. Arizona Republic, two out of five. But what red one is really missing,
what every Christmas movie worth its eggnog requires is summed up in one word. Magic.
Magic. Peter Howell. We're going to hear from him twice in the same episode. Toronto Star.
That's amazing. He was reviewing underworld awakening 2012. Here it is to 2024.
He's still fucking going. I love it. Love it. One out of four. He's like two reviews of him.
Just like fucking hating movies. A joyless testosterone fueled Tempest that squanders a
reported $250 million budget on the hailstorm of crummy CGI and a blizzard of bad vibes.
Peter Travers. ABC News. Sometimes Rolling Stone says ABC News here. We all need a little Christmas
now. Bad vibes. This is the winter of our bad vibes content. This is the blizzard of our bad vibes.
Peter Schaver says we all need a little Christmas now, but not this cynical cash
grab faking it as holiday fun. The mind boggles that it costs $250 million to produce a big
bloated fiasco about Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans saving kidnapped Santa. Bah humbug. Peter
Travers is going full humbug. Yeah, he would. I always knew it. It's only meant our time.
Kyle Smith. He's on the naughty list for sure. He's like a
fucking he's past level four. You think level four is top? I don't know. Level four seems like a
random way to be like the top of a scale. I expected it to be a five or a 10 would be the top of the
scale. But I guess five would be like a you would actually be in in federal prison. The federal snow
globe as they say. Yeah, the federal glossary. Solitary snow globe confinement. Kyle Smith,
Wall Street Journal, a high concept offering that neglects the structural basics. It has enough
going on to make it tolerable for home viewing for half attentive kids who are still playing with
their presence. But rather than sparkling like snow, most of it is a
dead as slush. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last one from let's do a down from IGN movies. The movies.
Three out of 10. If IGN gives it a bad score. I don't know. Be wary. The movie surrounds its
mismatched stars with a whole lot of shockingly inconsistent special effects preaching a
sentimental yuletide message even as it looks like the height of soulless commercialization.
Let's move on to some audience reviews. The more positive side of things being that they did give
it a 90 a rip roaring hot spicy 90. That's what we would like to see in the movie is a hot spicy
90. I can't say I've given many nineties to movies here on this podcast. So let's hear what they like
about it. Uh, Kayden Mayhew five stars on letterbox. This was really needing a rewatch.
This is an absolute masterpiece. The editing music and storytelling makes this an instant
Christmas classic. Not to mention the breathtaking performances by Chris Evans and the rock.
This movie immediately slides into my top 30 and I can't wait to watch it every year.
I'll probably watch it again in a few days because it's just that special.
We can get to some facetious, uh, people I think, but who, who can say maybe they meant every word.
Rachel Lesh, Leishman five stars. Chris Evans, bad dad era is hot. I'll say it. I cried. Sue me.
Max like four or five stars.
Sounds like they cried out of their vagina.
That's what it sounds like.
Oh, Merry Christmas.
And happy new tears out of the not your eyes.
Max likes four or five stars. This should be added to the Bible.
Yeah, right. Uh huh.
So, um, five stars. This is a facetious one from Nicholas cage fan. Number one, Nicholas Kim
Coppola funniest movie ever made. The acting is so bad and phoned in. Couldn't be Nicholas cage
somehow. And why the fuck is the big mouth guy here? LMAO the characters range from bland to
bland. How this got conceived and birthed out of someone's mind is beyond me. Five stars.
Now I've seen the trend.
Quinteth five stars. Brooklyn's husband saves Christmas. Everything about this movie is great
when you have a light in your heart and joy pumping through your veins. The best part is
how seriously characters take their world and the professionalism used in the North pole.
Garcia and see what's happening again. Garcia and Krampus carry the charisma in the cinematic
experience. Five stars. Five stars from Jackson. From Jackson. I fell asleep. Five stars.
From Oscar five stars. I know this isn't a cinematic cinematic masterpiece. So I get the
negative reviews, but I just personally really loved it. It is a fun cheesy comedic action packed
and great holiday film. It's one of those heartwarming, heartwarming, feel good, good
times, family Christmas movies. It's a film for everyone to watch and definitely gets you in the
holiday spirit. Chris Evans performance was fantastic. The film perfectly blends the action
and Christmas elements. The storyline and the message was wonderful. It exceeded my expectations
and I had a good time. That one was sincere. I feel. Yeah. Yeah, me too. And we'll end it there
for the audience's feelings on everything. And I guess I'll be ready to take the plunge into my
final thoughts, if you don't mind. On the old red one. Yeah, I think overall, when I was watching
this, the the overriding thought was like, I don't hate it. Yeah, I like, I don't, I'm not as mad as
I thought it would be, but it's by no means going to be something that's like a rewatchable classic
Christmas movie. But I found myself chuckling at some of the elements that they wanted me to laugh
at. I wasn't completely like laughing at it as I thought I might be. But the parts where it becomes
self-serious superhero schmuck, schlopp is like just lame and I couldn't care less about that kind
of stuff. And Chris Evans character was a drag a lot of the times. But overall, yeah, I didn't hate
my my time with it. It's it's yeah, it's hard for me to come up with a defining score for it,
especially be being on the fresh or rotten side. And I'm gonna do like a 52. I think I'm a little
bit more rotten. I think it's just like, yeah, I was surprised. I was surprised it wasn't as bad
as I thought it was going to be essentially. Oh, my last thing. The last portion of the movie
was also one of the best parts to where they show you how Christmas happens. And you don't really
see a movie with Santa where he goes into one house, gets out and then goes to the very next
house next door. That only happens in like the Santa Claus, I feel like. But not the next house
after that next house after that. And this one, it like does a whole montage of him doing parkour
and enlarge like shrinking himself into the chimney with tiny little presents and putting them
in each little spot and then enlarging them. And then getting out of there all to like some
Christmas music. I was like I could watch a whole almost a whole movie of just like how Christmas
happens like that in a logistic way. And if something were to go wrong in that in that
sort of way of thinking about it. But beyond that, I was like, this is yeah, that was a fun way to
to end it. But yeah, I think like, even then, I feel like I'm giving it a lot of credit. But
go for it. Give it credit. You love logistics and give it give it to you.
Don't mind if I do. And there's a there's a part of me where yeah, I don't know, it could go up
up up a little bit more too. But I feel like pretty safe in the 5060 range for sure.
Okay. I mean, I'm right there with you, man. Like it is when you think about it again, like just
the rock really just phoning it in or really just being himself. And there's not a character being
on display, which would make the movie more interesting and enjoyable. There's none of that.
And then yeah, it's just a little too dark and grim. The things that's happening with Chris Evans
for a holiday family movie. Get that out of there or you will change it, obviously. But
yeah, I mean, with the budget having the monsters having the you know, showing some of these
logistics and special effects. Yeah, that when it's on the screen, it's I like it. Most of it,
most of it. Not all of it for sure. Like the witch stuff at the end. Yeah, that's like I said,
no thanks. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a 50. Yeah, I'm gonna do 50%.
Cool. Yeah, yeah. Tepid.
Tepid. I mean, it's I don't know, it's a lukewarm experience where like it has little pops. And I
didn't hate it. But also, it's hard for me to fully recommend it either. But it's kind of fun to
sit on a Christmas night and fall asleep to maybe if you're feeling like that mode this Christmas
season. And you're hearing it quickly. Yeah, just like fall asleep. And then like, if you can make
it to cramp a schlopp, good for you. If not, I don't I don't blame you. But if you make it to
cramp a schlopp, cool. Once that ends, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Like,
winter which comes, you're not you're not listening to this anyways, I'm sure. But like,
winter which comes, they say the day like, don't worry about it. You got it. But the fact that
cramp a schlopp had all this lore of being Santa's brother and everything was something that was
was like, Wow, okay, that's surprising. And I maybe I like lore Brandon may just like through
this underworld. Everything to like, I just need to just like fucking bullshit fanfic lore.
It doesn't even ascribe to any logical sort of folkloric accuracy.
You know, this is super offensive to the Iceland campuses.
This is a cramp I well I hope you've enjoyed the surprise Christmas episode that we've graced you
with. If you've made it this far in our underworld awakening. Red one combo double feature double
deuce experience. I'm so proud of that. That we've we've launched this is great. This is I had a blast.
I hope you guys did too. Me too. Yeah, I think this was a good double feature. Yeah, and I'm glad
that we like kind of tried this format of doing two movies, especially because this movie being so new.
You know, yeah, I don't Yeah, and this is great. I just I am I would love to see that Venn diagram
of underworld awakening and red one and us right in the middle. That's what this episode was.
Yeah, we could have Yeah, I was just trying to think of all the
comparisons we could make between the two and how they all how they all relate. But
I'm happy with how we did it. And maybe underworld awakening will be my new Christmas tradition.
Who knows? But as far as it goes here, I just want to say I love you all. I hope you've had a good
time with us for this ride of underworld. We ranked them all. Go check out Blood Wars. Go check it out.
Who knows? Maybe it's good. We'll have an extra little snippet next episode if one of us watches
it. If not, maybe we'll come up with our own own title. That's not Blood Wars and our own story.
That's different because we've we're going to take it our own way now. And we're going to do red to
maybe next year we'll be doing red to Brandon. Yeah, and underworld six. Wow.
I'm looking forward to it. Okay, me too. And I'm also game for our next episode, which will be
the space Cowboys. Yeah, it's a space Cowboys. Let's blast off into the new year. That's exactly
why we did this, Brandon. Thank you for bringing that up. We're blasting off into the new year
as space Cowboys.
Yeah, 2025 is going to be a space cowboy year. Yeah, it's we started brat this year. Now it's space
cowboy year. Man, that sounds like a kind of cool aesthetic. Maybe we should get that going.
That's the same. Is that what Beyonce's album most recent album kind of was, I guess?
Yeah, kind of. That's good. Renaissance meets meets cowboy Carter cowboy Carter. Space Cowboys
came out in August on August 4 2000. It is a certified fresh critically reviewed movie sitting
at a 78%. And it is a not so good 53% by the audiences. And we are going to check it out next
step. Let's hear a little premise here. Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland,
and James Garner stars a group of pilots whose time has come to serve their country and fulfill
their dream of going to space. In 1958, the members of Team Daddless, a group of top Air Force
test pilots were ready to serve their country as the first Americans in space. When NASA replaced
the Air Force for outer atmosphere atmospheric testing, they were pushed aside for a chimpanzee.
The team retired, but the dream of going into space never died.
Hey, can't wait. If you enjoyed your time here, please rate, rate, review, subscribe on Apple
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Send us a line at gmail.com polarized the pod at gmail.com.
Polarize the pod at gmail.com for all you folks out there. We love you all. Hope you are having
a happy holiday season and holidays. We'll see you next time for space Cowboys. Bye.