RSS

Tag Archives: Eddie Murphy

JPFmovie reviewer at large TV reviews the biggest box office flop in history: The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)

As everyone know we here at JPFmovies love our guest reviewers.  So when TV wanted to take a look at the worst financial investment Holly Wood has ever made who were we to say no?

Over continued bouts of, “where did the 100 million dollars go!” If it weren’t for the badly glued together editing job which encumbers the fact that the acting simply gets worse from one scene to the next.  One might think cameos by Alec Baldwin and John Cleese would help, but served only to further aggravate and annoy the viewer.  One thing is for sure, few movie productions cost $100,000,000.00 (one hundred million dollars) and then sit on a shelf for two years while, assuredly the Studio Castle Rock Entertainment co founders Martin Shafer and Rob Reiner must have yelled “where did the 100 million dollars go!”

“Plot”

By the end of the 21st century, mankind has established itself on the Moon and also established lunar colonies, which have expanded into large cities, such as Moon Beach and Little America. Human cloning is now common, body modification is now.  In 2080, there is a colony on the Moon called Little America. Eddie Murphy plays a retired smuggler called Pluto Nash (Eddie Murphy), who just out of prison, buys a nightclub.  Naturally there would be no “Adventures” if Pluto simply retired into that goodnight.  A plot enhancement overlooked by Director Ron Underwood.

After facing down two Moon Mobsters Gino (Burt Young) and Larry (Lillo Brancato), over his friend and previous owner.  Pluto rebuilds the club and establishes it as “Club Pluto.” In the next seven years, Club Pluto is a hit.  In 2087, Pluto is approached by a young woman named Dina Lake (Rosario Dawson), who has become stranded on the Moon and desires to earn some money by which to pay for transport back to Earth to Salt Lake City. Because her father “Nicky Sticks” was a friend of Pluto’s, she seeks help from Pluto, offering her skills as a singer. Pluto instead gives her a job as a server at his club and allows her to remain inside to sleep after closing.

 

its nightly closure to the public. During the same night, Pluto is roughed up by Mogan (Joe Pantoliano) and Kelp (Victor Varnado), soldiers of a mysterious gangster called Rex Crater. They tell Pluto that Rex wants to buy Club Pluto and convert it into a gambling casino. Pluto has none of it.

In the plot twist that “nobody saw coming” Rex Crater’s soldiers destroy the club. “Fortunately” Pluto, Dina, and Bruno escape.  Having Pluto and Dina simply die in the mob hit was another plot enhancement overlooked by Director Ron Underwood.

With the club in shambles, Pluto decides to investigate Rex Crater, and learns that Rex Crater has never seen outside of a penthouse in the city of Moon Beach, and that he was involved with a genetic engineer called Runa Pendankin, who specialized in human cloning before her mysterious death.

In what has to easily be the most atrocious scene in modern cinematography the viewing audience is subjected to Pluto and Dina’s to the Cosmetic Surgery Store.  Therein the viewing audience is tormented with “jokes” regarding Pluto and Dina’s ever shifting body sizes and looks, potentially theirs for the right price.

Pluto and Dina’s body morph scene that completely eviscerates the hope of a discernible plot.  Pluto and Dina could have had a terrible genetic mutation go wrong and then attack the Moon. That’s another plot enhancement overlooked by Director Ron Underwood.

In their continued investigation Pluto and Dina meet Pluto’s mother Flura Nash (Pam Grier), who comes there, and has robot Bruno recharged in his room. They are then ambushed by Rex Crater’s assassins, who have tracked them to their hotel.

After some suspense with Pam Grier and the introduction of Robot Bruno Pluto and Dina then hijack a limo with a holographic chauffeur named James (John Cleese).  Amazingly, John Cleese was not funny at all in what was supposed to be a zany slapstick scene, simply became another excuse to freshen my drink, this time with a heavy pour of gin.  I was beginning to understand why the British Royal Expeditionary Force issued rum rations before combat.  For Chrissake, there was another half of a movie left to watch.  After a groaned look from J.P., the snoring began and I knew I was in no man’s land alone.  Swig of Gin indeed!

Pluto takes Dina and Robot Bruno to an old refuge outside of the colonies of his from his smuggling days.

At the hideout Pluto searches online for information regarding any Earth criminal with the initials “WZW.” When this yields nothing, Dina suggests that the initials are in fact “MZM,” having been seen upside-down by Mona Zimmer. Pluto searches for “MZM” and discovers a criminal called Michael Zoroaster Marucci (Alec Baldwin). The cameo of Alec Baldwin is perhaps the only watchable minute and a half of this movie. Was this a plot enhancement not overlooked by Director Ron Underwood?

Finally, Pluto suspects that Michael Marucci and Rex Crater are one and the same.  The genius of Pluto Nash and his keen analytical mind are impressive and Pluto and Co. infiltrate Rex Crater’s casino/hotel. Robot Bruno romances a robot slot machine whose lever he accidentally breaks. When Robot Bruno is taken away by security, Pluto sends Dina to pay for the damages and get Bruno out.

Eventually Pluto makes it to the office of Rex Crater.  There Pluto Nash discovers his nemesis, himself.  Pluto Nash has been cloned.

Pluto vs. Pluto-Rex chicanery ensues.  After several painful attempts at witticisms and apparently having forfeited a plot long ago. Pluto Rex kills Mogan and Kelp for their incompetence. Pluto Rex and Pluto then fight while the others are uncertain which is which. Pluto finally defeats Pluto Rex.

The movie ends with the heroes celebrating in the rebuilt Club Pluto with Nash as the owner.

“Where did the 100 million dollars go!”

 

 

 
2 Comments

Posted by on June 12, 2017 in Movie Reviews

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just read on the CBC news website that talks are underway for Top Gun (1986) sequel.

I just read on the CBC news website that talks are underway for Top Gun (1986) sequel.

It was reported that “Tom Cruise recently confirmed he is in talks for a Top Gun sequel.”

“I hope we can figure this out, to do it again,” the 49-year-old actor told MTV News in Dubai.

“We all want to make a film that is in the same kind of tone as the other one and shoot it in the same way as we shot Top Gun.”

A Top Gun sequel, I am not sure how to react to this news.  While I may be giving away my age, I saw Top Gun in the theater (several times) and looking back on it now, the cast was “power house” to say the least.  The film starred Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt and Michael Ironside.  Directed by Tony Scott and produced by the famed Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.

What interests me most is who will produce the film?  For 14 years Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were probably the most successful producing partnership in history.  Their films include Flashdance (1983) with Jennifer Beals, Beverly Hills Cop (1984) starring Eddie Murphy, Top Gun (1986) with Tom Cruise, Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and Days of Thunder (1990) with Tom Cruise as “Cole Trickle.”  And that is just their 1980’s repertoire.  By 1995, they produced one hit after another.  In that year alone, Simpson was responsible for Bad Boys (1995), the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence film that was Columbia Pictures’ highest grossing movie of the year; Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds (1995); and Crimson Tide (1995).  In 1996, Simpson produced The Rock (1996) starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. The film brought in nearly $350 million worldwide at the box office, and set the video rental market record as the most-ordered film in history.  Unfortunately, the Rock was Simpson’s last movie.  Don Simpson died in 1996 “of natural causes.”  This is B.S. because after reading the biography of Simpson, the amount of drugs he did rivaled (if not surpassed) that of the fabled Hunter S. Thompson character described in his most famous book (and later two films) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Bruckheimer, nicknamed “Mr. Block Buster” is still producing like crazy.  He was recently quoted as saying: “Top Gun (1986) is no different from Pirates of the Caribbean – in fact, they’re very similar because both movies were working in genres that were dead.  Fighter pilot movies had all failed and pirate movies had been dead for a long time.  We approached them from a different angle.”

A curious quote, from a very successful man.

This gives me the inspiration to do another trilogy, a tribute to Don Simpson.  So that is what is coming next folks.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 9, 2011 in Movie Reviews

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Harlem Nights: Smell the Rose Not the Dung

Back in the days when Spike Lee complained that no African Americans on their own authority could make movies in Hollywood, he was proven completely wrong, (at least in one instance), by the film “Harlem Nights,” which was written and directed by Eddie Murphy.  Harlem Nights has an all-star cast, including Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Della Reese, Arsenio Hall, Michael Lerner, and Danny Aiello.  With this kind of talent, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to make such a movie be anything but terrific.  Much to my chagrin, however, many movie critics and reviewers trashed the movie for reasons such as it was too profane to take place in the mid-1920s, and that every white man was portrayed as a racist. To that I respond: (a) did you actually expect a movie starring Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Red Fox to be easy on the profanity, and if so, you’ve had your head buried in the sand for quite some time (although I must admit that the word “fuck” or a derivative of the word was said approximately 133 times throughout the film), and (b) that all white men were cast as racists–give me a break; it was 1930s Harlem. I don’t think the portrayal is too off base or out of line.

As usual, I take a completely different position on this film.  I thought it was hilarious and had a great story, as well as some fine performances by exceptionally funny actors.  One of my favorite (yet relatively unknown) actors, Michael Lerner, played the villain Bugsy Calhoun and provided a stellar performance.  Though I must say my favorite Lerner character was “Jack Lipnick” in the Cohen Brothers classic Barton Fink—but I digress, and that is for another day.

“Sugar” Ray (Richard Pryor) is the owner of a very successful illegal casino and has to contend with the pressures of a vicious gangster and corrupt policeman who wants to see him be driven out of business.  Eddie Murphy plays his young, firebrand partner, and Redd Foxx is their sage mentor.  Della Reese is the Madame in charge of the “ladies of the evening.”

The evil gangster’s night club is losing business.  While Sugar Ray’s club is only frequented by African American customers and the gangster’s club only by whites, helped by the corrupt police detective Phil Cantone (Danny Aiello), the gangsters try to make Sugar Ray go out of business.  Of course, it is only natural that you feel sympathy for Sugar Ray and his nightclub gang, especially when you see how detective Cantone operates.  Eddie Murphy, “Mr. Quick,” wants to fight his way out guns a-blazing and suggests killing the gangsters in a clichéd gangster war a la “The Godfather.”  But Sugar Ray, being older and wiser, has a wittier, more clever plan to ruin the gangsters.  However simple and predictable the plot may seem, there is a wonderful twist in the end.

The clip I have picked is a great scene in which Eddie Murphy gets his butt whooped by Della Reese.

 
7 Comments

Posted by on April 20, 2010 in Movie Reviews

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,

 
%d bloggers like this: