Oddly enough, I’ve never seen it in its entirety, but I’ve always held the opinion that the original 1982 Poltergeist is the scariest film I’ve ever seen. Even with the bits that I’ve seen, they’ve all been ingrained into my mind and still haunt me to this day. With its remake having come out by Monster House director Gil Keenan, one would think that he’d have the chops to make something that was at least comparable to the original, but he didn’t and now we’re stuck with this.

Probably the only thing remotely going for this film other than its cinematography is Sam Rockwell, who does play an everyman father quite well, but when his daughter Carol-Ann– I mean Maddie gets taken into the spirit world, any effort or semblance of caring is completely drained out of him. It’s less him trying to put on a brave face for his family and more that he seems annoyed that a remake of Poltergeist actually exists. Speaking of Maddie, the actress playing her is no Heather O'Rourke, her only emotional range being cutsie-wutsie and screaming really loud. Joining her in boring stereotypes are her mom, who opts to stay at home to be able to write that novel of hers, her brother, who is your typical scaredy-cat little boy who gains a forced redemption and overcoming-his fear arc, and of course the bitchy teenage daughter, who bitches about not being able to go to the mall and considers her iPhone her lifeline (which is an actual quote she says, btw). Inadequately replacing the iconic medium Tangina Barrons is Carrigan Burke, played by Jarred Harris, who is a Ghost Hunters-esque reality-show host (because how else could this generation of filmgoers relate?!), who appears to have ghoulish battle-scars despite the fact that he admits that he “fakes it for the cameras.” More about this kind of stuff below.

Really, there’s nothing original about the story; it’s almost a shot for shot remake minus the modernizations that age this film like Hell. What’s worse is that the writing is so clumsy and so by-the-numbers (including the son’s character arc) that the only screams the audience is doing is out of anger rather than fright. Much like with the reality-show thing and “faking it for the cameras” shtick like I mentioned, there are many points in this movie where it tries to be profound (including a completely out of nowhere and never-again-mentioned moment where an assistant for the paranormal team tries to convince the son to capitalize off his sister’s disappearance), and they are easily some of the worst bits of writing I’ve seen all year (and I watched Paul god-damned Blart for God’s sake!).

If you saw the trailer, you’ve seen all of the remotely genuine “scares,” the other of which involve the typical cheap jump scares brought on by manipulative sound-editing choices and a squirrel (I’m not kidding, this move expects you to be scared of a character from Spongebob Squarepants). Where the original also used practical effects to amazing result, this film is bombarded by mediocre CGI that even the most spineless of horror audiences would gawk at. Where subtlety was also a strong strength of the original, it’s completely absent here, opting to show the spirit world rather than leave the viewer to wonder just what’s beyond the closet (and what they do show is just as dumb and boring as everything else).

Much like Hot Pursuit ruined Reese Witherspoon movies for me, Poltergeist makes a complete mockery of the original, serving to not only stand as one of the worst horror remakes ever, but one of the worst remakes ever period. Unlike the original, which ends with the family forever haunted and scarred by their experiences, the new one concludes on a super-duper-silly note (as *achem* most horror films totally do) with the family happily ditching a potential new house after it reminds them of their last one. “We’re out of here,” Sam Rockwell tells his family as they drive off. My sentiments exactly.

Final Verdict:

Before the first Equestria Girls movie, the title for the worst film I have ever seen was held for almost four years by Roland Emmerich’s 2012. With retarded science, offensive stereotypes, and a complete style over substance, thinking about it today still makes me cringe. When I heard that a similar movie being directed by the same man who gave us Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore was coming, I was positively dreading this movie. Now that I’ve seen it, was the vitriol justified? Amazingly, no. I will be making many references to 2012 in this review for comparison’s sake. There will be spoilers of that movie, but you shouldn’t be watching it anyways if you haven’t done so.

Characters were just one of many things wrong with 2012, making a science novelist into an action hero and making everyone who wasn’t white and/or American into a bloated caricature. San Andreas suffered the most in this aspect, but it’s uneven at worst. Dwayne Johnson’s Ray makes for a superior action star over John Cusack any hour of the day, and being that he plays a rescue pilot, this only makes it more fitting. Paul Giamatti plays a scientist who observes and experiences the quakes destroying California, and is far less of a nerd than Roland Emmerich would have made him. Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario are fine as Ray’s ex-wife and daughter, and unlike 2012, which skewed the divorce angle of the story to levels of television melodrama, the relationship they have at the beginning and how it resolves is far more real and relatable.

The four biggest offenders are Ioan Grufford, Kylie Minogue, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, and Art Parkinson, who serve as Gugino’s new boyfriend and his sister, and an English engineer and his brother, respectively. Their performances aren’t horrible in the slightest (especially Game of Throne’s alum Art, who’s far less grating an cloying than the two kids from 2012); the problem is that their characters serve little to no purpose other than to give us two predictably rich pricks who are pricks because they’re rich, as well as give Blake a sexy love interest and cutesy sidekick with charming accents whose only useful contributions to the movie could have been done by anyone.

We all know that plot matters little in these movies, but it’s important to bring up that the writing in this movie, while pretty standard and predictable, feels a lot less forced and stupid than 2012’s. San Andreas also makes the wise decision to not completely dumb things down and overblow the spectacle while also trying to take itself extremely seriously and come across as emotionally moving (yes, I’m saying that Emmerich could actually learn something from this movie). The effects in this movie for the most part are good (minus a landslide scene at the film’s beginning), and like I just mentioned, it’s not so overblown that it becomes stupid. The chaos and destruction just manages to stay below the threshold of the audience’s suspension of disbelief, not having to resort to throwing California into a giant sinkhole that never existed while still trying to hammer in poorly-timed comedy. At this point, I’d actually like to give director Brad Peyton the benefit of the doubt and say that his direction is actually quite competent, never having to force or wring emotion to achieve catharsis, as well as providing a pretty tight continuous shot in a high-rise restaurant as the earthquakes tear it apart.

I mean, if you want to see Mad Max: Fury Road for fourth time over seeing this once, I wouldn’t hold it against you, but do know that San Andreas is far from the bottom-of-the-barrel schlock that I had predicted it would be. It’s a guilty pleasure that you really ought not to feel guilty about. Without doubt, the generic story and obvious style-over-substance will turn off many, but it has just enough substance to warrant a fun, non-demanding night at the movies.

Final Verdict:

Paul Feig scored huge in 2011 with Bridesmaids, his film garnering Oscar nominations for Kirsten Wiig and Annie Mumolo (the paranoid plane woman) for their script and Melissa McCarthy for her performance. Minus 2013’s The Heat, which garnered some favorable reviews, McCarthy’s career took a downturn when her other films Identity Thief and Tammy left her high and dry. Now, she’s teaming up with Feig again in Spy, and this film proves that McCarthy is at her absolute best under his direction.

As a leading lady, McCarthy will probably have a much smaller chance of seeing another Oscar nomination, but it should be noted that her performance here as Susan Cooper is far stronger than her one as Megan from Bridesmaids, going from a soft-spoken and mousy deskbound assistant to field agent Bradley Fine (played with obvious enthusiasm from Jude Law) to a loud, abrasive tough-as-nails agent. Both she and co-star Rose Byrne (playing the equally vulgar but dimmer-witted Rayna Boyanov) trade verbal blows throughout most of the second act of the film, and they produce easily the best laughs the film has to offer. Not to be outdone by a long shot is Jason Statham as the bull-and-meat-headed Rick Ford, who takes the role so seriously and deadpan and making his laundry list of accomplishments in the field that he rattles off to Cooper in one scene all the funnier for it.

Despite the obvious comedic overtones and undertones, you might be heavily surprised (as I was) that despite the number and strength of the laughs, there is actually a very tight, well-oiled espionage plot to Spy. This film could have easily been another Austin Powers clone (which serves more as an actual spoof to spy movies than Spy is), hamming up the gadgetry and stretching the plausibility of the story (which wouldn’t have been fully unwelcome). Feig, on the other hand, puts these insane characters in a very normal world to outstanding effect, and it really gives the film that little bit more of a punch when a joke from them arrives.

Probably the biggest fault to the film is its pacing. Where Bridesmaids had an abundance of jokes throughout its entire running time, I feel that Spy didn’t really burn rubber until Cooper took chase for a man who tried to kill Ford. There are plenty of jokes beforehand, sure, but the really hard laughs don’t come until after that point. Thankfully, the performances and characters help shine the audience through and still make for an entertaining flick.

I still can’t bring myself to dethrone Welcome to Me as this year’s best comedy so far, but Spy is easily a close second, with hilarious characters and a story just as strong, Spy is a rare comedy that manages to be funny and smart all at once. I’m very excited to see how this year’s Trainwreck fares, because if it’s as good as either film, 2015 will shine as a great year for comedy.

Final Verdict:

Next week, I will have reviews for Love and Mercy, Insidious: Chapter 3, and this neat looking Bollywood flick our theater has right now called Dil Dhadakne Do. We’ll see how the latter turns out.