Tag: Tyler Labine

Eli Craig’s Tucker & Dale vs Evil

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

What if those creepy backwoods rednecks in every other horror flick aren’t creepy or homicidal at all but simply nice fellas on the wrong end of a colossal situational misunderstanding? That’s the running gag in Eli Craig’s Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil and it’s one of the flat out funniest films I’ve ever seen. Sweet, good natured Tucker & Dale (Alan Tudyuk and Tyler Labine) are two steadfast buddies who just wanna head out to their cabin for a chilled out weekend of fishing, having beers and enjoying nature. A gaggle of tiresome big city college kids have other plans though, and from the moment they blunder into their secluded rural enclave, chaos ensues. The comedy here is all a matter of perspective, prejudgment and mindset: These kids have watched too many of the kind of horror films that this one spoofs and naturally assume that any rugged looking country boy in the sticks simply must be an inbred serial murderer. As for Tucker & Dale, they just can’t figure out why a group of kids would be terrified of two unassuming, obviously affable gents like themselves and become increasingly confused when each new attempt to be nice ends in them running for the hills. It’s a hysterical premise and probably the funniest horror satire ever made, with Tudyuk and Labine giving it their all and making these two dudes not just the funniest bumpkins this side of the Ozarks but actual sweet, well developed human characters too. My personal favourite bit is Tudyuk taking care of an old tree stump with his chainsaw and not realizing he’s about to cut into a wasp’s nest. The next shot is a perfect example of the levels of misperception that goes on here: He comes screaming out of the woods followed by a cloud of angry wasps, chainsaw still roaring away in his hand, terrified of being stung. A few yards away the group of kids sees this and obviously thinks he’s a maniac about to chop them up. It doesn’t get much better than that with this clever, ragingly funny, on point horror comedy.

-Nate Hill

Stephen Kay’s Get Carter

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

As far as the remaking of cult classics, Stephen Kay’s Get Carter is a piss poor effort, so much so that not even a positively stacked cast could do much of anything about it. The original saw fearsome bulldog Michael Caine getting shotgun fuelled revenge and has since become iconic, while this one switches up rainy Britain for rainy Seattle and a sedated Sylvester Stallone in a shiny suit takes over as Carter, a mob enforcer who hails from Vegas but has travelled north both to escape scandal and look into a shady family matter. There he finds all sorts of characters played by a troupe of big names, character actors and even Caine himself in an extended cameo as a bar owner, but it all feels lazy, listless and flung about like a ball of yarn full of loose plot threads and scenes that fizzle. It’s obvious that there were major editing problems here as the pacing is in conniptions and an entire subplot involving a love interest back in Vegas (Gretchen Mol) has been slashed to ribbons. So sloppy was the final product that my college acting teacher, who landed the role of Carter’s gangster boss back in Vegas, although mentioned brazenly in the opening credits, can only be seen briefly from the neck down and heard on the phone, except for whatever reason they decided to dub his voice over with an uncredited Tom Sizemore, which is just so bizarre. Anywho, Stallone sleepwalks his way through a local conspiracy involving his dead brother, the widow (Rachel Leigh Cook), a mysterious femme fatale (Rhona Mitra), a weaselly computer tycoon (Alan Cumming) a sleazy pimp/porn baron (Mickey Rourke) and more. It’s just all so terminally boring though, and none of the clues or twists spring to life or feel organic at all. Rourke provides some of the only life the film has to offer as the villain, a guttural scumbag who has two painful looking nightclub boxing beatdowns with Stallone which are fun. John C. McGinley raises the pulse somewhat as a lively Vegas thug dispatched by Sizemore’s voice to bring Stallone back to face the music. Others show up including Miranda Richardson, Mark Boone Jr., John Cassini, Johnny Strong, Frank Stallone, Tyler Labine and more. None of it amounts to much though and by the time the anticlimactic plot resolutions arrive and Carter jumps a red eye back to Vegas before the credits roll, you wonder what the point of it all was and want your hour and forty minutes back. A thorough bummer.

-Nate Hill

Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers 2

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers 2 has the monumental task of being one of those sequels that comes around so far after the fact that it has to do something different than it did the first time around. It does that. It also has to live up to fan expectations without just retreading all the same paths and taking the easy, self derivative route. It also does that, and quite successfully too. I’ll just clear the air: I loved it, I thought it was a fucking blast, and hit all the right notes you’d expect and wish for. It’s different than the first, amping up the rowdy, maniacal tone even further and going for broke, but never exhausting itself or getting too shrill. It’s been a good long while since the first, and the gang has naturally managed to get themselves fired from their Vermont city cop gigs following an incident involving Fred Savage, who I only know as the mole guy from Goldmember. The main event here is the discovery that a small Canadian town is actually on American soil, so the Vermont governor (Wonder Woman) hires crusty Captain O’Hagen (Brian Cox, having as much of not more fun than he did the first round) to rally his troops and oversee the transfer of power, which includes a trio of buffoonish Mounties (Will Sasso, Hayes Mcarthur and Vancouver’s own Tyler Labine), a manic Rob Lowe, sexy Emanuelle Chriqui, a rogue grizzly bear, copious amounts of narcotics, throwbacks to jokes from the first that actually work, endless jabs at the metric system and all manner of… shenanigans. I think us Canadians can get an extra kick out of it seeing ourselves represented in the most hilarious, over the top fashion you can imagine, exaggerated accents and all. The three Mounties have a demented running joke regarding Danny DeVito that had me choking on my beer. Rob Lowe has an inspired gift for comedy and sending up his own image, his casting here was a brilliant move. As for Rabbit, Ramathorn, Foster, O’Hagen, Mac and ever ridiculous Farva, I got both misty eyed and nostalgic seeing them raising hell, causing shit and being the beloved idiots we remember so fondly, back to give us second helpings of their consistently funny, always surprising brand of eclectic humour. There’s a couple priceless cameos in the prologue that I won’t spoil but I’ll say that it was awesome to see ma boy Clifton “Whup ass fajitas” Collins Jr. show up in the Broken Lizard multiverse. It amazes me that they’d even need to crowdfund something by this troupe, because from the first Troopers flick to Beerfest to The Slammin Salmon, these guys are just riotous and some of my favourite comedic filmmakers in action these days, I really hope this skyrockets them to the big leagues once again.

-Nate Hill