callahans20

49 minutes in: I'm still watching this flick while I write, and I can tell you right now, the answers to the whodunit are right in front of me. I know who done it. I know who the vampire is, and I know what happens to all these people.

It doesn't matter that I know, because the movie is hilarious. It can be a bit tedious at times, but I enjoy all the characters. The addition of the educated junkie works. The names are silly. The Jonas brothers....inspired. Meat describes Meat perfectly. Cochise is a double entendre. I loved his hair. His partner was.....surprising. The lawyer is uninteresting, so boring I constantly lost track of him. The fixer is intriguing. There is some impressive weaponry. The single location is its own character.

Final credits: I could not have been more wrong about whodunit. And I'm not going to tell you how it ends, except that it ends exactly the way it should. The ending alone makes the entire movie worth watching. Stick with it.

"Something's here, in the shadows." "What, like Predator?" "Worse." "Mom?"

You can stream it for free on Tubi.

I enjoyed the first movie more, sure, but this one wasn't nearly as awful as people are making out. I certainly watched it all the way through without being distracted by my phone. I paused it when I had to step away so I wouldn't miss anything. Neither of those things are true if I'm watching a real dog.

This sequel has the feel of a set up for the next movie, and frankly, I hope there is one. I can see some might be put off by 2 hours of set up, but as long as it doesn't take another 5 years for Netflix to release the next sequel I believe I can wait it out. But the next one had better live up to expectations or Charlize Theron's name will be mud in the producers world.

I gave it an extra star simply because it deserves more than one. But the movie wins a solid six stars from me.

This film is a very dark telling of the return of Odysseus. At times, I found it hard to take. But by the end of the movie I was already considering a second watch. Ralph Fiennes is simply outstanding. The scene where he kills the men hunting his son made the hair on my arms stand on end. Didn't much care for Charlie Plummer's Telemachus, though. He was a bit of all over the place. The character arc was choppy, and mostly unlikable. Not Plummer's fault, it was the script he was given. Juliette Binoche was a brilliant counterpoint to Fiennes. The Suitors were way overdone. Top suitor Antonius was also all over the place, although I liked the actor, Marwan Kenzari, in the role.

But in the end what I truly loved about this movie was the gritty reality of it. Stripping out the mythos made the story far more relatable and current. I may even give it a third watch.