243. The Life of Chuck, Cleaner, Materialists, The Swarm, and Equals

It’s just Kevin and Lauren this week and they came prepared. They talk about Life of Chuck, Cleaner, Materialists, The Swarm, and Equals.

Lauren kicks off the show with a largely positive review of the new Mike Flanagan/Stephen King joint, The Life of Chuck. Putting those two men together you’d think this would be a horror fest, but it’s a poignant film about a man’s life. Early comparisons were drawn to The Shawshank Redemption, but Lauren feels this movie doesn’t quite have that same depth. All in all, it’s still a good movie and worth a watch.

Speaking of good movies, Kevin didn’t bother to watch any this. Instead, he kicks off his first of two “I watched it so you didn’t have to” segments with Cleaner on MAX. This is Die Hard clone that lacks much of the DNA that made that film great. It’s not necessarily a bad film, but you’d do better with the OG. It stars Daisy Ridley as a former soldier turned window cleaner who gets stuck outside her building when eco terrorists take over. She’s forced to battle her way back inside (which takes far too long) so that she can save the day because, of course, the entire police force is unable to breach the building. Look, it’s better than Skyscraper, so there’s that…

We flip back to goodness with Lauren’s review of Materialists, starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and some guy named Pedro Pascal. It’s a love story and billed as a RomCom, though Lauren and Kevin discuss the fact that it’s less funny and more thoughtful than most, leaving it a bit in the ratings limbo. Folks going to see a Failure to Launch type movie are coming out disappointed. That said, it’s a really good movie about love and self discovery and is well worth a watch. Just go in with more grounded expectations.

Let’s talk about expectations for a second. Have you ever seen the trailer or poster for something ad said to yourself, “that’s going to suck”? A wise person would not watch said offering. But Kevin has no fear. On HBO, he came across the series The Swarm and it’s… well… not good. It’s not about a killer swarm of bees. That would make sense. It’s about an underwater hive mind turning everything in the ocean against humanity. Think The Abyss, but globally, and much, much worse. At its core, it ends up being a neat concept but a very poor offering overall.

Getting into the spirit, Lauren closes the show with a review of the film, Equals. It stars Nicolas Holt and Kristen Stewart and that’s about where the good part ends. It’s a futuristic society where people have been stripped of emotion and if you develop emotions, you get wiped. Our two stars develop emotions (obviously) and fall in love (obviously-er) which leads to them struggling to escape this world so they can be together. It ends on a semi tragic, semi vague note that leaves you wondering, “why did I do this?”

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