Boy Erased: Sometimes Brutally Honest Film on an Important Topic

Movie Review: Boy Erased (2018)
Version: Library Blu-Ray borrow

Boy Erased features a fine cast (Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton) in a sometimes brutally honest memoir of a late-teen's experience with gay conversion therapy imposed by his willful dogmatic preacher-father. Includes a particularly savage rape scene, so this may not be a film for young viewers.

One of the positives about this film is that it doesn't resort to the typical gay stereotypes to portray the main character Jared's fellow therapy subjects. They come off as teens who happen to be gay and we can focus on their struggles instead of the often groan-able stereotypes. One of the negatives is that in not employing at least a couple of stereotypes is that the characters are one dimensional and in some ways seem unrealistic. Where the film may overplay its hand in use of stereotypes is in portraying the southern Baptist fundamentalists who run the therapy camp. In doing so, they risk making the characters look too dark, too evil, and too fit-to-form to be believable.

This is a memoir, so these characters may very well be as written, but all too often we get the feeling artist's license gives free rein to embellishment and the viewer's willful suspension of disbelief takes a hit. I got the feeling that was true here. Another nit was that most of the gay characters were male. There was one lesbian in the therapy class of a dozen or so boys. That seemed strange. Later, the lesbian was seen with a study group of other girls, presumably other lesbians at the center. None of this was addressed in the story. She seemed out place, didn't seem to have a real role.

It was a great story, well written and nicely paced. Definitely a social consciousness story that examined a lot of important sexual-orientation, parental-awareness, and religious-tolerance issues that didn't get bogged down in trying to play nice but focused on telling an important story.

The Mummy: A Mess of Mixed Metaphors

Movie Review: The Mummy (2017)
Version: Library borrow

I would call 2017's The Mummy a mess of mixed metaphors: basically, Egyptian archaeology gone awry meets zombie apocalypse meets hokey Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. How can you mix all three in a movie and think it's going to turn out well?

This more recent remake of a remake of the original pits Indiana Jones wannabe Nick Morton (played by Tom Cruise) and his sidekick Chris Vail (played by Jake Johnson) against an evil ancient Egyptian queen, Ahmanet (played by Sofia Boutella), who was long ago buried under the sands of Mesopotamia and erased from history, only to be unleashed in modern day Iraq by Morton and Vail. Ahmanet decides Morton is her ideal male to be turned into an eternal god and unleashes all the undead to help her capture him. Meanwhile, archaeologist Jenny Halsey (played by Annabelle Wallis) comes on the scene and brings the sarcophagus and, thus, chaos to England, where she teams up with the dual personality Dr Jekyl/Mr. Hyde (played by Russell Crowe) to try to squelch Ahmanet and save Vail.

The Mummy, true to form with most Tom Cruise films, is full of action and special effects, so it has that going for it. In fact, there's quite a thrilling plane ride at the beginning of the film. But it's the silly constant onslaught of zombies that detracts from the narrative. And then there's the Dr. Jekyl character, who twice has to save himself from turning into the zany Mr. Hyde with a complicated chemical injection, which is a total and unnecessary distraction. Crowe is actually quite good in the role, it's just not important to the story line. Why not add Dr. Frankenstein and his monster while you're at it?

And then there's Tom Cruise portraying himself as the perfect figure for Ahmanet to kill to turn into the eternal god as her forever mate. He looks nothing like the original guy she was going to sacrifice for the role in the beginning of the movie. He's not even Egyptian! So that was totally bogus.

All these things combined soured the movie for me. Just too much silliness and thoughtlessness went into making this film. If I were grading this film I'd give it a C. If I were rating it, I would give it a 3 out of 5. If I were asked by a friend if it was worth seeing, I'd say, "Miss it."