The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 37 Round 2)

 

Well, that didn’t take long. After I complained last round that Season 37 wasn’t giving me enough material for the “Down” section, the studio apparently took that as a challenge. Round 2 gave us two money-losers, a mobile game adaptation that barely seemed interested in being a mobile game adaptation, and another trip into the surprisingly depressing universe of Metroid. Thanks, guys. My job is safe again. Here's The Roundup....

JON BERNTHAL

Twenty-six seasons. That’s how long it’s been since Jon Bernthal last got to headline an LRF movie. Bernthal certainly hasn’t disappeared during that stretch. He’s remained a dependable supporting presence in plenty of projects, but Below the Surface finally puts him back where he belongs: at the center of the movie. Now, I thought Below the Surface itself was a pretty average drama. Nothing particularly wrong with it, nothing that’s going to stick with me six months from now. Bernthal was not the problem. He has exactly the kind of weathered, lived-in presence this material needed, and it was nice seeing LRF remember that he’s capable of doing more than showing up for 25 minutes, growling at somebody, and making the lead actor look tougher by association.

Hopefully he won’t have to wait another 26 seasons for the next starring role.

MEL GIBSON

On paper, Hay Day made a lot of sense for Mel Gibson. Stubborn old farmer. Family legacy. Corporate villains. Violence. Old-fashioned values colliding with the modern world. You can practically hear Gibson saying yes before finishing the pitch. And as both star and director, I thought he committed completely. Whatever problems I had with this movie—and there were plenty—they weren’t because Gibson mailed it in. If anything, he seemed to understand the movie Hay Day could have been better than the screenplay did. There’s a grittier, angrier, more emotionally grounded version of this story hiding somewhere inside the finished product, and Gibson occasionally manages to drag pieces of it onto the screen through sheer force of personality. Unfortunately, Alex Conn never gave him enough material to build the rest.

VIDEO GAME FILMS

Two rounds. Two major video game adaptations already. And we’re nowhere close to finished. After Pokémon opened the season, Metroid Prime keeps the gaming train moving, with Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, The Legend of Zelda and more still coming later this season. At this point, Season 37 is starting to look like LRF’s unofficial video game season. And honestly? I’m interested. Hollywood spent decades treating video games like source material that needed to be apologized for. LRF seems much more willing to just embrace the worlds people already love and build actual movies around them. They won’t all work. But judging by the schedule, we’re certainly going to find out which ones do.

BOX OFFICE

Two out of three films losing money is never a good round. Period. Metroid Prime did its job. It made a healthy profit and prevented Round 2 from becoming a complete financial disaster. But it wasn’t Pokémon. Last round, Pokémon made so much money that the studio could basically shrug at anything happening around it. Metroid Prime was successful, but it wasn’t successful enough to completely erase the losses from Below the Surface and Hay Day. That’s the difference between a hit and a blockbuster.

Season 37 still has plenty of financial cushion thanks to its opening round, but this was a reminder that you can burn through that cushion surprisingly quickly.

ALEX CONN

I generally try not to single out writers in this column. Generally. But Hay Day has some fundamental problems that trace directly back to the page. First question: Why is this a Hay Day adaptation? Seriously. Other than the title and the existence of a farm, what exactly required the branding of a mobile game? If you’re going to adapt something—even something as narratively thin as Hay Day—then either find an ingenious way to incorporate what makes that property recognizable or just write an original movie.

Instead, Conn takes pieces that could have made for a genuinely compelling modern western about family farms, corporate agriculture, inheritance, and economic desperation... and never develops them deeply enough. That’s the frustrating part. I can see the better movie sitting right there. Hay Day isn’t anywhere near the worst thing Alex Conn has written, but this feels like a concept that should have been challenged much earlier in development. Why this property? Why this story? Why these characters? The movie never came up with convincing answers.

METROID PRIME

Maybe the Metroid experts can correct me here. I’m certainly not one of them. I vaguely remember playing one of these games approximately 30 years ago, and I don’t remember thinking, “You know what this really needs? Crushing existential sadness.” Yet two movies into LRF’s Metroid series, this franchise is miserable. I understand Samus Aran has trauma. Her family was killed. That’s terrible. We got it. At some point, though, Jennifer Lawrence has to be allowed to do something other than stare mournfully into the middle distance like someone just canceled Christmas.

This is a giant sci-fi adventure series filled with alien worlds, space pirates, bizarre creatures and futuristic technology. Why does everything feel like we’re attending a funeral in space? Robert Pattinson’s Batman watches his parents die every time he closes his eyes and somehow looks like one of The Wiggles compared to Samus. Lighten up. Just a little. I’m not asking her to start cracking Marvel jokes every thirty seconds. I just want Metroid to occasionally remember that exploring strange planets and fighting giant alien monsters is supposed to be exciting.