Awake not Woke!

A generic western that hits all the usual clichés. The acting is all over the place with some good and some pretty poor. The dialogue feels like it's way off for the time period and everyone sounds way to modern. There's also the strange choice of casting a bunch of non American actor who all seem to keep their native accents or do a poor English one making this feel like a badly made foreign film pretending to be set in the U.S. Shot on location in Montanan the scenery and cinematography are wonderful. The writing isn't too bad but there are some problems like characters who have a clear line of fire and the element of surprise and still miss shots, there's a character towards the end that makes a really obviously dumb decision for no reason. Brosnan in particular seems unbelievable in the physical stunts and fights with much younger actors given he's in his 70's. There's some woke mixed in and of course Jackson's character says he was wrongfully sold as a slave by a white man. Given the time period it's possible but the way it's told seems like a pointless addition that does nothing for the story. His character brings up his race several times. There's also the lone good Indian female oddly played by a German born actress of Peruvian/Swiss/German decent with a way out of place accent for an American Indian. Not sure what they were thinking with that casting. The movie's not terrible and somewhat watchable specifically if you like westerns but there are much better out there. Mild spoiler.. The family group that's one of the villains consists of a bunch of brothers and 1 sister that they treat badly. Guess which one turns out to be good and takes revenge on her brothers for overlooking her.

The only thing woke is the DEI casting. Only 4 characters in the movie, 2 white males, 1 Asian male and 1 black female. Basically the entire movie is 4 friends stuck in an endless loop driving in a car talking. That's pretty much it. Definitely not fantasy/horror/sci-fi as marketed. The acting is ok but nothing special and it's a well made movie. It wants to be much more clever than it actually is but overall it's kind of boring and in the end pretty pointless. I get that it's an allegory for graduating college and getting thrust into the real world and the meaning of life, but it's all still boring. I would give it a 2.5 but am rounding down to 2. Edit.. Spoilers... The more I think about it I'm upping my woke score. Given that this is basically their journey through life after college, the first one to 'give up' pretty early on is one of the white males who does so alone. Then the 2nd white male and black female agree to stop and get out together, this could be seen as pairing up and 'living their life out together' in other worlds the mixed race couple. The one who goes on to the very end and never stops is the Asian male. I may be reading into something that's not there but it does seem a little suspicious.

Another opportunity thrown under the train

Coming straight from Odenkirk’s production company, I was actually hopeful it wouldn’t be like the last Nobody 2. Once again, you really can’t trust anything in the entertainment world, you gotta watch it yourself. And just like with the first NOBODY, I thought they’d play it safe and ditch all the woke stuff and DEI bullshit (well, not that the first one was perfect, but it was watchable). Nope… not even close. But here’s the thing: the movie starts off promising. The first 20/30 minutes introduce the characters and it feels like it’s gonna be a straight-up dumb action/comedy where they just kill everything that moves. For a few moments it even tries to be that… but then the obvious woke writing kicks in and just ruins the whole thing. In the end it’s just another completely skippable movie. I was really hoping it wasn't like that. It has its moments buuuut You’re honestly better off watching any old-school action/comedy classic you’ve been saving for. If you’re in the mood for that kind of vibe, I recommend go do that instead.

Has a gay character