Author: S. Brady Calhoun

Ed. Note: This is the second column in this series. Part 1 is here.

Before we declare what we should and should not do about superhero movies as the fictional head of a movie studio we need to bluntly talk about why so many superhero movies got made over the past 15 years. 

Don’t overthink it. Hollywood made 6 to 10 superhero movies each year for the past 15 years because they could count on most of them being huge hits. 

Screenwriting legend William Goldman once put it very succinctly, “Movies are a gold-rush business.”

Up until Endgame, and for a few years now after Endgame, The Marvel Cinematic Universe films could be counted on to make back three and four times their budgets. Endgame made 3 billion dollars. The first Captain Marvel movie (which came to theaters shortly before and was tied into Endgame) made a billion dollars. 

The DC movies have not been as financially successful but they made plenty of money. Aquaman — Aquaman! — made a billion dollars.

No one made superhero movies because they wanted to annoy cinephiles or because they wanted to make your movie directing grandpap sad. They made them because they make money. 

Sooooo, what happens if they aren’t making all that much money anymore?   

We already have our answer. Here’s what Disney CEO Bob Iger said in July about The MCU. 

“There have been some disappointments. We would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better,” Iger said. “It’s reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but I think in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been.”

Iger doesn’t say all of this is his fault cause he ordered all the television shows and movies in order to shore up his Disney+ streaming service … but it is. But please feel free to insert that gif of the hot dog guy shouting, “we are all looking for who could have done this,” here. 

“Marvel’s a great example of that,” Iger said. “They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything.”

The MCU will release only one movie next year. It’s Deadpool 3 which features the Merc with a Mouth versus The Wolverine. 

In my mind, this one is the real test of “superhero fatigue.” If it bombs or underperforms that’s a good indication that audiences are not interested anymore. 

I’ll tell you one other thing that I can’t stop thinking about because of the way my brain works. John Siracusa talking about Nintendo on the Accidental Tech Podcast. This was in the years after the Wii console was released and before the Nintendo Switch came out in 2017. 

Nintendo was in the wilderness and everyone who knew anything about gaming was essentially saying the company should abandon its console business and license out its characters to other game makers and make money that way. 

Siracusa argued that the solution was really simple, Nintendo just needed to make a new console that everybody loved and would buy.  

That sounds really easy right? Just make something people love and watch the money train roll into the station.

Except, that’s exactly what happened. Nintendo made the Switch, it was a huge hit and they have been golden for a decade. 

I would submit that the solution for “superhero fatigue” is exactly the same. 

You will probably find no mention of superhero fatigue in articles or reviews discussing Spider-man Across the Spiderverse.  

Why? Cause it was a huge hit and nearly everybody who saw it loved it. See how that works?

James Gunn, the now head of DC movies, had same answer in April of this year.

“I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes,” Gunn said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character.”  

“We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense on-screen, it gets really boring. But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not,” he said.  “If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real.”

See, the answer is to just make great superhero films. Easy peasy. 

Obviously, making movies is a huge collaborative endeavor and it can be impossible to tell: 

A Whether the movie you made is good 

B. Even if the movie is great if the marketing and audience interest will be there when the movie comes out. 

Also, it’s pretty telling that no one ever talks about horror movie fatigue. I never see animated movie fatigue when one of those bombs. Right now, as I type this there is one superhero movie playing at the theater in my town. Here’s what else is showing: Wish (animated movie) Napoleon (historical biopic) Thanksgiving (horror) The Hunger Games (I dunno, teen action/drama?) Trolls Band Together (animation) and Five Nights at Freddy’s (horror). 

You might argue that I’m cherry picking a weekend and maybe I am. But let’s look at any given year as a whole. Google tells me 450 movies are released in a year but I’m going to discount that because I’m certain that a large number of those are indie films that only play in Los Angeles or New York. Or maybe they are streaming only movies that don’t count for our purposes. 

So, in terms of how many movies get released in a year let’s just argue that two new movies usually get released each week of the year and round it to 100 new movies at theaters. It’s probably a little more than that but for the sake of argument lets go with that number. 

Now, how many of those were superhero movies? The answer is 10. 

Is that a glut? Is the market oversaturated because superhero fans had 10 choices in 365 days? 

Or are there just a bunch of folks who want to, for whatever reason, insist on superhero fatigue? 

There’s a collection of critics and writers who simply do not like superhero films and are frustrated that the biggest movies of the year for the past 15 years have usually been in that genre.  

To them I say that same thing my mom used to say whenever I complained about dinner: “Life is tough.”

In my fictional studio we still make superhero movies. That won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. But, until the bottom really falls out that still seems like a money-making decision to me.

Just take a look at the Top 10 movies so far this year:

• Barbie $1,441,761,333
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie $1,361,990,276
• Oppenheimer $950,191,715
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 $845,555,777
• Fast X $704,709,660
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $690,516,673
• The Little Mermaid $569,626,289
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One $567,535,383
• Elemental $495,851,987
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania $476,071,180

Even in a year where audiences have more superhero movies and television than they have ever had three cape and cowl flicks made it into the Top 10.

Now, if I made three superhero movies in my fictional studio next year would the budget for those movies be $200 million a pop?

Ummmm:  

Coming tomorrow: Is it a bomb or a budget problem? 

This column is about money and Hollywood, but please do not mistake a discussion about studio decisions for a discussion about what “should” be made. 

I think the biggest thing I want to impart here before we get started, is that you as an artist, a writer, a director or a creative person should absolutely not think this way. A great film, or book, or television show, is worth a million times more than whatever lucre it generates. Even an album that is initially considered a failure can launch a thousand bands and change a thousand lives. 

And we don’t know, have no way of knowing, if the ripples we create in the water cause a flood downstream.   

The people who call films or television shows, or novels or comic books “content,” are the enemy. They are the people Mel Brooks was speaking to shortly after a screening of The Elephant Man when the studio executives wanted director David Lynch to start making cuts. 

“We screened the film for you to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture,” Brooks said. “Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives.” 

Brooks’ autobiography, “All About Me,” has several little anecdotes like that. He screened Blazing Saddles for studio executives and the head of the studio pulled him aside and basically told him to cut every offensive scene out of the movie. Brooks, who later laughingly said if he did that the movie would be 14 minutes long, told the exec he would make all the changes and then ignored it completely. 

When the movie came out, and was a huge hit, he never again heard boo from the studio. 

But, if you are a studio chief, the one with the power to actually make things happen, the question you face every year is not about changing the content of the things that were already shot, it’s deciding what to make in the first place. 

If you have a billion dollars in the budget to make movies next year what would you greenlight? 

Here’s the top 20 movies by worldwide box office 2023 according to Box Office Mojo.

• Barbie $1,441,761,333
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie $1,361,990,276
• Oppenheimer $950,191,715
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 $845,555,777
• Fast X $704,709,660
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $690,516,673
• The Little Mermaid $569,626,289
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One $567,535,383
• Elemental $495,851,987
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania $476,071,180
• John Wick: Chapter 4 $440,146,694
• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts $438,966,392
• Meg 2: The Trench $395,000,317
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny $383,963,057
• Creed III $275,248,615
• Five Nights at Freddy’s $271,913,275
• The Flash $270,633,313
• The Nun II $268,067,073
• Sound of Freedom $247,801,879
• Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour $246,365,022

The obvious caveats are that the year is not over and the numbers may change somewhat between now and December 31. But, I think the list is instructive enough at this point that we can discuss it.

Let’s go with the easy ones first. If you are the studio lucky enough to be in business with Greta Gerwig, the director of Barbie, or Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, you probably hand them whatever amount of money they want and let them do whatever they want. 

Isn’t that the easiest answer? 

“Hi, the movie you just made for us made a billion dollars please make another one.”

Of course, when you are dealing with studio executives the most obvious answer is not always the one you suspect. In my mind, Barbie was a hit because Gerwig made an impressive film and the marketing hit the right tone and it, and Oppenheimer became a moviegoing phenomenon on the same weekend.

People went to see them as a double bill! I’m not sure that is particular synergy can be cloned and recreated on demand. Nor, I’m sorry to say, does this mean that the movie-going audience is starved for original creative works for adults. 

You can certainly find people online cheerleading for this, and I wish them well and I do believe studios need to take a few more chances each year. They also should identify several writers and directors and just let them roam free. 

Of course, that strategy probably ends with a fiasco of the level of Heavens Gate. But we will get a load of interesting movies in the meantime. 

However, at least some executives somewhere think they know the key ingredient for success. They know, in their executive hearts what the masses want. 

And it’s a toy movie franchise. 

So, yes, I would greenlight whatever Gerwig wants to do next. Yes, I would also greenlight a Barbie sequel (with or without Gerwig but hopefully with) but no, I do not think the success of Barbie means that what the world is craving a cinematic universe featuring the trials and tribulations of Polly Pocket, Boglins and (I kid you not) Chatty Cathy and Betsy Wetsy.

It’s this kind of thinking that leads you to release Haunted Mansion in July instead of October. 

We’re going to do part two of this tomorrow. 

But in the meantime look at that Top 20 and ask yourself what types of movies would you greenlight? The top 3 so far this year are not sequels, so does that mean it’s time for more original movies from top talent? Or is the argument that the top three are not sequels deceiving. After all, while Barbie and Super Mario are not sequels they are based on existing properties that have worldwide recognition.

Do you find five directors who are as talented as Gerwig and Nolan, hand them $100 million and say, “Do what you want, just make it great?” 

Or do you say to Christopher Nolan, ‘Please pick any videogame you would like and our $100 million and make us a movie.”

No one will do that but I would dearly love to be in the room when they try.

Also, don’t sleep on horror movies. Will your horror movie make $500,000 million or more at the box office? Probably not. But if you make something of the caliber of Five Nights at Freddy’s (budget $20 mil) or The Nun 2 (budget $40 mil) and then make $200 or $300 million back you can probably sleep easy at night. 

All things being equal, knowing what we can know from the numbers, is it time for more superheroes, a videogame/toy line cinematic universe or something else?    

I have so many problems with this movie as a writer and a person who grew up on American television and films.

This movie has no structure. This movie has no plot. This movie barely has fully realized characters. It’s one of the few nails I’ve ever seen that refuses to be hammered down. 

And yet, it’s glorious. 

A flick that starts with a crime story but is never all that interested in the crime story. It sketches out a romance and then just decides we have had enough of those two characters and follows a different couple to the end. 

Also, the story and characters are not much more than sketches, fragments or dreams of night life in a city. A close up view of a few people but no macguffin, no real drama and no need for any of that. 

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie just fundamentally reject the very concept of being a movie before but this one does. 

And yet, it’s a wonderul hang out. I instantly fell in love with Faye Wong who just takes over the proceedings and steals every moment. 

Like I said, there was a crime movie that could have existed here. And then there was a romantic comedy. Near the end, it veers deep into romcom territory but that’s a little like saying you got 9 friends together and announced you were a baseball team. 

But if a team never takes the field is it really a team? Is it a movie if it rejects nearly every storytelling requirement you think you know? 

If I’m standing in a storm and refuse a raincoat will I come out dry? 

Writer/director Kar-Wai Wong dances in between the rain drops until we get to the credits.

A study of two people in pain. 

The movie shows us Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan who are neighbors. Both are married to other people and as we slowly learn both have been (mostly) abandoned by their respective spouses. 

The chemistry between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung is off the charts. Visually, it’s a stunning flick. Claustrophobic and colorful with scenes that vibrate with lust and longing. 

There is just a bit of humor. What Mr. Chan’s friend does with his last $2 made me chuckle. 

But the movie sums itself up with this piece of dialogue: 

Chow Mo-wan: I sometimes wonder what I’d be if I hadn’t married. Have you ever thought of that?
Su Li-zhen Chan: Maybe happier.

Those of you looking for something like Lost in Translation or Past Lives will be happy with this. 

I ended up here because I wanted to watch more Tony Leung films. He’s in Hard Boiled, one of the greatest action movies ever made and one of my personal faves and he turned up in Shang-Chi. 

And he’s got a magnetic presence and the acting chops to play everything from a wounded lover to an action hero. 

But having seen this now I want to track down all of Director Wong Kar-wai’s films. And I want to watch this again without the stress of making sure I’m not missing anything. 

For those of us who love the arts there are few things better than discovering a new thing. When you get around to a band that was popular decades before you were born and now you get the joy of listening to every album, finding the new things to love. 

And with movies it is the same with directors, screenwriters and actors and actresses. So I’m looking forward to tracking more of Kar-wai’s work down. 

Anyway, In The Mood For Love drops the viewer into deep water and you will either sink or swim. As the kids say, you will vibe with this or you won’t.

Quentin Tarantino dedicated two chapters of his book, Cinema Speculation to Stallone movies. Rocky, the phenomenon that turned Sly into a superstar. And Paradise Alley, his wrestling follow up that bombed. 

It’s probably not surprising that an authorized Stallone documentary spends a serious amount of time on Rocky and like 30 seconds on Paradise Alley. 

Tarantino is big presence here as he explains how audiences reacted to Rocky. Spoiler, you could hear them cheering in the street. He also walks us through how the Rocky movies, written by Stallone, often reflected what he had to say about his life at the time. 

There are some things here that were new to me as a longtime Stallone fan. I didn’t know just how rough his childhood was and the documentary focuses on the abuse and trauma he suffered from his father.

It gives Stallone a lot of credit but I still think he will never be given his due as a great writer. Yes, he was a great writer in service to making himself look great as an actor but Rocky and First Blood are incredible. They are flicks that reach the pinnacle of what movies can be. 

After spending a significant amount of time on the rise the movie pretty much ignores all the dreck Stallone made. I guess Sly didn’t want to talk
about them. 

Copland gets a little shout out. And man, Copland is one of the great crime movies of the 1990s. It gets dismissed as a bomb and it was, but it’s also up among the Stallone performances that you simply must see. 

The documentary is content to let Stallone walk you through his career and he explains some of the thinking behind his choices. 

“Sure it’s ridiculous, but it’s … theatrical,” is going to be my answer for every bad decision I make from here on out. 

Stallone is dealing with aging. How could it all have gone by so fast? How can we already be here? 

Anyway, this is a fun bit of movie star history but it’s not terribly inciteful. It does confront the abuse Stallone faced and you can sense he’s still working out those issues. He’s also confronting the choices he made along the way. 

I know a man who told me he once apologized to his wife and child because he was never home. The apology was nice, I’m sure, but you can never get that time back. 

The doc makes much of the fact that Stallone is moving. He acts like he needs a fresh start. But his kids are grown and that old house, full of statues and memorabilia, must have seemed like a tomb. 

A journalist went to visit Muhammad Ali in his old age. The writer discovered that Ali was keeping all of his belts and other items from his legendary career in a barn. 

“I had the world,” he said. “And it was nothing.”

A slight documentary that shines a light on the best parts of Albert Brooks comedy career. This isn’t a critical assessment as it is directed by Brooks closest friend(since high school!), Rob Reiner. 

So what it is, is a loving tribute and a nice highlight reel of Brooks’ career. 

I’m solidly middle aged and I had no connection to the Brooks who was a frequent guest of Carson and Letterman. Apparently he did something different, funny and weird every time out. 

My first encounter with Brooks was watching Defending Your Life on HBO every time it came on. It’s clear that it was his finest moment as a writer, director and star and its well worth tracking down, even now, for those of you who haven’t seen it. 

The doc takes a few moments to highlight his roles on the Simpsons and his turns as a bad guy is some good movies and, of course, as a desperate clownfish father trying to find his son. 

A gaggle of comedy heavyweights do interviews and pay tribute and Brooks talks about his work. 

Those of you who thought Sly (the documentary about Sylvester Stallone) was not enough of a meal will get even less here. 

At least that one presented the real troubles Stallone faced in his family life and in his creative endevours. 

Brooks certainly has his own family issues and the doc deals with those. But nothing lingers or sticks.

What I’m trying to get across is that I watched it last night, it was funny and I enjoyed it. And this morning I’m struggling to think of anything that would make it more than a highlight reel.

And it’s just not there. 

It did make me want to watch Defending Your Life again. And I’ll probably watch Drive one more time and check out The Muse and Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World each for the first time. 

As a commercial for Brooks’ career this does a fine job. And this isn’t a bad thing I suppose, give people their flowers while they are still with us.

The first thing that hit me about The Killer is how screamingly funny it is. 

I don’t want to give too much away but it’s more than just the cute alias names that no normal citizen recognizes — it’s also every step in The Killer’s journey being a step further away from his repeated mantras. 

It’s a movie about a guy violating his (horrific) ethos and regressing until you watch him and be amazed as he does all of the things he’s been saying a good criminal would never do. 

Judge me by my actions.  

Director David Fincher, screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker and lead actor Michael Fassbender clearly know what they have here and extract every bit of entertainment value out of the proposition. 

Fincher proved with The Social Network and Mank that he could make great movies without a bunch of brutal set pieces. But this is the other thing. It features well shot and interesting violence similar to Gone Girl, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Panic Room. It’s not 

There is one scene that reminded me of the master, Alfred Hitchcock. 

“In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man,” he said. 

When The Killer invades a home to get some revenge (something his mantra would suggest he should never do) Fincher gives us a perfect showcase of how hard it is to kill a man. 

The Killer takes time to show that and to show some of the effort it takes to get away clean. Clean physically, a clean getaway from the cops but never a clean escape for your soul. 

Fincher has probably made another flick that incels will latch onto but as he said in the interviews leading to The Killer’s release it’s not his fault if the people who watch his movie can’t recognize that he’s condemning them and not praising their commitment to being trashbag human beings. 

It remains thrilling to watch Fincher’s flicks. I don’t believe in the auteur theory (unless the director is also the screenwriter and even then the enterprise is a massive collaborative undertaking) but Fincher is one of the handful of current directors who could honestly lay claim to the title. 

Does this material work without a director of his taste and caliber? Maybe, but you would end up with something a lot closer to a John Wick knock off than the riveting little noir crime story you get here. 

One final thing, The Killer, after killing one innocent person and killing someone else that he maybe could have left alive then goes out of his way to drug a dog so that he can accomplish a bit of revenge without killing the animal. 

Why does he do this? This guy has been telling us for most of the movie that he is a nhillist who believes that his deadly actions will have no consequences in the world. 

Cause it’s a movie. 

And Fincher, Fassbender and Walker aren’t dopes. They know they can get away with a ton of indiscriminate killing but a dog … that’s where the audience will draw the line.

Funny, well paced and with decent action — if you want to watch a Marvel movie this is a pretty great one.

I’m not sure you need to have done the homework to enjoy this but it’s definitely a continuation of several Marvel projects including the first Captain Marvel movie along with WandaVision and the Ms. Marvel Disney Plus shows. You can skip the Nick Fury show.

Iman Vellani remains incredibly charming and she lights up the proceedings with kid enthusiasm. The bits of drama here work fine but this is a comedy and either you enjoy Marvel comedy or you don’t.

The flick wrings fun out of Ms Marvel’s family and Sam Jackson always has a good time playing Nick Fury. 

I’m pretty amazed that the villain plan is just the plot from Spaceballs and this has a solid answer to The Trolley Problem.

I do wish there had been more time for Brie Larsen’s Captain Marvel and Teyonah Paris’ Spectrum but you get a pretty cool Superhero sleepover out of the thing and a visit to one fun alien world.

And while I may have wanted a bit more the slight run time is a pretty solid advantage. Tell a few jokes, fight a few supervillains, get in, get out and wrap it up. 

It’s not a biopic of an important man or an investigation into the heart of American darkness. It’s a superhero romp. If that’s the kind of thing you are looking for you will find it here.

One of the best movies of the year and a tough watch. 

Martin Scorsese, Lily Gladstone, Robert DeNiro and Leo DiCaprio deliver an epic about the evil that men do. 

There was a way to make a crowd pleasing story about the investigation into the Osage Nation murders. That would have looked like any number of murder investigation dramas. You will surely know by now DiCaprio was supposed to play the FBI agent leading the charge. 

I would have loved that movie.

Instead, Scorcese goes his own way trying to make a film about two people who love each other even if one of them is a monster. 

Scorsese, ever the Catholic, knows that none of us ever really reckon with our sins.  

As I watched it I was struck by how much DeNiro’s William King Hale felt like Dracula and that DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart was his Renfield. 

That movie spends so much of its time in a woman’s bedroom while she is sick from a mysterious disease was surely not a coincidence. 

Or maybe that was just me. 

It’s a tough ask to get an audience to spend most of a movie with Renfield even if he’s played by Leo.

It’s also clear that Scorsese does not want to glorify violence here and he either minimizes it or makes it truly horrifying. (Mostly)

If you go to this hoping for one of Scorsese’s gangster epics you will be disappointed.

This is the Scorsese of Raging Bull and Silence demanding that an audience bear witness and not look away. 

A movie dedicated to exposing racism and white nationalism at the dawn of the American Century at home and abroad.

At one point a character says he won’t murder anyone and then immediately agrees to the killing when he learns that the victim will be a Native American. And a parade through Osage Main Street features the KKK.

Marty has never been subtle. 

This is a true story, and Scorsese clearly wanted to make something that honored the dead and acknowledged the survivors and the culture of the Osage Nation. 

I think he succeeded even if I left without fist pumping CINEMA! contact high I normally have from Scorsese epics. That was clearly Oppenheimer’s job this year. Marty didn’t want me to leave the theater feeling good. And he succeeded. 

But there are still some of the best moments you will see in a movie all year inside this. 

Those include: A trip to the afterlife, a fight over the cost of a funeral, two scenes with Owls, Lily Gladstone’s slight smiles, Robert DeNiro’s driving glasses, everything Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell do and every scene with the Osage leadership council. 

Those men deliver two sermons with that old time fire. 

We lost Robbie Robertson this year. The leader of The Band and the man who has been handling the music for Scorsese movies for decades. As usual, every choice in Killers is the right one and at one point Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground provides a transcendental back drop. This is where the soul of man never dies.

Brendan Frasier again proves that he may be the best character actor in America and everyone should be casting him in anything and everything. 

He gets entrusted with the most important 10 minutes in the movie and he nails it down perfectly. 

I hope he and Gladstone get to spend the next few decades doing exceptional work in great movies. 

Scorsese also gives us a unique final scene.

You’ve seen the end of a movie like this a million times. Finally, you get to the part where the filmmaker has to give the audience everything that actually happens to everyone who is left alive. It’s done with text on the screen right? 

But here — like he did in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta just walks down out of the witness chair, breaks the fourth wall and tells you what happened — Scorsese finds a new way to bring the curtain down. 

That includes a cameo I absolutely did not see coming. Like a lot of this movie I’m conflicted on this. Was it a brilliant bit of business or too showy? 

Irregardless, this another great work from an 80-year-old filmmaker who continues to be one of the very best in the world.

This is one of the top five movies of the year and it probably won’t crack the Scorsese all time Top 10.

Tip your hat to the master.

There was a moment early on in Reptile where Benicio Del Toro’s homicide detective scolds a uniform police officer. 

“When you walk through this crime scene. 12 members of the jury walk with you.” 

Lines like that and the mood of most of Reptile struck me as a film that was made by someone who had either done a homicide investigation or at least had done their research on how these things work. 

That feeling lasts even as the movie hits several cop story cliches on the way to its mostly predictable conclusions. 

Reptile was Directed by Grant Singer with credited writing by Singer, Benjamin Brewer and star Benicio Del Toro. Both visually and in the way the story develops suggests everyone watched an Ozark marathon before filming began.

That’s snarky I admit but it’s not a bad thing. Del Toro’s electric screen presence keeps the proceedings intriguing and Justin Timberlake is perfectly cast as a sleezy real estate agent / possible killer.

Eric Bogosian has fun playing the paternal possibly evil cop/uncle or copuncle and Dominick Lombardozzi gets another role where he plays a friend turned menacing presence in the story.

The movie’s secret weapon is Alicia Silverstone playing the wife of Del Toro’s homicide detective. She gets to have some fun sort of helping him with the investigation and there is the obligatory scene that places her in danger.

I immediately wanted her to be Del Toro’s partner instead of his wife because their natural chemistry could have carried the movie.

Unfortunately, the flick suffers from a byzantine plot and the elements of a conspiracy that it never quite fully explains. Nor does it make the audience care about who did what to whom.

Making those kind of crime tropes interesting is always a tough sell and this movie never gets there. There is a reason that there was only one good season of True Detective and everyone gave up on that show when the season 1 finale couldn’t live up to the mystery hype.

Ultimately, Reptile doesn’t quite rise to the B tier cop movie status of flicks like Copland or Narc but it is a fine example of the genre. While it doesn’t reach super highs it doesn’t fall flat either.

And I promise you I am not joking with this. Netflix should greenlight a sequel immediately and send Del Toro’s character into private investigations with his wife/partner Silverstone. 

They’re cute, they’re haunted by a shared murder solving past and they want to help.