#christopher loyd

I mean, I thought John Wick, Except Keanu Reeves Isn't Around and Saul Goodman is Somehow Kicking Ass would be a bit derivative - hey, Derek Kolstad, how's your 2020 been, huh? - but I'm pleasantly surprised.

There's very little to hate, honestly. Michael Ironside's gone Blue-Collar Silverdaddy with a paunch that tickles the side of me that points for older men, Oedenkirk is as capable as he's ever been - and Christopher Loyd kicks all kinds of ass as David Mansell.

As a kid, I used to love his turn as Fester in both Barry Sonnenfeld Addams Family movies and I eventually warmed up to Doc Brown. Now, as far as he's concerned, he's Shotgun Grandpa - now and forever. A lot of the stuff feels like Kolstad took an unused John Wick treatment and filled in the blanks with different concepts - CIA "auditors" instead of assassins, blowing up your man-cave instead of excavating your trove with a sledgehammer, gold bars in place of coins and a network of CB-radio-networked veterans serving as a more slapdash relative of the Continental's cell phone network.

Other things don't change. The antagonist is Russian, the protag gets a muscle car, the bad guys' slush fund gets nuked and a family pet enters the fray as a motivating factor. I've counted exactly two camera sequences that felt positively Wickian, but Illya Naishuller manages to bring in some of his own readable and generally hyperkinetic action. It effectively makes Nobody feel like it's taking place in the same universe as Wick's tribulations, starring a member of a different kind of shadowy cabal.

There's a few misfires to account for, such as the movie not putting much effort to establish its antagonist as a grinning Russian crooner as a legitimate front even if everything points to this idea, or failing to compensate for the obvious notion of Alexey Serebryakov not natively speaking English and several of his lines reading like memorized phonetics more than like internalized dialog. His tone felt off in a few places, which left his American costars feeling like they themselves were repeating on-cue - just with a tad more situational wherewithal. A few more rehearsals and a more alert dialect coach could've fixed things to a degree, I'm sure. None of that is enough to diminish the fun of the exercise.

On the other hand, it absolutely is another one of these movies, wherein a bankable fiftysomething star known for character roles or dramatic performances pulls a heel-face turn and kicks ass for the good of the Box Office and bolsters the wavering egoes of all less-than-alpha males in their twilight years. Are you in your late forties? It's not too late! Buy a gun, some dumbbells, a spot in a judo school and anything you might've seen Daryl Hannah or Farah Fawcett driving back in the day that has a shitty mileage and an astronomic gas-usage rate, and you too could become a Power Dad! Non-disclosable past or shady skills not included! It started with Liam Neeson and Luc Besson's later chop-socky material, and now we're looking down at a line of Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Sylvester Stallone or Clint Eastwood material - all of them more than itching to assure us that the Alpha Male isn't dead.

It's amusing enough in a glitzy, false, very Hollywoodian sort of way. Nobody is basically that upteenth variation on the Extra-hot Barbecue Nacho Chips bag you've seen under a million brands: it's cheap, unpretentious, fun and whoo, does it pack an adrenaline rush.

It's just too bad that you can already mentally flick through your Rolodex of A-Listers gone past their physical prime for a few believable picks in the same genre. Although, now that they've stuck Loyd with a shotgun, anything goes as long as your lead isn't beset with memory problems and can follow basic safety procedures.

I mean, we've already seen Bubba Ho-Tep, all that's missing is De Niro playing a Grandpa with a Dodgy Past who Kevin McAllisters the retirement home he lives in and blows the mobsters posing as Assisted Care workers to kingdom come.

Artist Trading Card - Commander Kruge

“I've come a long way for the power of Genesis, and what do I find? A weakling human, a Vulcan boy, and a woman.”

“I don’t know what they saw in me that convinced them I would be a good Klingon. I’m not sure. Honestly, I don’t know myself well. I just did not see where that came from. I loved it. I loved his whole deal. The make-up, the costume, and his sensibility. This evilness! He’s willing to destroy civilization just to get his own way. He doesn’t care. There’s no morality to this guy. That’s kind of fun to play once in awhile.”

Here are my Top 10 Robert Zemeckis Films

Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American filmmaker and screenwriter. Zemeckis is credited as one of the greatest “visual storytellers” in filmmaking and is a pioneer of visual effects. His latest film is the Walk Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Phillipe Patit.

The Walk: As a boy, Philippe Petit dreams of performing daring feats for dazzled crowds. As an adult (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his life’s…