In PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021), a lot of great gonzo elements come together not unlike spaghetti against the wall, but the whole didn’t quite gel for me.

I was really excited about this one for several reasons. First off, the trailer is off the hook, promising a great gonzo experience that its director, Sion Sono, is apparently known for. It stars Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, and Bill Moseley. And it’s produced by XYZ Films, which has a solid track record.

At first, the film delivers on its promise of utter weirdness with great production quality. The governor (Moseley) rules Samurai Town, a settlement in a region of Japan abandoned after a nuclear power plant disaster. He keeps a harem of women, including Bernice (Boutella), who escaped into the Ghostland, where refugee outcasts eke out a meager living in the apocalyptic ruins, caught between life and death. Enter Hero (Cage), a notorious criminal, whom the governor fits with an explosive suit and sends out into the Ghostland to bring his Bernice back.

Samurai Town is a mashup of samurai and American Old West culture, and there’s enough weirdness to it that it’s all very promising. The costumes and artistry apparent in the cinematography, costumes, and weird apocalyptic culture come across as something Terry Gilliam might have made.

Unfortunately, it all kind of falls apart with an over reliance on these elements at the expense of good pacing, plotting, and character development. As a result, I was surprisingly bored for much of it. Now, when you’re doing a gonzo film, you can skimp on anything and break any rules you want, but it has to come together with a certain magic. For me, it just wasn’t there. The director seemed to fall in love with certain elements and pushed them too far until they almost became grating, rather than letting me react with a sense of wonder.

So overall, PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND offered a lot for me to like in the parts but nothing I fell in love with in the whole, which was a bit of a bummer as I really wanted to love it and I went into it with high hopes. Still, it checks many of the boxes of an enduring cult film, so time will tell on that.

I enjoyed THE QUIET PLACE enough for its atmosphere that I caught THE QUIET PLACE II, which is far more conventional but was actually a little more enjoyable for me.

At the end of THE QUIET PLACE, the farm is a bit of a wreck, and the dad is dead. THE QUIET PLACE II opens with an engaging look at how the apocalypse started and then brings us right back to where the first film left off. Led by the mom (Emily Blunt), the family decides to leave their farm (though I’m not sure why they have to do so), following the last remaining beacon to where they hope to find other survivors. There, they discover Emmett (the always enjoyable Cillian Murphy), who simply wants to be left alone but is now pressed to help (and then is oddly forced by the script to confess how dead wrong he was not to help more and sooner, despite everything he did). Regan, the daughter, meanwhile, has a way to hurt the monstrous aliens and believes she can help humanity fight back.

What follows is more conventional fare than the first film, which focused on the family relationships and immersed me such that I found myself holding my breath in many scenes so as not to make a sound. Still, I found the sequel a bit more enjoyable simply for the rising stakes and action. Otherwise, as with the first film, there are plenty of instances where smart people do dumb things to increase the tension, which had me laughing at a few points. Overall, though, it’s not a bad film and I enjoyed the ride. Thumbs up as a popcorn flick.

TOMORROW WAR (2021, Amazon Prime) promises a whole lot of good plain fun and tries hard to deliver, though I found it overall kinda goofy. Let me explain.

Dan (the always likeable Chris Pratt) is a military veteran turned scientist who is having a hard time getting a good job in his new field as he lacks experience. Suddenly, during a broadcast of the World Cup, soldiers appear on the field in a flash of light. They tell the world they’re from the year 2050, a time when aliens have overrun most of the planet and humanity is at the edge of extinction. Join us and fight, their leader says. Millions of people are drafted and sent through the time portal, and few return. Then Dan’s number comes up.

Okay, so what I liked here was the minor commentary about time travel, such as people who are drafted are those who are dead in 2050 (to avoid a time travel paradox, though other paradoxes are conveniently ignored) and society falls into crisis and despair as nothing anybody does seems to matter since it’ll all be over in 30 years. Besides that, the acting is fine, though the role doesn’t play to Pratt’s strengths, and he comes across as kind of bland if sympathetic. The aliens are pretty well crafted, and the action sequences are fairly epic.

The problem is the film’s ambition, as it does so much that everything lines up perfectly such that the story feels, well, utterly scripted and then rushed at the end, where the heroes decide they have to solve the problem themselves (and then nearly trigger the apocalypse three decades early). The father-daughter relationship at the center of the story isn’t strong enough to carry an otherwise heavily derivative effort, so as usual with many Hollywood action movies, I found myself not caring about any of it. The same reaction I had to ARMY OF THE DEAD, a recent watch, though the film also reminded me of EDGE OF TOMORROW, which handled a similar subject so much better and made me care about the characters and the stakes.

Party pooping over. TOMORROW WAR isn’t a bad film. and it’s kind of fun. I just personally found it pretty generic and forgettable.