Three new movies came out this weekend, and they were very different! There was a vampire ballerina, a group of sasquatches hanging out in the woods, and some massive dudes blowing stuff up and stacking bodies during World War II. That makes one of the explosions very easy to get. In the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, there were plenty of explosions in the typical sense, and a couple of them played key roles in the plot. It surprised me that Ungentlemanly Warfare was the best movie of the weekend, but in retrospect, this should not have been surprising. I just wanted to believe in Abagail and Sasquatch Sunset, but my faith went unrewarded.
The first movie I saw this weekend was Sasquatch Sunset, and it is great that it is not even 90 minutes, but it does feel long. Part of this is probably due to there being zero dialogue. For some reason, I assumed that the Sasquatches would speak English, but clearly that was a naïve assumption. Sasquatches grunt at each other, they do not use English. The story starts with four Sasquatches living somewhere deep in the woods, in what seems to be California. They are of varying ages and sizes, and it seems like three of them are males and one is a female. From the opening scene, it is clear that this movie is going to be sexual, which I guess is nature, and they did not shy away from it. The old sasquatch dies, because the female sasquatch did not want to hook up with him, so he tried to mate with a cougar, but the cougar decided he was food. An absolutely wild sequence.
This was not the only Sasquatch to die, and it started to feel like all of them were going to vanish by the end. The tension rose in the third act, as Fall and Winter arrived. The two remaining sasquatches had to face some adversity, including the female giving birth, and they had to try to keep the baby alive. It was by far the best part of the movie, but it took so long to make it to this point, that the boringness from the rest overpowered the strong finish. Like a runner who takes his time during the race, so he can pass lots of people before crossing the line.
As far as explosions go in this one, it is a little more vulgar. At one point, the three sasquatches find a dirt road, and it blows their mind, so much so that they start to have explosive diarrhea, and it is as gross as it sounds. Sadly, this is not the only gross bodily fluid scene in this movie. There were two people in my theater that absolutely loved this film. They thought it was hilarious, and they were constantly whispering to each other about it, which with the lack of dialogue made it the perfect movie to watch with a friend and share thoughts. I wish I enjoyed it as much as them.
Next, I watched Abagail. The trailer spoils the fact that Abagail is a vampire, but from the start of the movie, it was unnoticeable. Instead, it starts with a group of expert thieves kidnapping this girl from a mansion, and they bring her to a run-down mansion outside of the city, where they think that they are holding her for ransom. However, this is not the case. It was all a trap set up by Abagail, so that she could feast on them. So she slowly hunts them down one by one in a bloody mess, until there are only a couple left, and it starts to get complicated.
The start of this movie was intense, and it raised my expectations for the rest of the movie, the opposite of what happened in Sasquatch Sunset, but the rest of the movie let me down. The first scene where we find out that Abagail is a vampire is so good, but after that, the movie slowly stumbles to the finish line and loses steam. There is a large amount of violence in this film, and there is blood galore. One gross aspect of this film was a pool filled with bodies, but instead of floating in water, they were in this gray grainy gross substance between solid and liquid, and one of the girls falls in, and it is so disgusting. I could not imagine being submerged in something so nasty.
As far as the explosions go, in this movie, when a vampire gets killed, either by being fully in the sunlight, or from being stabbed with a wooden stake to the heart, they explode. This was made by the same directors of Ready or Not, and in that movie, there were multiple body explosions as well. It is cool the first time, but by like the third body explosion where blood and pieces of guts are strewn everywhere, it is like okay I get it.
Finally, this brings us to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. This is based on a true story, but obviously that can have a wide array of meanings. This follows two groups, but both are working for Britain during World War II, and they are trying to blow up a cargo ship that the Nazis need. In group one, we have five dudes that wreak havoc everywhere they go, and they are not afraid of violence or perilous situations. The other group is on an island off the coast of Africa sending the others intel on the ship they are trying to blow up, and that group mainly consists of a man and a lady.
The movie is at its best when it is with the main group of five guys, and it honestly spends too much time away from them. The opening scene gives me vibes of Inglorious Bastards. Obviously, it does not live up to those standards as one of the best opening scenes of all time, but it has a similar format. The Nazis come aboard the ship of these two “fishermen,” and they are interrogating them, but then the fishermen start to laugh, which of course offends the Nazi commander, who threatens them, but right as his threat is ending, a guy below deck busts out of a closet and starts to kill all the Nazi soldiers, and the two guys up top, Henry Cavil and Alan Ritchson also take out the rest of the Nazis, and then we find out that they had a guy setting explosive charges under the Nazi warship that explodes shortly after the Nazis have been disposed of.
The charisma that Henry Cavill has in this movie is incredible, and it is bolstered by Alan Ritchson and the other guys as well. They have a nonchalant attitude as they massacre Nazis throughout the story, and even when the odds are stacked against them, they never seem to be that worried. It is just a total blast at the movies. So as far as explosions go, there is a warship blown up, there is a base that gets blown up, the Nazi fuel on the island gets blown up, and the anchor off the cargo ship explodes. So many explosions!!!
It was interesting to pair this with Civil War, because on Sunday, I went back and saw Civil War again in IMAX. Ungentlemanly Warfare has massive amounts of bloodshed, but it comes at the expense of the Nazis, and the tone of the film is more based on fun. Contrasted with Civil War, which also has a large amount of violence, but it is against the violence, and it shows how atrocious it can be. In Ungentlemanly Warfare, at least twice, they talked about how bad it would be if the Germans won, because then everyone would have to eat sausage and cabbage all the time. This line both times, seemed to be presented unironically, and they did not mention any of the real negatives that would result in Germany winning, which is fine, that was not the point of the movie, just interesting to compare the two. Kind of like how Godzilla x Kong completely ignores the thousands upon thousands of people that would die as a result of the destruction the monsters are causing.
So there were some seriously different explosions in these films, but of the three, the only one that I can really recommend is Ungentlemanly Warfare. There are definitely specific people out there that would love Sasquatch Sunset and I think that is great, but it was not me. I did appreciate its forest visuals and good soundtrack, but its plot lacked. Abagail also took a creative swing, but it lost its momentum by the end, and it should not have lasted almost two hours. Ungentlemanly Warfare lit up the screen with explosions, and it also lifted my mood as I had so much fun watching it. So here are the rankings: Ungentlemanly Warfare: 3.5 Stars, Sasquatch Sunset 2.5 Stars, and Abagail 2 Stars.
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